I didn't feel coming to school, but since I wanted to dedicate a graduation speech for my friends next year, I had to prove my best.
I attended my classes the usual way before I started getting quotes weeks ago. No looking under tables and lockers. No need. Learning that Thonia Buenviaje was the one who owned those sticks was like finding a piece of me and shredding it into pieces.
What was more? I had to eat lunch with her, courtesy of Fredd and Kennard, Gabe and Stephen—my supportive friends.
The canteen was not full. There were vacant tables and unoccupied chairs. Kennard still had his math book on hand, studying for the coming contest next next week. Gabe and Stephen were carrying their laptop and iPad. Fredd walked beside me; no Mary at the moment. We were looking for a table to have lunch with.
"What happened to your girlfriend, buddy?" I asked him as we finished getting our orders.
"Of course we had to miss each other sometimes. And don't you like me giving you my time, right Gabby?" He smiled and patted Gabe's back.
"Guess, if you kept on adding y to our names, we're better off without you Freddy." Gabe stretched his arms behind him and yawned.
"What are you two doing?" Fredd asked Stephen and Gabe.
Stephen closed his iPad lid, slipped it between his underarm and got his food tray. "Editing our new issue for the term." They looked stressed about it. "You!" he addressed me. "Josh, you'll start to help us tomorrow." If I was not his close friend, I'll get angry about his bossiness. "Yes, boss." I lamely replied.
"Why are you alone, Princess?" Stephen stopped as we looked for a table. I looked behind where he was and saw Thonia Buenviaje. I awkwardly diverted my eyes of her. Seeing her was like reality slapping me that she was the one who made those sticks which influenced me so much. Thinking about it made me dizzy.
"What were you saying?" Thonia sneered at him like a tiger planning to attack a squirrel.
Stephen waved his hands, erasing what he'd said, partly scared.
"Do you have company?" Fredd asked but he put down his tray already.
"None, actually." Thonia returned the book she was reading in her violet backpack.
"Good, I am really hungry." My friends started to file in the table.
I did not make any move. This was not a very good place to eat lunch especially after what happened yesterday. She stared at me like I was not welcomed, only my friends. "Josh?" Gabe noticed me so I eventually sat directly in front of her, the only vacant seat. I had no time if my friends would ask what was going on. Explaining that Thonia was the one who took my sanity for two weeks, could open up weird issues. These were my friends we were talking about!
My instinct forced me to smile at her, just to ease the tension so my friends would not mind. She smiled back but her eyes weren't at me, but to the person beside me. Kennard had closed his book and ate. "Where is Asaila?"
"A?" She rolled her eyes. "Her boyfriend consumed her so much I didn't want to be the third wheel."
"Wait, she has a boyfriend?" Stephen laughed.
"Uh-huh," Thonia confirmed. Asaila was a little crazy and immature, from how they described her.
"Who is he?"
Thonia hesitated, but said, "Arthur something."
"King Arthur and the Round Table." Kennard joked.
"In fact he was better called as King Arthur and the Round Head." It was the first time I saw her laughed without sarcasm. "He is from another school that's why A went to have lunch outside with him."
Fredd finished his food faster than usual. "You didn't seem so happy about it, huh?"
Thonia looked down and played with her fork. She divided her rice and dish equally on her plate before taking a spoon. "Well, I know how much my friend loves him. I just don't know the guy for me to trust him."
Fredd changed the topic. "You and Rick had a thing before right?"
I did not know where my friend got the rumor but I guessed it was not a rumor anyway. Thonia's face changed and she raised her fork at Fredd's direction. "Shut up, you clown!" Clown? Only May called him that. One must've influenced the other in a short while. She settled again. "Don't bring the past back, okay? It's over," she said in a lower and pained voice.
"Over? Then why are you acting like that?" Kennard smiled. He drew the line and Thonia rose. "The topic wasn't for me." She was about to walk away but Kennard held her wrist.
"I didn't mean to!"
Thonia returned to her seat. "Get over it! It's like so many years ago. And I guess it wasn't real 'true love'"
There was the word again! I finished the final bite and remembered I was part of their conversation. "How can you say if it's true love?" Sometimes, I wanted to check my brain just in case other factors controlled it. I often do things I was not prepared to do like say things I hadn't thought of lately.
Thonia registered my presence like I was not there all along. "Well, true love is inevitable, true love is infinite. My love story with him fell short."
"How will you know? Any signs?" The love thing became more complicated and she was here again to push about it.
Thonia shrugged. "No point in discussing these, I thought you didn't believe in love?" I was about to defend myself but she continued. "Still, I have five signs to know if you really love someone truly."
"Speaking of love, here she comes." Fredd interrupted her. I did not know what he was talking about until Nicole walked to our table.
"Glad I found you all in same place!" She was haggard but she still looked pretty. "There will be a StuPub meeting right after class."
"Haaa!" Gabe sighed exaggeratedly.
"Give us a break." Stephen complained. This will be a hellish week. Project deadlines and exams coming, I would understand their stress when I started doing StuPub works.
"Excuse me, guys." Fredd fixed his food tray. "I have to go get my girl." He left. Ohh, that's why he ate fast.
Nicole was about to leave when she remembered, "Oh! Stephen, Mrs. Tobi is looking for you. She said she'll be waiting in the faculty room right now."
"I'll come with you, Steph," Gabe followed them. Without Fredd, Gabe and Stephen, our lunch table felt bigger.
"Back to the topic: how will you know if you love someone?" Kennard still resumed the topic.
Thonia paused for a while, thinking about something else. It must be about Rick. After a while she continued, "There are fIve signs that you are in love.
"First, you keep on thinking about her although your mind has other works to do.
Second, you search for her face and voice. No matter how thick the crowd is, you'll still catch a glimpse of her. After, you'll be satisfied.
Third, you have hundreds of reasons why you need to talk and be with her but when she is already there, words seem to fail you.
Fourth, you wanted to impress her in every single way: do things for her, show you deserve her.
And number five..."
Kennard and I listened attentively to her as she spoke. Gazing at her became awkward because she paused before telling the fifth reason. "What's the fifth?"
She revealed a humorous smile, another one without sarcasm. "I won't tell until you finally checked the first four on the list."
"This is a waste of time," I sighed to show my annoyance.
Her smiled deepened. "Don't worry, bro. What if Nikki noticed you someday."
"What?" I glared at her.
She stood and got her empty plate. "See you around, guys!" She glanced at Kennard before sending me a wink.
"That girl is unbelievable." I sighed to my only friend here.
He smirked, "Extraordinary."
~
"Josh!" May called me as I fixed my things in my messy locker. "Can I borrow your phone? I had to text my friend for our assignment."
"Where is yours?" I scanned for my Speech booklet.
She twitched her mouth. "I left it at home."
I stopped myself to give her lectures about simple things. She was old enough and probably better than me, but I was still his brother and she's still my little sister. "Next time, don't remove your phone from you." I handed her mine.
She typed a few message then sent it in the number written on the paper she was holding. "Thank you very much!" She gave me a light hug then went off.
"Hey, brother." I turned to the familiar voice and got my eyes to my open locker again. Thonia laughed. "Speech class?" I never noticed her locker was only two lockers away from mine.
I locked the door of my locker then went away from the hallway. "How'd you know? Are you stalking me?"
"Wow!" she said with sarcasm. "Who do you think you are, Mister Silva?"
"How did you know what's my class then?" I stopped to raise a brow at her. I was taller, yes!
She returned the eyebrow raising. "You're holding your Speech book, of course. Unless you were going to study Chemistry using that."
I started walking, ignoring what she said. I wanted to take revenge on her teases, just one tiny vengeance. In time, I saw Rick passed by. Rick wasn't a close friend of mine, but we've been in interschool competitions before. He was a nice guy after all and my groupmate in a Computer project.
"Rick, can I, uhm, ask for the codes for our computer project."
Rick looked beside me, then quickly at me. "I'll send it to you." He nodded and walked.
I smiled and turned to Thonia. Instead of being successful that my plot for revenge worked, I pitied her and regretted what I did.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked in a neutral voice. She touched the tip of her brown hair. We lived in the Philippines, a South-East Asia country where almost every hair and eye colors were naturally dark. As for her, she had light brown hair and eyes.
"Rick was your friend right?" I somewhat held my limitations.
She rolled her eyes and growled. "Yes, Joshua. Yes." She was like talking to herself more than to me.
"I thought you didn't feel anything about him anymore. Is your love working again?" I rested a hand on the back of my neck.
"If you didn't have something better to say, just shut up."
"Fine. But you're the one who stalked on me."
"Stalked?" she shook her head.
I shrugged as we entered the room. A question popped out from my head. "Did you feel the signs for Rick before?"
She gathered her strength to answer. We sat next to each other on one side of the room, near the windows. "Before."
I did not mean the question but her answer made it serious. Was it really like that? When you loved someone, would you feel those? "What's the fifth sign?"
"As I have said, I won't tell you until you experienced the first four. And I would know if you do."
"How?"
She smiled. "Love has the power to change the appearance of a person."
I shook my head. The person beside me was so hopeless romantic I could not believe I was talking to her. "It's our choice to change or not."
"Believe me. If you're in the spot, you wouldn't be able to tell. I am a love believer, as you already knew." She winked at me again.
"Rick!" A couple of girls laughed at her. She simply rolled her eyes at them.
"Do you really mean it when you said you didn't feel anything for Rick anymore?" I might hear like prying so much, but the love business made me so curious I was not even sure what that feeling was or how it worked. I just heard that was what people would say.
"Yeah," she made herself busy with her notes. Although her eyes were distant from what she was acting to read. "And I mean all I say."
I considered a question before asking. "The first time we debated here, you called me teenage masterpiece. Did you mean that too?" Okay, I really had to meet a psychiatrists to fix my brain.
She looked up at me and wanted to defend herself but then she simply pushed me. "Well, you seemed perfect. Almost. Your life, I mean."
Wow. I did not feel that. Perfection was a far adjective to describe my life. "Don't play another trick on me."
"I'm not!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Look at you! You're smart and many girls in this school have crushes on you."
I laughed. I had problems concerning my family, my future, my daily life. "Believe me when I say you don't know what you're saying."
She paused but nodded after a while. "It depends on what definition of perfection you will use."
"What's yours then?"
She collected her hair in a rush messy bun that looks good on her and tied it. "Perfection is like a tree and the leaves are your problems; when one leaf fell, another will start to bloom. It will never end and as you grow old, more and more experiences will come, more and more trees will bloom. But you can't imagine a tree without leaves. It will be dull, it will be boring." She looked at me and concluded, "For me, that's what perfection is. Being imperfect makes you perfect. Having flaws makes you beautiful. Sophistication and complication are qualities of most masterpieces."
"Why won't you write that to a popsicle stick?" I smiled. A real smile. For her. She was not bad after all. Little by little I found the person who wrote those sticks in this girl sitting beside me. Our English class was a jet plane that passed the sky. A little descriptions about Shakespeare again and other English poets and playwrights.
Mr. Tara, my Speech and Literature teacher, noticed me while in the middle of a sentence talking to Thonia. "Well, well," he smiled and got near our aisle beside the window. "Seems like true love changed the emotions of the world for you, Mr. Silva."
"What?" I asked in confusion.
He grinned and looked at Thonia. "Did you make him believe in love, Miss Buenviaje?" The class roared.
"Sir? What?" Thonia was in confusion too.
My teacher walked away. "Enough, enough. I've seen and read a lot of cliché love stories like that. Back to the topic..."
I feared to look at her because I felt my face heated up. What was happening?
A pen dropped from her table. I stared at it for a while, thinking about what to do about it, and then my mind told me to hand it to her. I leaned down the same time she was about to get it. She saw me and was about to say something but closed her mouth. What was she supposed to tell me?
She reached for it first. "You're turning red," she said without looking at me.
Was I? I fished for my handkerchief and wiped my face. "It's getting hot." It was the only reason, nothing else. Tropical country meant hotter climate.
The teacher explained more about the stories. Then he suddenly introduced our new topic--Italian Literature. He asked a question after the introduction. "What do you think was the theme of the novels?"
Thonia raised her hand and was called. "According to what I've read, the story was about true love. Dante travelled through hell and purgatory just to see his love and be with her once more. It's a metaphor for those who were willing to do everything for someone."
Again, I disagreed with her. What's the point of travelling through hell just to be with someone? What if those sufferings were turned to dust? Were they worth it?
But I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't sure about my thoughts either. If you were going to debate for something, you had to know the topic well, fight holistically, and be determined.
I did not own any of those traits right then, but I believed she had everything for love, the thing that made her world go round.