Saltus International School
Seri rummages her bag and takes out her phone.
Zeal
Today
07:09 Didn't connect
07:07 Didn't connect
07:06 Didn't connect
06:00 Didn't connect
Yesterday
22:10 Didn't connect
22:06 Didn't connect
22:04 Didn't connect
22:02 Didn't connect
22:01 Didn't connect
19:32 Didn't connect
18:00 Didn't connect
15:00 Didn't connect
11:00 Didn't connect
08:09 Didn't connect
07:47 Didn't connect
07:49. Didn't connect
Two days ago
22:02 Didn't connect
22:00 Didn't connect
...…."
"He must be extremely busy, she thinks. But he was excited when I told him we were going to the same school..."
"I had 2 lectures today and I didn't see him. Where could he be? Did he come to school today? Is he not well? Is he bunking classes on the first day? Why can't he just pick his phone. Maybe he texted me…. but my WeChat account is not working. I'll try logging in once again. This punk always gets me worried. Maybe I know where he is.' She thinks.
She tries to log in to her WeChat account as she climbs the stairs and moves through the corridor. Finally it logs in. 58 new meassags from 6 chats. She scrolls down to look for Zeal'. 3 unread messages from him.
"Ok, so he had some brain to text." She thinks. But she had almost reached the room so she thinks that she will ask him herself. As she pushes the door of the Music Room, she feels a sudden hard grip on her shoulder. A boy pins her to the wall, and starts kissing her passionately. She tries to break her hand loose of the tight grip but his hard bones were compressing it tightly by the second.
She was pushing him hard but not even with all her might she was being able to budge him.
After 15 seconds, he breaks loose, still having the audacity to look straight into her eyes.
Her legs no more had even the strength to stand. In a split of a second, the world had changed. She falls on the floor, her head bent down.
"Sorry, It was a dare. I had to kiss the first person who entered this room." The boy said smugly with no guilt.
"You are so lucky, bro, you got out even this time."A boy said.
"Yeah I was imagining he would have to kiss a cleaner or a keeper but his luck is incredible..Got to kiss a girl and that to such a beautiful one."Someone says.
"Hey, don't start crying. It's not such a big deal. I already said sorry. Don't be serious cause I wasn't." He says.
"Guessing from her face, it looks like you took her first kiss." Someone says.
"I have never seen her before. She must be a newbie. If I would have seen I sure would have made her my girlfriend."
With a feeling of a thousand pieces of glass wedged between her soul and body, she tries to stand back. Shivering, she tries to grab her phone which had fallen from her hands and then tries to grab the knob. Twisting it, without looking back she leaves the room. She runs to her locker, takes out her bag and locks it. Without looking at anyone she walks out of the school gates. She takes a taxi which stops in front of her house. She opens Zeal's chat.
2 days ago.
Tucked you in with bunny so you can sleep on his shoulder when you look for me.
*attachment*
(There was an attachment with this message, a selfie of him smiling, her sleeping in bunny's arms.)
He cares about you as much as I do.
Seen
Yesterday
Don't you miss those days when our bags were heavy, not hearts.
Pencils were broken, not promises.
Tears were less frequently fake than smiles?
I do. I have to leave, maybe for the best of us. Sometimes I think, it wasn't meant to go this far. You deserve so much better. Keep smiling because your smile makes the sun shine brighter.
She types.
'Did your parents teach you that you have to buy what you break?
(An attachment of a photo. I have written the contents of the photo.)
Here's the full list of body parts and their cost:
• Pair of eyeballs:$1,520
• Shoulder: $500
• Coronary artery: $1,550
• Heart: $119,000 (underlined)
• Liver: $108,000'
Sent at 16:07
The taxi stops in front of her house. The sky was becoming dull with lightening rolling in the clouds. The taxi driver starts,"Ma'am-"
"Thank you" She says hastily and pays the driver. She walked in a hurry to her apartment. She hastily opens the door and closes it shut behind her. Suddenly, tears start streaming from her eyes onto her cheeks. Silently crying, she takes out her coat and removes her shoes. She sits on the bean bag, keeps the bunny in her lap, and hides her head between her bunny's ears. Her hands tightly circling the bunny, she holds it in silence. It was as if the bunny and she were having a brain to brain conversation. Her body was shaking. The sadness and pain that she had been holding inside her for all this time was breaking her.
She was acting like a kid whose parents were gonna come and hug her, but she wasn't a kid she had grown up. Slowly, she moves to washroom and splashes water on her face. The cold water on her warm face felt somewhat like a burning sensation.All she wanted, now was to see him. In just a few years she had grown so used to him. She had become so used to sharing her pain with him that now without him to hold her, she felt a big part of her missing.
She didn't cry because of that kiss, but because they had grown so quickly. She didn't care about the comments the boys gave, but her parents, their car crash, her car crash all was suddenly coming back. She was sad for all the fun times, she thought they still had and would now not share. People stayed longer in her head than her life. Everything was falling right in front of her eyes. And the worst part that she couldn't do anything about it.
She tries to sleep, to escape from this world. But sleep didn't come easy, her mind wanders about something that happened 5 years ago, something that happened 3 years ago, and something that happened 2 hours ago.
*Crash*
The thunder noises strike followed by the soothing sound of the rain falling on the roads and the bustling traffic of the city. Seri soon, tired by the anxiety, listening to the calm sounds, falls into a deep slumber with a last thought.
Rain, really, is the best lullaby.