Playing with Fire

Chapter 3

“Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them,” - The Fault In Our Stars, now in theatres!

Chapter 3 

At this point, I started to think that becoming a vampire might be the only good option that I could have.

Sun was bad for me. With the lack of sleep and stress compiled together, seeing such strong light straight into my eyes made my stomach churn. Today’s PE class happened to be outdoors and at the face of full-on 11AM sunlight. 

I was so sure that I was five minutes away from melting my skin and bones. We had short shorts uniforms, but the exposed skin was still smarting from all that heat. Also, the guys took this time to ogle all of the girls’ legs, and that wasn’t something that I’d like to be so early in the morning: an objectification.

But then I had to take back my words when I saw Kevin among the crowd who scanned my legs.

Kevin had been my first ex, and before he went out with Noelle, he had been mine for about two years, which amounted to forever in the teenagedom. Although now I had nothing but hatred and regret towards him, I could still see why the younger me had stuck with him.

He was classically good looking, that Kevin. He was tall and broad-shouldered and put considerable amount of wax on his hair, and he always knew where to put his hands. Lots of guys didn’t know this little trick to make themselves look less awkward: knowing where to put your hands would make you look comfortable and self-assured, and that was what I had liked from my ex-boyfriend.

I saw Noelle coming up to him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. That was what my ex-bestfriend had liked from my ex-boyfriend.

But I could see it. Kevin and I had been together two years, before we had that really bad fallout, thus I knew him and I knew that right now, he was scanning me.

I stared back at him, intentionally tipped my chin a bit so that my eyelashes could cloud my gaze a bit. I tested a smile, and when I saw him recoil a bit, I felt a wave of confidence. I still got it. I still got it.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Noelle fuming at our little moment of stares.

Mr. Gallagher, my P.E teacher, was focusing on the girls playing softball. I was one in the background, waiting for my turn to throw the ball. I walked toward him when he called my name, and I chose the long road so that I could circle around Kevin.

My inner self was doing a little victory dance inside my head. If there was one thing that made me happy these days then it would be making Noelle’s day a little less serene.

The ball was mine then, and I was quite surprised to see Noelle stepping up against me instead of meek Marissa.

“Hiya, friend,” she blew me a kiss, just like we had used to do whenever we had met each other.

Her presence, complete with the swinging bat and a face full of vengeful determination, amused me at the same level it scared me. I knew completely Noelle’s capacity to be cruel, especially since she so callously dropped me and convinced our friends to be my enemies after my fallout with Kevin. Now that she saw me flirting with her boyfriend, however, I knew that she was reaching her boiling point.

The very lips that had made my social life crumbled was now tightly shut. Noelle didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to, for everything that she could say to me had been displayed on her face. Her life-long disappointment to me as a friend, her frustration, her resentment, I could see it all. Right now I knew why the phrase ‘if looks could kill’ was overused.