Cause I got some intuition, or maybe Im superstitious
But I think you're a pretty sweet pill that Im swallowing down
To counter this addiction, you've got me on a mission
Tell me darling, can I get a break somehow? Could I say no?

Chapter 18 – How to Be a Nerd

“Think about it,” Ricky said before leaving with the guys.

My studio was miraculously left in one piece. Although some of the instruments were placed the wrong way. Like my guitars. The drumstick on the floor. The open piano keyboard cover.

Sighing, I started aligning the guitars on the stands, thinking about what Ricky suggested just a while ago.

“Matt’s been inviting everyone who’s anyone to his party next week,” he said right after Chuck and Reed wrestled each other out the studio. “Sarah included. He’s making the moves and if you really want Sarah back, you have to make your move now.”

I sunk on the seat in front of the piano. On their own, my hands started to play the song I composed for Sarah two years ago. I never finished it. Took it for granted, I guess. Been too relaxed, thinking there’d be no way Sarah and I would break up ever again. Who was I kidding?

Sarah… can you just smile for me?

Forever, would you belong to me?

Even though you are hurting you’d smile like it’s nothing

What should I do?

If I keep you forever, would you cry on my shoulder?

I’ll be your knight, though not in shining armor

‘Cause I can’t get enough of you…

The words played in my head. My fingers flew mechanically and I just stared at them blankly. I felt empty. The words seemed meaningless now. Angrily, I slammed my hands on the keys. Everything felt hopeless. Out of control. Maybe it was time to move on. No. I couldn’t live with that.

What now, Leon? I asked myself.

“Make a last stand,” I muttered in reply. “If it doesn’t work, then it’s time to give up.”

Ricky’s offer resurfaced in my head.

“Nerds of the same feather flock together,” he said grinning. I remembered Sarah saying that a few times before. “Let’s approach this logically. Remember, Sarah’s a nerd right before you met her. You might have changed her on the outside but her brain probably has a Nerd OS. You can’t change that. If you want Sarah to warm up to you, you have to act like nerd, talk like a nerd, think like a nerd. In short you have to be a nerd. And I’m the man to help you.”

My mind was all messed-up. I didn’t change Sarah. Or did I? Never had I asked her to change anything for me. She’d always been everything I wanted and more. Maybe I was too blind to see her efforts to blend into my world. Leon Walden’s world. And now, I should do my fair share of  work.

Without thinking twice, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialled.

“Ricky,” I started. “You’re right. I need your help.”

Clearing his throat, Ricky answered, “Good. Tomorrow then.”

“Wake up, nerd-in-training,” Nathan scoffed, pulling the covers off of me.

“Get lost, Nate,” I groaned, rolling on my bed and burying my face on the pillows. “Leave me alone.”

I decided to make a last stand but I wasn’t at all hopeful. I didn’t have the heart or the will to see Sarah. Just thinking of her being with Matt last night, I felt betrayed. I knew I’d no claim on her whatsoever to feel that way. But it was killing me. She was killing me. Love was for chumps. I should’ve known better than to think a girl like her was all I needed. Girls were made to stir in a touch of chaos into the world of uncomplicated males. Just look at my so-called mother. Made my Dad’s life a living hell.

This just added in to the long list of cliché downfalls of great men caused by none other than females. Lois. Mary Jane. Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. They were the bane of men’s existence. Always managed to get themselves kidnapped or used as a bait by their heroes’ archenemies. Or became brutal traitors. Cheaters. Two-timers.

And Sarah was one of them. I thought she was different. But she was different. What was I thinking? If only she knew about us, she won’t choose Matt over me. She still loved me. She just hadn’t realized it yet. And my job was to remind her just that.

But how? What was the point? What was my motivation? She kept ditching me anyway.

“Do you have any idea why I broke up with Elle?” Nathan finally interrupted my internal monologue. He parked himself in front of my grand piano and started playing a rickety version of Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor.

I scooted up from bed and stared at him. He kept silent about this matter for years. Why’d he choose now to break it to me?

With a humorless chuckle, Nathan stopped playing and turned to me. “Elle thought I was in love with Sarah,” he said without moving a muscle.

For the first time in my life, it seemed like I ran out of words. When I composed myself, I said, “A-are you?”

He just shrugged and rubbed his chin. “Well, she is the first person who seemed to understand me. She doesn’t think I’m atrocious and she can at least stand my presence. For one, we agree on things more than the two of you do. And she just lives across the street. So near to my clutches.”

“Get straight to the point, Nate! Are you?!” I pressed on furiously. Frantically, I got up from bed and went straight for him and snatched the collar of his shirt. “Are you?!”

Nathan looked more surprised than intimidated. That was when he started laughing hysterically. Grunting heatedly, I shoved him against the wall, gritting my teeth until I tasted blood.

“I’m not… sure myself,” he replied through the chuckles and the choking. “Took me… two… years to think. Still, I got nothing.”

He looked crazier than his normal-crazy self. I wanted to break his stupid face into a pulp. Instead, I let him go. He dropped on the floor where he kept laughing like a mad man. All I could do was fume. My eyes searched the room for something to throw at him.

“But maybe I’ll wake up one day and realize the answer to your question,” Nathan said as I was turning away. “And if you don’t make a move now… maybe I’ll take her away from you.”

He made it sound like a joke but it scared the hell out of me. My brother. My rival. What kind of messed up reality show was this? I wanted to bang my head on the wall to wake up from this nightmare. But I restrained myself, threw a shirt on and stepped silently out of my room. Maybe he was joking. Or on drugs. I should’ve killed him when I got the chance. He was doing it to spite me. Like before.

He took my identity. My job. My Dad. My best friend Elle. Music. My life. And now, he wanted to take the last thing that mattered to me. Sarah’s love. Won’t he ever be satisfied?

In the kitchen. Staring at my cup of coffee. Too many sugars when I took a sip. Not making a move when Dad sat in front of me. He was saying something I didn’t get. I just nodded. Nathan didn’t show up for breakfast. Good. Or might just lose it and break his face in front of Dad.

Ricky came just as I was about to the basement to work out. I didn’t say anything and just gestured for him to follow me. I went straight for the treadmill.

“So what do I do?” I asked when I figured out that he was too busy looking at the place to speak. It wasn’t much. A couple of treadmills. A bench press. Sets of weights. A wide flat-screen with speakers and blue-ray in case I got bored.

“Man, what does your Dad do for a living?” he asked, still wide-eyed. “First, a music room and now this? What else do you have? A private jet?”

That actually made me laugh a bit. I almost forgot that he didn’t know about my true identity. So I just shrugged and muttered, “He manages… stuff. So how do we go about this nerd thing?”

Distractedly, he headed to the entertainment section and picked up a tablet PC I had lying about unused for some time. He wiped the dust off the screen with the sleeves of his green checkered button-up shirt and plugged in a USB. I kept running and waited for him to finish transferring his files.

“To be a nerd,” he began. “First, you have to dress like one. But let’s omit that one. Your glasses might be enough. It’s a look that says I’m cool but smart enough to do other people’s homework. Now, the harder part is how to teach you to actually think like a nerd. It takes years and years of mental and emotional development to get to that point. So having said that, we’re going to have to train you to bluff your way into Nerdom.”

“Nerdom?” I repeated unsurely.

“The kingdom of nerds,” he answered grinning crookedly. “It’s some term we used in chess club. I keep forgetting you’re not one of us. So as I was saying, you have to learn these things.”

Ricky handed me the tablet. I hopped off the treadmill and started to scan the entries. Ten Most Popular Shakespearean Lines. Most Popular Novels with Synopses. One Hundred and One Scientific Trivia for Everyday Living. Sarcastic Expressions for the Intellectually Advanced.

“I’m supposed to read all this?” I blurted out. It was actually more than all the books I had read for school altogether.

He raised an eyebrow and set the tablet on top of the treadmill controls. “If you’re done complaining, let’s start.”

I didn’t know what was more tiring. Running at eight point five miles per hour or trying to memorize old English passages from Romeo and Juliet. Yeah. I graduated from high school without reading the actual book. Sarah volunteered to tell me a shorter, much understandable version of the story. That was how I went about with the term papers and school projects. But I never let her do any of my homework. That’d be like, lame.

My brain was starting to give up when we reached the fifth ‘manly’ novel Ricky picked. Apparently, all I have to do was know the general plot of each story and set in mind what I like and don’t like about the main characters. Then I’d have to invent some view about the story in general. Its impact to the readers. What the author probably wanted to convey to them.

“It doesn’t matter what you think about the story. You just have to sound like you have an opinion and stick with it,” Ricky said smugly. “If another novel that’s not in this list is mentioned in the conversation, just nod and look like you’re listening intently. When asked if you’ve read it, say maybe you have but a long time ago. You don’t have to sound so sure of yourself. Most nerds don’t. But when proving a point, one rule—be sarcastic. Like Nathan. Maybe you can learn fro—“

“Have an opinion. Be sarcastic. Got it,” I muttered, cutting him off. Just hearing about Nathan made me want to snap so I just focused on reading the summaries without much complaint.

I hung out with Ricky for the rest of the week. After his lessons, he’d pop a question and I’d have to come up with a nerdy answer for it. At one point or another, he’d ask me to point out a trivia about practically anything. We played a lot of video games, which was in fact, the only real geekish thing about me.

Nate and I still weren’t in speaking terms. The guys were starting to ask questions. But I’d no intention whatsoever to tell them why. I had the feeling that they’d all take          Nathan’s side. No matter what, I wasn’t going to lose to him. And Matt.

So when Sarah came to ask me to help her study, I was ready. I had Ricky make a guide how to do it. All I have to do was direct Sarah through the subjects. He was confident that Sarah could manage on her own but just needed someone who’d push her to. And if, just in case, she’d asked a question, which I probably won’t have a clue on, we could always look for the answer together. That’d be more me-and-Sarah-time. If all else failed, that was bathroom breaks were invented for. I got Ricky’s number for the Nerd Hotline.

“Someone’s a little too enthusiastic,” I said to Sarah, eyeing the tall stack of books she was carrying. I side-stepped, letting her in and taking more than half of her books since she won’t give them all to me. “Dad!” I called out to Arthur who was in the garage, all greasy and grimy, fidgeting under the car for some imaginary engine problem.

He slid out from under the chassis, holding a wrench. “What up, L?” he said, wiping the sweat off his brows. “Hey, Sarah.”

I grabbed his shirt from the front porch chair and tossed it to him when I saw Sarah staring. “We’ll be up in my room. To study. Don’t let your other son in or anywhere near the perimeter, please.”

Dad started to laugh. “You’re really starting to sound like that kid Ricky.”

My ears turned warm. “What’re you talking about? Just… Don’t bother us.”

With a raised eyebrow, he smiled and nodded. “Okay. Go. Study.” There was some hidden meaning to his voice.

I could feel another father-and-son talk coming. Whatever he was thinking, wasn’t going to happen anyway. My role had just been demoted from boyfriend to contractual best friend. Crossing the line wasn’t in my plan. I wanted Sarah to trust me. Plus, I still wanted to live a long happy life. Freddy would make sure that I’d be sleeping with the fishes if I ever did so much as touched Sarah’s little finger.

Once in my room, we sat on the rug I spread on the floor. She kept silently looking around, her blue-gray eyes shifting uneasily. I looked at her momentarily and picked up a Physics book.

“How do you want to go about it?” I asked nonchalantly, keeping my cool. Honestly, I was worried she’d start popping questions I won’t be able to answer in a million years.

She shook her head. “I’ve read them all. Last week.”

“Oh,” was what I could come up with. I fixed my stare on the book to avoid her eyes.

“The b-books were just for show…” she mumbled, looking up to me from under her long lashes. “You know, so Mom would actually think I came here to study.”

“So, what d’you wanna do then,” I said, still blankly writing endless number eights on the rug with a finger. If she didn’t come to study…

After clearing her throat, she crawled to my side and fidgeted with her hands. “The sort of things best friends do.” When I answered with a mocking snort, her cheeks flushed. “You’re still mad at me.”

I forced back a smile. “If I’m mad, you’d probably be tied up, gagged and inside my closet right now.” Which was probably true. To keep her for myself.

“You won’t do that,” she retorted, a bit too defensively.

“How sure are you?” I chided, intently meeting her eyes and locking gazes until she was the first one to look away. “You don’t even know me.”

She flinched, looking a little scared that I might just start to do what I said. “I d-don’t. But… I feel like I do. And you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I’m just sure of it.”

“Okay,” I muttered with my hands up. “I was bluffing. Freddy’s going to kill me if I do that. And I’m not mad. Just annoyed.”

“Because I went out with Matt?” she asked, looking at me like she was measuring my response.

“You went out with him?” I echoed with a bitter chuckle. That bastard. He said he’d take Sarah straight home. Now, I’m mad. I thought sourly. “Talk about news flash. Of course you did.”

Sarah just smiled shakily, like she was expecting me to explode or something. “Well, he’s not so bad after all. We just talked and I just remembered that we were actually friends from kindergarten. Isn’t that weird?”

Okay. So what now? She’d tell me they’d get married? And live happily ever after? Without me. Go on, Sarah. Just rub it in. I’m a rock. Nothing can hurt me. On second thoughts, kill me now. Nodding, I just scanned through the pages, trying to tune her out for once.

“What do you think of me,” she went on. “…going out with him.”

I couldn’t respond to that. So I just stared at the incomprehensible words in the page I was pretending to read. I pretended to busy myself reading. That’s it. I’m busy. I didn’t hear it. She fell silent for a while but asked again.

Caught in a mouse trap. Choked to death. Pinched.

“What are we talking about again?” I said, my voice going up a notch. My fingernails dug into my palms but I somehow managed to force a smile when she creased her forehead. Sarah might’ve noticed that I wasn’t paying any attention. “Uh… I’m not Becky, you know. Or a girl.”

“I have two eyes,” she muttered, pouting. “I can see that. But I’m asking for your opinion because it’s what best friends do. So… what do you think about Matt?”

I sighed deeply, feeling the neurons in my brain shutting down one by one. A miraculous development that I even knew what neurons are. I opened my mouth to let Sarah know that I’d be happy to see Matt Adams burn in hell. Instead I mumbled, “Well, he’s got a full six-pack… Just too bad he doesn’t have the plastic thingy that holds it all together.”

Sarah bit her lip and stared at me for like three seconds. Before it got any awkward, she started laughing. Then we were both laughing. It was a sight to see her laugh, with her voice sounding to me like those private performances. Few and awfully expensive.

We talked and talked for hours. About the past two years. I’d done a little editing, avoiding any topic about me and her being together. Which was hard. Eventually, we invented a little game. I’d tell her three things she’d probably forgotten and she had to guess which of them was made up.

“Which is false? One—on your sixteenth birthday you can’t stop crying like a baby when I gave you my present,” I started, smirking crookedly when she let out an irritated groan. “Two—on your eighteenth birthday, you got mad at me because you got really jealous of my personal assistant. And three—you learned how to drive.”

Narrowing her eyes, she muttered, “Cheater! There are two false answers.”

I already gave her all the clues. How thick could she really get? Maybe she was in denial. Of course. Why couldn’t she just admit to me… to herself that she loved me back?

“Just answer it!” I snapped back.

Startled, she replied, “T-two. You don’t have a personal assistant.”

I just nodded vacantly. It was hopeless. Maybe I’d make her drive one of these days and let her crash on a wall or something. Just to make her believe.

“During our Junior Prom,” I said sullenly, looking at her, measuring her reaction. “You didn’t want to go because, first, I had to go to LA, meaning you won’t have a super awesome date. Second, Becky set you up on a date with someone else. And third, you wanted to go to an amusement park instead. With me, of course.”

She seemed to consider it for a while, eyes shifting everywhere around the room. Then with a sigh, she whispered, “It… It must be really fun, huh? Having you as a best friend, I mean. At least I could bully or blackmail you to take me to the prom.” She laughed softly, hesitantly looking up at me. “And I-I could drag you to the movies but all you can do is complain. Then, I’d make you buy me ice cream on the way home. Maybe, do something… everything together.”

Looking down, Sarah hugged her knees as she watched my finger drew invisible circles on the rug. I couldn’t help but stare achingly at her. Did that mean that she wanted to be with me too?

After a while, she shook her head, her eyes going blank again. Like that time I first saw her in the hospital. Confused and broken. Searching desperately for that missing part of her.

“Is it wrong, Leon? Is it wrong to have all these thoughts inside my head?” she asked with a distant look. “Because I just invented all of them. Nothing’s real. And all I could think about is that I’m hurting everyone around me. Becky. Mom. And now, y-you,” she murmured with a harsh voice.

“Then let’s do it,” I said with a soothing smile, putting an arm around her. “Everything you want to do. Let’s do them. Together.”

She cringed under my touch, but then rested her head on my shoulder. I knew she was doing her best not to cry. Curled next to me, all I wanted was to kiss her hair. Tell her about us. Tell her that everything would be alright. That I had our future together all planned out. That we’d always be like this. But there was no us anymore to begin with.

But I wanted to make this girl realize that she was meant for me. Make her understand that I’d rather be hurt over and over again because of her than to live without her smiles. I wanted to fill in the missing parts.

So I said, “You don’t have to invent old memories, Sarah. We can make new ones.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey there! It's been a LONG time! Two weeks to be exact. And I hope you're still there. Someone? Anyone? *mic feedbacks and rolling dustbunnies* Okay. It's been hard for me to write this because of my currently morbid and unhealthy disposition. I'm trying to regain my 'fun mojo' and let's hope I do by next week. I really love this book. I guess, I'm now in a burnout phase when I knew exactly what would happen but don't know how to translate my thoughts into words. And now, I'm just ranting. So enjoy reading and see you (hopefully) soon. I just made a Twitter account *at last* so here... http://twitter.com/Simply_shim

~shim :J