I lean against the wall, basically laughing at how completely clueless he is. Is that everyone in this school? Clueless? I'll just cut to the chase, yes, I saw everything. I always see everything. She heard him, she's heart broken. He's being just like Jennie, that's obvious.

And I don't know who I feel more bad for, honestly. Jungkook, cause he's stupid. Or Lalisa, cause Jungkook is stupid. I let out a breath and walk into the same hallway as him, "Hey, bud. Long time no see." I smile. He becomes shook, I chuckle. "Ah, look at you." I ruffle his hair. "What's wrong, Kookie?" I say his nickname in a taunting tone.

"Don't hurt yourself now." I laugh, patting his shoulder. "Tae!" I smile wide, "I got to go Kook, Jennie calls." Shove his shoulder and walk up to Jennie at the end of the hall. "Who was that?" She asks, "Oh, no one important." I smile. She raises an eyebrow at me. "Awe, Kitty, Baby, don't worry about it." I kiss her head. "Let's go." I tell her, grabbing her hand and intertwining our fingers. She grins at me and leans her head on my shoulder.

**

I shake off how he makes me feel, I always get this impression that he'll hurt me if I say something dumb. I know for a fact that he doesn't like me, maybe because Jennie told him I confessed to her? That's a huge possibility, I know that.

But who I'm really worried about is Lalisa, was she lying? Or did she really get her period? Maybe I shouldn't ask, that's a real personal thing girls experience. I mean, she's my friend and all, but I don't want to intrude on her bodily functions. Especially if I can't relate to them. I just shrug and walk to my next class, I'll just comfort her. Wait... I stop in front of a vending machine.

Girls usually love food, right? I take out my wallet and buy her a cookie, I'm not sure if she likes chocolate chip but I guess we'll find out. I hope it will make her feel better. I then head to class, with the cookie in my hand. When I get in class she's no where to be found, maybe she's in the hall?? I'll wait for her.

I sit in my seat and wait with the cookie on my desk, my eyes seem to wander and search. The bell rings, I'm confused.. Lalisa is never late to class. When everyone is in their seats my eyes still wander, from the door to the hallway. Was she feeling that bad that she didn't come to class? I force myself to pay attention to the lecture, for the whole class period she doesn't show up.

I go on with the rest of my classes without her. She doesn't show up at all, and I wonder if I should be worried. I head to lunch by myself, everything is so quiet and I join Jimin and Chaeyoung. They look at me confused. "Lalisa?" Chaeyoung asks. "I don't know where she is." I confess. "She wasn't in class, at any of the classes to be exact." I add. I sit down and look at my tray, nothing seemed appetizing to me. Why?

"How do you feel about that, Jungkook?" Jimin asks, I look at him. "Like a third wheel." I say. Jimin raises an eyebrow, "Oh? Then how come you came by the table so sad?" He asks. "Quit it Jimin." My flat hands turn to fists. "Why are you getting so worked up about it?", "What's going on?" Chaeyoung asks confused. "Jungkook likes Lalisa." Jimin says, making my blood boil.

"Awe!!! I knew it! You two are so cute together, honestly. Super cute, I'm so happy you're over Jennie." Chaeyoung says. "I don't like Lalisa, okay? Get that through your thick skull Jimin, I don't like her the way I like Jennie. Lalisa is just a friend." I say, making Chaeyoung's smile slowly go away. "Oh, I'm sorry Jungkook." She whispers but I don't answer her.

"Look Jungkook, I'm just saying that it's best to have what you can get." I look up at him in shock, "Wait, I said that wrong.. hold on.", "So you're saying because I can't get Jennie, I should try to get at Lalisa cause it will be easier? Do you think that Lalisa is easy?" I ask him. "Jungkook, I didn't mean it like that." He shakes his head. "Oh, then how did you mean it?" He holds up a hand for me to stop, he slowly nods and looks at me again.

"Jungkook, I meant it like it's clear that you two have something together. I don't understand why you feel like I'm insulting you or something. And like I said before, you're sounding like Jennie more and more." I bite my lip and let out a heavy breath from my nose. "Stop using her like an insult." I tell him. "I'm not going to say it again." He nods. "I'm sorry." He apologizes.

I just look down at push my food away, not wanting to eat a bite of it. If I don't like Lalisa, why am I so confused? Because she's my friend and I care about her, the fact that Jimin is assuming things that aren't true, is making me second think what I shouldn't have to.

My stomach growls and I decide I shouldn't skip lunch.

**

I walk up to her house, and knock on the door. I hold the cookie in my hand and look around. The lights in the house are off and there aren't any cars in the driveway, which there usually isn't but I wondered if there would be cars now. My eyebrows knit in confusion, I take out my phone and check if I got any text messages from her, there's nothing there. I let out a breath, I walk off the porch and out of the front gate.

I walk to my house, many thoughts running through my head. What can this mean? Is Lalisa okay? I stop in my tracks and decide to leave the cookie for Lalisa, I walk back to her house and set the cookie down before I take a sticky note out from my backpack. I stick it on the packaging and turn around, finally walking home.

I take my time getting home, the leaves have slowly started changing and the air got a little colder. When I walk through the door of my house, I smell dinner. "Jungkook." I hear her voice. "Yes, I'm home Eomma." I answer, "Oh, the school called me." I drop my bag and walk over to her in the kitchen. "Why would the school call you?" I ask.

"For the upperclassmen outing, silly." I had totally forgotten. It was something that lower class men always look forward to. "What'd they say?" I ask, curiously. "This year it's going to take place at a camp site and it will be by the beach. How exciting, right?" She asks smiling over her shoulder as she grills meat on a pan.

"I hope it will be fun." I lean against the counter. "So how was school today?" She asks, "I'm worried about Lalisa." She raises an eyebrow and looks at me. "Why?" She asks, "Well, after I saw her in the hallway when physical ed was dismissed, she looked sad." I start, her little white face invades my thoughts, she did look really sad. "And she started to cry, and when I asked her what was wrong she yelled at me, telling me she got her period before she ran away."

I'm interrupted by my mothers laugh, making me jump from the sudden surprise. "What's so funny?" I ask. "Ah, what a great way to get a boy off your back." She chuckles as she looks down at the pan. "So, she was lying?" I ask. She raises an eyebrow and looks at me. "Really Jungkook? What girl would tell a boy that she's on her period?" I stare at the cupboards ahead of me. "I don't know.." I whisper. "No one, girls never tell boys. There are only special occasions, but no.. girls usually only tell other girls." She says.

"So she was lying." She turns off the stove and pats my shoulder. "You have a lot to learn my son." I look at her. "So I should be worried that I didn't see her for the rest of the day?" She drops her hand from my shoulder and keeps her gaze on me. "There must be something wrong, listen to me Jungkook. Girls are full of different doors, they'll tell you one thing but not open the right door to tell you the truth."

"What I'm trying to say is that girls are full of mixed emotions, and sometimes the other person has to fight to find out what they're feeling. Girls are very confusing." She tells me. "So she's not okay." She let's out a breath, "You've got much to learn." She kisses my cheek. I guess I really do, girls are extremely confusing.

**

I wipe my tears and pick myself off the wall, waking up the stairs. "Lalisa Manoban?" I hear behind me when I make it to the second floor. "Yes?" I answer turning around, it's a hall monitor. "You're needed in the office, you're going home." I blink a couple times before following him. When we get to the main office, my mother is sitting in a waiting chair, "Mom, what's wrong?" I ask.

She looks up at me, "Please hurry, it's urgent." She doesn't even explain anything or comfort me. I just follow her as we walk off campus. My thoughts fall on what might have happened. I enter the car and I buckle my seatbelt, I turn to my mother for answers. Still, she doesn't answer me, she's busy driving. "Mom, what happened?" I ask, this time hoping for an answer.

"Your father is in the hospital, at work he had a mild heart attack." I just stare at her, I honestly don't know what to say. I slowly move my gaze from her and look off into the distance ahead of our car. Should I tell my mother that I think I like Jungkook, my only best friend that I've made at school? And ask her if she has any advice for me.

Should I tell her that I'm being bullied by his true love and her friends in the only class I have them in? I then decide that I'm not going to say anything, I don't need to say anything. Why am I going to say something now, when she never cared at all? I'm surprised she even came to pick me up, sometimes I feel that my parents forget that they have a daughter.

I stay quiet in my seat, looking out the window. I watch as people go on with their lives, they don't have a worry in the world. The sky is bright, not a could could be seen for miles, birds happily chirp as they fly above buildings. Of course, for the rest of the car ride it's quiet, what is there for her to even say? Nothing, because we don't have anything in common.

She never asks me how my day at school went, she's always worried about work. She's always so caught up in her occupation, that she can't even come see my meets or even care to see that I'm getting straight A's in all my classes.

So this silence is familiar to me. It's quite a long ride to the hospital, and I wonder if all the stress that my father experiences at work is the cause of it. And if my mother is next, they both worry so much about working, less about me. I should've never even been born. I suppose that would've been the best for them, mother didn't have to take on a job until I was born. Babies are a lot of work you know.

That's life I guess, because in the end we are all mistakes. Finally we get to the hospital, and I toss my backpack on the backseat. I ready myself to see my father, what will he say? Is he going to blame this all on me? Is he going to say that I'm such a disappointment, that I've caused him so much stress? I follow my mother quietly into the hospital, I don't really like the hospital atmosphere.

If anything it scares me, everywhere people are dying or close to dying, or horribly sick to where they're going to die in the future, short future. I know that one day we all die, but I guess that's one of my biggest fears. Also because we all die the way we were born, alone. I mean.. unless you're a twin, but that's different I guess. I wait for my mother to go up to the front desk and find out what room he's in. She turns and looks at me, I walk after when she starts down the hall.

She doesn't even tell me anything, but I just assume that we're going to his room. I follow with my head down, we head to an elevator. I stand in the corner and stare at my mother, she's wearing a navy coat with a matching skirt. Her short black hair pulled back with a barrette. The metal doors open and she walks out, her two inch heals clicking against the hospital floor.

I follow her out and we make it to his room. I brace myself to see him, it's quiet. When we walk in he's eating hospital food, wires hooked up to his chest and arms. For some reason my eyes start to tear up and I stop in my place, my mother instantly walks up to him and kisses his head. Tears fall down my cheeks, I never wanted to see my father in a hospital bed.

That's the scariest thing I could ever see. He looks up at me and I break down, "Come here." He says, in a non-demanding tone. I walk over to him and he pushes the eating table away. I'm full of all different types of emotions today. I sit on the side of his bed, "I'm so sorry." He whispers and I hear his voice crack. "You and your mother were the first ones I thought of when I was in the ambulance." He pulls me to lay against him.

I wrap my arms around him and cry, this is the most he's hugged me in years. "I've been so bitter, and I need to experience life with you more." He says, he runs his fingers through my hair. "I love you my little mouse." He kisses me head. I forget about everything that's happened today and start to think about this moment. This moment that I'll never forget, because I love my father.

Even if he's hard on me and hasn't showed me any sort of affection in a long time. "I think we'll need a vacation, just for us." My mother adds as she sits on the other side of the bed and reaches over and moved my hair out of my face. "We haven't spent time with you in a long time." She whispers. Memories of when I was small, run into my mind, when I'd have horrible nightmares and I'd lay in bed with them.

The doctor then walks in and I sit up wiping my face. "I'm Dr. Kay, I will be assisting you for your time here. Mr. Manoban, how are you feeling?" He asks, he had a long beard. His hair was black, with streaks of gray from his roots. He wore rectangular glasses and his face was lightly wrinkled. "I'm feeling much better now." My father answers. "Health wise." The Doctor looks down at his clip board.

"Aaah.. I had a slight pain in my arm when I was using it to eat." He explains. The doctor walks over and my mother gets up. "Do you have pain anywhere else?" He asks. "In my neck." My father answers. "Have you ever felt this way before?", "Sometimes when I was at work, but I always thought it was just cramps." I look at my father. "Mr. Manoban, do you understand how bad your heart attack would have turned out, if you didn't come in today?" Dr. Kay asks.

"I'm assuming really bad." Dr. Kay slightly laughs at my fathers answer, but not in a funny way. "You're lucky you don't have a clogged artery, it would've resulted in either open heart surgery, or in other cases where we enter your vein through your arm or your genitals." He explains. "Your stress levels are very high, how many hours a week do you work?" I look at my father, he better not lie.

He works every single day of the week, more than 15 hours today. "Oh, you know the normal amount of time any person should work at their job." I look at my mother, she's not going to let him say that, is she? But my mother says nothing, so I speak up though I know I shouldn't. "My father works seven days a week and more than 15 hours a day, my father stresses out a lot." I feel the gazes of my parents as I sit there next to my father on the hospital bed, the doctor looks at my father than looks at me.

"Is this true?" He asks. "Yes, Doctor." My father answers. Dr. Kay nods, "Please take it easy, you won't have to worry about work for the next month. I think that would be best for you to get some rest, well needed rest. Then after your check up, we'll determine whether or not you should go back to work. Please take care of yourself Mr. Manoban, I don't think your wife or daughter would like to see you in this hospital bed again."

He writes something down on the his clipboard and it's quiet for a while. "We'll have you stay over night, to see how you feel tomorrow. And we'll keep you monitored to make sure that you don't have another heart attack.", "Thank you Doctor." My father says. Dr. Kay nods and walks out of the room. I stiffen up, my father will be upset with me for telling the truth. "Why did you say that, Lalisa?" He asks.

I slowly look at him, but he doesn't look mad. "Because you need rest." I tell him, still a bit scared though he looks harmless. His eyes search my face, "I know.." He whispers and I become less tense. It's like his condition brought us closer. For the rest of the day we watched television and talked, he actually asked about my day at school.

I lied and told him it was great, I know he's actually trying. But for some reason I don't see this lasting. I see him going back to his old ways and resolve in me being forgotten again. When visiting hours were over, my mother decided that going home would be the best for the two of us. She had work tomorrow and I have school. "So your school left a voice mail on my phone." I turn and look at her as she's driving, watching the road.

"What'd they say?" I ask. "Upper class men are having an outing?" She questions. I shrug, though she can't even see me. "I guess you'll have to ask Jungkook about it. They said something about a beach." I slowly look out the window. "Yeah." I say. For the rest of the car ride it's quiet. We get home when the sun is down and the moon has risen in the sky. All the beautiful stars are scattering the black sky.

We exit the car and head up to the door, "Do you have homework?" She asks. "No." I answer. We head into the house and I'm exhausted, I say good night to my mother before heading to my room. I look around my room, the plain white walls, my stain sized bed with mint colored comforters and several stuffed animals. I walk over and drop my bag on the round pink rug in front of my body mirror. I tilt my head and sigh, slowly taking off my coat and get ready to go to bed.

**