The Golden Rule

Must Not Believe

MIA

Something was seriously wrong here. 

Mia thought as she peeked at Robby through her eyelashes pretending to be engrossed in the book sitting in front of her. 

It was half an hour later and Robby was seated across her in the school library biting the edge of his pen as he encircled some words in his book.

She knew he had an early class that day. Nobody shows up before 8am in campus unless they have an early class. 

Or they need a ride to school with their sisters who happen to have that early class. Which was her case.

Did he really skip his class? Mia wondered staring at the left page of her book, the words becoming a blur by the minute. Did he really skip class so he can come with her to the library? 

Something was really wrong with this scenario.

She couldn't understand what was happening. Things had been getting weirder and weirder everyday ever since the cafeteria incident.

Expectedly, Angela had been acting pretty strange towards her. And it worsened after their dinner at Straws a few days ago. To Mia, it felt like she had suddenly become a threat to Angela. 

Which of course, she wasn't.

Or was she?

Then there was Jason who kept on showing up everywhere. And no matter how she tried to give him the cold shoulder, he just couldn't get it. What was really surprising was how he seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Marco has a golden rule of his friends and fraternity brothers courting or dating her sisters.

Marco has been acting weird, too. For the past weeks, he'd been watching her like a hawk, not letting her out of his sight. Lately, he'd been dragging her to all of his after school activities as if he didn't want her to be away from him for even a minute. When she confronted him about this, he just gave her an innocent look. There was definitely something up with her brother.

And then there was Robby. She vowed never to speak him again after what he said to her at the hallway. She had never been so angry and humiliated in her life! But the more that she ignored him, the more that he persisted. She wasn't surprised that Robby managed to corner her earlier that morning. After what happened at Straws, she was already expecting something similar to happen. 

But what she wasn't expecting was for him to join her here in the library when he was supposed to be in class. 

Was there something going that she didn't know? Everyone has been acting really strange around her lately and she hoped she'd get an explanation soon.

Mia shook her head to clear her thoughts away. 

She had been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes. At the rate that she was going, she will never be able to be ready for her exam later that day.

" Something wrong? " Robby looked up from his book when he saw her shaking her head.

" No, " Mia said quickly, caught off guard.

Robby leaned over to look at what she was reading. 

Just as he did, Mia couldn't help but notice how long his lashes really were - and how good he smelled. The musky scent of his perfume was tickling her nostrils.

" Martinez? " He arched his eyebrow at her. Without waiting for an answer, he said. " Read the foot notes. He usually gets a lot of questions from there. "

Mia nodded mutely and was relieved when he leaned back on his chair and continued reading his book.

What the hell was wrong with her? She thought, irritated with herself on how she was reacting to Robby's presence that morning.