Stranded in Thoughts

Chapter 2 - The Hopeless Romantic Girl

"Hand me some buwad, Olly."

"Why are you the one who always orders around here? Would you just stand and help yourself?"

"Come again? Remember the Penshoppe bag I bought you?"

"Okay, okay. I know it's coming. You're always making use of your trump card. In fact, it's more of a normal one now."

"Are you still flapping those lips?"

"Nope. Here's your buwad, ate."

It was a sunny afternoon, flabbergastingly serene weather, for the two of us. Christmas just went by. Lots of firecracker wastes and party poppers dotted the streets and canals. Leftovers of Piccolo, Sinturon ni Hudas, and lots of trash littered the whole sitio. It was an extended season of family love and merrymaking, yet for me, it was another season when I'd look after my silly sister, and I didn't want to be a babysitter.

My name was Jelly and I was a twenty-two-year-old Science teacher at Arullina National High School who advised tenth graders. Molly, my sister, was a twenty-year-old call center agent who was the total opposite of me. She loved shopping and going out on dates with her popular-but-not-so-gentleman boyfriend. One thing I hated about her was how she always had a new boyfriend almost every three months. Christian was her fifteenth boyfriend now, and she had her eyes on a new prospect ready to take over once they could not resolve their piled-up arguments anymore. I always scolded her about this because I didn't want her to look like a slut, but the thing that I could not tell her was that I was just jealous.

Being a teacher was a tough job, not only that the profession would expect too much from you, but also that it would get you so busy you could say goodbye to things such as love. Don't find love; if it comes, it comes. Let love find you, they said. That was what I believed in. I always had this lucky charm in my purse that was supposed to "attract" love wherever I'd go. I'd carry it around with me and sometimes had it blessed by a priest in every occasion in churches I could attend to, or in a weekly Christian gathering—called The Feast.

I had crushes before. One was during my high school days and I had not set my standards high then. Not when my Korean bebe boys happened. It all happened during my fourth year in Mandaue Middle High School when I was the president of the student council. I was plotting the activities for the upcoming school fair when a freshman came into the office to submit his class' suggested booth for their level, and I was the only officer available that afternoon because the rest were busy in their class tasks.

The freshy was named Rico, and he was tall, dark, and... was standing near the door trying to act cool and all. And if you were expecting handsome, no, he was not at all. As he stood, it was obvious how anxious he was just by looking at his demeanor. Upon entering the office, he handed the documents smoothly with an awkward and dentally impaired smile. He left me with an awful pickup line as if trying to pick on some girls who were out of his league. If it were for other girls, they would surely find it cringy and disgusting because this boy was odd-looking, and to add with his crooked and some missing teeth, he had a severe problem with his breath. Not to mention his acnes and pimples.

But not for me.

I experienced the suspension bridge effect right at that moment. I kept it to myself and didn't even attempt to talk to Rico casually, even after he joined the council. I soon graduated and my feelings remained sealed and undelivered. I later knew that he had signed up for the responsibilities of a secretary because he wanted to establish a close relationship with me. Little did I know he also had eyes for me.

It was too late, though.

My second crush budded during my first year at Cebu Education University. There was this classmate of mine who used to give me a ride on his motorbike to school. Part of my route was to pass by the sidewalk of P-mall, and Joshua might have seen me and thought of reaching out to at least ease my burden of walking another fifty meters to the university. The gesture and his presence made me giddy inside, but I didn't know that this person's motive was to have the privilege of copying my notes whenever he was absent from class. The problem was, he was mostly absent the entire school year. He had been transferred to another school during our second year of college due to some serious issues he was involved in—like alcohol and drugs.