Lessons On Love

11: One Way Or Another

For the sweet-ass banner slide!!!

Chapter 11: One Way Or Another?

            It turned out Tyler hid in the library – a place Brooklynn wouldn’t even think to look – after he ditched rehearsal, and it was my mistake for parting ways with Marriah and venturing into the same place to catch up on yesterday’s schoolwork. I didn’t even notice him at first because he was so causally hidden behind this gigantic encyclopaedia that matched the rest of the library’s atmosphere, and when he finally peeked out from behind the book, I was already sitting across and 3 seats down from him – a bit too late to change my mind.

            At first, neither of us acknowledged the other. I kept my eyes fixated on my calculus homework, and Tyler hid his head back inside the pages of his encyclopaedia. Sometimes, I feel like the both of us are like moths to a flame. It doesn’t matter how badly we want to stay away from each other – the moth doesn’t want to burn in the flame, and similarly, the last thing the flame wants to do is hurt the moth – and yet, for some reason, the two are still irrevocably drawn to each other, the way Tyler and I are.

            When he finally decided to speak, the words were unnatural, and I had to wonder if he had been thinking of the most casual thing to say to me during the last 10 minutes we’ve been sitting in silence. “So what part did you end up getting in the play?”

            “The part you oh-so-badly wanted,” I muttered.

            “You’re a dwarf?”

            I looked up and narrowed my eyes at him, a bit more playfully than I intended. “I’m a tree.”

            The corner of Tyler’s lips tilted upward and he had to nibble down on his lower lip to muffle a laugh. “Bummer.”

            I smiled and for a split second, it was like everything was still the way it was supposed to be, that it could go back to being exactly the way it was before, but secretly, I knew that wasn’t the case. It was nowhere near.

            Our smiles both settled into something more solemn – more realistic – before Tyler spoke again. “It doesn’t have to be like this Mila. We don’t have to be like this.”

            I swallowed the lump in my throat and tapped the end of my pencil against my textbook twice before returning to my homework. “Maybe not,” I said, “but it’s too late for us to have this conversation.”

            “Yesterday,” he continued, and when the topic came up, I thought he was going to ask me everything I had no intentions of answering, but instead of picking a fight with me, instead of asking me why I didn’t heed to his warning, he left it untouched and asked me about something else that’s been on his mind. “The one who shield you on stage – it was Marshall wasn’t it?”

            I shrugged. “Does it matter?”

            “It does. To me, it does.” I didn’t say anything, and when he realized I wasn’t ever planning to, Tyler heaved a sigh. “He’s not a good person Mila. I don’t know why you would want to get close to a person like that. Everything he’s told you, it’s probably a lie. Everything he does for you, it comes with a price attached. That’s the kind of person he is.”

            “So?” I let my pencil fall from my hands and roll into the crease of my textbook before crossing my arms. “What of it? You think I don’t know?”