Notes

It was afternoon. PE Class was about to end but Lucy was still sitting and resting her head on her palms. Her hair was wavy black down to her shoulders with long bangs you could still see through her forehead. She had fair but tanned skin. It must be walking from home to school and back. Her father always told her to spend her allowance on a commute to school but she wants to spend it on school expenses. Her straight thick brows and hazel eyes could not be bothered with everything that was happening in the classroom as she was staring at other students by the classroom window.

She thought deeply about her dream last night. Everything was surreal. It was strange that when she looked up at the sky, she saw streaks of red, orange and black. It felt ominous and that it was watching her from above. It was gloomy and sad. It was blurry but she could tell that it happened in a garden. The garden had waves of orange, yellow and white peonies. She stood in front of a priest who would be blessing their wedding. She looked at the guy who would marry her. He looked like a shadow but she felt that she already knew him for a very long time.

And then they kissed. She touched her lips as she remembered how he made her feel. Her knees weakened and she felt butterflies on her stomach. She closed her eyes as she felt like his hands traveled through her spine.

“Luuuuuccccyyyyyy! Earth to Lucy!” The girl next to her shouted her name that made her jump from her seat. Reality had struck her. It was her best friend Lea who shouted at her. As Lucy looked at Lea, she could see her friend hated her messy curly brown hair. She swore to someday straighten it but Lucy so loved her hair that she always took time to do fish tail braids on it. Lea’s dark brown eyes and arched thick brows could tell that her friend was thinking about her dream again and that it would be hard for Lucy to recover from that kind of dream where a guy is involved.

Lucy confided to Lea about the dream and that guy who kissed her. Lea insisted that it was useless to think about it especially if the guy was a shadow. She thought her friend kissed nothing. They continued talking until they heard --

“Tingggggg!Tingggggg!Tinggggg!″ Bell rang across the entire school and the teacher reminded everyone of their homework for tomorrow and bid goodbye. Lucy and Lea got up from their seats. If anybody from their class saw them from afar, you could tell it was them since they were the only girls in their class with the height of 4′11”. They got out of the classroom and talked about how they could complete their homework and did their brainstorming. They were given an hour’s break and were scheduled to attend the History class after.

From their PE classroom, they looked at the hallway across the PE classroom. Lucy sighed as she felt tired looking at the 200-meter hallway. Lea encouraged her friend to go on as they needed to review their notes for the next class. As they were at the end of the hallway, they walked down the stairs but then suddenly somebody stopped them. Lucy was surprised to see it was Adrian.

He had buzz cut black hair and you could tell if it grows, it shows how curly his hair was. He had broad shoulders and had an athletic build. Lucy felt the pain in her neck as she had to look up at this 5′5" guy if she needed to talk to him. Lucy turned her head further as she and Lea watched his friend Eric run and catch up with Adrian. Eric was shorter than the rest of them though. He had the crew cut light brown hair. He stopped in his tracks as he gasped for air.

Adrian asked Lucy to borrow her notes for the next class and smiled. She wanted to focus on her studies but as soon as this guy smiles at her, she always gets distracted. She kept denying to herself that some part of her liked the guy but since she strived to be one of the honor students, she didn’t want this “puppy love” to get in the way of her goal.

She shrugged and told him that they had classmates he could have asked about the notes. And so she and Lea continued to walk down the stairs. But Adrian could not take no for an answer. This time, he knelt in front of Lucy and looked into her eyes as he said “Lucy, please. . .”

Lucy froze while her eyes were blinking with amazement. Not once had someone knelt in front of her and pleaded for her. As she realized other students were passing by and watching the scene, she quickly helped Adrian up. Lea giggled silently and grabbed Eric out of their sight. They told the two that they would go ahead to the library to check some notes.

“Please, Adrian, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take care of the notes for you” Lucy said. She walked back up the stairs and quickly he followed her behind. They looked for a corner in the hallway so she could pull out her notebook. They stood up and placed their bags on the balustrades at the end of the hallway.

As Lucy gave her notebook to Adrian, he read her notes and gave out a chuckle. “Please, your notes looked complicated. I don’t know which of these should I copy on my notebook so you do that for me”. Lucy looked at him in disbelief. She understood her notes very well and the part that they would review was very clear. There was no way that it looked hard for him to copy.

At this point, she just wanted to get it over with. As she started copying her notes to his notebook, his face went closer to hers while she wrote them down. Goodness, she could feel her hands so cold and her stomach having butterflies all over. She felt her hands were strained from the constant writing they had to do since morning. Adrian saw how shaky her hands were.

He then placed his hand around hers and helped her write the rest of the notes. She was almost done but it felt like an eternity. She could feel his body behind hers, his breath she felt on her neck. She froze. It was all a first for her. It was warm but she was about to cry. Somehow she liked it but she could not explain what was happening. It was strange because it felt like it was the only chance for her to get close to him. Still, some part of her was screaming inside for someone to save her before he could tell she liked him. That was when she noticed the hallway was silent.

There were only the two of them at the end of the hallway. She thanked the heavens she was done and she told him she needed to catch up with Lea in the library. But he told her he wanted to go with her to the library too. She wanted to end their conversation before any of their classmates saw them. While she tried to convince him not to go with her, someone shouted at them “Woooowww, do we smell a date?”

They looked at each other and froze. They looked down the stairs and saw Henry smiled at them. He was the tallest in class and looked older than most high school boys. They considered him their “older brother” as he gave advice in some aspects of life. He approached them and told them it was a joke but he laughed so much as he could see through them how flustered they were. He reminded them of their upcoming History class so the three of them walked together to their classroom.

As they passed the exit booth of their PE hall, she saw a couple in their 30′s taking out their valid IDs to show them to the guard. The PE hall is attached to the school’s renowned oval track. Every summer, the town’s sport festival is always held at the school’s oval track. And when it is not the time for sports fests, many people flock to the area to do their exercises.

She looked straight at the road ahead while walking. She still felt uneasy since Adrian was with them. She looked at her wristwatch and smiled that they still had enough time to walk leisurely to their next class. They had a separate building for History class. They passed through their advisory class building and building for home economics class. The buildings were surrounded by lush-green bushes and each building had their own waiting shed that was connected to the next building. It was a 30-minute walk to these buildings, no wonder most of the students were physically fit.

When they arrived, their teacher explained to them that there would be a seat assignment. Each of them was called and respectfully they carried their bag with them. When everyone settled down, someone whispered to Lucy “Ain’t it a small world?” She froze as she heard this familiar voice. As she turned behind her desk, she saw Adrian smiling at her. She felt butterflies all over and whispered to herself, “Goodness, I think I might collapse.”