Falling Like The Stars || UNDER HEAVY EDITION ||

Nine

Memories.

That's just the word that can do the strongest two things in the world: one, make someone extremely happy or two, make someone passionately hurt.

When you're an orphaned child whom no one gives a damn to, you feel a pinch of sadness rising in you. But for me, that'd have been the best thing. An orphaned child without anyone's notice can rather do anything they want. They can make memories of their own and laugh at their carelessness. Why? Because nobody would give a damn to them.

Whereas, when you're a perfectly normal-borne child that suddenly meets up a terminal condition, you'd see the true dark side of the moon. The blacker, filthier side of the society. But it won't hurt that much unless you emotion the golden memories that now concluded into some rusted stones.

My point is, enjoy life when you can. Because nothing lasts forever.

"Have you taken your bottle? Your watch?" Mum checked up on me, concerned.

I rolled my eyes, "Yes, Mum. Now bye. I've got to go to hell now."

She laughed, waving at me, "I heard the bad boys are in hell too!"

I don't know about the bad boys, but "he" was surely there.

I draped the mask around my lips. This time, I was sure to be careful. I mean, the second day can't be as bad as the first, right? You learn from your mistakes, and I hoped he learned too.

Everything was quite like yesterday, to be honest. The brunettes gossiping under the flourishing pink shade of the blossom trees, the too-cool-to-be-true guys flirting with the cheerleaders, the seniors playing their melodious guitars—basically everything seemed like yesterday.

Well, atleast that's what I thought before entering our classroom. The students dispersed from the way and watched me with a fierce eye. Usually, people just look at me with sympathy, not this.

I observed that they raised their phones high towards me as I traversed my way to the last bench, but it wasn't until the flashlight that glossed from someone's phone that I realized they were clicking pictures of me.

And the question immediately rose: why?

I rested myself upon the chair when I felt something creeping on it. I jumped up to treasure a crunched paper taped to the chair. Reluctantly, I unfolded it and—

"Don't read it." I'm sure you can already figure out who it was—Jake. He pulled the paper out of my hand.

I groaned. The devil of the hell was here.

"Give me the paper, Jake." I gritted my teeth. His jaws dropped, eyes unbelievably wide.

"Whoa whoa whoa. Forget about the paper. How'd you know my name?"

"If you can know mine, why can't I know yours?" I rolled my eyes. "Moreover, how could I not know it after all the misery you ditched in my life?"

He grinned, "Point to be noted, your majesty."

Ignore.

He opened his mouth to speak when suddenly the door slammed and a teacher penetrated into the noisy arena. I sighed in pleasure; he sighed in dismay. Tentatively, he reached for his seat.

The students stood up to greet. It somehow appeared to me that the teacher frowned at me as if I was familiar to her. I mean, of course I was, but this was something different. Something eerie.

And for some strange reason, I felt it was all connected with the crunched paper.

***

The bell rang and promptly the students dashed outwards the genre. It was chemistry.

I slowed down my action, knowing the exhaust that characterized me. The immobility calmed the place. I lifted my bag and sighed heavily.

"Tired?" A voice yanked and I already knew who it was.

"Why are you still here?"

"Oh, now I can't be here too?" He chuckled at my words. So not funny.

I pushed my way out of the genre and stood in the empty hallway, unknown of the way I should go. Jake stood beside me, sighting me.

"Now you comprehend why I waited."

I looked at him and he seemed way out of the league, smiling. Possibly seeing no expression on my face, he turned at the hallway. "Follow me."

Although against doing so, I was forced to since I had no damn hint of this place. We wandered around the maze of corridors, listening to the sonorous sound to our footsteps.

As we roamed across the space, I couldn't help but ponder at how strange this was. Here was a guy, fooling the whole world with his "jams", who ruined my whole day in a blink of an eye. A guy whose back was always trailed by the ladies, and a guy who, although being the most detested person to me, chose to saunter with a terminally-ill patient, rather than all the gorgeous ones out there.

This is what kept the awkwardness between us.