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𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑵𝑬𝑿𝑻 𝑫𝑨𝒀 was much better.... and much worse.
It was much better because it wasn't raining so far, but the clouds were still condensed and ebony. It was progressive because I knew what awaited my day. Ryan came and sat by me in English, and walked me to my next class, with over-friendly Byron shooting machetes at him the whole time; much to say, it was very uncomfortable.
People didn't pay attention to me that much today, a couple of stares here and there but none lingered. I sat with a big group in the cafeteria that included Ryan, Byron, Sarah and multiple other faces and names that I now remembered. I felt like I was treading snow instead of suffocating in it.
It was worse because I was exhausted; I still couldn't sleep because of the branches beating the hell out of my window, echoing with the wind. It was regressive because Professor Valera called me out in front of the class for dozing off. It was draining because we had to do pacers, then play a game of dodgeball, and that one time I hit the ball as hard as physically possible, I ended up smacking Jasmine in the face.
That quickly resulted in her having to be rushed to the hospital, but I couldn't entirely feel remorseful for that, because I'll admit a part of me felt as if it was some sort of karma for the bitch face she'd given me at lunch yesterday. And the worst of it all was Marcelo Salvador being absent from school.
All morning I was foreboding lunch, dreading his abnormal dark look and yet craving it.
Half of me had this insane impulse to comfort him and eliminate anything I did that made him so uncomfortable and the other half wanted me to confront him on the issue and demand he give me an answer. Confrontation quickly overruled the need to "comfort" him as I lay in bed that night, replaying in my head on what exactly I was going to say to him.
If I decided to say something. I wasn't scared of anything, but even my boldness had its limits. Normally I'd forget about something so ridiculous, but I couldn't get him out of my head with each try I was unsuccessful. So I had to decide: would I be the cowardly lion or the courageous lamb?
But when I entered the cafeteria alongside Sarah with the intention of keeping my eyeballs to myself and not on a hunt for him, I failed miserably as I disappointingly saw that it was just his six siblings of sorts sitting at the same table in his absence.
Ryan obstructed us and veered us toward his table. Sarah became too damn happy by the attention, and the rest of her friends quickly joined us. I didn't even try to participate in their effortless nattering.
No one at the table seemed to notice my anxiousness in my body language that was waiting for the moment he would appear. I sent out a silent prayer that he would overlook my presence with complete negligence to prove my skepticism wrong.
He never arrived, and as time went on, I steadily grew strained with tension. I strutted to Astrobiology after lunch when he never came. Ryan, who had taken on the attributes of a golden retriever boy, walked gullibly yet protectively by my side with his arm slung across my shoulders.
