Chapter 12: I don't like Her

WHILE DRYING HER hair, she got a message from Clarita. 'He's home, it was a false alarm.' After reading it she checked what time was it. Six in the evening, she swiped her phone and texted Lora.

'Good Job,' just that. It was laced with sarcasm and partly genuine. She was thankful that she did what she was asked to but she couldn't let the part that Lora betrayed her by informing Fred too. She was already in her apartment, their driver send her home at three in the afternoon.

As her eyes fell on her painting materials, she seemed hypnotized by them. She put her blower down and got her paintbrush and started mixing paints. While dipping her paintbrush into a bloody red shade of color, she was staring at the white Oslo paper on her painting stand. She was already imagining the image, she carelessly stroked the red paint on it. There has no definite direction it was messy in the center. After drying it she got her black ink, using that ink for her pen she did a heart outline. Then she started making lines in the heart.

The next moment it was a bloody red heart that is broken like a mirror. But she didn't stop there, she made thick curve lines horizontally in the center, which became torn eventually. Then she started making blood drops from it. While the wild stroke of red, which overlap the heart shape became the smudge background.

She turned to her phone when she heard it tweeted, she was expecting a reply from Lora but she instead received a message from an unknown number.

'You gave your number to Lola Clarita while I am your classmate.' She realized who was it instantly.

'And?' she replied.

'You should have given me your number first.' A small smile formed on her lips. He seemed childish that made Fera smile.

'Did you ask it?'

'I was thinking you might feel uncomfortable about it!' he instantly replied which made Fera smile more. She copied her previous reply and pasted it on the message bubble then resend it.

'I didn't,' his reply was together with an annoying emoticon. She already bites her lips to suppress her laughter.

'There you go,' she typed. And he only replied with an angry emoticon, which made Fera giggle. But she accidentally elbowed a container of paint.

"Shit!" she harshly uttered and took everything away from the paint.

"Bloody great," she weakly murmured while looking at the red paint on the floor. She moved her carpet away from it.

"What a great life." She tossed her phone in her bed and started cleaning it. But smudges stayed, she couldn't remove them anymore. After a few attempts of scrubbing them off, she decided to give up.

'I will buy an acid for this, my floor is ridiculously ugly.'

She finished her painting and faced her school works. While bitting her pen, and formulating the answer. Her hand find paper, a clean paper, and started scribing letters.

'Blood runs down your vein,

Faith scribes on your palm,

Even your body is full of numbness

Life goes on when it seems lifeless.' The poem was fuel to her. Every poem she wrote was a hidden story she kept. To avoid it from building up, she let it out through the ink of her pen.

Then Nick’s face suddenly appeared in her head. She flipped the page and unconsciously moved her pen.

'You are as fine as the sun,

As strong as its heat,

As bright as its light.

And you made my day,

quite gay, as to how sun used to be.'

She reread it and her eyebrow turn into colliding which made it one line. From emo to hopeless romantic real quick.

"Something must have knocked my head. When on earth did I start writing this kind of genre?" She unbelievably reread it once again. It was weird but I was making her smile.

'I never thought I will be writing something like this,' she mentally confesses. She stood up and climbed into her bed. Going to sleep was not as bad as how it used to be. That was the truth that she couldn't lie. And the weekend ended that way.

SHE WAS TYING her hair into a tight bond and making sure it was smooth and flawless. Exactly after fixing her hair up, someone knocked. She opened it Nick’s face showed up.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I only want to say sorry for what happened yesterday, you were supposed to have fun not to witness that one."

"You can text it, you know?" She let him in and she started filling her bag with her notes.

"I can't sense your sarcasm through text." He took a juice from her Fridge and drank it.

"Feel at home," she spoke fiercely as she witnessed his feel-at-home attitude.

"See?" he asked.

"We're running late," they both got out and started walking.

"So what does jail looks like?" he smiled in embarrassment and shook his head.

"Not cool, I would cry if I spend a night in there. Let's not bring it up, hahaha!" and he laughed. To his surprise, Fera laughed along.

"Good thing your grandmother saved your ass from it." And his laughter fell into deep thoughts.

"Her lawyer promised to free me soon as they can but they hadn't done something and the police let me go. Lola even jumped in surprise to see me, and lolo asked me if I escaped from jail.

"According to them it was a false alarm, the case turned out for Constancio." She smiled and nodded.

"Good to hear that." The weak voice hadn't failed to make it grateful as it should be.

"But I think something is up, why would arrest Constancio instead of me when he had more legible proof than I. And more influential than my family." And she felt a sudden strike of the lump in her throat.

"Is that matter?" she couldn't make it visible to him. He was observant and after one mistake he'd got an idea that it must be her.

"Of course, something major happened that made the police officers decide that way. Someone may be helped me." She could feel her neck start burning and sweat started building up.

"And?"

"Why would he or she help me?"

"Why not?"

"No, that's not what I meant. He might have something to Constancio, maybe he is one of his enemies." She gave him a slow nod as if she agreed with it.

"Thanks to him or her you hadn’t spent your night in jail." She remarked but Nick seemed to have something in his head.

"He has eyes everywhere if that is true, when I got arrested only a few knew about it. My grandparents forbid it to happen but he still got the information, and he promptly took action. For an outsider, they would take a few days to learn about my trouble." Once he finished explaining those they reached the school gate.

"I don't get it." She didn't get why would Nick react that way, and how did he know someone helps him which was Fera.

"Forget about it," he dismissed the topic but it keeps running in his mind and Fera knew that.

"Chill, there's nothing big about it," Fera told him but he only looked at her.

"He greatly made things work and it seemed flawless, he got the information that quickly and did the best timing. This is a big deal, who is this powerful man behind this?" His critical thinking led him to overthink simple things.

"Calm your thoughts," before they entered their room.

"Nick! Are you alright? Oh, look at your face I was so worried." A girl jump onto Nick and gave him a tight hug then kept checking his wounds and bruises. Fera walked straight to her chair as if she hadn't seen it.

Some of her classmates were eyeing her but she only got her cellphone and started surfing the internet.

The girl was new to her sight but she keep on looking at her phone to wait for the teacher to come.

"I'm fine Mika," she heard him answer.

"What happened? Why do you have all of this?" She started harshly scrolling but restrain herself to make it too obvious. Almost everyone was watching the three of us.

"Nothing much," Fera thankfully sigh when she heard their teacher arrived. She slipped her phone into her pocket and face the board.

"Nick, let's sit over there."

"I prefer here," and he pulled a chair next to Fera. The girl disappointedly walked to the nearest chair. The discussion started and Nick hit her arm using his elbow.

"Did you notice something unusual on that ride last Saturday? That ride to my grandparent's house." He whispered while they both face the front.

"No, I didn’t," she mumbled low as she could. "Just drop it for a moment, give it a rest." She annoyingly said too.

"Alright-alright, calm down." He immediately noticed her annoyance. During the whole discussion, Fera was in her usual quiet mood, just like the normal days.

"I don't like her," a bitchy voice did its way to her ears.