Chapter 12
Theory
Monday morning has come, which means that I should be preparing for school yet I can't seem to move any part of my body. This is what I'm dreading most: see and meet Dale after what happened at the Starbucks store. I'm still not sure of what to say to my friends and to him, but I'm glad that Dustin has my back. Seeing Dale is inevitable, that is, if he's not absent today.
Dealing with this is like a teenager high school girl who is caught up in all of her problems in her life, really. This gives me a massive headache, which makes me taking the idea of not going to the school at all. If I don't come into school, my mother and father will surely kill me. Education is important, as what they said to me a million times while I was growing up.
Rolling off the bed, I decide to do my morning routine, prepare myself for school.
I found out that Melody and Aunt Delilah have already moved in to their house, that's why I haven't seen Melody. "You're too caught up in your love life," my father says without looking at me, the newspaper in his hand blocking his face. My mother whacks the back of his head and my father groans. I suppress a laugh while waiting for my mother to serve breakfast: cheesy hotdogs, fried rice, sunny side-up eggs, and baked bacons. Each smell of food mixes up with the others, and it smells really good, tickling my nostrils and my stomach grumbles impatiently.
"Ignore your father," my mother says as she places empty plates on the table. Her hair is pulled back, making her look like a teenager. Her eyes are bright and smiley, and her lips are painted with pale red. She's currently wearing her work business attire: a grey dress, a skirt just above her knee, and pale pink stiletto. My mother looks like younger in this attire; she looks like somewhere around 30-year-old to 35-year-old woman. In the house, when it's her rest day, she looks like she has been in whirlpool of havoc due to house choirs. "He's just mad that he never got to interrogate your boyfriend, a plan he planned a very long time ago."
"That piece of shit, about to kiss my son like – Ouch!" my father grumbles under his breath, putting down his newspaper and glaring at my mother. The look my father is giving my mother mirrors my mother's face, and they both have a staring match contest, and eventually, my father loses and goes back to reading his newspaper. But before that, he gives me the look and I shiver, avoiding his look. His look really said: we're going to talk when your mother is not around. Just wait and see.
"Language, Nicholas!" my mother scolds my father. My father grumbles under his breath once more and focuses his attention on the newspaper he's reading. He takes a sip of his hot chocolate and puts it back on the table, ignoring everything.
I put fried rice, two baked bacons, one egg, and one hotdog on my plate and begin gobbling the food. In any time, Derek will come and pick me up. Without taking any break, my mother shoots me a look and I ignore her, continuing to eat like a kid. A honk of a car has me looking outside through the window, just enough to see Derek parking in front of the house and I hurry eating. Once done, I put my plate in the sink, kiss my mother on the cheek, and shout "see ya' later" to my parents before bolting out of the house and heading into the car of Derek. I climb inside, greeting my Russian best friend. "Good morning."
"Dobroye utro," my best friend says, his thick Russian accent laced with a chirp. "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair!" he shouts to my parents, who wave back at him through the window of the kitchen. I smile to my parents and my mother blows me a kiss. I chuckle, focusing my attention on my best friend, who gives me a look and accelerates the car forward. "Are you okay now?"
Derek really knows me. There's no need to lie to him. I shake my head slightly, exhaling the breath that I've been holding and Derek nods, his eyes focusing on the road. Good, I don't want to die yet. The radio is turned off and I wonder why he's not turning it on. Usually when he picks me up, his songs come blasting right through the speakers of his car so loud it makes my ears bleed, him singing on top of his lungs. But today is an exception; he remains silent and no trace of goofiness on his face.
Sometimes I don't get my friend. Derek is a type of guy who always vocalizes his thoughts yet he seems to be in a deep thinking and he's not sharing it to me. Silence looms over us, suffocating me with the tension lingering in the air. My hands get clammy, and I wipe them off across my pants, taking a deep breath as I wait for him to say something.
"He might be gay," Derek suddenly says, my head snapping into his direction. His eyes are still focused on the road, and his jaw is clenched. His hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard that it makes his hands turn white. His hands loosen the hard grip on the steering wheel and looks at me, stopping for a moment before training his eyes at me. I look at him in confusion, brows furrowed. "Rob, I mean. He might be gay."
I stare at him in shock, mouth agape, eyes wide. My best friend's words ring in my ears, words that glow in neon lights just inside my head and I shake my head, not really believing him, or his theory, or whatever shit he has to say about the possibility of Dale being gay. "That's not possible. He's straight as a ruler."
"Even rules break," he whines, scowling. There's a honk behind us and Derek glares over his shoulder, as if the driver behind us can see him glaring directly at him, or her. I'm not sure. Who parks in front of the road, by the way? Oh right, Derek. The car purrs to life, slightly trembling, then the car accelerates forward and I wait for Derek to continue what he was saying few minutes ago. The anticipation is killing me. There's this teeny tiny part inside me that keeps flickering, and I don't want to set my expectation, but my best friend's words trigger something inside me. "After you left the Starbucks, Dustin immediately followed you, as well as Dale." Raking my head for the memory of Dustin running after me, I already have the memory of Dale running after me, yelling me name and telling me to stop. "They ran after you, and when Dale didn't catch you, he cursed loudly, as if he couldn't believe that he hadn't reached you at all. He was really frustrated, and after that, he left us, even Lilith. We didn't know where Dustin went, but we assumed that he went home."
"He went into my house," I mutter, scratching my cheek and my best friend's eyebrows rise. "He met me up there, and we talked. He had an idea why I ran away. Scratch that, he knew why I ran away." I say to my friend, who is giving me a look, a look that I can't quite understand.
Derek doesn't speak for a while, and before we know it, he's already parking on our favorite parking lot. Once the car is parked, he climbs out the car. I hop down then he walks beside me, locking his car through the small device that is attached on the key. "Dustin is... interested on you, I can see that. And Dale is, I think, pretty pissed about it. I mean, I don't want to get your hopes up, but that's what I can see. That's what we can see."
"We? What do you mean by we?"
"We – as in me, Ashton, Kaila, and Gloss; I don't know about Lilith," he says, frowning upon saying Lilith's words. "I mean, she's our friend, and I'm looking out for her as well, but she seems to be living in a delusional world where she'd get together with the supposed-to-be gay Robert Dale Waites."
I frown at his words. Though I really want to believe (and God knows how I really want to believe my best friend's words) it, I can't seem to imagine that Dale is gay, and probably interested on me. There's no way that Robert Dale Waites is gay. I mean, he doesn't really have the gay vibes; that or that he's not really gay at all.
"Adieu," I say as I turn my heels to the right, not wanting to hear him anymore. I just don't want him to say anything to me about the endless possibilities of Dale being gay, which I know would make me believe that he's just really like me. And that would lead to another thing. I don't want to get my hopes up just because of that possibilities. It would be like chasing a damn peacock in an open road. Looking over my shoulder, I see Derek's retreating figure, turning right at the end of the corner and I sigh in relief.
The hallway is filled with students milling around, books pushed to their chest as they make their way. My eyes search for one person I'm dreading the most to see yet even his shadow I cannot see. I sigh in relief once more; this means that I can make my way without worrying on seeing him. Or it's just my imagination because as I begin to make my way towards the sea of people, he's there, standing, his bag is slinging on his shoulder as if he doesn't care about it. His hair is tousled, sticking up in every direction and his eyes have dark rims underneath and I feel bad suddenly for him. This is not the way I want to see him; he looks stressed, as if he didn't get any sleep at all. His eyes are tired, and his body says exhaustion. People are giving him looks, looks that tell us that they are curious as to what happened to him. Time seems to move slowly, and the world is slowly fading as our eyes meet across the sea of people that keep milling back and forth, passing us by, shoulders hitting.
We remain silent, letting people knock our shoulders as they walk past us. For a moment, neither of us move, not letting our eyes roam everywhere but just focus on each other's. I don't know if this is the part that I'm supposed to say something, something that could light up the mood, something that would tell that we're both okay and nothing just happened. But no words slip out of my mouth; no words fill up my chest; my head remains blank, clouded with the images of him running after me as what Derek has told me.
Just as the bell rings, the hallway becomes empty except for us, who hasn't said anything. Neither of us moves, and it's killing me. He should say something, anything, because his silence is not any better. His silence is killing me. I'm contemplating whether I should run just to get away from him and questions like: will he run after me? Will he stay on the very spot he's standing on after I ran away? Those questions begin to fill up my head, and answers are not being brought up.
Something knocks me, making me fall on the ground and when I look up, I see that Dale is already hoisting me up, his hand resting on my hips whereas his other hand grabs mine just to lift me up. Our eyes meet again, and something in his eyes flashes. Then something happens:
Run.
But this time, it's not me who ran away, it's him.