It was like a time bomb, set into motion
We knew that we were destined to explode
And if I had to pull you out of the wreckage
You know I'm never gonna let you go

Chapter 19 – The Day SMS Became Overrated

“Of course we’re going,” Chuck grinned, eyes shooting up before chuckling to himself. “We’re on his imaginary VIP list since we’re his football buddies.” He shot me a look. “Except you, Leon. He hates you. No offense.”

We were heading home, straight from Ricky’s house right after his Gran-gran yelled at us to go home already. It looked like the old lady was having a major heart attack when she chased us off the lawn, waving her walking stick angrily. Gran-gran was old, but extremely dangerous so we took off. Poor Ricky.

“None taken.” I shrugged keeping my pace along the sidewalk. “And I’m not going anyway.”

“Well, you should,” Reed said, giving me a slap on the back. “Sarah will be there. Don’t tell me you’re just going to stick with the best friend trump card? Poor Sarah. Matt will totally take advantage of her. Who knows what he’ll do to her once she’s downed a few drinks?”

“Scaredy-cat!” Chuck caught up with me, ramming his shoulder on my back.

I doubled over on the sidewalk, coughing before lunging to his direction. Luckily, I managed to put him in a headlock under my good arm. He tried to flail and elbow me on the ribs but I kept my grip tight, making sure that he won’t reach my broken arm. Something told me that working out was such a good idea.

“O-okay,” he cried, face pale. “You win!”

With that, I let him go, flashing a smug smile as I did. Chuck and Reed made up that game. Kind of forced me into it, actually. They’d been ambushing me all week with their line backer moves. And every time, I had to defend myself. The point was, if I was serious about rivalling Matt, I’d have to be able to actually last thirty seconds of mortal combat with him just in case. Or die trying.

“That’s three loses in a row, bro,” Reed noted, raising an eyebrow to Chuck with a smirk.

“Four,” I corrected, bumping knuckles with Reed.

“He’s getting cocky all of sudden,” Chuck grumbled, resting an elbow over Reed’s shoulder while massaging the back of his neck. “Maybe I shouldn’t always go easy on him. He used to be such a wimp. Now look at him. Damn, he grows up so fast.” He pretended to wipe invisible tears on the sides of his eyes.

I let out a snort. “Maybe going to Matt’s party won’t be all that bad. But just to look after Sarah.”

“Right…” they chorused, exchanging meaningful looks and their super-secret handshake.

Why couldn’t I shake off the feeling that they were planning some sort of sabotage? I should stop them. On second thoughts, good luck, Matt.

As we passed by the garage, Dad was just revving the engines of his R8. He gave me a little salute before putting on a new pair of Ray Ban shades and hurtling towards the road, burning rubber against the concrete. Gone to Boston again, I thought. He’d been getting in touch with my lawyer a lot lately. Covering up my tracks. Cleaning up my mess. Soon, I’d have to show up in Sonnet Records and wow them with my newly composed set of potential chart-toppers. Which were as of the moment, non-existent. And there was this matter about the movies shoots. Bummer.

My arm was healing faster than expected. Which was both good and bad news. For the good part, I’d finally get to throw out the cast and the sling. Meaning, I could get back to composing again. The bad news was that my time with Sarah was almost over.

“Man, why can’t we have a ride like that?” Reed whistled, shaking his blond head while staring at the road.

“Because, dude, I’m grounded,” I replied exasperatedly. I missed my car. “I’m thinking of getting a part-time job so I can get my old car fixed.”

“Yeah… Would probably take you a hundred years,” Reed muttered, rolling his eyes, not minding to hide his aversion towards the word job. “Good luck with that, superstar.”

When we got to the door, I heard Sarah’s voice. She was laughing, talking to Nathan. I couldn’t make out what it was about, so I stealthily took a peek. They were both in the sofa, watching a movie. Nathan looked to my direction and sneered. He knew I was there, seeing them. And he was enjoying it. Like saying, look how easy I can get her.

Nathan leaned closer to Sarah until there was barely an inch of space between them. It seemed like she didn’t mind, which just about got me grinding my teeth. Then he whispered something on Sarah’s ear. Whatever he said made her blush a little bit. They locked gazes for a while before Nathan tilted his head to me, hinting Sarah that I was snooping.

Grunting, I walked past them and slumped grudgingly on the sofa. I fixed my eyes on the TV screen, which as of the moment played House of Wax. It was that part when Paris Hilton got stabbed in the face with a pole or something. Chuck and Reed hurled themselves on the rug in front of the TV, sniggering at the skewered actress.

“Whoa! That’s so cool,” Chuck mumbled, not even blinking.

“Shut up!” Reed said, whacking his younger brother on the head. “The best part isn’t done yet. You know, that part when they all saw this wax guy that looks exactly like their friend and then they peeled him off and it’s actually him covered in melted wax,” he raved, seemingly amused at himself.

Nathan threw him a scowl. “Oh, for god sakes. Why don’t we just turn off the blasted moving picture box and let the tattler tell us the whole story?” he grumbled.

I sniggered with Reed. “Yeah, man. The dude’s still alive but he’s like, skinned and burned alive. It’s so gross,” I went on, keeping an eye on Nathan who looked amusingly pissed off.

It never occurred to me how worthwhile it was to annoy him every once in a while. Almost life changing. Yeah. That’s right. He started World War III the second he crossed my territory. Sarah was mine and this dispute won’t be settled with any peace treaty.

I only had a few seconds to savor the look on his face before it turned into an annoying crooked smile. Then he whispered something to Sarah again. Something that had her staring incredulously at me. What were they talking about? My most embarrassing childhood moments? Oh, right. He didn’t know anything about that. Ugh, crud. What were they chuckling about now?

Watching the two of them laughing together was almost excruciating. It got me paranoid. Like I’d explode any second now.

Before that happened, I stood up and said, “I’m turning in,” before heading upstairs.

As I went, I heard Reed asked Nathan, “What the dude’s problem, man?”

“PMS, I reckon,” Nathan replied, sounding pleased with himself.

“Oh, he’s just jealous,” said Chuck through a mouthful of popcorn. “So Sarah, if you have any conscience, run to his room now and beg for his forgiveness before it’s too late.”

“Shut up, Chuck!” I yelled from the top of the stairs before slamming my door.

The first thing I did was play a loud CD and turn the volume on high until I couldn’t hear them anymore. In my bed, I stared at the ceiling, unaware of the passing hours. Time was ticking away and I was still at a standstill. Stuck in a rut. Progress zero.

I didn’t have a choice. I had to tell Sarah. If she couldn’t remember, then I’d have to redo it all over again. Something in me wanted to let it go. It was hard always trying to fix things when they clearly couldn’t be fixed.

I got up, grabbed a pen and my music pad. Lazily, I turned off the music player and dragged a chair towards the opened the window overlooking to Sarah’s house. With the lights flickering on in Sarah’s room, I started to write the words in my head feverishly. Like if I didn’t write them now, I might forget them.

I held your hands a thousand times before,

Had your smile but I wanted more

Those lazy nights we lie and watched the stars,

Didn’t you wish that I’ll always be where you are?

How can I say it… when I know you won’t hear?

These three words… have been running in circles in my ear

Now I’m sick to death

So heart sick to let

You know

There’s no cure to this… and I’ll never be the same

I’m fed up … ‘cause your little games drove me insane

And now I’m sick to death

Too damn sick to let

You go

When I looked up, I saw Sarah opening her window. She was gesturing something to me. I shook my head, mouthing “I don’t get it.” Her brows knotted in frustration before running across her room. A faint crashing sound told me she tripped again. She came back staggering to her window, holding a big sketchpad and a marker, a reddish lump visible on her forehead. Frantically, she bit the cap off the pen and started scribbling on the paper.

When she flashed the pad to me, it said, “You mad?” with a sad face drawn at the bottom.

Curbing a smile, I took my composition notebook and wrote a two-page reply. “Whatever Nate said,” I flipped to the next page saying, “He’s lying.”

“IKR?” She started laughing again like she just remembered a hilarious joke. “Didn’t believe a word he said.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She seemed to think about it for a while, hesitantly writing and crumpling three pages before I finally got to read her answer. “He pretended.” She started writing again, biting her lip as she showed me her answer. “To whisper to me. He said. If you got angry. It means that…”

“What?” I asked when she stopped turning the pages. She shook her head, averting her gaze from me. From my spot, I could see how red her face was. Like she was really embarrassed or something. “It means that?” I pressed on.

With a sigh, she showed me the sketchpad, hiding her face behind it. “You like me???”

Now that was a lot of question marks. How numb could she really be?

“And that’s funny?” I asked again, feeling all my hopes flush down the drain. What would she think if she knew? Would she push me away, like she did before?

She shook her head, letting out a sigh. “Do you?”

It took me a while to answer, weighing the pros and cons. But to heck with that. I had to tell her. Hurriedly, I wrote on two pages my hands shaking as I did. This was it. The big revelation. Without thinking, I held my reply up.

“No,” the first page read. Before I could show her the next page, she answered back too soon.

“Cool. Best friends?”

My heart just sank to my feet. Best friend. That was all I could be to her. No matter what I did, it seemed like she’d never realize how much I cared for her. If she did, what made me so sure that she felt the same way? It was one-sided from the beginning. Whatever we had before, she’d forgotten all about that.

So I put up my best smile, skipped the page where I’d written on my answer and instead, said, “Always.”

She kept staring at me and my notepad as if my penmanship was so hard to read. Then I saw it again. That sad little smile she kept putting up whenever something was wrong but she didn’t want anyone else to know. Somehow, I understood. Maybe she knew how I felt for her the whole time but didn’t want to accept it because she couldn’t love me back.

“We should sleep,” she said, putting a big smiling face on the note.

I squinted through the dark to see her face. To see if she was really happy about this. But she had already hid her face behind the sketchpad.

“Goodnight,” I replied to her, nodding vacantly.

Without glancing back at Sarah, I flicked the lights off and went straight to bed. I left my notepad on the table, the wind from the window blowing the sheets until it flipped to the page where I wrote the message I didn’t get to show her. That one I actually meant. That one that could’ve actually turned the world around.

I stared at that piece of paper until I fell asleep, feeling all hope slip from my grasp. In my dream, my conversation with Sarah replayed over and over again. Only this time, everything went well and it was a happy ending.

“Do you?” Her gray-green eyes were probing into mine as she eagerly strained to see my reply.

“No,” I wrote back, seeing how her expression turned from eager to disappointed.

With a smile, I turned the page and showed her my real answer. Those three words that made her realize that she belongs to me. And that she felt the same way.

“I love you.”

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

Hi people! It's me again. Apparently, I'm still alive. And here's your most awaited update! Hopefully, I'd be able to make one soon. But it won't take longer than a week, I promise! Thanks to all who supported and commented on the last 18 chpaters! I do appreciate your support though I don't usually have time to reply to all of them. Vote, comment, fan, do a cartwheel, sign my forehead... Whatever makes you tick :)

ciao~!

~shim :)