Love Lies A' Bleeding

Chapter 2: Queen Bee meets Gossip Girl

Well, I tried, okay? I tried my best. I tried to ignore the thing in my ribcage that grew wilder every passing minute whenever I see Noah. It wouldn’t stop. It was painful already.

And I tried to stay calm and act as if nothing different was happening within me. Because Molly was with me. She was ranting about how she missed last Saturday’s concert of her fave band, because her mom didn’t allow her to get tickets.

And that was when I saw her—the one and only Trisha Mendoza. She was right there in front of the publications office, carrying a paper—probably the school paper with the article about me in question.

“Trisha,” I called before she could open the door and hide herself inside.

Beside me, Molly stopped talking.

I knew Trisha Mendoza heard me, because her hand stopped midway from turning the knob. Then, she turned to face me. I looked intensely at her. Her column should have been removed from the school paper a very long time ago. If Luna East wanted someone like Gossip Girl, they shouldn’t be letting someone like Trisha Mendoza ruling the stage.

“Hello,” Trisha replied. By the sound of her voice, I could tell that she was nervous.

I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. But knowing Molly, it wouldn’t take her long to pick up on things and start carrying out whatever it was that she planned to do. Though it seemed like I was wrong.

Molly looked confused, instead, like she didn’t know what I was doing talking to some stranger when I should have been listening to her rant about whomever it was that she liked to rant about. Then that was when I realized what was taking Molly so long to react the way I expected her to. She didn’t know Trisha Mendoza at all. She must have heard her name or read her name on the school paper, but she never met her face to face until now.

Trisha Mendoza was a bespectacled student who wore her hair always on a pony. I estimated that she was a four foot eleven inches and a half, barely reaching five. She even looked smaller with her flat black shoes and knee-high white socks. And she has a prominent mannerism of raising her eyeglasses to position it properly on her eyes every five seconds or so, even though it looked like it was already stuck there in place even if she jump or do cartwheel. Most of all, she was in Junior Section B, so no wonder Molly didn’t know her, even if maybe they’d seen each other more than twice before.

“I know you’re not the type of person who easily forgets,” I said to Trisha, smiling all the way long.

She flinched, like I said something I shouldn’t be saying. “What do you mean?” she asked.

I looked at her with serene eyes that traveled from her face to her shoes and back again. “Come on, Trisha. I have known you since kindergarten. We studied in the same school. We live in the same subdivision. We even shared a sandwich or two before. You haven’t seriously forgotten all that just because you now write for the school paper, right? Oh, pardon me. You’re actually one of Chelsea’s minions now, too.”

She flinched once more. This time, I noticed, her hands were also shaking. “It’s not what you think,” she started to say.

I saw her move her lips, but no sound came out. So I took the plunge and gave the beetching she deserved. I shook my head, making tsk-tsking sounds. “Why do you have to say my parents separated? Do you really have to tell that to everyone? Isn’t that excessively personal? I could accept it if it was all about the way I look and my nonexistent bad hair. But it’s my family we’re talking here! Why didn’t you just say I was on drugs? You could have saved both of us from all these trouble,” I said, indicating the paper she was gripping so tight.