As I take my textbooks out of my locker, I cannot help but feel a sense of dread wash over me. The start of the weekend would normally be a cause for celebration. I am usually grinning from ear to ear as I make my way out of school and head home with a skip in my step. But today, the thought of the weekend isn't bringing me any joy.
In fact, I feel quite the opposite. The weekend used to be my favourite time of the week but lately, it has been different. I have more homework than I ever have before, and it's starting to feel like I will never catch a break.
As I lean back into my locker to push it shut, I release a sigh of frustration.
But that is not the only reason why I'm not looking forward to the weekend. Today I am not heading straight to the bus stop and hitching a ride back home like I normally would. Instead, I have to make a stop at Jodie's house for the completion of the project. I'm probably going to have to see the one person I have been trying to avoid all this time. My heart drops at the thought of him.
When I turn around, I blink blankly at the books I'm holding in my hands, my muscles straining against their weight. An irritable groan escapes past my lips and I scold myself for not thinking this through. The huge pile of books is one on top of the other and so forth. This was moronic. How did I think this was going to work in my favour? Quite the contrary actually.
Slowly, I bend down after deciding to put them on the floor, but before I can they are knocked out of my hands, flying into the air.
My mouth gapes as I watch in horror as one of the books, a thick one, hits a girl in the face. She yelps and drops onto the floor, holding her face in pain. I open my mouth to apologise but the words fail to escape my throat so all I do is produce indecipherable splutters. I seem to have lost the ability to talk. I just keep on gaping as the rest of the books all splatter onto the floor around us, landing with loud thuds.
In a sudden burst of noise, an enraged shriek pierces the air. I turn my head to check what's going on, and that is when I see it. Another body sprawled on the floor. As my eyes meet hers, my heart races with fear and shock.
What have I just done?
Awkwardly, my gaze darts around the hallway and I see a group of curious students and the janitor, who is holding a mop in his hand but not doing his job as he should be, all staring at us. The "us" in question is me, surrounded by my textbooks and one of the most popular girls in school, who is now lying on the floor beside me.
"You!" Savannah yells angrily.
I manage to produce a nervous smile.
She glares daggers at me and stands up painstakingly slow, trying to subtly pull down her skirt, which obviously rose from the whole commotion. Then she scans the ground urgently and picks up her heel. When she shoves it in my face, I rear back and my face pinches in slight perplex.
"Look what you've done, you dimwit."
Most of the girls around us gasp when they see what I have already seen, the probably exceeding one thousand pounds red-bottom heel that she is always wearing and… it's broken.
"You broke my heel," she grits out, stating the obvious.
"Yeah, I know. I saw that… it was broken."
Her eyes harden more than they already were.
"I am really sorry, Savannah. It was an honest mistake." I swallow a gulp. "You see, I was holding my textbooks in a pile and I wanted to put them down and I didn't see you coming."
"You broke my Cosmo 554 patent vinyl red sole pumps," she emphasises every word in her sentence. "These are Louboutin."
"I'm sorry. I wish I could say that I can replace them, but I… probably can't."
"I know. You don't even have a hundred quid on you," she states in irritation.
Okay, that's pushing the belt a bit. I have a hundred quid. Just not on me.
Then suddenly her lips start to conform into a smug smirk and this right here, is the moment when I realise that things are going to go downhill for me. "I'm pretty sure you don't even have ten quid on you. That's why you started that whole prostitution company in the tenth year, innit? Sleeping with your friend's boyfriends just to get some extra cash?"
When she sees my reaction, her smirk widens. If she's referring to the supposed rumour about me giving someone on the boy's football team head, then yes, I do remember the supposed prostitution company. "You know that's not true, Savannah."
"And we're supposed to believe someone who wants to steal not one, but both of his best friends' boyfriends? I think not."
Averting my gaze onto the ground as murmurs of questions arise into the air, I rapidly blink in annoyance and bite down onto the corner of my lip.
Fucking hell, why does she have to bring that up? The rumours were just beginning to die down.
Glancing up at her through my lashes, I try to figure out why she hates me so much. I mean, I don't even understand why she started to have problems with me back in the tenth year and spreading rumours around about me. I cannot understand why she continues to make my life difficult after that. She essentially got what she wanted.
"Here," she places the broken heel in my hands and merely picks at her nails in satisfaction, "go and sell this in the streets where you rug rats live. Make some money to buy yourself something to eat and stop it with the prostitution, Seong Jin."
I don't miss the fake smile of sympathy painting her expression.
"If that's too expensive, I can just give you both heels so that you can sell them both and make enough money to at least last you a couple more months."
When she sees the dejected look in my eyes, the grin on her face widens and innocently, she blinks up at me.
"Well bye," she chirps and strides away with her hips swaying from side to side.
When I finally dare to look around at everyone staring at me, I am mildly surprised to find that most of them are watching me with sympathy in their eyes; not the usual judgemental glances I have been receiving after the leaks.
In exasperation, I loudly sigh and kneel to pick up my books. This is enough to mask the feeling of humiliation hanging over me. As I am collecting them and shoving them inside my bag, the people start dispersing and going back to minding their own business.
All the while, I am still trying to understand why Savannah hates me so much. What did I do to her? Surely, there must have been something. Was it something I said maybe?
All of a sudden, a groan of pain pulls me out of my actions, and I gaze at the girl who is holding her nose in pain. I completely forgot about her. Throwing my bag aside, I rush over to her, kneeling in front of her worriedly.
"Are you okay?"
She looks at me unimpressed for a few seconds until she finally opens her mouth and replies, "Yeah, I always bleed like this. Normal thing," and uses the power of sarcasm.
"I'm really sorry. My books flew and you… not that I'm blaming you or anything, because it wasn't your fault. In fact, it's all my fault because I didn't think it through and I just piled everything on top of one another and—"
"Whoa," she cuts my ranting off and gives me a weird look. Pushing herself up in a sitting position, she throws her head back, plugging her nose, causing me to notice the silver piercing around her nose and the other one on her eyebrow. "It's fine. It's just a nosebleed. I'll survive."
"Are you sure? I could take you to the infirmary if you need a check-up or something."
"Nah, it's cool," she responds and wipes the remainder of the blood underneath her nose away. "I've bled more than this."
"Really?"
"Yeah," she looks at me and smiles warmly, "there's this certain thing that females go through called menstruation where blood just flows from the endometrium lining shedding. It occurs once a month and if it wants to be a bitch it normally visits twice."
I smile in amusement and stand up, offering her a hand. She accepts it and pulls herself up with my help. When she stumbles off balance a bit, I keep my hand on her arm and make sure she can stand on her own two feet before releasing her.
"So you're in love with my boyfriend," she muses, but it's more of a statement than a question.
Slowly, my face drops and I stare at her in bemusement. "What?"
"James," she clarifies.
After taking a closer look at her, I realise that this shortcut-haired girl is Stacy, the girl who has been in a relationship with James for nine whole months and counting. If they last this month then they'll have dated for ten months. That's the longest relationship that anyone has ever been in our year. Most just end in three months.
To think that a weed-smoking boy and his weed-smoking girlfriend hold the record for the longest-lasting relationship of the seniors in our school is, to say the least, a bit astonishing.
When they started going out in February, a month after I confessed my feelings to him, I remember feeling so devastated, but that's around the same time Edward moved in front opposite our house and I started falling for him instead.
"He's in your videos."
"Stacy, I didn't… I mean, those videos—"
"Relax, I'm just pulling your leg," she chuckles softly, putting a hand on my shoulder to stop my panic. "James explained everything to me. He barely even remembers the day you confessed to him."
"Ouch," I mutter under my breath, averting my gaze down to the ground awkwardly.
"But he does remember the other days when he wasn't high off his mind and… I guess you could say that he might have had a little crush on you too. You know, secretly I think he started asking me out just to make you jealous, but you barely even noticed."
What? James liked me back?
"Well, it was nice meeting you," she pauses for a while with an amused grin, "that crusty Seong Jin."
"You too, Stacy," I respond distractedly, still thinking about the fact that James liked me back. "I mean, it would've been better if we met under different circumstances, but with the cloud of bad luck looming over my head I guess this was to be expected."
"Nah, this way I'll remember you as that one guy who made my nose bleed."
"Dang it," I whisper in mock dissatisfaction.
She grins again. "See you around, Seong Jin."
"Bye."
When she leaves with one last lip tug of hilarity, I pick up my bag and zip it closed. Shrugging it over my shoulder, I prepare to head over to Jodie's place to get this project over and done with.
I remember that last video about James because it was the vlog that pretty much summed up my love life in high school. It was the day I vowed never to let another boy capture a part of my heart again. What was the point of it all if they were just going to break it again? If only that boy knew who he'd meet that year.
I slide onto the bench opposite his and smile at him happily from across the table, separating us from exploring our love. Alas, we have to wait for the perfect moment. When he catches me sitting across from him, he smirks at me slightly and brings his rolled-up blunt to his mouth, taking a puff of it into his lungs and releasing the smoke in my face. I cough and wave a hand to clear it.
"Hi, James," I greet exuding enthusiasm. Then I look at the ticking time bomb that is pinched between his index finger and thumb in concern for his health. "Uh… you do know those are bad for you, right?"
He just stares at me with drooping eyes.
"Okay, so I'm not even gonna beat around the bush," I say to him and bite onto my bottom lip as if to soak up all the bravery I need to do this. "What would you say if I told you that I'm… attracted to you?"
"What?" he drawls.
"I like you."
"Shit. You know… I'm so high right now."
He closes his eyes, and waves his hands in the air like he's at a concert that is playing silent music and when he starts to hum a familiar song, evidently succeeding at creeping me out, my shoulders tense up. Wait, it sounds like the song from that horror movie. I think it's called Insidious. Why is he humming the song from that movie?
"Like… super, super doped up."
"Uh… that's cool?"
"Yeah… it is." He opens his glossy eyes and stretches a boyish, wide smile at me. "Do you want some?"
I glance down at the bud he is offering to me. For a while, I think of taking a drag of it if it's going to make him like me back. If that will make me appear as cool in his eyes, then I am sure one puff is not so bad, right? My body is strong enough to eliminate the toxin. But then I see my mum's furious face and I immediately think, no.
"No… no thanks. I just, uh, need your answer. Do you, you know… like me back?" I muse nervously.
"Mate," he starts slowly and takes another drag of his bud, blowing the smoke in my face yet again, causing another cough to fall past my lips. That smells horrid. "I don't even know your name."
"It's… it's me. Seong Jin," I say to him with a crestfallen look. "What do you mean you don't know my name? We've been talking to each for months now."
"Wow. Like the cat?"
"What?"
He bursts out laughing like I just told him the funniest joke ever, throwing his head back and letting his cackle echo into the sky. It begins to scare me, and my shoulders tense up again. This is one of the reasons that I am scared of drugs. The way people lose control of themselves just frightens me. I'm already crazy as it is. What nonsense will I get up to if I fully lose control of my cognitive functions?
It's at this very moment that I immediately decide that if something bad happens, I am definitely going into flight mode. I'm not going to allow myself to die at the hands of a crackhead, no sir. Gazing from left to right awkwardly, I wonder what the hell is going on. Am I losing my mind perhaps? Have the two rejections officially screwed my brain over?
Nonetheless, I stay, and I'll never know why.
"Dang, you're funny!"
"I didn't say… anything," I start again when he has sobered up. "Um… so you don't like me?"
He takes a minute to think my question over. "Nah, bro. I like living in the closet."
"Okay," I nod slowly, perplexed and this is when I stand up and purse my lips. "Glad we had this talk… bro."
With one last defeated sigh escaping out of my mouth, I get up only to be shoved against the lockers roughly. The impact makes me close my eyes and I am grateful that the bag on my back lessened the impact against said lockers.
What is it now?
When I snap my eyes open, I cannot even find it in me to be surprised. The rollercoaster of emotions I have been feeling has finally tired me out. Here goes to having an awesome weekend.
"Sorry, I tripped over," he quickly explains and when he glances over his shoulder, we both see one of my textbooks lying on the ground, "that."
His dirty brown hair which normally has the top pile falling over his forehead dishevelled, is now tucked neatly behind his ears. When my eyes connect with his smoky greys which are eyeing me quite fervently, I slump down in defeat and await whatever onslaught is coming my way. He has probably watched my vlogs about him by now. I don't even care anymore, too tired to care.
I bite the inside of my cheek nervously and the slight sting forces me to forget my anxiety at seeing him. Out of all three boys, James is the one who I'm glad I remained friends with. I notice that he has a nervous smile on his lips, and dimples protruding from his cheeks. What does he want?
"Hey," he greets and gulps something down his throat.
When I don't answer him and just fiddle with the heel in my hand, his gaze gets drawn to my intertwined hands and he suddenly smirks.
His eyes train on mine and he leans forward to whisper, "Did Snow White lend you her glass slipper?"
What? I give him a confused look, brows knitting down to show him how lost I am.
"You know? Snow White and the ball, losing her glass slipper after running away from the prince."
Familiarity flashes in my mind when he clears things out for me. It's the tale my mum and late father used to read to me every night before I would go to sleep, a book I would always carry in my bag the first few weeks when I went to reception school before Taylor and I became best friends.
Whilst other children were playing and socialising, I was sitting in a metallic aeroplane, reading my book. That was when the teachers saw how antisocial I was, so they took my book away and forced me to interact with the other children. As a result, I ended up punching a boy in the face and then further kicking said boy in the groin, so they gave me my book back and I almost got suspended.
Taylor and I became friends through that. She thought I was cool and wanted to hang out with me. I ignored her the first few days but over time she grew on me.
"You mean Cinderella," I correct.
He gazes down and looks like he is having an internal berating moment. The tips of his ears turn slightly red into a blush and then he glances up, giving me a shy, one-sided grin. He nods and licks his bottom lip. "Yeah… Cinderella."
I give him a look, a look wondering why he is here talking to me, "James, I'm sorry, but is there something you need perhaps? Because I have to head over to Jodie's and complete a group project—"
My sentence is cut short when he places a hand on the locker, just close to my head.
I inch away, but before I can move further away, he entraps me in his arms using his other hand. I open my mouth to ask him what is going on, but my mouth closes when he leans closer until I can literally feel his warm breath brushing against my face.
As he inches closer and closer, I practically press my back into the lockers and pinch my eyes shut, afraid of what he is about to do. Whatever it is that he is planning to do. I never did know what he was thinking.
"Why didn't you tell me, Seong Jin?" he whispers softly.
"Well, I-I did tell you. If you watched the vlogs, you would've seen what I told you this year on my birthday."
Finally, when he seems to realise that his closeness is making me uncomfortable, he shifts away from me.
Finally, I can breathe properly.
"No, I mean like why didn't you tell me when I wasn't high on weed? You of all people should know that I'm barely aware of my surroundings when I'm doped up."
I lift my shoulder, unknowingly. I guess, in my mind, I had already made peace with the fact that he would not like me back. He never seemed interested in me.
Well, that is what I thought, but I guess he did like me back as per his girlfriend's words. I kind of regret telling him that I liked him while he was high now. Maybe if I dared to tell him how I felt about him after he had sobered up, things would have been different. Maybe he and I would be together and I wouldn't have fallen for my best friend's boyfriend.
For a while, he gazes into my eyes wistfully as if he regrets ever smoking that bud of weed that day, but then he wills himself to wipe that look away. "Well, you know what? It doesn't matter anymore. I have my amazing girlfriend now and you—"
"Still single," I mutter quickly, hiding an amused grin.
"Sorry."
"Don't be." My lips turn up into a warm smile. "Stacy's a cool girl."
"You talked to her?"
I nod and suddenly smirk from humour. "Made her nose bleed even. Nobody messes with me."
"You made her nose bleed?" he asks, ghastly, seeming to not catch onto my joking tone. "Why would you do that?"
"No, it was an accident." I clarify, but he doesn't calm down. "She said she was fine."
"She likes acting so tough," he groans, rolling his eyes skyward. "See you later." After throwing a haste smile my way, he runs off towards the exit of the school.
Yeah, maybe should have left out the making her bleed out part.