LOLA IS DEAD [COMPLETED]

Chapter Two

Back at Barry’s, the crowd was thickening by the minute and most of them were teenagers trying to get wasted and have fun. I recognized most of them but there were others whom I wasn’t familiar with. We snaked into the throng of dancing people headed by Martin. I was trailing behind him trying not to lose his back. Martin knew a lot of them, and his hands were flying every now and then to wave and say Hi. At last, we emerged at the back near the game room; the billiard tables were crowded mostly with boys playing. We were lucky to find a table at the corner near the window overseeing the parking lot. Outside there were still cars coming in, I’m not sure if this was going to lay low any sooner, as the cliché goes: The night’s still young. The waiter cleared the table and we sat. I tried to breathe heavily to ease myself, but the fog of cigarette smoke was too strong that made me cough. The entire diner transformed into a bar and it was hysterical.

“You knew a lot of them?” I asked Martin, shouting for him to hear me from the loud music, referring to the crowd.

“I knew some of them by their faces, but I called them darlings, so I don’t know their names.” He said, shrugging.  

I mentally wrote a note to myself immediately, if you don’t know their names, used the endearment like Dear, Darling, Sweetheart or Honey or just simply Girl etc. As if I could pull that of… I couldn’t imagine calling someone else Sweetheart to say the least. Martin raised a hand gracefully and signaled for a waiter to come.

“We should get a drink!” He said excitedly.

“I’ll just have a diet coke” I told him.

He looked at me like I was crazy, and I suddenly braced myself to defend my choice of refreshment. I don’t drink alcohol – that’s just that. Martin sighed and rolled his eyes and I felt relieved that he didn’t make a big deal out of it. The waiter came and moved his ear closer to Martin’s mouth to get his order. The waiter left and Martin was staring at his back.

“What?” I asked.

“His cute!” He said smiling.

“Spare him. He's busy, let him do his job.” I told him jokingly.

Martin considered this for a while and laughed. His laughter was infectious and so we suddenly burst into laughing.

“Let’s dance!” He exclaimed.

“Where?” I immediately panicked. Aside from the fact that there wasn’t room to showcase our dance moves, I couldn’t dance. I mean, it’s not that I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to… The idea of me dancing scared the s**t out of me.

“Here! Come on Lola! As if everyone cares.” He insisted. He was already standing up and waiting for me. I looked around and he was right. Nobody would care if I would jump up and down and roll on the floor because everybody was busy wiping the floor with their dancing prowess.

“There’s no dance floor” I said, trying to lay my last card.

“Come on! Let’s just stand here near the table.” He lent a hand and without further protest I took it. There’s no use having an argument you couldn’t win.

Martin put on his gear and exploded into a sequence of dancing moves. I was dizzy watching him that I almost thought he was doing a mixture of taekwondo and yoga poses. I had no idea what sort of dancing he was doing. Then suddenly he was rapidly juggling his butt that nearly dropped my jaw. I wasn’t sure if he was doing African dance with his butt, but I knew he got that from somewhere else. I did my best to follow the rhythm of the music, but my movement was bored and unsure. I swayed my head back and forth and that’s all I got.

“What are you doing?” Martin asked while still doing his thing.

“What are YOU doing?” My eyes darted to the butt moves.

“Girl, this is what you called Twerking!” He said proudly amplifying the butt moves.

 “What!?!” I was confused.

“Haven’t you seen Miley Cyrus' video? This is the Miley move. Here let me teach you.” He offered.

I was horrified. Martin pushed me to do twerking several times, but I’d rather be dead. Our orders were already on the table when I looked back, the waiter placed it there without even informing us. Probably he was also appalled to see Martin’s twerking moves and just fled the moment he delivered our food. I took a sipped on my diet coke and Martin grabbed his beer. I didn’t know Martin ordered a few bunches of food, a plate of hot chili wings which was our favorite then the new burritos and fries. The food looked delicious that I wanted to sit down right away and wolfed over it but Martin wasn’t done twerking yet. I stood right there with my diet coke in hand trying to figure out my moves. I looked around and the place was literally foggy with cigarette smoke. People were jumping up and down, some were twirling their hips while others were awkwardly doing running man moves and it was ridiculous. The roof was going down, and everybody was shouting and having a great time.  From all the chaos inside the diner, a figure appeared in the corner that nearly took my breath away. All of a sudden, I became conscious of my movement that I soon realized that I was no longer dancing. I was standing there staring at the figure in front of me. With lips slightly parted, intense blue eyes staring straight at me, blond wavy hair neatly comb – he looked so right that everybody in the diner looked so wrong including me. Seb smiled as he walked slowly towards me. I was wearing a simple white blouse and a pair of skinny jeans- I started doubting my style of clothing now that Seb was here. He was gorgeous. Just a plain shirt, brown khaki pants and a pair of snickers and he was perfect. No extra effort.

When he reached me, he smiled showing his perfect dents. Dimples appeared both of his cheeks, he looked ravishing. My knees started to weaken and the urge to fidget was inevitable. That didn’t look good for a girl to stand fidgeting in front of a boy, so I stood my ground and inhaled to calm my nerves.   

“Hi there!” Seb greeted me. He was near enough that I smelled Dove scented soap from his skin. It was a pleasant smell and he wasn’t wearing any perfume.

“Hi” I said shyly.

Then we were quiet for a while, awkwardly staring at each other waiting for someone to break the spell first. Then we heard a gasp that made Seb and I turned to where the overstated sound came from. The sight of the fabulous Frey in shock was the best thing ever like he saw an apparition appeared in front of him. Jaw dropped, hands on his face, huge eyes like it were about to pop out of its socket. The twerking was over and all he did was stand in front of us gawking at Sebastian who was amused as I was. He probably didn’t notice Seb approaching earlier and to see the captain of the Eagles team with me caught him off guard. Martin darted his eyes from Seb to mine and vise-versa. I could sense that he was still recovering from his shock and trying to absorb what was happening.

My face turned to see Sebastian trying to hold a laugh and the effect was spontaneous and this made me want to join him. But I gripped myself so I could introduce the two of them.

“Martin, this is Sebastian Whyte.” I said. Martin already found his mouth on the floor and closed it.

“Sebastian this is my best friend… Martin Frey” Seb extended a hand to shake Martin’s, whom with his eagerness to hold Seb’s hand took it right away and covered it with his other hand like he was reading Seb’s future.

“It’s an honor to meet you Sebastian…” said Martin.

“You can call me Seb… the pleasure is mine.” Seb said politely.

“Seb… I mean…”  Martin was still holding Seb’s hand and with no intention of letting it go. I rolled my eyes and told them to stop with the formality. I realized that if I didn’t do this, Martin would start bowing and call Seb his highness. We moved to the table and sat. Seb sat beside me while Martin was on the other side facing us. The two of them bonded instantly like they’ve known each other for so long as they talked about their trips during the summer. My head was turning left and right like a Ping-Pong ball listening to their crazy adventures. Seb went to Thailand then Cambodia to see the temples and then they went to Boracay Island in the Philippines. He said the Island was a paradise and the beaches were picture perfect. He and his family had a blast. Martin’s eyes lit up when he heard about the beaches and told Seb about his escapades in Brazil that he stayed in a Cabana while sipping mojitos. I was sort of left out with the discussion because I was the only one who stayed in Silent Hills the entire summer. So, I just sat quietly and listened. Seb was cool with Martin, he was really a nice guy or probably because he knew that Martin was my best friend. That didn’t matter. If he treated Martin fairly then he earned my trust. I couldn’t stand boys having prejudice against gay people. Seriously, homophobes are getting old. They’re here to stay, besides, girls like me needs our gay best friend.

Someone might be asking if I knew Seb before. The answer was yes, I knew him. He was the most popular guy in school, even people from the Facility Department knew him. Young girls working in the cafeteria held their breath when he was around. But I was the girl who was satisfied with my anonymity. I normally turned the other way and hid in my own little corner, away from the spotlight. I never got the chance to come close to Seb; mostly he was at the field practicing or in the cafeteria and in the hallway with his teammates. He was surrounded by lots of people and the thought of pushing it was even a pathetic idea. I never aspired to have someone who was too high to reach so I never thought of even knowing him personally. He was sort of an enigma for me like Brad Pitt was an enigma.

Then there was Jessa King, shoulder length hair, bangs, green eyes, pouty lips, beautiful legs; rich parents – you get the idea: the perfect dream girl. She was the embodiment of what girls in school aspired to become. Well, aside from the fact that she was mean and rude to people who didn’t belong to her clique – that didn’t make her desirable in my list. But who cares about my list anyway…? Everybody expected Seb to be with Jessa. I mean the two of them made sense – the most gorgeous guy with the most popular girl equals perfect couple alert. When gossip started circling around campus about Seb and me, my twitter feeds flooded with foul accusations calling me slut, wannabe, w***e, strong words telling me that I wasn’t good enough for Seb; I decided to quit social media and deleted my account. But it was almost at the end of the school year and that was a whole week of humiliation before summer break. When I passed by Jessa and her minions along the hallway before the school ended, I could almost feel their eyes glaring and clawing at my back but I bowed my head and ignored them. The gossip circulated and it didn’t last long because everybody was excited planning for their summer vacation. I took that as an advantage. The chance I got with Martin was minimal, we were cramming for finals and I didn’t want to be selfish to talk about my own predicament when both of us had exams to think about. After the parking lot incident, Seb was regularly texting me asking how I was. He kept apologizing for everything because he probably knew how mean those accusations were. To compensate, a bunch of surprises awaited me in my car every afternoon. Flowers given to me by the Eagles team, balloons and chocolates etc., anything that he could think of to make me feel better. The effort was well appreciated; after all I’m still a girl. When we were at the parking lot, I told Seb that he'd get his answer if I would go out on a date with him after finals. So, I wasn’t surprised when my Mom knocked on my door after I got home from school on a Friday telling me I had a visitor. At first, I thought it was Martin but he was a regular visitor in our house that my mom was used to him coming in and out. For the record Martin would just normally bolt in my room and ransacked my closet. This time it was different, my mom was giving me an accusatory look.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s a boy.” She said, with brows arched and eyes suddenly teasing.

“He’s a friend.” I said defensively.

“I’m not saying anything.” She said giving me a wink before she disappeared from the door.

I stared at myself in the mirror. My tangled hair needed combing, there were dark shades around my eyes probably from the late night of studying. I had few freckles in my gaunt face; my light green eyes were staring back at me. I looked down to my drawer and grabbed a comb.

Seb was waiting for me outside our house, leaning over the side of his black convertible BMW. He stood up when he saw me coming. He was smiling as I approached, I smiled back. My heart leaped as the space between us closed. There was something about Seb’s presence that made me nervous and excited at the same time. He made me gasp and knocked the air out of me. When I looked at him, suddenly the world stopped turning and all I could see was him, like he was the only one breathing, tangible and alive. My emotion was getting ahead of me; I made a mental note not to rely on it when I’m around Seb. I couldn’t afford a betrayal by my own sentiments toward him, not when I had no idea what I truly felt. After the Parking lot incident, he entered my mind and took over. I could daydream about him the whole day and set aside finals. Checking my phone every five minutes became a habit during the final week. I couldn’t get enough of Seb. Every time I see him at the parking lot waiting for me, I always have the urge to run towards him and lock him in a tight embrace. The way he talked to me and looked at me, like I was the only one in the world that mattered to him. His voice calling my name was music to my ears, his scent intoxicated me, when I stared deep into his eyes – I saw the entire sky kingdom trapped within it – bright blue eyes beaming expressively.

“Hey…” I greeted first. He made one step forward; both hands were on his back pocket. Seb didn’t say a word; his smile turned into a grin that made him look more irresistible. His eyes were questioning, doing all the talking. I knew that he was waiting for my answer, but I wanted him to say something, to ask me once again.

“What?” I said absent mindedly.

“So… Final is over…” He said.

“Yeah… Finally, … Can’t wait for summer.” I said nonchalantly.

I couldn’t stare at his eyes any longer; the fear that I would not be able to restrain myself and threw my arms around him put me in check. I let my eyes drift looking for distraction, anything that could break me from his spell.

“Uhm… About my…”

“It’s already late.” I said cutting him trying to look at my watch. “Is tomorrow okay?” My cheeks suddenly felt warm. I looked down to hide my blush. When I didn’t receive a response from Seb, I panicked. I looked up and caught him staring at me. His mouth was opened in between laughter and shock. He was overjoyed. A big smile broke in his face that made his dimples appear. Agitated suddenly that he didn’t know what to do like a kid in Disneyland.

“Wow… Do you really want to go out with me?” He asked reassuringly. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” I said shyly.

Then we were distracted by someone. Seb and I turned to see who it was, it was Ram. My brother arrived from who-knows-where. He stopped and stared at us scornfully then went his way… I faced Seb and wanted to apologize but he chuckled as if telling me that he understood.              

“Okay, Uhmmm... tomorrow then…” He pursed his lips as if thinking and slowly turned around to go.

I stared at his back as he walked to his car. Before he hopped in, he glanced at me and winked. This gesture made me laugh. I waved him goodbye as he got inside the car. It was already dark when the taillight of his BMW disappeared from the corner of River Gate Avenue. I turned around and went back inside the house to find my mom preparing for dinner. Ram went straight to his room as usual. She looked up as I walked to the dining room lamely. My mother gave me a knowing look as she watched me move closer. She stopped what she was doing and welcomed me with a hug. This was great about our mom; she always knew when we needed a mother’s touch or her approval on anything. We didn’t have to ask her or tell her that we needed a hug – she was there at our side, ready to take our pain. I missed her; I should have spent time with her when I got the chance. We could have the entire day doing girly stuff. But I already passed my chances of doing all of that and what I’ve got was merely wishful thinking as I stared at the burning skyline outside my window. It was always like that here in the Fourth Realm, known as the lowest part of the spirit world. The weather was always humid in the daytime, but the temperature dropped dramatically at night. The infernal sky burned red as if painted in a canvas. But we’ll get to the limbo later or what the living famously known as The Purgatory.

Seb was already in our living room talking to my mom at 3PM the next day when I got down from my room. He told me to wear something casual and comfortable. I wasn’t sure how casual he wanted me to be, so I settled on a blue T and a pair of jeans. When he looked up, his eyes sparkled like water in the ocean. He stood up and waited for me to come down. I saw two cups of tea on the table and I had a feeling that Seb and my mom had a blast chatting. From the looks of it, my mom was all smiles as I caught her eyes. Seb won her over it was obvious. Seb told my mother that he would take me home early and my mom gave us her blessing right away. Just like that…

“What did you do to my mom?” I teased him in the car.

“I didn’t do anything. We were just talking.” He said smiling.

“What did you talk about?”

“The usual…”

 The car ran smoothly on the highway.  Inside I didn’t notice how fast it was, but I didn’t seem to care. I wasn’t looking at the view outside anyway; I was more distracted with the sight of Seb sitting next to me. He drove the vehicle with ease that it was sort of meditational – as if the car was an extension of him. Not to mention how sensational he looked in the driver seat. I couldn’t stop glancing.

“Where are we going?” I asked. I noticed we were already leaving town.

“It’s a surprise.” He said, glancing at my side and winked. What’s up with the winking part?

We were miles away from town and the car went on going deeper to the south. We passed through open fields, copses and swampy areas. Probably 30 minutes of driving, finally the car slowed and turned right from the highway. Seb opened the windows and the fresh air and smells of water hinted to me that there was a swamp up ahead. I was right with water; the car halted in an open restaurant, at the back overlooking the Mississippi river. Seb told me that this was the place for people looking for sweet escape. The view at the back was spectacular; we chose a table at the corner near the railing. I stood there with my hands on the railing steel gazing at the magnificent river, far ahead the sun starting to climb down painting the sky red.

 “Wow” Was the only thing I could utter.

“It wasn’t called Magic Restaurant for nothing.” Seb said.

Who the hell named their restaurant Magic? Certainly, there’s one. When I turned to face him, Seb was gazing at the river. The shade of the sun fading from afar giving him a certain glow. He looked down and caught me staring at him. Immediately I retracted and turned around embarrassed. He reached for my chin and made me face him. When I opened my eyes once again, I was held captive by the magnet of his stares. His eyes captured me passionately that it was even impossible to resist.

“You are so beautiful Lola.” He whispered.

He leaned closer towards me and my heart thudded beneath my ribcage. My body shivered inside by his touch and I was alienated by it. I’ve never been touched by a guy before, not like this. Not the way Seb touched my face. Martin was an exception to the rules of course. His face was inches away from me, we were that close that I was drunk by the brilliant sapphire color of his eyes. His breath was fresh and smelled like menthol, lips slightly opened and inviting. If I couldn’t break this moment, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stop what was inevitable to happen. But I didn’t want it to stop, I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to taste the softness of his kiss and melt in the warmth of his embrace. But it was too early for that… I gathered all my strength and reached deeper inside of me to find my own freewill. I needed to break free. When my own strength was more than enough to detoxify my mind, I inhaled deeply and smiled.

“Carrot Cake” I said the first thing that came to my head.

“What?” He asked, astonished.

“I mean, do they serve Carrot Cake here?” My head turned to look around as if searching for the waiter to take our order.

“I think so… They have the best Strawberry shake.” He said smiling. The spell was broken, and I felt relieved. I was so close to giving myself all over to him, but I prevented it. I was proud of my will power.