Down The Highway

Chapter Forty-One

He walked a few steps closer. I don't know why I called him. I don't know why I said that I wanted to talk. But all I know is that I need answers urgently to all the questions seeking in my head. He looked at his watch below the folded sleeves of his blue polo. "I think we can spend ten or fifteen minutes for that" I looked down at the paper bag wrapped around my hands and observed the tomato sauce and meatballs in it. I remembered that my dad is waiting for me.

"What should we talk about then?" He asks, not grumpy, not sadly, not happily. But just normal and serious. I sighed, hoping he would agree for us to talk in a minute or two. "Us, can we talk about us?" He looked down on the ground. In such a long period of time of being with him, I have realized that he does that when he's embarrassed and annoyed.

"But for now, I need to get home. Can you wait here for me?" How awkward it was for me to make him wait in there. Without a single word, he nodded and I started to walk as fast as I could to get home immediately. "What took you so long?" I heard my dad asking from afar. His deep voice cut me in before I said a word. "It was such a long line there in the store" he didn't respond.

Instead, he just grabbed those from my hands after I offered them to him. "Thanks, but Jade, you bought the wrong tomato sauce. I was asking you to buy the cheapest one but this is the most expensive... anyway. Never mind"

What was wrong with that?

It was just a tomato sauce which couldn't change his life anyway.

"Where are you going?" He asked after seeing me rushing to the door.

"To a friend dad"

Friend.

Was he just a friend? I can't say that I lied to him.

"Okay, but be home before dinner" he reminded. I ignored it. I fixed my shirt and walked as fast as I could to reach St. John Street in the shortest time. I don't like making people wait for me. I'm okay with waiting but not with making other people wait.

I think I got it from my mom.

From afar, I saw Shawn sitting on a long public chair where we passed by earlier. I didn't hesitate to walk closer to him and sit beside him with a meter separating us from each other. The first thing he did when I arrived on the chair with him was to look at my eyes. His ocean eyes caught all my attention, not letting me think of what I should do next.

I looked away to avoid the heat in our eyes. I know he is just trying to lend a piece of attention to me when he has a lot of things to do. Today is Saturday. No school so everyone else is busy minding their own businesses. "So, umm, what do you... want. To. Talk about?" The unsureness was seen in his voice.

Couldn't resist it since it was too obvious to be hidden. I gulped first before saying a word. My subconscious is telling me that I should just ignore him because I know that in the end, I would end up crying about him again. He never tried to make me cry even before. He actually has always been nice to me but the memories, lies, and feelings I have hidden for him still bother me up until now.

"I already told you before." I bit my lips, the things I do when I am embarrassed.

He the thing he also does when he is annoyed, he looked down.

"What about us?" I looked up at him after hearing him whisper those words. I sighed first before hoping that he would get me as much as I try to understand what is happening with all the cringe things in between us. "Let's stop pretending as strangers. We've been with each other before, I loved you once and I know that even if you don't admit it, you also loved me once. Can't we stop acting like strangers? Can't we stop to act like we are clueless about everything?"

Without facing him, tears fell from my eyes but I didn't even notice them. I only did when he started to wipe them with a piece of a blue handkerchief that smelled of his usual cologne. "Do you think it's easy for me to do that? When I have already forgotten about us?"

I know that those words shouldn't have hit me but they did. I know I should have not been hurt when he said that he forgot about us already but I still did. "Then why? Why did you forget about me?" I stood from my seat as he did the same thing. He looked at my eyes straightly with tears falling from his eyes. At least I know he feels the same way as mine. Gently, he said, "because one night, I bet you can remember, you told me to forget about you and everything about us"

Like what he said, the night he was referring to immediately flashed back to my mind. When we were both crying under the heavy rain and I was wearing a big ball gown. "Are you that dumb to take it too seriously?" I asked back.

"Was it a joke? Well for me it wasn't. Because I tried to say sorry but you didn't listen"

I know he was right, I didn't listen. Because I chose to do that just like how he chose to forget about me rather than to let me stay in his mind.

"It wasn't" each second that I was facing him, felt like they were hours.

"Then why did you tell me to forget about you when you don't want me to?"

"I don't know, maybe you just cursed me and now I am under your spell and I can't escape anymore"

"I didn't. You're the one who did because each and every single day, I know it's wrong to think about you but you still cross my mind every time I try so hard to get you off it."

We were both the same.

"Well, maybe we're cursed. Cursed for love. And maybe our happy ever after is cursed too. Or maybe this, this highway is cursed for love!"

For no reason, I just started blaming St. John Street which was clueless about everything happening to me and Shawn. "Don't blame this highway for your desperateness in love" I tried to control myself but I couldn't. I immediately hardly slapped his face as it went on the other way.

"See" was the last word he told me before he walked away. I turned around to face him but he was already meters away from me. He was such a fast walker. "Travis! Shawn! Wait!" I didn't know how to call him. So I ended up calling him with both Shawn and Travis.

But he didn't look back in either one of those.