How Do I Love Thee?

I. He Was

I. He Was

HE WAS EVERYTHING a girl could ask for in a boyfriend. He was everything a mother could ask for in a son. He was everything a stranger could ask for in a friend.

He was everything I held onto. And everything I must let go.

Riyanna had stretched her neck again, looking over my shoulder, silently reading what I was scribbling on the last page of my Math notebook. If not for Mr. New, I wouldn't have noticed.

"Score is equal to sixty divided by one hundred multiplied by forty-three is equal to twenty-five point eighth score we round it down. . ." He held the chalk higher between his fingers. The scraping noise it was producing as it scratched against the board was never a pinprick to Mr. New or to the rest of the class. Only I found it irritating. What the class found irritating instead was Mr. New’s thick and throaty voice.

Another round of the chalk’s shrill screeching, and that was when I felt someone was looking at what I was writing. When I turned, Riyanna broke out in a giggle.

"‘Things to do to forget him,’" she mouthed in an annoying whisper. My gaze glued towards her, I tore the page where the words she just read were written down. She continued to recite them anyway. “‘One, join the school paper. Two, think about two.’” She repeated the little thing she memorized and only stopped when I persisted in ignoring her. I could feel she was not watching anymore when I heard the “beardless Hercules” Paris call her name.

Paris is a muscular guy from the track and field team. Gorgeous. Hot. Herculean. In a poll held back in February, eighty-nine percent of the students picked him as the Prince Charming they would want to go on a date with on Valentine’s Day. 

Eighty-nine percent—excluding Dee and me.

If there was one thing I had in common with Dee, we never lost our breath or turned asthmatic over guys with big biceps or triceps, four-packs or eight-packs abs.

So we voted randomly. Randomly because Luca's name wasn’t among the choices and we didn’t know anyone else. And randomly because Dee still hadn’t forgiven Paris for purposely tripping her back in grade five, hooting with laughter then making fun of her “unwashed mismatched” socks in front of everybody present.

Dee hated it that Riyanna didn't know that side of Paris.

"Here you go, lady.” Riyanna laid down her books on my table as Mr. New exited. "Quit fretting"—she snaked her bony arm around Paris' waist—"tomorrow you would have forgotten him."

By ‘tomorrow,’ she meant some day in the future.

I love Riyanna as a person. She wasn’t a snob like the other girls from the volleyball team. She was frank and she didn’t like to gossip like most of us like to do. Isn't high school a time of gossip and trifles?

Besides Riyanna’s cool personality, she was the incarnation of Snow White. She walks like a fine flower of daphne breezing in frost, and in spring she showers and warms the cobbled alleyways of Port Sher with streaks of her sunlight smile.

Riyanna's the fairest one of all.

One by one, I tossed Riyanna’s books in her locker. But with each toss, my heart missing Luca unrolled the negatives. I lost myself in the memories. 

It was last year on the first day of school. I was in my third year of junior high. He was in his first year of senior.

I was running down the brick hallways, checking the room numbers in a rush. He was outside their room, knees bent down, arms stretched forwards. Punished most likely.

Then he yelled, "This is not university, Beanpole!"

Even then, I was thinner and taller than my same-age schoolmates, and we were the only ones in the hallway so I knew he was yelling at me.

"What? I don't know your name." He covered the side of his lips with his palm and mouthed, "Beanpole." Then he looked straight at the wall in front of him, stuck his lower lip out and blew his black fringe.

His teacher came out and placed a bunch of books on his arms.

I wheeled around and jogged out of the building only to read in front that it was the senior's building. University? When that shortpole is even older than me!

That day, I convinced myself I never saw him at all, and I never will see him ever again.

So the next day when he was hanging out with his friends by the gate, when he yelled again, "Beanpole! So you're a senior?" I ignored him. I was not seeing nor hearing him.

Three months after, I started liking him.

"I enjoyed reading the game between Port Sher and Laguna," he said out of nowhere when we happened to bump into each other on our way out of the restrooms.

I initially took it as an insult. It was only a one-time article, after all. Miss Janet had asked me to cover the basketball game because the host wanted the game results to be published in the community paper, but Miss Janet was occupied with her teaching duties. She said she thought I would do well. Her compliment flattered me. Yet I went not because of the compliment but because I respected Miss Janet. She was a good teacher.

Another reason was because it was sports, not news.

When Miss Janet told me a month after that the publication liked my article and that they wished that I continue to write for them, I politely declined. 

The next time I bumped into Luca again, he told me he would greatly appreciate it if I covered more games. He said he couldn't watch most games because of his curfew. He repeated that he enjoyed my writing. He said it's real.

That one last word spoke everything.

So I stopped ignoring him.

I closed and opened my eyes. The laughter of students behind me were echoes of seagulls in the middle of the night sea. I wanted to sleep my way back to the shore in my little lifeboat but I knew I mustn't.

I’m a first year senior now. Junior high is over. It’s a new day. It’s a new start. First, let’s join the school paper. 

By the fifth and last toss, Dee closed Riyanna’s locker for me.
“Are you butchering Riyanna in your mind?”

I turned to her. “She’s a meat, but no.”

Dee took her time laughing before asking, “Are you excited for the interview?”

"Yes!" I smiled broadly. We sashayed down the hallway, practicing the answers we had rehearsed together the night before.