Kapittel 21.6

Vanessa

Unfortunately, instead of doing what he was told, he did the opposite. The big baby had tightened his python-like grip on me, now even his legs were wrapped around mine. I was trapped. "No, don't leave me," he pleaded in a small voice, and I held my breath when his face snuggled on the junction of my neck and shoulder.

I craned my neck to look at Maxim who had been quietly observing us, imploring him for help with a puppy-eye look. But the bastard seemed to be more entertained that I was now involved seeing how his eyes glowed. He shrugged, and my frustration level went through the roof. Okay, forget about me saying that I might lose my mind without having him around. I take it back.

"Don't leave me again, please?" he continued to plead and a shiver ran down my spine when his hot breath fanned over my face.

A sharp pang hit my chest as I listened to him, making it more difficult for me to breathe properly. I couldn't see his face, and it was better that way. I think I wouldn't be prepared to see the expression he was holding while he pleaded so solemnly. It was like all my emotions had been tossed away by a hurricane, leaving nothing but this empty hole in my chest. Or is my chest even empty at all? Maybe I wasn't empty, I must have been feeling a lot of things lately that became numb. No, I was probably not empty or numb at all. Because if I was either, this tingling pain in my chest should not linger.

The air around me was thick and suffocating, I felt paralyzed. The room was wide and brightly lit, but all seemed small and dark to me. It was like there was nothing but just us in this room and nothing mattered. My breathing hitched when I felt Friso's embrace tighten. It seemed that I wasn't alone, I wasn't the only one who didn't like the changes, and who wanted to remain in the past. I have finally found someone who was the same as me, but why did it hurt? Shouldn't I be overjoyed? Earlier, I had been lamenting about the fact that I couldn't revert changes. I finally found someone who shared the same pain, but why did it hurt more than it did?

"If you behave, I won't leave," I replied, patting him on the back. I should stop this before I further lose myself in these waves of angst coming like a tsunami.

"You promise?" he finally removed his head from my neck and his embrace loosed. The next thing I knew, I was making eye contact with his dilated pupils. I bit my lower lip, a wave of emotions plunging into my chest. Those pupils reminded me how hopeless I was to revert things to how they used to be but couldn't. A piece of solid evidence that no matter how much I'd stay still, time would sweep me over to change like how the wind carries the sand on a desert.

"Can't say, they're meant to be broken." I only shrugged at him. "Now, get off and get sober," I said and proceeded to push him away.

"Great work," my unhelpful groupmate remarked when I finally had Friso sit again. Thankfully, even though his head was still in the clouds, he had the prerogative to make fold papers for designs but on the condition that he did it while laying down on his back on the bed.

"No thanks to you," I rolled my eyes at him and continued with my work, trying to regain my unwavering focus.

He chuckled. "That's unusually gentle of you."

I smacked his arm lightly. "Hey, I'm always gentle."

"With the hours that I spent with you guys together? You're never gentle with him. You always look at him with a wrinkled forehead, scrunched eyebrows, and glaring eyes," he retorted. I glanced at him, contemplating if he was the observant type of person or if my heated interactions with Friso were too much that became obvious. But alas, who in school didn't know about our feud anyway?

"He always picks a fight with me." I sighed, my thoughts beginning to wander. "I know it's very immature of me, but I sometimes couldn't let things go past and just give in to his provocation. Especially that he takes things far to an extreme extent."

"That's okay. People's brains aren't fully developed at our current age."

"But that doesn't give us the pass to... you know. We're becoming adults. We should learn and act like bigger people. Be mature and all that."

"Have you ever heard about... physically aging but mentally they aren't?"

"You mean, when some people are like 30 but are still mentally 17?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," he nodded in affirmation. "I think adults are children boxed in fast-growing bodies and increasing responsibilities. No matter how much we say that our age is 19 or 26 or 30, keeping up with the time, we're still children deep inside," he paused for a moment before adding. "Plus, maturity isn't defined by age, it's multifaceted. Many factors come together to develop it."

"You make it sound like age is a lie," I remarked, twiddling my fingers between the papers.

"Maybe so."

"Are you sure that Friso's the only one high right now?" I turned in his direction, making sure that he wasn't smoking the bong he had hidden earlier.

"Is it a necessity to be high when saying deep stuff?" he looked at me, his eyes holding disappointment as if he was saying, "How can you say that to me?"

"Of course, you know it's not." I shook my head with an answer. "It's just... I don't know. We've barely known each other and we're already talking about stuff like this. Like drunk people in a bar?"

"Do people need to be drunk just to talk about deep stuff?" Was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?

"You..." I glowered at him playfully and he let out a soft laugh in response.

"But maybe it's because we're technically strangers. And you know what they always say. Strangers are the best people to open up to. Because there's no judgment when you open up to someone who doesn't know you. You don't have to hesitate to tell them what's bothering you." Although I had the impression that the question had no clear answer, I found myself answering it. How bewildering.

I paused for a moment, "Are you manipulating me into opening up?" I joked because it seemed the conversation was going that way.

"Do I sound like it? Or you're just tempted to share with someone something that's bothering you?" he inquired, his eyes piercing at me with a soulful gaze.

"The more I talk to you, the more I'm certain that you're a therapist," I tried to shy away from the impending topic.

"Please, I'm way far from that," he raised two hands and waved them off like he was humbly declining the compliment.

"Whatever."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that there's something you want to say," he said and it hit me.

As if like a prince in cliche fairytales that fall under the spell of the evil witch, I was swayed by Maxim's words and began to speak before I could comprehend. "Let's just say that things... changed. And I wanted to go back to how it used to be," I paused for a moment, attempting to swallow the tears that were attempting well in my eyes. The emotions in my chest were like dough put to rest, it was rising. The more I tried to make myself calm down internally, the more I was compelled to release my emotions. "I know that things won't revert back, and the thought of it hurts."

"Oh, so it's a you problem." He crossed his legs and began to impersonate satirical content creators, making me roll my eyes over my head for a laugh.

"If it ain't coming back then it ain't coming back! You can cry about it, you can be mad about it, you can be hurt about it. But you don't have to dwell on it, you don't deserve the prolonged pain. If it's hurting you a lot, you don't deserve it. Because for one, you don't deserve to be hurt! You may not get those things back to what they used to be, but there will be new ones that will make your heart happy. Empty your heart, welcome them! You deserve to be happy!" he continued, waving his fingers in the air and batting his eyes so vehemently. But no matter how comedic he put it, the words he said reached my chest, somehow uplifting my low spirits.

"Hey!" I automatically turned my head when Friso called. "Smile!" he said and I found myself blinded by a flash, causing me to gasp in surprise.

"What're you trying to do?" I asked, rubbing my eyes, recovering from the bombshell.

"Seeing sparks fly?" he replied, his eyes focused on his phone. He tilted his head sideways like a rabbit looking at a CCTV.

"What?" I was confused.

"Taylor Swift once said..."he trailed off then he suddenly sang at the top of his lungs, holding out his phone like it was a microphone and swaying his legs like a teen heartthrob holding a concert. "Cause I see sparks flyyyyyy whenever you smiiiile." I covered my ears, this guy had a long list of God-given gifts, which included but were not limited to good looks, impeccable life status, and extraordinary academic intellect but everything had a price. It seemed to me the price was a voice for singing.

"I was trying to see the sparks fly she's talking about," he continued, saying it with a silly, toothy smile. Okay, I was just gonna ignore the sudden shiver that went down my spine. I shook my head, eluding the flustering feeling in my chest. He was nuts. But I found myself to be the crazier one for letting his antic get to me.

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