From: Your Secret Admirer

Chapter Three

For Yana -- i will always treasure the friendship :)

***

Contrary to what Mer had said earlier, life wasn't fair. Not in a tiny bit. If it was, then I wouldn't be gifted with a love curse since birth.

If life was fair, my Philo professor wouldn't call my name again with another one of his philosophical question: "How can you prove to me your existence?" I had no other choice but to give him my laziest answer, which was to quote someone else's answer: "I think, therefore, I am." So anyway, he let me off the hook.

But life was still not fair. Because if it was I wouldn't be standing in front of Franco Soriano, the devilishly handsome but absolute notorious gang member, a junior from the college of engineering. I shouldn't even know any details of his college life but still I did because him being notorious made him a popular guy at school that even a lowly freshman, such as I, had heard of.

And so, one fateful afternoon after Philo class, I dragged Mer for a cone of ice cream, strolled along the covered walk then slammed in to Franco. Life's a bitch.

Franco started glowering at me after he had assessed the damage my chocolate ice cream made on his immaculate white shirt. "You just ruined a good shirt."

I swallowed my trepidation. He was frightening, actually. I wondered if I would live after this. "I'm so sorry. I'll pay for it. I'll have it cleaned."

He started shrugging his black leather jacket off (seriously, leather jacket in this weather?), tossed the jacket at his friend who looked equally notorious as he was, pulled his shirt off to reveal such perfect abs and tossed the shirt at my face. "Don't bother."

After what felt like forever, he sauntered on his way, shirtless, without retrieving back his shirt from me. And I stood there, gawking at his back, thinking what had just happened.

"Franco's shirt! Can I have that?" a girl I had never met before said.

"No. He gave it to me." More like threw it at me. But I wasn't really aware of what I was saying as if I was in a trance until Mer shook my shoulders hard.

"Kyla, snap out of it. He's gone now."

"W-what? Am I still alive?"

"Yes. You're lucky to be breathing."

I glanced at where Franco had gone to. "Do you think he would retaliate?" I had heard stories about Franco, and none of it was good.

"No, I think he won't. He picks fight on guys, not girls." She lowered her voice so only I could hear her. "Have you noticed how girls are so into the bad boy type?"

***

The bad boy type was in fact every girls secret dream guy. I had arrived at this conclusion the moment random girls started badgering me (and bribing me) to have Franco's chocolate ice cream stained shirt. I had to carefully break their hearts by telling them that I was planning to have the shirt cleaned and return it to him the soonest possible. They, of course, volunteered to do the laundry as well as have the shirt delivered to Franco. But, of course, I declined.

I was kind of ashamed at myself for cowering before Franco earlier. Sure he was a gang member. But if I could handle an obnoxious jock, how hard could it be to deal a gangster? If Athena Dizon could reform a gangster, then perhaps so could I? Of course, Athena Dizon was just a fictional character from 'She's Dating A Gansgter' so I really could not bet on that account.

"What would you do if Franco is our Mystery Man?" Mer suddenly asked out of the blue.

"That would be impossible, Mer." Totally. And I was not thrilled about having a gangster for an admirer, no matter how hot he looked shirtless. "And can we drop with the Mystery Man? I don't want to talk about him."

"But I thought you wanted to find out about the identity of our Mystery Man?"

"That doesn't mean we will make every guy we bumped into a potential candidate. I mean, look, Franco doesn't even know I existed until my ice cream met his shirt."

"But we have to start somewhere. Okay, let's make a recap."

Here we go again. Suddenly, Mer was so into this. She probably thought this whole secret admirer thing was so romantic. For me, it wasn't. It was more of a burden on my part. Now I had to find who this Mystery Guy was so I could convey a warning: "Stay away or the family love curse will haunt you as well." That was the first (and real) reason why I asked Mer and Ryan to help me solve this mystery.

The second reason was a part of me wanted to prove that the curse was not real, that whatever had happened to mom (and to my brief but disastrous childish infatuation with Mark and Harry Potter) was just a bunch of twisted coincidence. Because I wanted mom (myself) to believe that she (I) could find love and happiness like the rest of the fortunate souls around us.

"I think what triggered for our Mystery Man to make his move was your spectacular rendition of Till They Take My Heart Away," Mer stated.

I paused on that thought. Before college started, it was just Mer, Ryan and me. Now, people seemed to know us, and by us I mean me. Mer was already popular on her own right owing to the fact of her being a Head Turner. And I always thought that I'd forever be the Head Turner's best friend, the girl who boys would ask to give their love letters to Mer. I mean, there was Facebook and Twitter to convey their love messages, but nothing beats the power of a best friend to convince her girl friend to choose guy number 1.

So anyway, I tried to think back what exactly happened that night when I sang on the open stage in the school field. I remembered the vocalist (his name was John, if I remembered it correctly) randomly pulled an audience (me) to sing with him on stage. We sang one song, Just Give Me A Reason ala Sarah G. and Bamboo. After that, the audience asked for more and that was when John handed me the mic to sing. So I sang. I really loved singing, and that time I was thinking "what the heck I am already here."

Then I recalled casting a glance towards Luke. I remembered seeing him in his faded blue jeans with an air of boy-next-door image, hair slightly wavy, a cute dimple on his left cheek. He was beaming at me and we had eye contact for three seconds. Yes, I counted. And it felt like the longest three seconds of my life.

My gaze then went to the crowd. I saw Mark standing near the front of the stage, looking at me as if he could not believe I was on stage. I remembered the feeling of satisfaction swept over me as I saw a flicker of admiration in his eyes.

Oh, and yes, I remembered a group of guys in black leather jackets (what's with the leather jacket anyway?) standing on the left side of the field, chilling underneath the acacia tree, each holding with what I suspected a can of beer. Franco was there, leaning his back against the tree, arms crossed over his chest, staring blankly towards the stage. Where I stood. Singing.

But then, who was I to assume that one of those guys was my Mystery Man? Of course there were other bunch of guys present: The guy from my English class who asked me what was answer to question # 5, the guy whose pen I borrowed, the guy who borrowed my pen but never returned it, the guy who sleeps during Chem class... And there was Ryan, giving me encouraging smiles, standing beside Olivia Arquiza, his long-time crush.

After the concert, I thought everything would be back to normal. Then the Love Note arrived.

"I really think it was during the concert where it all started," Mer repeated. "Now we just have to find out who the other two hundred or so guys who attended the concert that night."

It's going to be a very long afternoon.