i.
2832 Words
For each year you spend with someone, it takes about six months to get over them.
It's something I've read somewhere, I think, or heard in passing. And it's something that would have slipped after a second or two of simply grasping the thought.
I've held on to it, however, turned it over, written it somewhere at the back of my mind, erased it, written it back, and at some point choked on it.
I still wonder how much of it is a careful calculation. It has seemed easy for those whose tears I've dried, heads I've shouldered, and hearts I've watched heal in as little as a few weeks.
I've always marveled about them. Still do.
_
It's raining.
It's a Monday, the first day of classes, and it's raining.
There's nothing much to complain about, I think, but it is a travel inconvenience. Wet patches have decorated the hem of my long skirt despite the wide spread of my umbrella. My socks have remained dry, at least.
It pours harder the very second my shoes leave wet ground onto slightly damp cement. A fleeting glance at the dark skies and I am off to my first class, skirt a little heavier and closed umbrella still dripping.
It's strange, at the same time vaguely familiar, to be early. I only find out now that an empty hall and a vacant stage are subjects for worry whether I have entered the correct room. I have, though, as checked. And as I check a mental list about sitting at the very front, I wonder: What do people do when they arrive early?
I've known, I think so, and then forgotten, because I don't know how to review anymore. I've always thought advance studies never suit me, not when words on papers have never made sense unless time magics them with urgency. It's no better with stories, and movies, and sometimes, songs.
Sometimes I think about it—the old interests that offer nothing now—and wonder why. I've heard of good-natured advices on changes: "Your opinions now and perceptions, interests, tastes all change," they say. "It's part of growing up; parts of you transform according to the time and events pertinent to your age."
How much of that is the truth, for myself anyway, I can't really judge when it does explain enough.
So I pick the smooth, glassy feel of my phone among all the other textures mixed in my handbag. I scroll through it mindlessly—aimlessly. There is not much to it. The number of games I have had three years ago have long lost their appeal. I have wondered, then, if my taste has simply changed. However, after tens and twenties of games not lasting more than a day because playing them has inevitably proven to be more of a chore rather than a past-time regardless of how they seem interesting at first, I have found that it has, after all, nothing to do with my taste.
It's another case of transition, I have guessed. I still think it is (even if a part of my mind is sewing a stray thread of thought).
A presence announces themself soon through the soft thuds their feet make against the floor and a lone creak from the benches. Whoever they are, they must have sat at the very far back. They remain quiet, too, barely enough to fill the emptiness of the lecture hall.
It's not for long I grow tired of swiping through my senseless applications. I have to put the phone down when my neck is straining from looking down. It's always easy to feel sore—to notice the soreness—when nothing is keeping my mind occupied.
I wait a few minutes more. Then another set of few until more presence begin to gather enough for a bit of noise.
None of them talk, surprisingly. They're trying to get a feel of each other, maybe.
One girl sits one seat away from me and immediately opens her phone to pass time. In a domino effect, I check mine, too, despite the promise of nothingness in it.
Nothing. There is nothing, as I have ascertained, yet I keep my eyes on the screen anyway. There's no scrolling this time, just pure looking at the beige wallpaper meshed with a picture of last semester's class schedule at fifty percent opacity.
Eventually, fingers that can't keep still when they are but an inch away begin to tap at the screen. It opens to my notes where rows upon rows of checkboxes remain unchecked for nearly six months now since the first item finds itself preceded by another, then another, until everything's all just a long "Dream on!" to my face.
I tick one off, something about sitting at the very front row, but then it suddenly feels oddly easy. I still have two more classes, and I think of them for a second or two before the item is back unchecked. I rephrase it to "sit in front row for all classes" and hope it's crossed off the list at the end of the day.
The professor enters, finally, in a confident strut not too unlike a model on a runway. She sports a backpack on her adorable size, a healthy bush of brunette noodles overhead, and a straight face beneath thick-rimmed glasses.
I can't help the sigh that brushes past the small smile on my lips as I lean back and decide, even if unfairly so: This one is going to require abilities beyond my range, and I will be unable to force myself to like it.
She's loud and jolly when she puts down that large backpack that seems to have weighed on her world in those few seconds she was walking the isle. And she's brilliant and passionate when she beings immediately her performance on the stage she seemingly owns. And her laugh is boisterous as she sets rules upon rules I have been made to believe to be only found in high school.
It's not remotely dislike I feel about her, nor is it displeasure about the rules. I don't think it's even about the rules because I am, at least, confident about my early waking-ups and my sense of propriety to know when to look at my phone, when and where to sleep, and when to converse with anyone else—all of which she has set an expectation to.
It's simply in the hollowness of her laugh as she lists her rules. It's the way it makes her sound both sincere and passive-aggressive at the same time. It's the way she holds a peculiar smile—it looks both sharp and friendly to me—as she gazes at each and every single one of us.
(I think about it, for a moment, this sort of entitlement I feel like I hold to judge, and feel the discomfort of doubt. Yet still, I hold on to it—to the judgement—as if it's an absolute.)
"It's easy to pass my class," she says. "All it takes is for you to do your part as my students."
I shudder at the implication. It's not necessarily what she means, of course, but it still implies the same, even if unintentionally. And it's something I will never manage to do—being a teacher's pet, that is.
Someone can, however. And I think of this as I watch a boy across the other column raise a hand excitedly. He has a charming smile, contagious and unbearably softening.
I can't even manage to maintain a smile without feeling the strain.
(I can't even hope to have that kind of weapon, can I?)
I recognize him from the previous semester. He does well for himself. He's no genius but he uses hardwork smartly. He's punctual, and sociable, and somehow easily makes an impression simply with how he presents—and still so humbly so—his possessions of brands of clothes, shoes, watches, gadgets, and—
(Do I even have the means to go against something like that?)
I'm not immune to envy, and I find that envy borders with resentment, and resentment so easily propagates itself everywhere, including one's self. And—
(Why must I find a battlefield in this, even?)
I turn my head away. To where, even I don't know. The charmed smile of the professor is hardly any option, not while my insides churn.
I find myself fiddling with a piece of paper thirty minutes before this class ends.
She says to write our expectations. I don't have one, though—not for her, at least. Whatever it is I have hoped to witness from her are overwritten with hasty judgements I'm not ready to disprove yet (and nor will I ever, I think).
So I write: "I expect for all to be well. Today. Tomorrow. The next days."
I'm out of my seat as soon as she waves us off with her own hopes of seeing us the next meeting. I don't hope the same, but instincts have me answering her quietly anyway.
Sunlight assault my eyes when I pass by one of the glass windows. The sky is clearing, it seems, albeit only partially.
Strange weathers this town has.
—and people too.
He stands there—leaning, really—just when I turn a corner, eyes closed, arms crossed, and head bobbing to whatever beat his bright pink headphones are giving him.
I ought to be surprised, yet I also can’t just deny that I have bore witness to the obsessive way his kind would chase after their prey.
I pass him by, anyway, with nary an indication that I have seen him nor recognize him. I do not know him. No, really. I do not know him outside his name and his high school reputation.
“Chant.”
There’s no more of the dread I’ve always felt when this familiar voice as much as snorts within my vicinity, but I still stiffen all the same.
“Hey,” he says again.
A silent breath escapes my lung.
The hallway is long and wide. Running through them would be easy, even if the floor looks slippery. Yet I do none of that.
I turn to him, feigning a mild surprise, and answer, “Hi.”
He straightens soon enough, uncrosses his hands, pulls down his headphones, and answers to my greeting with his own breathy and uncertain “Hi.” It’s strange—him having emotions that is. Yes, he is a person, and yes, people have emotions. But he has never been one to show anything other than his cold arrogance.
The uncertainty in his eyes, as if he’s threading on thin ice, unnerves me.
“It’s… good to see you here,” he mutters but more confidently this time.
I give him a vague nod, a short fleeting smile, and I continue ahead. He follows and falls into step beside me.
“You on your break?”
“Hmn.”
“I’m grabbing coffee. Wanna come with? I’ll pay.”
I glance at him from the sides. He’s already looking back and seems to anticipate a positive response.
Something about him is softer. I press my lips in a thin line at that and ask him instead, “You’re alone today?”
He doesn’t reply, but his jaw does tighten as he looks away towards the direction we are heading. The discomfort at his attitude simmers down to a slow, settling understanding.
This college is hardly anything special. It’s not bad, but it’s not even among the choices for the people in my hometown. Usually, those who enroll here are the locals around, or those from the smaller towns who hardly have any institute in their community.
His friends would have chosen Greenfield—a college four states away—instead of here. The last time I heard, he has also enrolled there. His transfer here would have not made sense for any of his acquaintances to follow. He understandably feels out of place alone, and I suppose my familiar presence is the only comfort he can find.
“Maybe next time,” I reply despite his lesser rudeness and almost pitiful loneliness because I have other pressing matters to attend to.
He doesn’t seem surprised. In fact, he seems to have expected a refusal because he doesn’t even fall out of step.
“Going somewhere else? I’ll go with you.”
“No need.”
“Why not?”
I don’t know. I just don’t want to, but I know it’s not an answer for most people.
“Look, Chant,” he begins, his steps gradually going faster than mine until he is almost standing on my way.
I slow down at that.
“If it’s about back in high school—”
“It’s not, Sebastian.” Walking around him proves to be hard when he continuously blocks every direction I attempt to escape to. “Please leave me alone.”
“Chant, I just want to talk.”
I suppose we should. We really should. But now is not the time, and what he is doing right now feels like it’s high school all over again.
“Chant,” another voice joins. It’s deeper, more distant, but blissfully familiar.
Immediately, I turn and rush to that person. He’s not too far behind nor is he short. His long legs stride to meet me, and in seconds, he has me at his back, blocking Sebastian’s further advances.
“Let it go, bro,” he says to the other.
Sebastian yields, his dark eyes clouding in that familiar way they have always been throughout high school. I almost expect him to put up a challenge, but he simply looks at me for a second or two before turning and disappearing to a corner.
Only then did I feel how tense my body has become. I will myself to relax at the passing of danger, sighing quietly.
“I’m sorry about that.”
Edward shakes his head once. “Why is he here?”
“I don’t know either. I just met him a while ago.” I am not particularly interested in his reasons for being here either. I am, however, concerned as to why Edward crossed all the departments to come here. “You don’t have to go with me.”
“I heard from Liyan” —no, my cousin asked you— “It’s alright. I know some of the officers. What position are you eyeing?”
I don’t say it, but it’s the assurance I tried to deny but very much needed.
“It doesn’t matter which,” I reply, smiling.
It does. It very much does.
Next class comes slower than I have expected.
I have entered an hour too early, carrying a weight I have always expected but have never learned to manage. I suppose it should be some sort of a wake-up call—to learn from it properly—yet I can’t even answer how.
How do people move on from disappointment? How are they able to bounce back up so quickly? How does the world not seem to end for them when this happens?
And it frustrates me so—this struggle to get past it—because although the Student Council has since stopped accepting applications, I still did manage to sign up for a club. But it weighs so heavily that everything now seems as dark as the weather, so much so that I don’t even have the energy to sit in the front rows.
I have thrown myself on the closest chair from the door, and I must have been slumping for a while because when the professor comes, my body unconsciously straightens to soreness at my shoulders and lower back.
“Hello!” the professor’s voice booms.
I barely manage to catch myself flinching.
His attentive eyes seem to count over the many empty chairs, and for a moment, I become paranoid of him ordering for us back rows to scoot to the front. He doesn’t, however, and only makes a vague joke about it.
“Unfortunately for them, I am particular about attendance. And— Oh, here comes another one.”
The door opens, hopefully for the last, because I always feel it when the chill from outside rushes in.
“Well, that makes 37 of you, out of 50 students I have on the list. Raise a hand when I call on your last name.”
I don’t think I even remember when my last name is called, because all too soon, my world seem to have tilted.
This new comer...
He doesn’t look at me, but I can look at his face very clearly.
And—
He bears the face of a person I have always longed yet at the same time wish to never see.
- Writer
