August 13, 2002
Aunt Miranda said Cupid isn’t really good at shooting arrows. He keeps on missing Auntie’s heart. Why would Auntie want Cupid to shoot her?
It wasn’t everyday that a person got to experience something catastrophic. Grace, however, seemed fated to meet such instances on a daily basis this week. Who would’ve thought that she’d be hitting Nick with her bag the first time he ever noticed her? His face still registered the shock, anger, annoyance and a bit of amusement (probably because of the way she was looking at him) from the events of the last few minutes. He asked me a question, she thought as she went on to gawk at him. What was his question?
He merely sneered at her. “Never mind,” he said dismissively, and then turned towards Rachelle. “You usually know, or shall I say sense, it when I’m around.” Rachelle winced at his almost accusatory tone. “Were you really surprised,” he raised one dark blond eyebrow, “or were you hoping you could try your newly-learned self-defense techniques on me?”
“Are you being sarcastic,” Rachelle replied with a raised eyebrow of her own, “or are you really expecting an answer?”
“Don’t be lame,” Nick said with disdain.
“Whatever. Next time, don’t sneak up on me.” Rachelle crossed her arms but a smile played across her beautiful lips. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I never sneak on anybody.” He considered what he said and then he amended. “Unless it’s a fight I intend to win.”
“Tsk. Don’t you have anything else to think about except the tournament?” Rachelle asked with a frown.
He shrugged. “None at the moment. Except perhaps giving you this,” he took out a set of keys from the pocket of his judo gi pants.
Rachelle took the keys with her right hand and smacked her head with her other. “Oh gosh, thanks!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe I forgot to get my house keys from you.”
“You should have placed it inside your locker.” Nick said a bit condescendingly, indicating the password-protected lockers provided by the school for their special students. And by special, they meant celebrities, jocks, geniuses, and all other students who brought home awards and recognition for the school on a regular basis.
“I would’ve forgotten it either way,” she shrugged playfully. “Hehe. I do that all the time.”
Nick gave her a pointed look. “And that’s stupid of you.”
“I know that,” she replied, looped her arm around Nick’s then grinned. “But you like me, anyway.”
He finally smiled then tilted his head towards Grace. “And you’re together because?”
Rachelle followed the direction he pointed with his head and gasped. “Oh my god, Grace! I’m so sorry! I forgot you were there,” Rachelle unlocked herself from Nick and went to Grace’s side. “Why am I so forgetful these days? Anyway, Nick, this is Grace,” she smiled at her new friend. “She returned my journal this afternoon. That’s great, isn’t it? Oh! And she’s also from SJC,” she told him enthusiastically.
“So you know Mike?” Nick asked Grace.
Grace had quietly watched these heavenly creatures with awe. She hardly got to be in the company of one and now she got to talk with two.
“Huh?” Grace replied dumbly. “Oh! Yes. Right. He’s our Sports Editor.”
Nick nodded. If he thought she was as dumb as she was acting, he didn’t give a clue. “He’s also part of the Judo team,” he proclaimed. “As captain, I apologize if he couldn’t attend to all of his responsibilities. We have a tournament coming up.”
“Yes. Of course. I understand. I’ll tell Haley—our EIC—that you said that,” Grace said as she attempted to look like she was not disturbed of being in the center of her crush’s attention. She swallowed as Nick continued to scrutinize her. Or at least that was what she thought he was doing considering the way he was looking strangely at her.
And then she remembered what she did to him.
She stood straighter, raised her head and looked directly at him. “Uhh,” she swallowed again. “I-I’m s-s-sorry about what happened a while ago.” She cursed herself for her stammer. “I was just surprised and I really didn’t mean to hurt you—well, I meant to hurt you—but I didn’t know it was you.” She started talking faster while waving her hands in all directions to add emphasis to her words. “Well, I thought you were trying to take Rachelle’s phone and I kind of panicked and I really didn’t know what I was doing,” she took a deep breath. “So, I’m really sorry,” she finally finished with an exhale.
Nick stared at Grace, causing her to squirm a little. She was short, probably no more than five feet four inches, and the only possible reason that she hadn’t broken her neck while trying to look at him straight in the eyes was the additional height brought about by wearing a pair of three-inch wedge shoes. Her face was a bit on the rounded side, something people usually described as cherubic. Fragile-looking even. No one would mistake her for being mean or devious. Nothing for Rachelle to be wary of. He relaxed and looked at her with less antagonism.
Her brown eyes had touches of gold and she had dark, long hair. Pretty much ordinary. Except, she didn’t seem ordinary. She had beauty in her although not quite as stunning as Rachelle’s. Hers was more...subtle. Yes, that description fit her perfectly. She was in danger of being overshadowed by Rachelle’s beauty if they ever became friends. However, if one would take time to forget Rachelle and actually looked at this girl, she’d never be actually considered ordinary, much less ugly.
“It’s nothing. You were merely trying to help Rachelle. And I thank you for that,” he told Grace sincerely.
“Don’t worry too much if he shouts at you, Grace,” Rachelle told her friend. “He likes shouting when he gets pissed off but if he’s really, really, angry, you’d know it quite easily.” Rachelle turned to gaze at Nick with fondness then looked back at Grace. “He gets really quiet and totally unreachable. As if he closed himself up and you’re banned from entering,” she whispered, loud enough for Nick to still hear.
“Anyway,” he said with a pointed look directed at Rachelle, “I have to go back to practice. Be careful on your way home.”
He turned away from them and went back to the direction he came from. Rachelle waited for him to cross the street before she gave her full attention to Grace.
“You like Nick,” she said with confidence and a haughty smile. “And notice it was a statement, not a question. It was quite obvious, you know.”
“Huh?” Grace replied, color rising to her cheeks. “Is it really that obvious?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“I suppose you’re going to tell him?” Grace asked, worried about the possibility.
“I might,” Rachelle said with a bit of mischief in her voice. “But I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Grace visibly relaxed. And then she narrowed her eyes at her new friend. “Why not? I mean, aren’t you guys best friends? You tell each other everything. I’m sure Nick knows all about the guys who like you and of course, your exes.”
“Yeah. We do tell each other almost everything,” came Rachelle’s reply. “You may notice however, that Nick has never had a girlfriend and I am one of the people who sincerely wish for him to have one,” she looked at Grace’s eyes. “So...I think you will be good for him.”
“What?” Grace exclaimed. “You can’t be serious!” She was obviously in a state of panic. “What could you be thinking? I’m nowhere near girlfriend material, much less Nick’s.” The idea was very much absurd but it was what she had wanted for so long. However, it was also a near impossibility and she didn’t want to harbor any hope for it coming true. “Oh dear.”
Rachelle laughed despite her friend’s harried looks. “Don’t worry about it. I think you’re a great woman and I know Nick will like you,” she said, smiling. “Besides, not even I know exactly what type of girl Nick wants. Who knows, you’d make history and be the first girl to snag St. James’ most elusive bachelor,” she ended excitedly.
Grace gave her a nervous laugh in reply. “I don’t know. That idea seems unlikely.”
“We’ll see, Grace. We’ll see.”
*****
Rachelle entered her room feeling happy and content. Today couldn’t have gone any better. She received a call from her agent telling her that today’s photo shoot needed to be rescheduled so she had a free afternoon. She had played tennis with Anna, the girls’ team captain, and some other members of the tennis club. Honestly, she really enjoyed not having to go to work. She loved being a model, yes, but sometimes, she longed for a normal teenage life. She’d still want to be socially active and earn lots of friends, but too much popularity had a tendency to make a person want to ride a plane going to Antarctica and hide herself from the world.
She was just lucky she often got away with things that cause the downfall of other celebrities. Her metabolism allowed her to indulge on food once in a while; her brain could come up with good ideas that let her get out of sticky situations; but most of all, her notorious boyfriend record had boost her fame instead of being the reason for people to completely hate her. Granted, there were others who had labeled her a slut but most people simply found the rapid changes in her relationship status amusing. All in all, she was leading a good life.
Today, she also got her journal back and became friends with Grace—a girl who was her complete opposite that she still wondered why they enjoyed each other’s company that afternoon. She also found out that her new friend seemed to have a huge crush on her best friend. Girls who like Nick seemed to prefer avoiding her and meeting one got her a bit excited.
For years, she had wished for Nick to go and get himself a girlfriend; not because of any rumor but because she wanted her friend to be happy. He tended to get very serious and he needed someone to make him laugh once in a while. He also needed someone to take good care of him—at least aside from her. He was an only child and got lonely at times, especially when both of his parents were out of the country for business trips. They owned Q25 Music which was one of the smaller, independent companies in Heartlake’s Financial District that focused on the marketing and distribution of various record labels, both local and foreign.
The idea of trying to get Nick and Grace closer to each other would never occur to her had she not seen how Nick found Grace’s presence comfortable, and of course, how much Grace liked Nick. Before, when a girl tried to flirt with her best friend, he either turned as cold as ice or dismissed the girl like she was nothing but a pest. Not quite a good way to get a girlfriend in her opinion. He was not a bad person, of course. He just didn’t like it when girls dropped themselves on his lap—telling him how great he was, or how intelligent or how kind or whatever—when they hadn’t even known each other for more than a few minutes. He found those women quite ridiculous and shallow.
With Grace, however, he seemed to have allowed her to talk to him for more than a few words. Rachelle had also seen how Nick had looked at her when he first gave her his full attention. He liked her, all right. Or at least he wasn’t going to dismiss her anytime soon.
Rachelle was getting excited as she imagined her friends going out on their first date when she suddenly felt that something was wrong. A shiver passed through her spine and all of a sudden, it became difficult for her to breathe. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was but she felt something that was a mix of dread, loneliness and…betrayal. She lay down on her bed trying to figure out why she would feel that way but she wasn’t able to come up with a single reason.
She fell asleep and dreamt of Nick holding hands with a girl with dark brown hair.
*****
Yesterday was quite surreal for Grace but no matter how much she convinced herself otherwise, she knew that everything that happened was real. She had somehow become friends with the St. James Queen, Rachelle Harlow. She got to talk with her long-time crush, Nick Cleveland. He even held her. At least to stop me from causing him further injuries. There was just something about an ordinary human being getting involved with celebrities. The ordinary ones still felt as if they were on cloud nine long after the encounter.
I wonder how long it will take me to get used to the idea that I got to be friends with Rachelle, Grace thought to herself.
And as if she conjured her up from her mind, Rachelle opened the door to the St. James Chronicles office and stepped out. Grace was on her way to the office for their after class Tuesday meetings. All members were allowed not to stay in the office all the time as long as they submitted finished articles by Friday. Tuesdays, however, were a different matter altogether. Haley liked to get updates and since she couldn’t call everyone up on a Wednesday (most news-worthy events happen on either a Wednesday or a Friday), she decided to schedule the mandatory meetings on the second day of the school week.
“Oh hello, Grace!” Rachelle greeted cheerfully.
“Hi, Rachelle,” she said with a smile.
“I just had a chat with Haley,” Rachelle informed her with her thumb pointing backwards toward the door. “Talking about her yesterday kind of made me want to see her. I think she’s preparing for a meeting?”
“Yes. We have meetings every Tuesday,” Grace told her, still wondering if there was any other reason why Rachelle talked to Haley. Not that she was thinking that Rachelle was up to something suspicious. But then, she had planted the possibility of a Nick-Grace relationship in Grace’s head. And because of that, Grace hadn’t been able to sleep.
“I see. I’ll see you around then,” Rachelle said, waving goodbye to Grace.
She frowned at Rachelle’s back. I guess I was just being paranoid. She sighed and opened the door to the office, trying to suppress a feeling of doom. Grace hadn’t taken more than three steps into the office when Haley found her, stood up and said, smiling: “So! Here’s our current favorite person. We just came up with a brilliant idea on how we could get everyone reading the school paper again.”
Her co-editors and staff writers were all grinning at her and the crowded, yet somehow still tidy office began spinning around her. She watched as Haley placed her hands on both of Grace’s shoulders.
“Congratulations on your new major assignment, Grace. I know you’re an editor now but this is big. You’re going to write an in-depth article about Nick Cleveland.”