Twice The Trouble

Chapter 48: Chained Heart

Stacy

I was in my first morning class when something felt amiss.

Craning my neck left and right, I searched in vain for anything wrong around me.

I couldn't explain it but I knew something bad was happening to Sophia right now.

"Ace." I jumped in my seat. "What's up with you today?"

My sky blue eyes stared at Miles, her face etched with concern. "I have the strangest feeling that my twin is experiencing a negative emotion.. is that weird?" I gave an uneasy chuckle.

Miles' expression softened. "Knowing how close you and Sophia are, it's perfectly normal. Your hearts and souls have this deep connection, you know? It comes with having a twin sister."

"Thanks, Miles," I told her. Then, murmuring to myself, I said: "If only I could talk to her now.."

Hold up a sec. I can just text her. I reached inside my gray vest-pocket, fished out my black phone, and set it on the lap of my blue pencil skirt, away from my instructor's sight.

But it slipped my mind that this particular mentor had the eyes of a hawk.

My fingers were already punching in a message to Sophia when in one swift motion, a male's hand snatched my phone off my lap, making me protest: "HEY! MY PHONE--"

The color drained from my face when I looked up at my professor's annoyed frown.

"No texting in my class, miss Sta. Ana," snapped Mr. Soto, as he put my phone inside one of his desk drawers. He banged it shut for emphasis. Half of the class snickered at my misfortune.

My instructor continued to grimace at me. "Your device shall be confiscated until the end of this period. Let this be a warning to you and everyone else."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alison and her cronies, Barbie and Heather, smirking at me and making 'L' signs with their fingers, a.k.a. 'loser' signs in my direction.

Fantastic.

How am I going to communicate with Sophia now?

Sophia

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

It's just a coincidence. A freaking coincidence.

There are a lot of Dales on earth---and THOUSANDS of people had the surname Cruz.

I had nothing to worry about. The last time I spoke to him, two years ago, he mentioned something about a college in America. There was no stinking way he was here in the Philippines.

Who was I fooling? I had the worst luck in the world. Of COURSE he's the Dale Cruz in Orion.

There's a huge chance I'll run into him. We attended the same university. At least, I think so.

What the heck am I going to do?? Okay, Sophia, be smart. List down your options:

A. Avoid Him

B.

I think I'm fine with the former.

*Knock Knock*

"Hello? Is anybody in there?" asked a girl.

I straightened up from the closed toilet seat and pushed open the pale blue door.

"Sorry," I mumbled to the long-haired teenager as I scuttled out of the cubicle.

Lifting my right arm to my brown eyes, I checked the time. Fudge. My class was going to wrap up in twenty minutes and my professor must be suspecting where I had disappeared to.

I felt my heart pounding hard against my rib-cage as I cautiously surveyed the empty corridor.

Not one person in sight. I exhaled a sigh of relief, but my pulse was still palpitating like crazy.

I used my tissue packet to conceal my face as I hurriedly walked in one direction, hoping that--

BUMP!

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" I screeched without thinking and smacked the tissue pack on my face.

My chest was heaving up and down. I could hear my shallow breaths as my beads of cold sweat trickled down my temples. I wasted a lot of mental energy panicking over Dale's appearance, and now I might have just dug myself a deeper grave by letting my defenses crumble.

I wasn't ready to see him. Not now. My emotions were a shambled mess. I don't know whether I've moved on, even after two years.. even after I bore a grudge against him despite my own misgivings. And to make the situation more catastrophic, I had a crush on my sister's future boyfriend--whom I was helping to succeed in his mission to get her saccharine 'yes.'

"Sophia?"

I blinked open my brown eyes. That male voice sounded nothing like Dale.

Lowering the tissue packet to my side, I lost myself in those genuine brown eyes again.

"Oh Thank God, it's you, Lucas," I said breathlessly.

The tall, black-haired male raked his eyes over me with concern. "Are you sick?"

"What? No." I swept one palm in a horizontal motion over my damp forehead.

"Are you sure?" Lucas asked me, his tone persistent. "Your skin is like snow."

"That's how it always looks," I weakly told him. Why were the walls spinning?

"Sophia."

"Lucas, why are you here in the humanities building?" I asked, interrupting him.

He tried to smile but his eyes betrayed him. "I ditched."

"You.. WHAT?" I exclaimed.

His arm reached for me and he poked my damp forehead. I took a step back in reaction.

"I was kidding," he said to me. "I finished my work early so I excused myself for a while."

A lazy smile twitched my lips. My voice meek,I told Lucas: "You're an ant."

"How so?"

"From the kid's story, The Ant and The Grasshopper. You're the industrious ant."

Lucas grinned. "Wrong. I'm a grasshopper. I was lying about before. I seriously ditched."

"LUCAS!"

He gaily laughed. "Sophia, relax! My backpack is up in my classroom."

"It's so hard.. to read.. your mask," I yawned into my hand. "You're.. quite good at.. lying.."

"Sophia?" His voice suddenly drifted far away. "Sophia!"

I mumbled: "Dale, why?" before I felt my eyes close and my body fall to the ground.

Then everything went black.