"I'm really sorry, Trixie. But I don't want to give you any false hope."
That's the first thing that I heard as soon as I left the auditorium.
I was planning to refill my water bottle from the drinking fountain before going home. But I noticed two people standing near the fountain, engaged in a very serious looking conversation. And hearing Craige's voice made me freeze on the spot.
'That's really harsh. He won't even give her time to have at least a false hope?'
For a brief moment, my eyes made contact with Trixie's. Her eyes sparkled with brimming tears against the light over their heads and she quickly turned around. She looked like she's trying her best to hide her devastation. So I did the same and commanded my feet to just keep walking despite the heavy weight in my chest.
'I'm not the one getting rejected but why do I feel so affected?'
I increased my pace to almost a run towards the station. The cold night air slapped against my face and made my body temperature drop considerably lower. My heart was erratically pounding on my chest with every step that I took.
"Ha~ha~"
I stopped and collapsed on the bench of the bus stop, breathing hard with a tight chest from running.
'Liar.'
A voice in my head muttered accusingly.
My chest had been tight even before I started running. I knew that but wanted to deny it.
"What is this strange yet familiar feeling?" It's the same sensation that I had when I went into overdrive while trying to portray someone who was brokenhearted. I put a hand on my chest, breathing heavily, then I looked around.
'This is bad. I should stop empathizing with her.'
I could not afford going into overdrive right here with all these people. Hastily, I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. Anything else.
Then my eyes snapped open when I felt someone hold my clenched fists. And I sucked in a breath when I saw Craige kneeling in front of me. He was also breathing hard as if he had been running. Then he asked, "Are you okay?"
"Y-yes." I nodded then I noticed that the other people in the bus stop were staring at us. I pulled him up and motioned him to sit beside me, which he obediently did without letting go of my hand. Seeing that there's nothing entertaining to see, the busybodies turned their attention elsewhere. Then I whispered to him. "What are you doing here?"
He also kept his voice low when he answered. "I'll take you home."
I blinked my eyes in surprise. "Why?"
"Because it's already dark." He supplied the obvious.
But that was not what I was asking. "So? Why?"
"It's dangerous for you to be alone at this time of the night." Again with the obvious.
I got frustrated so I spelled my question out for him to understand. "I know that it's late but... why go out of your way to do that? I can just call you when I get home. That's enough, right?"
He stood up when he saw my bus approaching. "It's here. Let's go."
'What's up with him? He's really serious about this?'
I followed him with my gaze as he looked back at me from the sidewalk. Then I remembered.
"Trixie! What about Trixie? Did you just leave her alone after rejecting her like that?" I asked in disbelief and was about to walk back to the school but he pulled me by the hand to force me to get on the bus. "But--"
"Just stay put. She's with Jake." His words shocked me and I obediently followed him in the bus. As soon as I was seated, he turned to me. "You knew that she's confessing to me?"
"I didn't." I answered honestly with a high pitch which made him eye me suspiciously. So I added in a lower tone, "I mean… I didn't know that she'd be doing it today. But yes, I was aware that she's planning to confess. She was really worried about it. And you just coldly rejected her like that."
He placed his elbow on the windowsill and leaned on the back of his hand while looking at me intensely. "What did you expect me to do? What would you have done if you were in my position?"
I looked away and fiddled with my bag's strap. "You could have been a little nicer about it. That must have hurt her a lot. She's probably crying after you left her like that."
"She'll get hurt either way." He said slowly and I could feel his gaze on me which was really disturbing.
"You should've at least given it some thought. Trixie's a really sweet girl, you know." I was feeling so awkward that I was no longer sure what the hell I was spouting. But what I said wasn't a lie. Trixie really was a sweet and nice girl. "Also, she's a very caring person."
Craige did not respond so I gathered the courage to look at him but he was smiling when he said, "What's done is done. I already told her that I like someone else."
My jaw dropped. "How can you smile while saying that? I never pegged you to be such a cruel person."
He clamped his lips together and his dimples showed as he tried to hold back his smile. "Disappointed?"
"Yeah." I nodded without hesitation then decided to look away before I got tempted to touch that small yet deep depression on his cheek.
We sat in silence for a while and I closed my eyes, trying to pretend that he was not there so I could have some peace of mind.
But I guess I made the wrong move.
Because I felt his hand on the side of my face pulling me towards him until my cheek landed on his shoulder.
'I'm not asleep though. I'm not even sleepy! Why is he making me sleep?'
I did my best not to stiffen in response despite my heart beating fast for the nth time today.
'What do I do?'
"Zee." He said my name so softly that the hair on my arms stood and made me shiver which he misinterpreted it again and covered me with his jacket. The same cinnamon scent penetrated my nose and made me remember Arthur's words earlier.
About checking if my feelings for him and for Craige were the same or not. And evaluating if I'm actually in love with Craige.
'Love? Has Arthur been eating rotten things lately?'
Being attracted to someone was one thing.
Although it's a world that I never really wished to enter, I have to admit that it was already too late to take a back step from its threshold.
There's really nothing much that I could do about it now but to wait for this infatuation to fade away.
And I strongly believed that it would in time.
Because no matter how much I was obsessed with a game when I started playing it, not a single game lasted for more than a month.
That's just how I was.
I got tired of things easily.
Especially when I had it all figured out and there's no more mystery left to unravel.
And this whole 'love' thing was new to me.
I really didn't know much about love. But from what I learned from the love written on the scripts that I've practiced, only one word came to my mind that would best describe love for me.
Troublesome.
Take my love for acting as an example and see what it did to me.
That alone was already driving me crazy.
'That's right. He's just a puzzle that I'm trying to solve at the moment.'
I opened my eyes and looked at his pale and slender hand that I've been aching to hold again for who knows how long.
'That's right.'
I reached out and held Craige's hand without hesitation which took him by surprise and he turned his head towards me. I felt his warm breath against the top of my head but he didn't protest about me holding his hand.
'All I had to do was stop hesitating to finish this.'
The bus halted at my stop and we got off with our hands still linked together. My house wasn't that far from the bus stop so we arrived in front of our gate in no time.
It was the first time in my almost 17 years of existence that I really hated that very short walk.
So, for a minute or two, I just stood there without moving and just stared at the dark blue gate that definitely needed some repainting.
He squeezed my hand. "Zee?"
'The sooner the better.'
I emptied my thoughts and turned to him. "Craige, I'm sorry."
"About what?" From the tone of his voice, he sounded worried.
"Earlier, Arthur gave me a puzzle to solve." I looked up at him and my breath got caught in my throat at the sight of his handsome face haloed by the dim post light. But it was hard to properly read his expression. "I know that I'm being selfish but I need you to do me a favor."
"A puzzle?"
I nodded. "Can you please bend for me a little?"
His eyebrows furrowed but he complied. "What is this about? Why do you sound so serious?"
"Close your eyes for me." I instructed as I covered his eyes with my free hand because I was sure that I could not do this with him watching me.
"Seriously. You're making me nervous, Zee."
I slowly lifted my hand from his face and confirmed that he had his eyes closed. "No matter what, don't peek and don't move. Understand?"
He chuckled and tugged at my hand. "You do know that saying something like that would only make me want to do the opposite, right? That sounded really ominous."
"Just trust me."
I wrapped my arm around his neck and pulled him lower which made him inhale sharply. "Zee!"
"Stay still!" I urgently instructed him and added a pinch of threat. "I'll kill you if you move."
His lips parted as if he was about to protest but he kept quiet.
So I moved closer until our lips were just an inch apart and I felt his controlled breath against my lips. The drumming in my ears made me wonder for a second if there was a party going on nearby. And that was when I realized that my thoughts were all over the place and it was just my heart thumping really hard against my chest.
Needless to say, unlike with Arthur earlier, I did not feel calm and in control at all.
I studied his face and I heard him swallow a lump in his throat with a frown. From this distance, I could only see from his nose up to his forehead and he still looked dashing.
'Curse you.'
I closed my eyes to stop myself from being distracted by his visuals and tried to find the answer in my head.
And as soon as I closed my eyes, the final piece of the puzzle came waving at me tauntingly as if it had been waiting for me to find it all along.
Tempting me to come closer.
My eyes snapped open with a sharp breath and they met a pair of dark tantalizing orbs staring back at me.
"Oh shit."