Seven in the morning. He put his phone in the back pocket and entered the school campus. The school started at seven-thirty. There was plenty of time to kill, but he went straight to his class.
"Yo, check this out!" Verdell exclaimed, almost shoving the phone on his face.
On the screen, there was a blond girl who studied in the same class as he did. She was sitting by the window of a bus. She had posted it on her Instagram.
He had seen that girl for a long time, but he had forgotten her name. He was never good with names.
"Your crush! Rose! When are you even going to tell her?" Verdell excitedly said. "Come on, Hugo. You can't keep it to yourself forever."
"I don't have a crush on her," Hugo said.
"Ohho, we are not blind~" Clara grinned like a fool, twisting a strand of red hair around her finger. "You look at her every day all the time."
Hugo let out a sigh and took his seat beside Verdell.
"Did you do the math homework?" Verdell asked.
"I forgot," Clara said.
"Oh, please, you didn't do it on purpose. You were probably banging another of your boyfriends…"
"He is not my boyfriend, just my neighbor. Besides, I don't do relationships, no strings attached only," Clara said, now licking the same strand of hair that she was playing with. Hugo's hand subconsciously unzipped the front pocket of his bag and took out a handkerchief. He cleaned his already cleaned hands and put it back again.
"Bro, you did it, didn't you?" Verdell asked, grinning.
Hugo sighed loudly and handed him his notebook. "Twenty minutes. Do it within twenty minutes. If the teacher comes, give it back."
Verdell gave him a wink as if agreeing to his condition, but Hugo knew he would not be able to finish within twenty minutes. Verdell would spend the whole time chatting with Clara while writing just one or two digits only. Sometimes, he questioned why did he ever decide to be those two's friend. If his mother was not Verdell's mother's best friend, they would have never been friends.
Seven-thirty. The whole class was full, almost. There were always those who came late or did not come at all. Seven-thirty-two. Someone hurriedly entered. She was not alone. There were two more girls with her and the teacher. But Hugo's eyes watched that one girl's movement only, not just his, but several more's.
The seat beside him was empty. She took it without hesitation. The eyes following her started to reduce.
She was not particularly beautiful enough to turn heads. But she still made her presence marked in a room with black ink.
She had been going to this school for a long time. Hugo had known her since the first day he came as it was her first day too. They were only eleven. Even after all those years, he had never seen her wearing any other color except for black.
Her light brown skin and dyed reddish brown hair was the only exception to her very favorite black color.
"Oh, the selfish freaky queen is here," Clara muttered, eyeing her with disgust.
Hugo wondered if she heard Clara. She did not make a motion that could mean she heard. Clara said it in a low tone, so perhaps she did not hear.
"What is she scribbling?" Verdell asked Hugo in a whisper.
Hugo glanced sideways at her notebook. She was filling the printed little dot on top of the notebook with her pen.
"Nothing," he replied.
"Really, how can someone stay without talking? I mean, she looks really gloomy… and sometimes, scary."
"Go and ask her, not me," Hugo said.
"What am I gonna ask? Rhea, why are you so gloomy? She will kill me with her stare."
"Quiet, everyone! Show me the homework first."
"Oh, shoot! I completely forgot!"
While Verdell started to write at a supersonic speed, Hugo looked to his right. Like most other days, the blond girl sat by Rhea. She asked Rhea something and Rhea gave a nod, holding her math homework up.
Rhea was a quiet girl. She talked very less. Sometimes, when she needed something, she asked for it, and if someone talked to her, she talked a bit. But other than that, she was almost always silent.
Hugo never talked to her. He did not have a particular interest in her, but he also could not take his eyes off her.
"Rhea, isn't it? Your handwriting is really neat," the teacher said, checking Rhea's homework. "That said, how is your mother? You had to take two days off to be by her side in the hospital."
"Yes," Rhea replied, her voice deprived of any emotion. "She is in a coma now."
The whole class gasped and there were murmurs all around. Hugo sharpened his eyes and was looking at her more intently. He was looking for something on her face, something that he did not find in all those years.
"What exactly happened to her?" Mr. Smith, the math teacher, asked.
"She fell from the stairs," Rhea replied.
"Was she alone?"
"Yes. When I went home, I found her and called 911."
"What did the doctor say?"
"There is a possibility of her waking up, but we need to prepare for the worst."
"My god, I am so sorry," Mr. Smith said, placing his hand on her shoulder. She looked uncomfortable. He was consoling her, but her face made it clear that consoling was the last thing she needed and she would be happy if he just took his hand off her. "Are you okay? You and your brother? Must be so hard…"
"Yes, we are fine," she replied.
Her short answers made a lot of people uncomfortable. It was the same for me. I wished she would make herself clear a bit more.
"Did you know?" Clara asked. She was sitting ahead of Verdell.
"Hmm," I nodded.
His father went to visit her mother the moment he heard about the accident. He had been going to the hospital a lot for the last two days. He could not bear to stay away from his best friend when her condition was so bad.
"How did you know?"
"My father and her mother are best friends," Hugo replied.
"What? Really? We are friends for three years now and you are saying it now?"
"I have never been to her place or something, just my father," Hugo said. "And the topic never came up."
"You are built differently, dude," Verdell said.
"Where is your homework, Verdell?"
"My dog chewed off my notebook."
"Only those pages?"
"Yeah?"
In the end, Verdell's puny excuse did nothing to save him and he was punished with twice as much homework.
Taking notes of the class, Hugo also kept his eyes on the girl on her right now and then.
"You keep looking at Rose and say you still don't like her?" Clara chuckled. "You got the looks and the grades as well. Who would reject you?"
Hugo shrugged. He did not feel the need to correct her since he knew she would say the same thing again, no matter how many times he corrected her and Verdell.
As soon as the final bell rang, Rhea stood up and packed her bag. Rose held her hand and stopped her before she could leave. She looked disappointed in not being able to leave as early as she wanted.
"We are going to hang out and go to the café. Wanna join us?"
"No, I will go home."
"Come on, just this once," she said.
"No," Rhea said. "I need to feed Silence."
"Ah, alright. Later then," Rose smiled.
"Yeah," Rhea gave a small nod and left quickly.
That day, Hugo also left very soon. He was not someone who liked to socialize too much. Although he was not as unsocial as Rhea, he did not like engaging in too many social activities.
His phone rang when he took the bus. The cellar id read 'Dad'. He picked it up, knowing exactly what he was about to hear.
"I won't be back tonight. Make sure to order something."
"Where are you going now?" Hugo asked.
"I will stay at the hospital tonight. There is no one to take care of Margot," he said.
"Well, in case you have forgotten, she has two children."
"Both of them are minors. Their dad is dead. Even if he was alive, that guy was incapable of doing anything. Ronan has to take care of his sister and his mother. How will he manage both of that? I told Ronan to go home and take care of themselves. I will be with Margot."
"How do you know when she will wake up?" I asked. "She is in a coma!"
"It means she can wake up anytime."
"And she can also never wake up!" Hugo pointed out. "Why are you being like this? I am your family, not she."
"Don't be a brat, Hugo. You have grown up now," he said calmly.
"Right, I am a brat. And they are kids when her son is a year older than me and her daughter is my classmate," Hugo said. "Listen, Dad…"
But his father had cut the line already.
It had always been like that- like two people forced to live together with no attachment between them.