Falling in love wasn't something I really think about. I thought I was too young to feel such thing and that there are a lot of things to put first before this torture of getting attached to someone and getting hurt at the end as what I had seen from the romantic movies of my parents' collection kept in a small wooden cabinet just right below our television.
Well, mostly I waste my time scrolling through social media and I see these random couples doing sweet things and then I think it would be nice to have someone to do these cute things with but the image just fades away as I go on to the next video.
Then the pandemic eventually died and everything went back to normal. More than a year of taking lessons at home made it surreal that now I'm back to preparing for school early in the morning. I'm excited because I haven't seen my friends and it felt like all I had to do was blink my eye to see myself in the last year of high school.
First day of school was full of exciting energy radiating from the people around me. But I kept all my excitement inside because it would be weird smiling on my own as I break through the sea of other students. It actually felt good that we don't have to maintain social distancing at all, everyone is vaccinated, and no more muffled voices through the face mask. It's like the virus was just a nightmare.
"I bet we should start by introducing ourselves?" Our class adviser started with a question. But having that this is our first day with a lot of transferee and students from different sections of last school year, it felt like something we are obliged to do. "Just make it short. Name, age, then talent."
I tried to pay attention to every introduction but my senses eventually flew out to somewhere, and came back when there were five students remaining before me.
"Bryce Dela Cruz, 18. My talent is singing." I sat down. A little smile came out from the corner of my mouth as my statement replayed in my mind. Of course, I find it amusing since I don't really have talent at all. Perhaps there is, but I spend too much time with internet that I feel lazy to discover my talent.
Two months passed by and now everyone knows everyone, sitting arrangement has been mastered, and different circles were formed. I stick with my friends from the previous years, they are cool and fun, sometimes a little bit of a bad influence when it comes to reviewing for quizzes and exams.
Now sitting at the back of the class, kind of listening to our Biology teacher blabber about the importance of protein, there's nothing better to do than sleeping instead. I am sleep deprived after playing Valorant until 2am, and my body was programmed during the pandemic to sleep every 3pm. Mr. Santos is good at discussing but his class is at 3pm so it's hard to take in the lessons.
The discussion came to a halt when an announcement came out of the speakers. "Mr. Raquel Santos, please come to the Guidance Office. Again, Mr. Santos, please come to the Guidance Office."
Mr. Santos heaved out a loud sigh before switching the screen to a long page of text. "Copy the text shown in the screen. Miss President, check every note if complete. I'll be giving 30 points for that." And then he left.
Everyone just took a picture of the screen and assured the class president that they will copy it at home so they can idle. My brain being a bastard suddenly felt awake instead of feeling sleepy now that I finally got the time to sleep. So I took out my pen and notebook to copy.
I heard a chair being dragged to my direction and the girl who has the loudest laugh in class covered my sight from the screen. She sat on the chair she positioned across me and raised her eyebrow at the single word that I was able to write on my notebook. "It's so weird," she started.
Yeah, I think that it's weird that she's sitting instead of walking around the room laughing at everything being the bubbly girl that she is. "Aren't you gonna ask me what I'm talking about?" she added quickly before I could even ask her what's weird.
"I was about to."
"I think it's weird that everyone else is chilling and you're actually doing what Sir told us to."
"Being obedient is weird?" She laughed, just the two of us to hear. Everyone is minding their own businesses. I could see her friends at the corner probably talking about the upcoming exam since she belongs to the group of students who are grade-conscious. And my boys are sitting close to the door probably securing the whole class from teachers while they talk about our game last night.
"Don't get me wrong but we had been groupmates in different subjects before and you're not really cooperative, so yeah."
Nah, I tried to cooperate. She is just not satisfied with my mediocre acting skills in our group presentations. "Nevermind," she brushed off. I might have appeared annoyed because she seemed to be suddenly embarassed of her actions. But I was wrong when I felt the confidence and calmness of her voice in her next words. "Oh and by the way, I like you."
