Blame It On Paperbacks

Page 1

The bell rang and Red stood right away and signaled me to come with her to the cafeteria. Red's been my best friend for good couple of years now and I admit we have this weird connection. One look and I could say that she's not okay and the same applies to her. I am just deeply overwhelmed that life has the ability to offer such kind of people, some people who sometimes know you better than you do to yourself. And today, I know that she's not okay.

"How okay does the word okay suggest?" I hate this kind of conversation with her. I hate when I can't catch up to her level of thinking when she's going through something tough. "Okay is something questionable," I tried. "Okay is even an impossibility. Life is clustered from nothing into everything. There's not a thing in between. It's either you're happy or you're not. Okay is for people who think they're half existing and that's not possible." Happy?

"Okay is when you can't figure out where on earth you currently are," she said mindlessly. My answer is somewhere close. It's like I'm talking to a sober so I just gave up and asked her what the matter is.  "Mom and Dad split up." I examined her and did nothing but to look at her in the eyes. I'm startled but I have to be strong for her. I know that friends shouldn't make the fallen friend feels that he's miserable so I invited her to go to the arcade and hit on the most number of shoots she can have in the mini basketball game.  She said yes. I'm not good in comforting my best friend. I know that I'm just a container when she's too stirred and overflowing. I hope there's something I could do, something I could say other than listening and staying quiet the whole time. I don't want to be an okay when she's okay. I have to complement her.

We're walking past several people in the hallway when she suddenly asked me, "When do you plan of having a boyfriend?" She never failed to surprise me every single day. I raised my brows hoping that I could convince her to skip the topic but she didn't. I guess that's what friends are for as well -- to push you to face things you've been far ignoring. "Tell me. When?"

"I don't know." I breathed heavily.

I'm in the middle of a toxic confrontation when Haley gracefully runs towards me.  Thanks Heavens. "Scar, where's the book? I hope you brought it with you! Please, please, please, please..." (and more please's and puppy faces I can't put into counting numbers). Sometimes I'm bothered of this girl. I pulled the book from by bag and handed it to her with a bunch of invisible thanks for my accidental salvation. She side-hugged me, bid goodbye to us, and strode away.

"Let's go," I turned sideway. How I wish she forgets she didn't get a satisfactory answer from me the moment ago. She grabbed my wrist. "Tell me." Fine, she doesn't want to let go. I scowled inside and side-faced her. "I told you. I don't know," which is seriously true. "Let's see which part of 'I don't know' you don't really know. You know you can always tell me anything."

"I truthfully have no idea, Red. If I have, you might have been drooling now on how I and my boyfriend were so perfectly fit together." I hope this shuts her up. "Fine," she finally left the conversation and we walked through the way out of the campus wordless.

We took a train trip to get to the mall. I thought of wanting to listen to some songs and pulled out my phone together with the pair of earphones that are already plugged in it. While I'm scrolling through my playlist, I offered her the other earphone so I wouldn't appeal so discourteous for leaving her alone. I selected Best Day of My Life by American Authors. And no, I can't let my best friend listen to heart-dropping songs. Not right now. 5 more songs went on and we're good to take off. My math for measuring my travel time by number of songs that played by.

We spent the rest of our day in the arcade and food stations. We played and ate away all our bellies and moneys can afford. I walked on my tired feet behind her as we move to pick a taxi on the way home. I love the portray of people from behind because it's the place where they put some things to keep from others' reach. I'm wondering how huge and heavy my best friend's invisible baggage is and how long she has been carrying it all the way. She's my best friend but that doesn't guarantee that I know her from skin to bones.

I held her hand when I notice that her soul is somewhere her body is not. She may be sitting beside me but I could feel from the way she looks at the window that she's somewhere far. "It's going to be fine, Red." There's a long period of silence until she replied.

"S, I just came to realize that there's this kind of love that never lasts. And I don't want that love to happen to me and Alex. Happy ending doesn't grant everybody the opportunity to have it," is all she told me. She launched off the vehicle as I'm still 4 blocks away. We bid goodbye.

Her words left marks on me as if they're a cautious reminder as a whole. But I started to wonder if there's even such kind of love. I don't think love can be put into categories. I don't think that love will give up in the first place. If it does, then, it isn't love. It must be something else.