Love Lies A' Bleeding

Chapter 9: The Ones that Got Away

But however unfortunate this might sound, I needed to go back to class. First, I wasn’t the old Queen anymore. And second, Noah sent me a text message saying he would be coming to school. He just had to skip his morning classes to attend a photo shoot for some magazine, again. My guess was the teachers were already used to his absences that nobody asked him about it anymore.

“You sure you want to go back?” Molly asked as we trudged down the stairs back to our classroom.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For the support.”

She smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

I smiled back. If not for Molly, I wouldn’t have been able to know what to do.

When we entered the classroom, nobody dared look at us, though I could feel the eyes of those who were trying to catch a glimpse of my browbeaten look. I was sure they were expecting to see my eyes bulging from crying. Well, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t born to satisfy people.

Molly urged the one sitting beside me to exchange seats with her. She sat in the first row, because her last name starts with a C. When the one beside me finally agreed for an exchange, because Molly wouldn’t stop pestering her, the relief that I felt was so obvious that Molly had to tap my shoulder and smile at me.

“What?”

“Elibs much?”

“Shut up.” And I knew when I said it I was trying to tell her the opposite. I wanted her to talk. I wanted her to make me feel that everything was just going to be the way they used to be…

…Not.

The disappointment that I felt after Noah stood me up, again, hurt more than anything else that happened. He didn’t come to school to attend his afternoon classes as promised. He didn’t even send me a text message to tell me what happened. He just didn’t show up and expected me to understand.

I was hurt, again. But this time the pain was deeper.

Maybe everyone was right. Noah was popular, he got lots of commitment, he got many girls who would kill for him, and he wasn’t in any way ordinary. He had his life already figured out before him—that it felt like it wasn’t normal anymore—while mine was just a blend of confusion and despair with a pile of deficiencies on the side. He was popular, and I was nothing. There wasn’t the least bit that could tell we were right for each other.

~O~

The next day, I didn’t expect to see anyone outside my house, other than maybe the newspaper boy or the guys that used to jog around the block at exactly seven o’clock in the morning. But when I stepped out of the house, my backpack in place, my vest properly buttoned, and pandesal in hand, I saw someone I didn’t expect at all, standing beside a black BMW with a cup of coffee in hand.

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t mean it to sound rude, but it just came out that way. Guess my heart still ached. It wasn’t even hammering in my chest anymore. It felt like it wasn’t even there.

“Picking you up?” he said slowly, probably weighing my mood.

“I’m serious.”

“Look, if this is about yesterday, I’m sorry. There was just an emergency.”

“Right.”

“My dad was brought to the hospital. He had a mild stroke.”

Oh, my God. I looked at Noah and I almost wanted to die. “I’m sorry.”