BENEATH THE SMILE

Chapter 1-The notification

A new day always comes with new hopes, new expectations, and new blessings.

I was woken up by the brightness of the sun rays shooting through my window. I hadn't closed the curtains the previous night, and now I was paying for that irresponsible act.

I lazily turned my face away from the light, hoping that I would be able to go back to sleep, but that never happened.

After coming to terms with the fact that I was not gonna be able to sleep again, I sat up on my bed, the bones in my spine cracked and I rubbed sleep out of my eyes.

Checking the clock that sat atop the drawers next to my bed, my eyes widened in shock. It was 10:00 in the morning.

"Oh my God. I'm late for class." I kicked the duvet and jumped out of bed, scampering to the bathroom. I hurriedly picked my toothbrush, smeared paste on it, hands shaking in panic, and shoved it into my mouth.

As I brushed my teeth, my ears caught the sound of a mowing machine, coming in through the bathroom window.

Wait! That sound?

I only heard that kind of sound on a Saturday, when John, an old man from the neighborhood, cleaned the compound. That's when I realized that it was actually not a school day.

I spat and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God it's a weekend," I exhaled. I hated the idea of having all eyes on me whenever I entered class late, I could now relax and go on with my day peacefully.

I took a shower after making sure that my teeth were sparkling white. There was no reason to rush anymore, so I took my time. I turned on the water and waited for it to fill the tub. I peeled the pajamas off my voluptuous body, dropped them on the floor. My nerves smiled at the first contact of my feet with the water, it was warm and relaxing, the feeling was heavenly. I sat my entire figure in the tub and went ahead to bathe.

After my bath, I wrapped myself in my almost worn out deep-pink towel that I had had for close to three years. On opening the door, I saw my phone at the edge of the drawer, about to fall to its last functioning second. I slid on the floor and landed just in time to grab it. Did I break a leg or a spine? Those were the least of my concerns, phone was life! At least, it was everything to me.

I never had so many friends right from kindergarten, whether it was a curse or a blessing, I never really knew, but I was comfortable. My phone filled in for the non-existent friends I never had. I spent my time either reading romance books or scrolling through pictures of the cool girls on Instagram who had all their lives figured out, and seemingly, well planned.

With the phone in my hands, back on the floor, I noticed that I had received a number of  messages. "That's weird," I murmured. "Why so many notifications? Is it my birthday?" I chuckled. Of course it wasn't my birthday, I'd have had everything planned out for the magical day the previous night.

It was quite unusual for my phone to keep vibrating since nobody really sent me any messages. No one really minded me. I always thought that I never matched up to the other girls of my age. The only person who saw the gold in me was my best friend, Caroline.
"You have such a great body. Small waist and wide hips. That's a body to die for," she'd say. "I wonder why others can't see it. Anyway, I guess it's because you pretend to be such a book worm." Caroline made me smile even when I never wanted to. We had been friends for about five years now. We met at the hospital whenever I went to see the dentist, turns out she also had her appointments on Thursdays too. Who knew that a hospital could be a place to meet your best friend?

I picked myself of the floor and sat up on my bed. "Ouch" I felt pain pierce through my back, but ignored it when I got a comfortable posture. The notification bar of my screen displayed an interesting message, 100 new notifications.

I clicked on the message and all the nots displayed on the screen. Some of them were from Facebook, others from WhatsApp and Instagram. Surprisingly,many of them were from Instagram, and from the same user.

Paul Richardson followed you, Paul Richardson liked your post, Paul Richardson commented on your post.

"Whoaa... Who's this?" I wondered.

I clicked on the name and checked out the profile. I gasped. My eyes widened at the sight. I held the screen closer to my eyes to confirm whether my eyes were really seeing right.

Oh my! It's Paul, from high school.

"He actually followed me? Huh! Who knew that such a guy could follow a girl like me."

Paul Richardson was the lead dancer of The Stomp Kings, the best dance crew of our senior year. He was passionate about the art, you could see it whenever he was in stage with the others. He had the most energy and fiercest expressions. He had deep brown eyes, a black black afro, perfect white teeth enclosed by pinkish full lips. He was the exact definition of "hottest guy in school", just as many girls used to say.

I wondered how he had landed on my profile. Amongst all the cute profiles of the pretty girls, why had he picked to follow mine, that had only about twenty posts with an average of eight likes.

How in the world did he get to my profile?

With questions still flooding my head, I saw a new notification that he had sent me a message.

"He's even dm-ing me?" I couldn't help but grin from side to side. Many girls would do anything to have him send them just a simple 'hi'. Paul was a head turner. He was every girl's dream boyfriend, I was not an exception.
I was shy, boring and invincible back in high school, so I never wasted a second to think that he could ever talk to me.

So I stayed in my place, making no effort to get closer to him even when I secretly admired him, and wished that I was the one he dated instead of his annoying snobbish girlfriend.
He remained a guy in my dreams, one that I craved so much to have but could never lay my hands on.

A year after high school, here he was, in my inbox. I was thrilled at the idea of being liked by Paul. Not that he did, but it made me feel good about myself that he could even talk to me. It had been such a long time without being able to even steal glances at him, even from a distance, like I did at school.

I wonder what is in this text. I smiled and opened the message.