Nethania

Chapter 18: Paper Junks

AVIA

EVERYTHING in my world seemed decimated. Yesterday was a bad day. I felt my excitement about going to school had vanished, and all I wanted to do was sulk in the corner and regret all my life decisions.

I was half kidding and half regretting it. Just kidding, because I kinda like what yesterday brought to us and I regret it. Guess what, my mind and heart were battling over something that didn't matter to me anymore. Even though my heart rejoiced, my mind was still extremely opposed to how the votes turned out yesterday.

I wanted to slap Hannah for inviting the two jerks to join in our group. Yet I have come to think that I needed Austin to know the truth behind this bloody ruckus, and it seemed like he was determined to dig deeper into it. And I already told him about fragments of facts that I knew and he gave his opinions related to the subject as well. If Hannah hadn't invited them to join us, I would have lost the opportunity to find the truth with him and I might have been living in overthinking about the things that I could have done.

I hate the fact that Hannah did great and I wanted to slap her for that.

"Avia! Your food is laughing at you. Eat it or else it will run away from your plate," Hannah hissed and stopped eating. I glared at her, at Hilary and at my plate, and then I realized that I was spaced out while holding my fork and kept turning it sideways in the middle of the plate.

"You're just looking ahead with drooped eyes and—"

"Hey, Hilary, haven't you forgotten what you did to me yesterday?" I cut her words short, glaring at her. I dropped my fork and pushed the plate away from me.

I lost my appetite.

She wiped off her mouth with a napkin while looking at me. "What did I do?" She asked like an innocent girl.

I raised my brows and rolled my eyes. "So is playing dumb your game now?" I queried.

This girl, she was the last who voted in favor of Nico's and Austin's acceptance in our group.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "What game?"

"Hilary!" I snapped, bitting my lower lip and eyeing her intently.

"What?" she asked again.

"Geez!"

"Oh, what game is it?"

"Nevermind it." I said, clenching my fists. I caught her eyeing Hannah and Hannah stared back at her.

I slammed my hand on the table that made them look at me. "Hey! Stop playing around?" I snarled, my eyes were narrowing, and my nostrils were moving up and down like they were flaring with fire.

"What?" Hannah asked innocently. "We're not playing around here."

I raised my eyebrow. "I saw your eyes met and you smirked at each other. You are indeed playing me!"

They nodded. "We're not," Hilary said.

I inhaled deeply. "Okay, just... just... nevermind it."

I inhaled and exhaled deeply while closing my eyes. These two girls targeted me this morning to play around.

"Hannah," I said, pulling her attention. She looked at me. "Tell me, why in the world you thought of inviting them to join in our group?" I asked.

She looked away while giggling and bit her food."You really didn't catch the situation, Avia."

My mouth slightly parted and stared at her."What situation?" I asked.

She sighed and eyed me. "The situation is that me and Nico are now a couple, and I always wanted him to be with me, so I made them join our group, and since Austin is Nico's best friend, I let him join too. At least to make you happy."

What the hell did I just hear? To make me happy? She must be joking right now.

My mouth formed an O shape and placed my hand on my chest and leaned backwards. "Geez! Excuse me? To make me happy? Do you know that you ruined my entire day?They wouldn't be in our group if Hilary didn't vote for them!" I expressed, looking at Hilary.

She was drinking her water and she stopped. "Why was I at fault?" She jerked her thumb to herself. "I simply voted and used my freedom of choice to express my opinion, that's all," she reasoned out and continued to drink her water.

I squinted my eyes and glared at them. "You planned for this, don't you?"

"What plan?" Hilary asked. "We never planned this."

Hannah stood and lifted up her plate from the table. "The decision that was made yesterday is f*****g final and here's my suggestion for you, stay in the group, Austin will still be there; leave the group, Austin will still stay in the group. Choose wisely," she said, winking at me and leaving me dumbfounded at the table.

I eyed Hilary and she just shrugged her shoulders and stood, putting her eating utensils properly on the plate together. She walked toward the kitchen and entered inside.

I turned my head directly towards their spot. "Why am I the one who will leave? This is my group, not theirs," I yelled.

"Just accept the situation, Avia!" Hannah shouted back. "Who knows, this will be the best year for you!"

Best year? Geez!

I scoffed. "Blah, blah, blah, who cares?"

"Fine! If you don't want to believe, that's your problem," Hannah said, walking out of the kitchen, rolling her eyes at me.

We readied ourselves for our class later. We donned our uniforms and at exactly six-thirty AM, we went out of our room. Hilary and I eyed each other when we saw Nico was waiting outside our room. I closed the door and I faced them.

Nico was holding a single stem of a red rose and handed it to Hannah. He was smiling and slightly looking down. His hand was behind his back, obviously shy about what he was doing right now, while Hannah tucked her loose hair behind her back and accepted the rose with an ear-to-ear grin, and her face went red as a tomato. Ugh...I rolled my eyes. I have witnessed the banality of courting again. Every girl has experienced accepting roses from a guy. Yet no matter how many times it was done, the feeling of sparkling sensation was still there.

"Nic! How was it?" I glanced at my left side when a husky voice reached our spot. I saw his messy yet attractive hair dancing and bouncing along with the wind, and a grinning face that was captivating to every soul he faced. A mesmerizing set of gray eyes, a bewitching face, and a seizing bulky appearance were charging at us.

"Hold your jaw tight, Avia," I got back to my senses when Hilary whispered. She nudged me in the side when I wasn't paying attention to her. I stared at her and narrowed my eyes, warning her about nudging me.

"Austin, you still managed to come here, I thought you were not going here?" Nico said.

Austin shook his head. "I didn't say that! I said that I'd come here but you should go first because I have something to do in our dorm," Austin stated.

"Yeah." Nico nodded. "Reason is prepared."

"Hi, Avia," Austin greeted me with a cute smile. Before I could respond, their eyes twitched and nailed me.

"Hi," I simply answered, and then rolled my eyes. I wanted to greet him good morning, but these eyeballs kept monitoring my every move, so that's what I just replied.

"Let's go, it's getting late," I reminded and started walking along the hallway. I didn't care to look back because I knew, they would just tease me with him.

We reached our classroom with our ears full of the sweet words of Hannah and Nico. Along the way, they kept telling each other how much they love each other without considering that there were people around them.

I sat in my chair and on time when our teacher came inside. He began to discuss things and stuff related to our subject and gave a short quiz afterwards. Unexpectedly, someone from the administration office came to our classroom and announced that there would be an urgent meeting in the faculty room and all teachers were required to attend.

Our classmates celebrated the short class break. At least we have our time to rest for awhile.

"Hey," Austin whispered behind me. I saw him sitting on a vacant chair beside me when my seatmate went out to buy snacks.

"What?" I asked without turning to him.What did he want?

"Do you still remember the headline?" He asked. Oh, that.

"Yes?" I nodded. "How about that?"

"We had agreed that we would meet Jeromy and ask him if he still had a copy of it, right?"

"Uh-huh, so?" This time I faced him.

"This is the best time to go for it!" He said, pointing her forefinger to the ground."The faculty has an urgent meeting and we will be free for one hour. Enough time to add information to our little investigation."

I nodded. "Okay, Jeromy was here, Austin.He isn't at the Publication Office. What if he asks about it?" I asked.I was sure Jeromy would ask about the magazine we would like to procure from him.

"I'll talk to him," he said. "When we go out of the room, you will follow us. I know you're a little bit uncomfortable with me now and I understand it. That's only temporary, I know," he muttered, smiling, and stood, walking toward the spot of Jeromy.

I sighed. "Geez."

After five minutes of waiting for them. I saw them stand and strode to the door and went out. I stood without making a loud sound so Hannah and Hilary wouldn't know that I left. They were sleeping on their desks. I strode to the door and went out, and I saw Jeromy and Austin talking to each other in front of the railing.

When they saw me, we began walking along the hallway. They were still talking about the magazine we would like to check and I couldn't resist myself not to join their conversation.

"So, Jeromy," I began. "Are you sure there are piles of old magazines at the Publication Office?" I asked, glancing at him.

She turned to me. "Of course! There's a special place for them. Since they were not used anymore, we piled them in one room. I don't know what particular magazine you are looking for, but if you'll tell me, maybe I can help—"

"No, we can manage," I interjected. I caught a glimpse of Austin sighing behind Jeromy's back. He thought I would tell Jeromy about the magazine. After all, why would I?

"Okay, your choice." Jeromy sighed.

We reached the Publication Office and Jeromy opened the door for us. We entered the office and the publication staff greeted the editor-in-chief and Jeromy just smiled at them and we were staring at his constituents like strangers who were following their king.

He stopped in front of a room where it was located in the secluded part of the office. He took out his keys and opened the door and turned the light on. Piles of magazines were revealed to us. I cringed while looking at them. How were we supposed to find one magazine in a mountain of piles here? We needed only one magazine, yet he gave us a mountain of it.

"Here," he said, coughing. The dust particles began hovering in the air. "We piled all the magazines that have been published since the start of the school establishment until now. I hope you know what year and month your missing article was published. Good luck," he said and left us.

I sighed and placed my hand on my waist while staring at the piles of magazines in front of us.

"It's just weird because there's no date, month or year attached to the headline. Now where in this room we can find this magazine where the headline was written?" I complained, while groping my hand through the magazines.

Austin began rummaging through the stock of magazines in front of him. "It's quite hard to find in this pile of paper junk since we didn't have an idea when it was published," he uttered, without turning to me.

We roamed around the huge room. I was coughing whenever I touched a magazine. It was so dusty and we needed a handkerchief to cover our noses.

After several minutes of finding the freakin' magazine. I stopped and sat on a chair that was resting in the corner. I wiped off my sweat since the room was hot and no ventilation was installed. And Austin stood beside me and tried to make air by swinging a magazine up and down in front of us.

I sat up straight when I thought of something useful for us right now. "Wait, that's a headline, right? A news that is worthy of being on the front cover..."

He faced me."Yeah!" He nodded. "You're right! Maybe we can find the headline title on the front cover!" he exclaimed, then resumed his search in the mountain of paper junks.

I repeated my finding pattern and when I reached the hidden right corner, my gaze was nailed to the magazine, which had the headline title on its front cover.

I stretched out my hand and reached it out. "Here! I found it!" I announced when I got it out from where it was located.

Austin rushed to me. "This it is. Let's open this."

We opened the magazine and searched the headline news. But we only found a missing page. Exactly where the content page was told that the headline news was written.

"Geez! It's missing!" I heaved an exasperating sigh. "The whole page is missing! Now how are we supposed to know this if the whole page was torn apart for the magazine?"

"Maybe there's another copy of this," Austin said, started to look at the place where I found this magazine.

"That's the only one," Austin said, his voice trailing off.

"Are you looking for this?"

"Oh, crap,"

What the hell?