THE OLD ME BACK

Chapter 42

I am really speechless right now. In fact, I don't know what to react from what he revealed to me. I do not expect that from him. It's too far from what I'm expecting. To make sure that I'm not dreaming, I unconsciously shake my head for several times.

"No way," that's what only my mouth can manage to say. I take a deep breath afterwards to compose myself still. "Don't say those as if it's just as easy to do. I'm not playing with you."

"Believe it, I should have been your boyfriend before your latest ex. You should have not experienced pain again from the same person who hurt you many times before."

"Stop that," with a commanding voice I state. "Don't say that to me like you would show me how stupid I am in that thing. It is already happened."

"You're not, of course. Your ex is the one who should be called stupid."

"And why?"

"He fooled and hurt you. He just wasted someone who only knows but to love."

There is as if a thorn that suddenly digs in my heart that causes ache after I heard those words. Gosh, why is he like that? I don't like the way how he makes me see myself as more worthy than I see it by myself.

"Is that the reason why you're here? You transferred here because of me?" These are questions that automatically come out from my mouth without thinking of it for a while if it's fine to ask. This is also what I want to know because curiosity really bothers me. But he just looks at me directly and in just an instance, I got to gulp because he nods.

"But why did you do that?" With so much concerns I ask in a bit hysterical. I can't help myself if I would still calm myself.

"Before I answer your question, I would like to know first your reason why you didn't include me in your trap."

I look down to the food that I haven't started yet to eat. I eat for a spoon of rice and pork steak in order for me to have time in processing his question while he's waiting for my answer.

"Tell me Alesha, because that's the thing I wanted to know. You make me insecure because of that."

I drink water right away before I could manage to speak with just a little courage that's in me. "You should have been also a victim of my trap, probably the last, but someone saved you from the heartbreak that I should suppose to do to you. You should be thankful to him for that matter."

"And who the hell he is?!" He asks angrily. "Is that Banjo?"

"Yes," I reply and smile at him. "Don't you know that you have such a good friend who is worthy to be kept?"

"Why can you say that?" He unbelievably asks, his dark eyebrows suddenly meet each other.

Taking a deep breath, I lay my sight on him in order for him to be convinced. It feels like the moment when Banjo and I talked about this thing suddenly comes back now.

"It's because he owes something from you that he doesn't want you to get hurt. You're a great friend of his that he doesn't want you to be in pain if ever you would fall for me but just hurt you at the end."

"Should I be glad about it?"

I unbelievably ask out of curiosity. "What do you want to happen then? Do you really want to get hurt by my trap?"

"Yes," he answers right away. "But it doesn't mean that hurt will always prevail in every step of the way. I wanted to love at the same time. I wanted to prove that love dominates over hurt, even if hurt may last in every love that starts."

"I amaze how you perceive love, but of all girls you know and you can see, why me?" The next question that comes out from my mouth. He takes a deep breath then after looking away. It seems like he got shocked of the question I've asked and he doesn't want to answer it.

"Tell me, Denzel. Please?"

He clears his throat and tries to look at me again. "I like you Alesha from the very start, before everyone came to know you in St. Jude, before you came to know Hanky."

"No way." I react, and right away I drink iced tea. "No one likes me in my old me. No one."

"That's what you only know about but I'm here to prove." He says while looking at my eyes. "Can you still remember the card I put on your locker everyday? The song that I dedicated to you one time the school station was aired. Everyone got curious who Alesha was because you're just ordinary back then. I was the one who wrote and sang it for you. You got fame because of it but whom you noticed was Hanky who started to like you then."

"I thought...I thought it was Hanky who did it after all," I utter out of consciousness. I'm getting baffled now. Everything that surrounds in me becomes in slow motion the moment he finish his confession. It makes me more shocked when he shows to me some pictures from his wallet which are seemingly like stolen.

"That's what you just have thought, but I was the one who notice on you before people did. But I didn't make a move again because I was jealous already back then after you got to know with Hanky. If you're afraid that you might hurt me at the end of the trap, you already hurt me from the start."

I can't handle these thoughts he has said! I feel so guilty.

Upon looking at some pictures he face in front of me, one picture catches my attention which I see a girl who was in her side view with her bare-faced look, wearing eyeglasses, loosened pants and blouse, and she has this curly hair. Gosh, I must not be mistaken on this.

This is really me! And when I checked the date of the picture, it is already more than three years ago.

The truth hits me so hard that when I realized that what he has just said is true, I hurriedly get up from the chair and run away. I left him there at the same time my food that I have just eaten up a little.

Why did I know it too late? I can't bear to handle now this truth. I'm getting crazy! I don't know what to do now. It would really make my life upside down!

Argh! Why does my life become so more complicated?

While I am running away even when the bell rings already, I realize then that I'm already outside of the school. But my feet still keep on running away. I wanted to get home right away and sleep just to escape the truth that slaps me. I wanted my life to become wasted again after knowing the truth has been hidden from me for a long time. I think liquors would comfort me again, later.

No way. It should not happen that way.

I have learned just now that I've made the worst mistake in my life -- that's to love someone whom I should not suppose to love in the first place.