Moicha – Aunt
Pushang, Pushel – Uncle

Five
• • •

“Moicha Tracy! Raves! Pushel Jon,” Nicholas came in calling out for them early in the morning around 6:30 am.

Raven was still in her PJ when she ran out of the breakfast table to the living room to see Nicholas. Elliot and Aunt Grace were right behind him, along with Nicholas' big uncle Pushang Koshel.

“Hey, Raves!” Nicholas smiled at her as he strode in. “I’m leaving.”

“Right now?”

"Yup. Right now." His smile faded a little as he ruffled her hair, feeling the silky texture on his fingertips.

He adored this kid. He'd watch her grow up. He couldn't help but wonder how big she would be when he see her again. He bet she'd be a nice lady in time.

"Leaving now, Nicholas?" Tracy asked as she came out of the kitchen with her husband, wiping her hand on a kitchen towel.

"Yes." He smiled ruefully.

"Do well and take care of your health. If you get sick, you won't be able to do anything."

"Yes. Thank you, Moicha. I will miss you all so much."

Jonathan put an arm around Nicholas' shoulder, walking with him to the door and giving him a handful of his treasured advises and life skills. Grace and Tracy too fell into their own chatter, and Raven hung around.

One after the other, Koshang and Maxwell too came to meet Nicholas one last time before he leaves. Claudia too came just in time and Raven noticed that they were holding hands as they talked and that everybody, including her mom and dad were teasing Claudia not to cry. Only then did Raven realize that her Nick had a girlfriend.

Raven quietly slipped inside the house. No one noticed her. She couldn't bear to watch them. She couldn't bear to hang around. A sense of embarrassment and heartbreak overpowered her at the sight of her Nick holding Claudia's hand. . . and his eyes tenderly shimmering with love for her.

She went to the kitchen and sat on a chair at the breakfast table, pulling her legs to her chest.

Her eyes burned with tears but she forcefully blinked them back, knowing if she let them free once there was no stopping and that would be even more embarrassing.

Nick has a girlfriend.

Nick is in love with someone else.

The thought, the reality, echoed in her mind and it became painfully hard for Raven to process her thoughts, like a huge rock had crushed her brain, so she grabbed a sandwich for the table and stuffed her mouth with it.

Elliot got in the driver's seat since he would be dropping Nicholas at the airport. Grace settled in the backseat, Nicholas in the front, and just before driving off, he noticed that Raven was not around.

"Wait. Where's Raves?" He asked, coming back out of the car.

"She was just here," Tracy answered, looking around.

"Hold up," he told Elliot and went inside the house calling out for her. "Raves!"

Raven heard him calling, but she didn’t answer. She kept eating, for she knew any sound she made would betray her.

“Raves.” Nicholas appeared at the kitchen door.

Raven looked up to him, mouth full, eyes glimmering with tears, but her expression was as passive as she could manage. Nicholas stood there for a while. With the way she was bunched up on her chair and the way she was meeting his gaze, the soft, fragile look in her eyes made him feel something entirely different. He felt sorry . . . He knew she'd seen him with Claudia. He did nothing wrong. Raven did nothing wrong. Yet he felt sorry. . . and guilty.

He strode over to her. "I'm leaving now. Is there anything you want me to bring for you when I come back?"

Raven swallowed her sandwich and shook her head, “No. You don’t have to bring anything.”

He waited for a second and tried one more time, “You sure you don’t want anything?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll surely bring something for you. Take care. I’ll miss you.” Those were the last words he said before he left.

Once he was out the door, she ran up to her room, limping slightly because of the wound in her feet, and watched the car leave from the window. All that tears she'd been holding back broke through her eyelids. Raven cried.

Nicholas was quiet as he sat on the car next to Elliot.

Elliot teased him, "Don't tell me you're about to cry."

Nicholas chuckled. “I’m barely keeping myself together.”

And soon enough from the backseat, his mother, Grace, bawled out crying.

"What? Nu!" Nicholas bolted on his seat, surprised, and then he groaned, "Ahh."

----------

Minutes after Nicholas had left, Tracy called Raven from the kitchen to come down for breakfast. Raven told her she had finished breakfast and stayed in her room until it was time to leave for school, embarrassed that her mother would notice the change in her eyes, which would expose that she’d been crying.

When she went down to get her lunch-box, all dressed neatly in her school uniform, Tracy saw that her daughter had puffy eyes despite Raven's best attempt to hide it from her mother.

"Were you crying?" Tracy asked her daughter, looking back from the sink where she was doing the dishes.

"Of course, not. Why would I cry?" Raven answered nonchalantly whilst putting the lunch-box in her backpack, and she ran out of the house.

Raven walked to the bus stand. She met Darrin there with all the other students, waiting for the school bus. Darrin readily held out her palm to her. Raven took it and knotted her fingers with hers.

Darrin asked in a low voice, "Nick left?"

Raven nodded, keeping her eyes to the ground. The thought of Nicholas still made her want to burst out crying; to think he really had left, and also that he'd given his love to someone else.
When the bus came, Raven and Darrin climbed first and went straight towards the empty backseat. Raven went into the corner and Darrin settled next to her.

"Are you okay?" Darrin asked lovingly, tightening her hand around Raven's, and Raven lost all grip. She started to sob again. She needed to let it all out. She needed to lean onto somebody and Darrin, half-of-her-heart, was right there for her.

Raven pulled out her handkerchief from her blazer's pocket, opened it, and pressed it over her eyes, weeping and weeping silently. Darrin put an arm around her shoulders and held her close to comfort her. Raven had no idea she had so many tears, but that day, she cried buckets.

"It's okay, Raves. He'll come back again," Darrin said, stroking her arm.

Raven shook her head and continued to cry, her face all red and washed with tears

"Raves," Darrin called softly and continued stroking her arm.

Raven hiccupped through her tears, “He has a girlfriend. He’s dating Claudia. I saw them this morning. He loves her.” Raven added meekly in a whisper before she buried her face deeper into the handkerchief and cried harder.

At thirteen, Raven had got her heart broken, hope shattered.

Darrin was stumped. She herself had no idea that Nicholas had a girlfriend. They’d always thought that Claudia was just a friend of his. Apparently, they were wrong. Now Darrin pretty much had no idea what to say to Raven to comfort her. Regret and guilt ate at her heart. She wished she had known better. She would have steered Raven away from this heartbreak.

Determined to help her friend get over this heartbreak, Darrin said, "If he loves somebody else, it's because he doesn't know what gem he's losing."

"I shouldn't have loved him at all. What was I even thinking? I'm so stupid."

"It's not because you're stupid, Raves. He just doesn't know how much you love him . . . and how much he's losing by rejecting you. He's the stupid one. He's a donkey."

Raven laughed through tears once and continued weeping her heart out.

"I bet you'll find someone much better than him, someone who'll know how much you're worth."

Raven dried her tears and tried to be strong just like how people expected her to be. "You're right. I'll find someone better when I'm older. I'll get over him."

Darrin nodded vigorously, ready to campaign for her.

"Yes." Darrin fisted her palm encouragingly like a motivational speaker and asserted, "You'll surely find someone better, someone who's of the right age and heights and looks, someone who's smart and cool as hell, someone who'll clearly see that you're a freaking diamond."

"Yeah," Raven cried again, finding it hard to imagine she was giving up on her Nick after all this time.

For as long as she could remember, she had loved him. It had always been him who her heart yearned for. She couldn’t imagine not loving him anymore, but she quickly dried off her tears with the handkerchief and took a deep breath. “No more Nick. From now on, he’s just a brother. I won’t think of him anymore.”

Darrin patted her shoulder proudly and threw her arms around Raven to give her a bear-hug. Then, she filled the remaining journey of the drive to school with jokes, making Raven laugh till her stomach ached. Darrin always knew what to do. Sometimes, along the trains of laughter, some Freudian slips of sobs would escape too, but Raven would quickly swallow them and wipe off her tears.

She wasn't going to think about Nick anymore. She kept reminding herself.

No more Nick.

No more Nick.

• • •