It was Saturday, 6:00 AM, and Gen Aspire Station was already filled with people even though it's a weekend. And there I was, staring at my feet, while waiting for Craige to arrive. I've never been a morning person and what happened last night kept me up until two in the morning.
'I love you.'
I knew that I was the one who taught him how to properly deliver that line but when I watched him last night I was… speechless.
Everyone was so hyped when we successfully finished our presentation and decided to watch the others perform, but I found myself leaving the auditorium and walking back to the classroom before I knew it.
Then I just sat there.
Staring into space for a long time.
I was so shocked when he suddenly came in, so I felt awkward about being alone in that empty classroom with him. We greeted each other awkwardly and I thought that he'd leave right after changing his clothes which I knew was very uncomfortable. But then, he ended up giving me quite a show.
I didn't mind it, really.
I was just teasing him. I enjoyed teasing him. Although, I don't know why.
I also don't know why I felt weird when he told me that he was not faking any of the emotions he showed on that stage.
My chest felt heavy and there were no other words to describe it but… weird.
Uncanny? Peculiar? Strange?
Yeah… it's weird. That's it.
And that bothered me.
Still bothers me.
That's how I ended up here in the middle of the busy train station, spacing out since 5:30 in the morning while waiting for him.
Our train was scheduled to arrive in 5 minutes. 'Where the hell is that guy?'
Last night he told me to meet up in the station at 5:30AM, so the good girl in me woke up early and came at exactly 5:30AM.
I took my phone out to send him a message.
[Me: Where the hell are you? Do you know what time it is already? I've been waiting here for 30 whole minutes! And in case you don't know, I hate waiting! I have no patience for waiting! So you better be here or else I'll--]
*huuuuuuff*
"Ts."
[delete]
[delete]
[delete]
[deleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeete]
[Me: Where are you?][send]
10 seconds later...
[Clinton: I'm here. Escalator.]
I looked at the escalator and as soon as I saw him, I threw daggers with my eyes.
He ran towards me with an apologetic smile.
'You smiled?! You dared to smile after making me wait for 30 minutes?!'
"I'm really sorry. I overslept." He said apologetically while catching his breath.
I gritted my teeth into a forced smile. "It's okay."
I guess sometimes I could be really nice if I really wanted to.
He held out a paper bag from a famous sandwich store. "Breakfast?"
"Peace offering?" I raised an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. "Something like that."
I took the bag from him and saw four pieces of 6-inch sandwiches inside. "This is for sharing right?"
"No. That's only for you." He showed me another paper bag. "This is mine."
My jaw dropped. "I guess we won't be starving for the next 3 and a half hours."
He chuckled. "What are you talking about? This is just breakfast."
"What?!" I nearly dropped the paper bag but he was able to catch and hand it back to me.
He chuckled. "You better take care of your share. Just so you know, I'm not sharing mine."
My gaze traveled down to his belly area. They may not be obvious right now because he was wearing a loose sweatshirt, but I do vaguely remember seeing toned muscles in that area just last night.
That was when I came to a conclusion. 'Life is never fair.'
The train arrived and we boarded it. It was actually my first time going to Cape Hallows by train because I didn't like travelling for long hours. But for some reason, I felt excited about this trip.
As soon as we found our cabin, Craige unwrapped his first sandwich with gusto. It smelled like smoked beef and made my tummy grumble in protest. With a defeated sigh, I also pulled out one sandwich from my bag.
"Are you sure it's okay to eat this much? I'm worried that your costumes will no longer fit by the time we reach Cape Hallows."
He put a hand in his mouth to prevent the sandwich from escaping his lips which would have gone flying towards my direction. I eyed him sharply and was about to snap at him but he lifted a finger and cut in on me.
"Sorry. Just trust me on this and eat. You'll thank me later."
I frowned at him skeptically. But the grumbling in my tummy made me look down at my sandwich and carefully opened it. "I'm not the one taking pictures anyway."
He grinned and cheerfully munched on his sandwich. "Do you want to try it out?"
I looked at him then at his sandwich. "No, thanks."
He laughed. "Hahaha! I'm talking about modeling."
I froze and stared at him.
"What? It's fun once you get the hang of it." He was smiling and I couldn't figure out if he was being serious or messing around.
"Either way, no thanks." I shook my head. "I just want to have a peaceful High School life. And to achieve that, I have to avoid any kind of attention and make sure that you keep your mouth sealed. Just to let you know, Katherine and my other friends don't know what happened to me last year and what I've been going through."
"Why didn't you tell them?"
I gave him a side glance and snorted. "And what? Have them watch me like a hawk like what you've been doing for the past days?"
He froze. "Y-you noticed?"
I laughed. "You've been giving me the creeps and you think that I wouldn't notice?"
"I'm sorry. I just can't help it." He lowered his head. "I know you said that it doesn't affect your daily life as long as you avoid anything that could trigger that memory, but I couldn't help worrying."
'He's worried about me?'
I carefully watched him as I took a sip from my water bottle. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Huh?"
I gave him a warning look. "Don't talk about it."
His eyes rounded as he clamped his lips together.
"Talk about something else." I smiled because I found him cute. And that scares me.
He cleared his throat. "Did you completely give up on acting then? Because you didn't want attention?"
"Sometimes you just ask the most irritating questions." I shook my head with an amused smile. "Who said I gave up on it? The very reason that I'm doing this therapy was to get back to acting. That's completely unrelated to me not wanting attention in school."
"Why do you hate attention that much? When you get back to acting, you'll be getting all kinds of attention anyway." He frowned and opened his second sandwich.
"Do you like the attention that you get in school? If not, will that make you want to give up modeling?" I returned the question to him.
He was thoughtful for a second then smiled with understanding. "No. I get what you mean."
"Right? It's one thing getting attention from strangers and another thing getting attention from people that you have to see every single day." I looked out the window and noticed that the scenery already changed to lush green mountains. "I've always been different from my peers since I was little. I've even been bullied for staying quiet in Kindergarten. That's how early I decided to blend into the background. Because sometimes, it's easier to be someone you're not than be who you really are."
"I see." He's now on his third sandwich.
'He really was serious when he said that these were just for breakfast.'
"I have another question, if you don't mind." He suddenly turned serious which made me feel nervous.
I thought he was going to ask something critical so I braced myself. "Fire away."
"Why am I Clinton?" He asked with a straight face that made me frown.
I was dumbfounded. "Are you seriously asking me why your name is Clinton? How the hell do you expect me to answer that?"
'Again with his ridiculous questions.'
He chuckled. "I didn't mean it that way. I'm asking why you're still calling me Clinton. We're friends right?"
Stunned, I just stared at him for a long time, unable to answer.
But he waited.
He's waiting.
'He's not letting this go.'
So, I had no choice but to answer. "We are."
"Then why am I still Clinton? You call all your friends by their first names." The way he said it made me feel guilty.
"I'm just more comfortable with calling you that. I guess I just got more used to it than calling you Craige."
"Why don't you try calling me by my first name then? You didn't seem to have any problem with it last weekend when we were with Auntie."
He's right about that. I had no problem with calling him by his first name when we were with Teacher Kimmy. "That's because… I was acting."
He paused in the middle of taking the first bite from his last sandwich. "Huh?"
"I was acting. My role was to play the friendly kid, remember? Besides, she introduced you as Craige, how can I call you Clinton in front of her then?" I pointed out and finally took the last bite on my first sandwich.
He frowned at me. "You didn't seem to be that friendly to me. You were really awkward back then."
"That's part of the act too." I smiled. "No matter how friendly I can be, everyone gets awkward during the first meeting."
His jaw dropped. "You're really thorough. Why go with all that trouble?"
"It's part of my therapy. Learning how to keep my brain in check. Learning how to portray emotions without actually feeling them. Learning to react to any given situation without having to lose myself. Only when I can start doing that on my own, without relying on Teacher Kimmy's trick, then I can confidently go after what I want." I told him with all honesty. Being this open and this honest with anyone was definitely a first for me. And why it had to be with Craige Clinton, of all people, was beyond me.
He finished drinking his water and looked at me again. "That trick. It's the only way to snap you out of trance, right? What is it?"
I grinned. "Cut."
"What?" He frowned.
"Cut. She says cut and I snap out of it." I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes.
"That's it?" He couldn't believe that it was that easy. And it really wasn't that easy.
"That's it. But only she could do it." I smiled bitterly, as I recalled when Nurse Dylan and Dr. Reynaldi tried doing it but both failed.
"Why is that?"
I shrugged. "We don't know either. That's why I didn't let Katherine know about what happened back then. I couldn't. It's too risky."
He was quiet then, "Thanks for telling me."
"I could tell you only because I knew Teacher Kimmy was around just in case something bad happens. Plus, I need your cooperation if we're to see each other every weekend." Then I remembered my attack. "That night, you were able to pull me out of it. How did you do it? I could remember that I was on the verge of suffocating then I felt your hands on my shoulder and I just woke up."
He stared at me for a long time. "I don't know. You were suddenly blankly looking at me so I tried to call you, but you didn't respond. Then I remembered how you warned me about you suddenly acting strange, so I tried shaking you. If that hadn't worked, I would have seriously rammed Auntie's door. But you came to and started crying."
"Hmmm. That's really curious." Not only did he snap me out of it, but he also managed to put a stop to my hysterics that usually comes like an aftershock and lasts for at least an hour.
He watched me and I could literally feel his stare. Then he finally asked, "We're friends right?"
My eyebrow raised. "That's the second time that you asked me that."
He dusted his hands then put his legs up to lay down on his bed which looked really cramped for his height. "I'm just bothered by how you treated me the whole week. It's very different from how you are with me right now. So I'm quite confused where to stand."
I scratched my nose, feeling sorry. "You have too many eyes on you. If I suddenly acted friendly with you like this, people would wonder what's going on because we never really interacted in school that much."
His eyebrows twitched. "So, that too was just an act?"
I froze at his words. I didn't expect him to take it that way. But what's more disturbing was that I couldn't deny it either. "I guess so."
He faced upwards with his hands folded on his chest and closed his eyes. "Aren't you tired of it? If you always put on a mask, when do you get to be yourself?"
I could not find an answer to his question so I just stared at his face for a long time, until I heard the gentle sound of his snoring. Then I leaned my head on the glass window and continued to watch him sleep peacefully while his question played in my head as if on loop.
'When do I get to be myself?'
But instead of finding the answer, I just came up with a different question that made me feel empty inside.
"How do I know which is my real self?"
***
Dear Dairy Milk,
I think he's suffering from a food coma.
He finished all of his sandwiches in no time.
If he wasn't snoring, I would seriously think that he died from overeating.
But I'm glad that he's sound asleep.
I don't know if he's really a curious kid or he just likes throwing those questions in the open for no reason.
.
.
.
Is food coma contagious? I think I'm getting sleepy too.