Seven Days a Week

Day Four (cont.)

I buried my head on my arms on the table, letting my tears fall, and conscious of my silent sobs. I left the beads in front of me, putting it in a cup. I turned my phone off, after being annoyed about the vibrations of messages and calls. Ethan and Abi were probably finding for me, but I didn't care. They knew where to find me whenever I was suddenly gone.

I heard footsteps nearing my table. Maybe it was them. I didn't look up as the person pulled a chair across from me. I felt a box was placed on the table. I heard Ethan touching the beads that was on the cup laid on the table. He was doing something with it that made me curious, so I made sure I was finally calm down and that my tears were already dried as I raised my head up.

Only to find someone else was fixing my bracelet.

My eyes opened wide as Daniel brought a box full of beads and strings inside it. He was already almost halfway of the bracelet, and to say that I was surprised that he was getting the sequence of the beads right was an understatement.

He looked so focused on what he was doing that sweat was already dripping on the sides of his temple. He didn't even notice me already watching him do it.

I was still in my moment of shock when he finally noticed me. His eyes grew wide and immediately stopped what he was doing. Instead of glaring at him and scolding him, I smiled at him, letting him continue what he was doing. After a few seconds of probably internally debating with himself, he smiled back at me, continuing what he was doing.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I was planning on hating you forever until you started sweating in effort of fixing my bracelet."

"I just felt like I had to do it. It was all my fault anyway."

I told him that my grandma gave that bracelet to me when she was on her deathbed. I then asked him how he knew about the sequence of the beads. He told me that his grandma also gave him something like this on his grandma's deathbed. We were both surprised that we shared something in common and just laughed at it.

"I didn't do it you know," I said after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

"I know."

"Then why?"

He didn't reply and stopped what he was doing. Then he looked at me.

"Honestly, I don't know. After you punched me, it was like I woke up to reality. It was like suddenly I was attracted to you, and that I had to do something that would make you notice me, but look what I just did to you. To be honest, I wasn't really going to dump those worms at you, thankful at first that your bracelet broke, only to find out it was something special."

I was speechless at first. He kept his gaze on me for a while before continuing his work. I didn't know what to say. It was like the book suddenly needs to end and that revelations started shoving at your face one by one, hitting you with no time to dodge.

Daniel Alexander indirectly told me that he liked me, and my mouth was shut close.

I wasn't able to reply to what he said until he finished the bracelet with a cut of the excess string. He gave it to me with a huge smile on his face, while his other hand wiped the sweat on his forehead. I accepted it, a smile forming on my face as I wore the bracelet with all the effort Daniel placed in putting it back together.

As he was putting his tools inside the box, I stood up and stuck out my hand.

"Do you want to skip afternoon classes with me?"