Honey, why?

18. The Covenant

Ping!

Ping! Ping!

Ping!

I groan. It only must have been five minutes that I get to be asleep. It has to be. My eyes feel so heavy. I reach for my phone blindly and when I don't find it on my side cabinet, I grope for it under my pillow. Gotcha. My hands goes to find my glasses next.

Ping!

All right already. I sit down, throwing the covers away and look at my phone. Twenty text messages. Twenty. Freaking. Text. Messages. What the heck. But those messages are not the one that has my heart throbbing at the base of my throat. My eyes move on to the numbers at the upper part of the screen and my eyes widen. It's six o'clock. I'm late!

***

Ms. Larkin just about finished saying the daily announcements when I arrive at the back of our line, hiding behind Tati. I climbed the stairs at the back of the building, avoiding the main stairs, so I could sneak up to our classroom and place my things there before heading stealthily to the main hall where the students are lined up for the morning assembly.

I almost got caught by Mr. Harris but he went back in his office, turning around before he could even see me. My Vice President, Chadi, is in front of the line with our class Secretary Teddy behind her. Yep, we've been re-elected for four year straight now.

When my classmates first nominated me, I was both surprised and flattered. I mean, I was one of the new kids and they didn't even know me that well. But here we are now three years later and they still want me to be their class rep. Or maybe it's just that nobody among them wanted to take responsibility. Dam these ducks.

I feel someone staring at me and I turn, coming face to face with the brooding Vinz. Well, face to chest, that is. Just one of the joys of being short, by this country's standards. I bet if I go someplace else, I'd be the tallest girl in the bunch. I won't have to worry about guys like Vinz Teng looming over me.

I hadn't noticed him there when I first sneak up behind Tati. His eyes pierces on me like daggers. I guess that's what I get for beating him in the race. Heh. I throw a questioning look at him. I mouthed, What? And the boy just faces straight ahead, completely ignoring me after I tried to talk to him. What a character. Really.

I wouldn't have to deal with this crap if Aunt Helly didn't snooze my alarm clock. She thought I always wake up early because I have a carpool with Paula and Jesse but she just doesn't understand the traffic in the morning as people rush to either school or work. It's fine for Lily and Bash to wake up at around six o'clock since they attend St. Thomas school, the same school I came from, which is literally just a walking distance away from home.

"So we expect each and every one of you to study hard and do your best in the coming monthly examinations. Especially the seniors who are looking forward to getting admitted to their school of choice in college. Isn't that right, seniors?"

There are a few yeah's and woo's but the cheering dies as soon as it started as Ms. Larkin eyes us coldly. She's even scarier than Professor Snape and Igor Karkaroff combined. Maybe that's the reason why guys are afraid to go after her, or so what Teddy said.

"And now, let me give the podium to our dear Mathematic Coordinator, Mr. Alvin, to make the last announcements regarding this Math Week's conclusion."

Everyone starts clapping softly as Mr. Alvin takes the mic. He smiles brightly at us with his lips closed, the dimple on his chin visible. He taps on the mic twice, to see if it's working, then murmurs an unsure, "Hello?" Laughter resonates in the hall.

Mr. Alvin reminds me of Rowan Atkinson when he plays Mr. Bean. I know, how silly of me but really, I'm not even exaggerating. And everyone thinks so, too, so I'm not the only one.

From his thick English accent and his standard uniform of coordinated brown blazer and trousers, to the way he walks with his head bowed down and his blinking eyes even though the sun is not hitting him directly, the guy's a real copycat of Mr. Bean. They only differ in looks - other than that, it's like watching the live action series of the show in, we'll, live action.

When Mr. Alvin finishes, the freshmen students are the first ones to go back to their classrooms escorted by the school prefects. There are eight of them, with Charles and Ophelia Tulsi, senior class-B and the Vice President of the Student Council, helping them from time to time.

So the finals for the academic contest will be held at the auditorium. The first half being at ten o'clock this morning, then the last half later at one o'clock in the afternoon. We can still review with Ash and Ali for about three hours.

"Well, well, well. Look who finally showed up late." Marica from the other senior class mocks me, standing beside her giant classmate Vinz. "You better be more careful, princess. Everyone's watching."

I am about to ask her about the meaning behind what she just said but their line is moving forward and she follows her classmate in front of her. Then it dawns me. The video. Oh my freaking - that Marica! I get it now. She was the only one who could've seen me with Charles that day. That girl. Why would she take a video of us then send it to Chad?

I am not eve aware that I am being left behind until Tati tanks my arm gently so I could follow her. "Earth to Ace! We're moving!"

My head bowed down, I will myself to breathe normally. I stare at my shoes as I count the steps I make on the paneled floor. I don't have any proof that it was Marica who took the video. I just have my gut feeling and those words she said that may as well be just empty threats. She says stuff like that all the times. But the timing of her telling me to be more careful and that everyone's watching to Chad showing me the video is just too perfect to be merely pure coincidence.

While I am thinking over this, I have no idea that Tati has already excused me to our first subject teacher, and that she is now dragging me to the Math Club organization room. I only look up when I wonder how is it taking too long to reach our classroom which is the closest room to the main hall.

Instinctively, I pull my arm from Tati. "Where do you think you're taking me? We still have a class!"

Tati opens the door to the room and the cold air from the air conditioner slaps me on the face, blowing my hair back. "Oh boohoo. Ms. Careen will just give us free time anyway. And I've already excused you because I'm already excused. Now if you'll just stay put, I have a Math Week to run. We're on the last day, baby!" And she's out the door.

What just happened? I moan impatiently and reach for the doorknob but someone stops me, closing the door that I manage to open only by an inch. I saw no one in the room when Tati and I first entered so just imagine my fear. I jump so high I feel my skirt flip only to see the face of the person I wanted to see the least as I turn around.

"Ruslan," I hiss. "You. Have. To. Stop. Doing. This!" I tell him as I poke his chest with my index finger. He cages me and I try escaping under his outstretched arms but he just blocks me. I scream in frustration.

"Well if you'll just listen to me, I won't have to do this, Ace." His voice is tainted with desperation. Even his eyes look worried and pleading as he searches mine.

But what can I do? I already listened to him, okay? And look where that took me. I can't believe he used Tati again. It was okay the first time but I'll really be upset with her if she keeps on succumbing to his wishes in exchange of gifts. Tati has such a weak spirit.

"Ace." I don't want to look at him. "Goddammit. Ace!" I know I'm making things worse but I just can't. I don't want to talk to him right now, or ever. I thought I'd given him his last chance yesterday and he just blew it again, so why are we still here? He always keep on disappointing me, hurting me. If he cares about me like he said he does, he won't be doing this to me. He won't be this selfish.

Ruslan leans on me so his face is level with mine. I turn my head to the side so I won't see him. "Please, Ace. Tell me what to do. I don't want this. Just please listen to me and let me explain."

That does it. How can he demand so much from me when he's already taken plenty? From that day I caught him in his bed with another girl, to those years that we just became strangers as if our friendship didn't even existed in the history books anymore, those times I wish I didn't feel hurt but I did and dam it all, I still do. If he doesn't want this, what makes him think that I do?

"Let me go, Ruslan. I have to review Ash and -"

I am surprised at how he suddenly grabs my face and forces me to look at him. "Screw them! Look at me and listen to what I have to say!"

"There isn't anything to say, Rus. Let us just... let it go."

He is heaving so hard I'm afraid I might have angered him too much. Now that I have no choice but to look at him, I see how his nostrils flare as he controls his breathing, thin lips pursed into a scowl. Ruslan never hurt anybody physically and I know he won't, he can't because he's a good guy, but at this moment, as his fingers curl around my hair almost painfully, I wonder if what I just said will make him hit me. It sounds hurtful even to my ears. I'm telling him to not bother explaining himself to me because I won't believe him anyway. Because I don't trust him. And that's just the truth.

He backs away from me a few inches and I prepare myself for what he'll do next. Maybe he'll try to kiss me again like he did yesterday or maybe he'll finally let me go...

He did neither. Ruslan takes hold of the back of my neck, his other arm pressed against the small of my back. I stand there, frozen with my arms hanging limp on my side. I start crying.

***

March 2006

Now I didn't tell anyone what really had happened. Even I didn't quite fully grasped what I just saw and I don't think it's something to be discussed with my aunts, let alone my parents. Just think of how cringeworthy the conversation would be. It'll be more uncomfortable than the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees because though it's exactly just that, what I saw surely wasn't sugar coated.

Here in my room, I'm sweating under my thick fluffy pink covers though it's fairly cold in my room. When aunt Helly daw me crying after I just came from my best friend's house, I just told her that we fought. "About what?" She'd asked. And I just ran to my room not bothering to look back as she called me.

I'm glad it was her who saw me first. If it was Aunt Emmy, shell just drill me and I have to tell her eventually. I'm not good at keeping secrets and I'm a bad liar. Add that up to Aunt Emmy's fierce glares and I'm done for. She's a human truth serum. A walking lie detector.

Aunt Terry wouldn't be better. She'll just be all over me, she might've even scold me for not telling her what's bothering me then she'll go on a full discussion about how adults trust children and all they ask is for the former to be honest with the latter. Mom is like her. They'd just team up and then I'd just give in and tell them what I saw and I'm not ready for such a confrontation.

If I'd told either one of them, it'd be a huge mess. My mom will go to his mom and she'll go to him and everything will be laid out and I don't want that. My best friend is free to do whatever he wants and whoever he wants to do it with. He's free to love whoever he wants. Because that's what he was just doing with the girl in his room, right? Making love. Because they love each other. He loves her.

After months of ditching me and avoiding me, he finally asked me to come see him only to show me what he'd been busy with, I mean, who he'd been busy with.

That huge spectacle explained a lot. The missed weekends, no presents on my birthday and Christmas, avoiding my calls and not responding to my mails, text messages, and e-mails.

I swallow hard, my throat still tight. The tears that landed a few minutes on my cheeks, however, have already dried. Ignoring the continuous ringing of my phone, I step out of bed and goes to my bathroom, splashing warm water on my face after I removed my glasses. I blow my nose, running my snot through the water.

Taking my book with me, I open to the page where I left my watermelon bookmark and start reading. This has to work. I have to erase from my mind the image of my best friend and his other friend on his couch. They don't even look like people, to be honest. I was so shocked that all that registered in my mind was seeing human grasshoppers, they way their legs were all tangled - okay, that's it. I can't really concentrate on my book with the noise.

Rubbing the root of my nose, I jump from my chaise and take my phone from my backpack. Without looking at the screen, I turn it around, opening the back and taking the battery out. There. Now I can see what happens next now that Shasta had met Aravis.

I haven't gotten to the next page when a knock on my door distracts me once again. I puff an exasperation and say, "Come in."

And what do you know. It's the male grasshopper now clothed in brown trousers and gray polo shirt. My cheeks heat up as I see his expression, clearly embarrassed.

Well I should be the one feeling that, shouldn't I? He has no right to feel ashamed for doing that to a girl. It's like an insult to her if he does. Why did Aunt Helly let him in?

I bury my nose in my book again, my now sweaty palms digging much harder into the glossy paper. Sheesh. But I can't put it down right now. It's my only barrier against the wild wind that blows.

"Ace..." His voice is so low I'm not sure if he actually spoke or it's just my imagination.

The words just swim in my eyes, I'm reading but I'm not really understanding. I'm too focused on keeping my breathing normal and my tears at bay. Ruslan's figure comes close to me that I could see him from my book. Still, I don't look up.

I'm stronger than I think I was and I might be a crybaby but I won't cry over the same thing twice. This, my hand goes to my chest, is diamond. I'm not gonna let anybody hurt me.

I wait for him to speak. He should be the one to do so, of course. But I didn't expect him to say one of the most cliched lines in history. "It's not what you think it is."

Who am I, his girlfriend? Because it just sounded like he was explaining to his girlfriend that what she just saw is not actually him cheating on her. It's not what it looks like.

But I'm not his girlfriend. I'm just his best friend. His really close girl best friend who he took on sweet dates to eat on romantic restaurants and watch movies with, the one he gifted with the sweetest things which holds a lot of memories and thoughts.

I'm just that close friend who's a girl and I'm just the one who shared my deepest insecurities to him, to whom he cried on for reasons as shallow as the Cobana Creek or as deep as the sea past Ranger's Beach. The one who he says the loveliest promises to, of graduating together, working together, living together, and growing old together. I'm just that. I'm just not the girl he makes love to.

At first it was just two children thinking how easy it was to stay together forever but only know do I realize that there had always been this invisible barrier between us and we can't just do things we want to just because we're best friends.

Like when we stopped taking baths together and our play dates were monitored more closely by an adult as they turned into play dates without the play. Or how he has to go to the doctor and do some surgery that got me frantic for the whole weekend because nobody would tell me what kind of operation it was. Then when I saw him again, he was walking in an odd manner and wincing from time to time as something in his crotch hurts him. Or that day when I was certain I was dying, so I called him and when he came here at my house, my aunts prevented him from seeing me and he had to tell his mom and cause such a huge commotion about the whole thing only to be consoled and told that nothing bad happened to me and that I just quote, blossomed and had become a real lady, end quote.

It was difficult to adjust to the hormones but we found a way. Of course we did. He attends an all-boys school like I attend an all-girls one, and we never had much talk of those other things that boys and girls do together. The flowers and the bees.

And just when I thought that we're in this together, that we're actually on the same page, I find him discovering something new from another girl.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't want to do that with him. Oh, God, no. I haven't even thought about that. I guess when the right time comes, maybe... Who knows? But I've learned from some girls at school that boys are much more into it than us.

"They're like lions hunting for gazelles. All proud and mighty kings of the jungle. But of course, don't just let your hoo hah be ravaged dismissively. It's a sacred act, after all. That's why some people even wait until marriage."

"Yeah, but guys don't wait for marriage. It's okay for them to do it, like, for practice. But us girls have to be more careful. It's indiscreet if we just sleep around."

"And you don't want your future husband to think your some kind of a hooker, right?"

I looked up the word hooker on the internet that night. I wish I hadn't. I had to delete my browsing history after I did that, erasing all memory of it on my mind.

Sure, some of the girls at my school talk like high schoolers already and I sometimes can't keep up with their jargon but I've picked up a thing or two from them and I've wondered since then if my best friend was the same as any other boys that they talked about.

Of course I didn't just go around and ask him. That'd be so embarrassing! But I see now that what I've heard is true and that Ruslan had already found someone to practice with.

***

October 2009

"I love you, Ace. Believe me, I do." His hand runs up and down my spine as his words enter my one of my ears before going out the other. I want to feel something, dammit. I want to hate him, loathe him, anything. But I just feel empty and tired.

My tears have long since dried by the cold air and we're still here, doing the same thing we have had done, him having me in a tight embrace as he asks for an apology I never wanted from him, four years ago.

Leaning back, I try once again to get out of his hold, only this time I do so weakly, having been trying it over and over again. Still, his hand cups the back of my head firmly on his chest, his pressed white shirt is now crumpled.

I wonder if Lyanna was the one who chose it for him. Ruslan always taught tooth and nail with his mother when it comes to his absurd taste in shirts but she always won. This shirt in particular feels like linen. If Rus would've made the choice, he'd have picked the impractical satin one over this. Silly boy.

"We're done. Shannon and I broke up. I've always wanted you, Ace. No one else. And now you're going to listen to me. You're not going anywhere. You're not running away from me again."

A deep seated hatred springs up my chest and I feel alive again. Finally! Running away. Who, me? Okay, maybe I did run away from him yesterday but he was stressing me out!

Right, they'd broken up. Shannon. That same girl he was with before. What does he want to do now, replace her with me? Telling me him and his girlfriend has broken up then coming at me with the pretense of wanting to date me? Who would not be upset about that?

I shove him hard this time as I'm really trying to escape his hold. He takes notice as his fingers ever so slightly tighten around the back of my neck.

"No, Ace. You'll stay here and listen," he says firmly. "I told you it's not what it looks like."

Ah. The cliche of all cliches of cheating. Hadn't we clarified this before?

I turn my head to my side so my voice would not be muffled in his shirt. "I don't know what you wanted me to do, Ruslan. We've long since been over this. You don't need my permission on who to see or date or whatever, you never did have to. And the past doesn't matter anymore."

Even to my own ears, my voice is hard and high. I've never spoken like this before. I feel like I'm hearing Chadi speak. It cuts to the bones.

Ruslan finally let go of me but his hands only to grip me by my upper arms, his glare intense and imploring. His lips quiver the slightest bit though his voice is steady as he speaks. "It does matter."

For a second there, I see my best friend again, the always cheery and gentleman Ruslan whose face always lights up when he sees me. I'm sure mine did, too.

I sigh, my eyes dropping down. You're wrong, Ruslan. It doesn't matter. Not anymore. I'm over this. I won't cry again. I shouldn't. I can't. I'm stronger than I think I am.

As much as I am sorry for storming out on him yesterday after all the trouble he went through just so he could explain himself to me, I also feel like this conversation is pointless. I told myself I'm never going back, no more second looks whatsoever. It took me this long and I'll be dam if Ruslan destroyed my resolve. I can't do this again. I don't want to get hurt again.

"Ace," he whispers. I wonder if he recognize the defeat in my face. "Please don't do this to me. Don't shut me out. I'm trying here."

When I don't respond, he continues. "Shannon was the daughter of my father's old associate in his company."

Oh-kay? I have an empire to manage and I don't know why I am given the chance to hear this love story between him and his ex.

"Before you think of anything, please let me finish." Nope, buddy. You won't get any reaction from me. I won't give you that satisfaction. "So you know how we inherited my dad's share in the company he started? It was all good until five years ago, when one of his partners tried to buy us out of the company."

I already know this. Daddy even helped them resolve the problem. What I don't know is why I am treated into a retelling of this tale. Maybe Rus thinks I need a refresher course or something.

"That business partner was Shannon's father. He proposed a marriage between the two of us. Those months that I wasn't around... it was those time that I was getting to know her."

Wow. Now that is something new. My eyes lock with Ruslan's bottle green ones and I know then that he knows that he's got my attention. Tell me more, Rus. Tell me more about this sudden plot twist. I'm really interested, you absolutely caught my ears. You got it, Rus. I'm listening.