When the Rain Stopped Falling

Chapter 16: Riptides and Vortices

Chapter 16: Riptides and Vortices

“Why are you so pale?”

A cold sweat dripped from my forehead up to the tip of my nose. I wiped it before it even falls. “Me, pale? Must be the light?”

“Are you okay? You look so flustered,” Leslie stepped in closer to me making me cringe till my back touches the doors of my closet.

“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t go outside all day maybe that’s why I look so pale.”

“You should have gone outside. The weather was very perfect for an outdoor activity,” Leslie went to the comfort room. I waited for her to lock the door and when she did, I immediately checked the closet. Nikolas was there contorted to fit in the cramped jungle of my clothes. “Come on go outside!” I whispered. His eyes reflected fear and he’s totally out of his mind as it took him to process what I have just said. He was about to set his foot out of my closet when I heard the toilet flush so I panicked and closed the closet quickly.

“Ow! You squished my foot!” Nikolas complained in a muffled voice.

“Shh! Leslie is coming!”

The bathroom door opened and Leslie went out. “Were you saying something?”

“Oh nothing. I was just asking where you have been?” I asked uncomfortably

“Remember the play I told you? Well, I got the part!” I could see that Leslie was very excited as her body twisted in joy.

“That’s nice! Congratulations!”

“Aw thank you! You know what? We should celebrate, right?”

“Right, we should celebrate tomorrow!” I firmly suggested. I must get out of this mess soon or he would be in trouble.

“Boo! We should celebrate right now!”

“It’s really late and it’s kinda awful not to invite your brother,” Nikolas coughed!

“What’s that? You heard it?” Leslie suspiciously looked around the room my heart feels like it want to go burst out of my chest and confess that Nikolas is here in this room.

“Oh it’s me,” I faked a cough “something is caught up inside my throat,”

“I think I know what you’re up to!” Leslie squinted her eyes at me. Shoot we’re caught! “You’re finding a way to be with my brother aren’t you? You two should just date already!” Nikolas reacted again but this time I think he hit the walls of my cabinet as it created a loud thud. Leslie seems to have heard it again and momentarily checked my closet and started to inch towards my closet.

“OMG, Leslie!” I diverged her attention. “Come on now, you’re surprising me so much I kicked my closet,” I kicked my closet backward to recreate the sound. Leslie doesn’t seem convinced but carried on anyway.

“Elois, if you two would not go out with each other, I’m gonna die! You two have serious sparks together, you two are like radioactive or something!”

“We? Have you seen him and Cole together? Leslie, those two are the dynamic duo! If someone is causing sparks with Jasper, that would be Cole,” Leslie giggled. “Those two are so sweet together, it made me think that they have a thing going on,”

“Now you’re talking nonsense. My big brother is not gay!”

“Are you sure about that? Have you met any girl in his life?”

“Oh my God, Elois,” Leslie bit her fingernail. I irked and checked my own fingernails which were fabulously pink.

“Huh? Huh? Do I make a point or not?” I continued to push the topic.

“Is that it? Is that why you’re holding yourself from knowing him?”

“No, no. Come on, Leslie, I just met him.”

“But you had a date on the first day of our classes! How about that?”

“It’s not a date! It’s a friendly activity,” I’m somewhat offended. Did I really made myself look like an easy-to-get girl? “What I’m saying is, I’m not holding back to Jasper. I like his attitude and all, but let time do its thing, okay?” I’m surprised that Nikolas has not been reacting to any of this though I’m a little worried that he suffocated and died.

“So you do like him?”

I rolled my eyes. “You should buy me first some chocolates outside, any chocolate would do,”

“What? Why?”

“So that I’ll have some motivation to answer your question and you said we should celebrate”

“Oh alright, but promise me that you’ll tell,” she eyed me with an I’m-dead-serious-about-this gaze.

“I will, I will!”

Leslie gave me a reassuring look before she march off and left the room. This is now our opportunity for Nikolas’s exit. I opened again my closet. Nikolas was now heavily sweating when he climbed out. He stood awkwardly with only one of his foot reaching the floor.

“Does one of your foot hurt? I’m sorry for slamming the door on it,”

“It’s okay. It’s less painful than what you’ll answer to Leslie’s question about you and Jasper. I’m glad I could escape before I even hear it, thank you for sparing me.”

“Nikolas, I haven’t said anything yet,”

“No it doesn’t matter. I’m from the future remember. Indirectly, I know what your answer would be, and it hurts ten thousand times more than the pain of my aching foot right now.” I swallowed hard. I wanted to disagree to his intuition but I would only do that if I wanted to lie about myself. “Remember what I’ve told you, Elois. Keep in mind that you’re the one that can change the future,” Nikolas reminded me while he limped away; finally leaving the room.

I sat at my bed and pondered about all the things I wanted to do. I feel an itch on my brain that I wanted to scratch to death. It’s annoying and frustrating that I couldn’t do something but just to think and try to sort my life, fold and unfold those sketchy and wrinkled thoughts, untangle wires of problematic scenarios and connect them to logic, build and destroy all my plans ahead. If I’m a computer right now, I’m probably buffering and overheating and soon enough I could explode. As I wait for Leslie to come back, I continued to immerse myself with riptides from the ocean of my mind and vortices I’m caught in, in which I could only hope that I would survive and breath once again.

This is so difficult! What is wrong with this equation? I stared intensely on the sample problem given by our Math teacher as a reviewer for our upcoming exam. As an aspiring psychologist, I really really fail to see when would I use this equation on one of my future clients. I imagine one day I would talk to one of my clients and ask their feelings then I’m going to ask, what do you feel about simplifying this quadratic equation. I bet my client would be pissed off then slowly contemplates and realizes that this quadratic equation holds the key to his/her success. Would that happen? Would solving this equation would help them get over their real life problem? The bigger question is that would I be a psychologist in the future? Nikolas might have an idea since he came from the future. But, would I really like to know the answer.

“Morning Elois,” someone greeted. I turned, and saw Nikolas wearing a red shirt and red pants that might have appeared to be a onesie.

“Oh good Nikolas, you’re here!” I mildly celebrated. I went for his arm to make him sit with me but he swiftly avoided my hand then took a step back.

“What are you doing?” he asked with an obvious annoyance on his face. Right. This is not the future Nikolas. This is the regular “plain” Cole which is Jasper’s roommate. I should have known base on the way he looks right now.

“Sorry, Nikolas. I didn’t mean to um grab you”

“I noticed that you are the only one that calls me by my name Nikolas. I have thought that it had been archaic.”

“Nikolas sounds good though for me,”

He didn’t react. Instead he stared at his wristwatch then walked away.

“Hey, Nikolas, I mean Cole, where you going?”

“I am following my schedule. Hence, I need to go back on my room and read books,” he started to shift away again but I was fast enough to block his way.

“This would take only a minute, please,”

“A lot of people had said that phrase before to me and none stuck to their words. What is that you seek from me?” Talking to him makes me feel like I’m talking to a king, a royalty. I imagined a silly thought of him, a Japanese guy wearing a western crown and robe with glinting eyes that I quickly digressed.

“Could you help me simplify this equation?” I clumsily showed Cole my notebook. He looked at it then started to laugh oddly. He was some kind of robot trying to laugh.

“That’s the best joke I have ever heard,” he said then walked pass from me again.

“Joke? What do you mean a joke?” I called out. He turned then gave me shocked look.

“Wait, you are not joking? I thought your objective was pretending to be baffled on such a menial task, was it not?“

I calmly shook my head no

“The answer is x minus one third all over 2x equals 3.”

I was about to say something but no words came out of my mouth because of my astonishment.

“Could you teach me how to solve that?” I asked shyly. At first, I thought asking for Nikolas’s help would be the right thing to do. But now, I feel silly. Hey why don’t I ask a genius how to solve a simple quadratic equation? You’re unbelievably stupid, Elois. I’m such a mess.

Cole thought for a second, looked at his wristwatch once again and turned his back on me. I watched him go. I should have known. Why would he help me?

I went back on my seat and checked again the equation. I jotted down the answer Cole said to me and wondered how did the initial complex equation turned simple like that. How did Cole, a very intelligent and complex person would be simplified into Nikolas, a very nice sweet guy? I was beginning to give up, convincing myself that I’m definitely going to fail this exam when Jasper came bolting down the stairs, looked at me, then went to my direction.

“Hey, Cole said you need help,” he said quite panting from his run.

“Yeah, um, I got this math exam that I really really,”

“Say no more, milady. Jasper’s here to the rescue,” Quite amusingly, Jasper smiled then frowned, then once again smiled as if he wasn’t sure what he had just said. I laughed a little. “So what seems to be the problem?”

“Oh Mr. Engineer,” I started to goof around, “this equation is the problem.” Jasper sat beside me and he moved his head closer to my notebook.

“You know, when I was a freshman, I thought that this kind of questions were the hardest. But you know what, if you keep practicing it would be as easy like a simple arithmetic.” Jasper took my pen from the desk then started discussing to me the concepts, showed me how to solve the equations slowly, waiting me to digest it. And later he made me solve the other equations on my own.

“Wow, Elois, you learn fast,” Jasper said after checking my solutions. He gave me a congratulatory smile then gave me my notes back with all of my answers marked correct. I can’t really explain it but when Jasper smiles at me, it felt like I was given water after a long journey in a desert. Jasper, makes me feel fuzzy but I can’t get enough. He looks dangerous but addicting.

“Thank you, Jasper. It’s really nice of you to help me,”

“Just a thank you?” Jasper teased.

“What?”

“I think I deserve better than a thank you,”

I laughed then thought of a proper response to what he had said. For a split second, I remembered Nikolas saying that he wants me to stay away from Jasper but he didn’t tell why.

“Relax, Elois. I was just kidding. Just talking to you is more than enough,” Jasper seems to caught me in daze.

“No,” I managed to blurt out. “I mean, we should get ourselves a treat. I really need to thank you,” I gave him a smile and stood up. “I’m just gonna get my purse and we’ll go for a walk. And maybe I would treat you some ice cream,”

When I looked back at him, he has his eyes on me and then gave me a goofy thumbs up.

“If ever there would be a guy who’s going to ask you out on a date right now, would you accept?” Jasper asked out of the blue while we were walking to the nearest convenience store to grab an ice cream for ourselves. Instantaneously, I guffawed at his words remembering Nikolas the first time we’ve met. “What? Did I say something funny?” He looked perplexed.

“Nothing, I just remembered something with your question. For my answer, I say, it depends,”

“Depends, how?”

“If the person seems to be nice, maybe I’ll accept,”

“By nice, you mean handsome like me?” He comically raised one of his eyebrows that he had look so irritating but the adorable kind of irritating. I pushed his shoulder playfully using my own shoulder.

“No, I mean kind. That kind of nice. The world needs kind persons.”

“Oh, well I’m kind and good-looking so…”

“Why are you so full of yourself?”

He snickered some more “Do you want to know a secret?”

“A secret huh?”

Jasper gestured me to move closer to him, then he placed his lips near my ear and whispered gently, “Guys seems to be full of themselves because it’s their secret way of impressing a girl they like,” At first, I wasn’t able to catch what he just said until he burst out laughing. I heard him crystal clear but my mind seems fazed.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him like a little kid.

“Nothing,” Jasper began to walk away.

“Please tell me! Please!”

“Why are you so curious all of a sudden?”

“I just want to know,” I whined.

“I’ll regale you some other time. ”

“Pshh, regale. You’re such a geek,”

“No. I just learned that from my roommate, of course,”

“Of course, of course.” We both laugh at the same time. At last, we reached the convenience store and went straight to the chest freezer containing all the heavenly tasting ice-creams.

“What flavor do you like?” I asked Jasper. He surveyed the different flavors he could choose then his eyes lit up when he saw the choco hazelnut ice-cream.

“This one!” He answered enthusiastically.

“I like that one too! Did you read my mind?”

“Read your mind? No. You know what I think, maybe you’re just copying my favorite ice cream of all time.”

I gasped. “As if! That’s my favorite ice cream,”

“Too bad, this is the only one left.” He grinned victoriously. Not believing at him, I scanned the freezer and tossed around the other ice cream popsicles and I wasn’t able to find another choco hazelnut. “See, I told you Elois,”

“I’m the one who’s going to pay for that ice cream, so that should be mine!” I protested.

“But I found it first!”

I pouted my lips. As desperate as I look, I quickly tried to snatch the ice cream from his hand but he was fast enough to raise the ice cream above his head. Being so tall, he was able to keep it away from my reach even I stood on my toes just in front of him. “Give me that!” I said to him while still trying to reach for it- my hand on his shoulder for support and my other hand up in the air. Then maybe at the same time, we realized the position we’re in and we both immediately took a step backward from each other. My face is feeling numb and hot again. What is this feeling? I can’t look him in the eyes.

“Here,” Jasper said. I made a quick glimpse at him and saw that he was giving me the ice cream but he wasn’t looking at me either. Reluctantly, I took the ice cream from his hand.

“Thanks, but you take it,”

“No, I want you to have it. I’ll just pick strawberry,”

“But I should be treating you.”

“Spending time together is more than enough for me,”

My lips stretched across my face and I can’t undo it. It is as if, my cheeks has a mind of their own. No, Jasper was the one who’s making me smile and I can’t stop him. Or in better words, I don’t want him to stop.

After Jasper picked up an ice cream for himself, we bought it and decided to go home.