Project: Socialize (Chapters 1-197)

13. God's Plan

The school day soon ended as time just flies by, and with nothing else to do, I decided that I would just head home immediately after school. All I had left to do was wait for the bell to ring as the clock ticked toward 3:30 PM. Therefore, I just sat there, paying little to no attention to the final period homeroom announcements by Mura as I rested my face on my right hand that was supported by my elbow which laid on the surface of my desk. I yawned and blinked out some tears as the fatigue from the long day of school gradually caught up to me. At my school, homeroom consisted of two periods: a ten minute period at the start of the day for taking roll and a thirty minute period at the end of the day for announcements.

The ringing bell interrupted Mura's final announcement, and with a silent and concealed sigh, she released the class. She placed her papers back into the black binder and left the classroom through the sliding door at the front of the room as the students got up from their seats. Some stretched, some walked over to chat with friends, and others left the room with their friends for either their clubs or heading somewhere after school for fun.

I plugged my earbuds into my phone and placed them into my ears. Then, I got up from my seat, scooting my chair back, and picked up my bag as I started for the back door of the classroom without much hesitation. However, I was stopped by the hand that was placed on my shoulder.

"Wait up."

Looking over, I saw Loyd smiling at me.

"Let's go together," he said.

I looked over his shoulders at the small group of other students that has an almost equal distribution of male and female who looked over at us with a somewhat disappointed and mad expression in their eyes. Then, I looked back at Loyd, who smiled at me as if nothing was wrong and that everything was the same as it was years ago.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said, looking away so as to avoid making eye contact with the hateful crowd standing not too far behind Loyd.

Loyd glanced back at the crowd from the corner of his eye and looked back at me. "Don't worry about them. I'll talk to them."

Loyd then turned towards the crowd and started walking towards them. Then, he began speaking to them in a charismatic tone as always. As he did so, I realized that the girl that sat next to me, Muria, had finished packing up her belongings and was getting up from her seat.

"Hey," I said to her as she started walking towards the classroom door.

"Can't believe you would actually have someone who would consider themselves your friend," Muria smiled in an almost playfully mocking manner.

"Is that all your gonna say?" I muttered under my breath and sighed. "He's the only one that came to talk to me voluntarily. You happy now?"

Muria chuckled. "What does it make you think I want to make you deprecate yourself?"

"I don't know," I said with a blank face. "Maybe your usual image in my mind."

"I'm not that kind of person," she shook her head in disagreement.

I stared at her in silence, observing the complexity of this girl who stood not too far beside me in this almost empty classroom except for the few students that was talking to Loyd along with her and I. In this almost silent classroom, except for the Loyd talking to the other students, an awkward, long and enduring silence shrouded Muria and I, almost as if time itself had temporarily frozen as I admired her beautiful blue eyes as it almost seems to stare into empty space with melancholy. This melancholy was a mysterious one, with almost no obvious source, yet it was so captivating that it drew all my attention into the azure blue of her eyes as I stood there with my mouth slightly open in awe.