The Ocean

Chapter 17

You know that sudden feeling of everything falling apart? It's like your biggest dreams are shattered and you feel something tugging at your chest from the inside. It feels heavy and it keeps getting heavier. It's like a hole in your consciousness, and it hurts like hell, ask me.

That feeling from so long... The subtle satisfaction I got from just admiring Serena and looking at her do her thing, and the close connection I felt with her, I realised now that it was love all along. I loved her.

But it was too late now.

...

"I think I like Peter."

The first thing that came to my mind on hearing this - I'm not gonna lie - was this: Okay..... Okay what the fuck.

Like seriously what the hell was this? Didn't you two hate each other or something? Like.. c'mon this just couldn't be true. I wanted to scream. I felt myself falling apart. This was the first time I realised what I truly felt about Serena and now it was too late. I wanted to die. I wanted to scream everything out.

"Oh. Cool." I managed to say.

"Huh? Cool?" she seemed taken aback, "what's the matter? Aren't you gonna ask anything? Like how and when and stuff like that?"

"Nah.. Not really. It's not like I care a lot." I didn't know what to say. "Serena, are you sure about this?"

"I think I am." she said.

"Look, I don't mean to disappoint you or anything, but Peter? I've known him since like 7 years now, and I have a very good idea about how he really is. He is a good person, but when it comes to girls, he isn't an ideal person. You can't possibly be happy with him."

I didn't mean to lie, but that was the truth. There was this gut instinct that was telling me she won't be happy with Peter. Gut instinct? Maybe not... Maybe it was just because I didn't want to see her with someone else. I didn't know what I was feeling.

"Ray, what's the matter with you? You're always so supportive of everything I do, what happened now?" Serena seemed sad.

"I just.. I don't think it's right for us to be dating people at this age. We are still too young." that's all I managed to say.

"Ray, seriously?"

"No. It's fine. You can do whatever you want. Afterall, who am I to tell you what to do and what not to?" saying so, I left.

I recall playing games and singing songs and all that evening, but I wasn't really into it. I felt devastated. My heart was a mess. Maybe.. maybe if I hadn't been so reluctant of my own feelings and confessed to her before this... Maybe we could've been together right now.

In all this, Serena wasn't even looking at me, like she had forgotten that I existed or something. Normally, she would always ask me why I felt down, but now... She just kept stealing glances at Peter. She didn't care what or how I felt. Not her fault anyway, she didn't know how I felt about her. But.. shouldn't she at least be concerned about why I was so down?

...

The next day, I saw some girls talking with Peter and he had a smile on his face. After he was done, I approached him and asked, "What's up, man?"

"Oh, nothing. Really."

"It's about Serena, isn't it?" I asked.

"Huh?" he seemed surprised, "well, yeah. It is."

"Tell me," I began, "do you... do you really like her?"

"Yeah man. She looks nice. Wonder why I fought so much with her."

She looks nice. What the hell. I mean, yeah she did look nice. She was awesome. But you like her cuz she looks nice? I wanted to hit him hard in the face.

"Oh. Cool." I replied and left him alone. Bastard. I thought.

I went back to my room and got my black hoodie. It was a jacket. I wore it and checked the time. It was 7 am. The teaching and stuff was gonna start at around 9 am, so I still had two hours. I knew the place, so I went to this place behind the main resort building, where there was this little swing. There were two, actually. I sat on one swing, all alone, swinging occassionally. I was just thinking about Serena. If only I had realised what I felt about her a bit sooner...

"Hey, what's up with you being up so early?" I heard someone call out from behind me.

"Oh, Samantha, it's you."

"It sure is me. What bring you here then?" she asked.

"Well, I could ask the same thing to you."

"Haha yeah. Well, how are you these days?" she asked, sitting on the other swing.

"I'm not so good." I replied.

"Why? Is it something serious?" she sounded concerned.

"No, not really. How bout you?"

"I'm good. Well, I wanted to ask you something."

"Yeah, go on." I said.

"This might sound a bit weird, but... Is it true that you like Ava?"

What the hell? Ava?