Curiosity (GxG) (TeacherxStudent)

Chapter Twenty-Four

I'm better than this, so I didn't answer Jon Wallace. I tried going on blind dates, but nothing just seems to work out. Maybe because of the new person who had entered my life, I've come to raise the standards.

Days passed by, the more I grew fixated on her. I didn't know when it started, but somewhere along the line, when she stayed behind every day in my classroom, that day we skipped class like a bunch of careless teenagers, the deep talks by the window at night, that time I visited their house and listened to her never-ending story about her family and her. We're too different from each other, maybe that was the reason I was so fascinated by this person.

It had been less than a month since we met. Twenty-four days I could not forget. Twenty-four days of break from the suffocating world I thought I would never escape.

Is it too early to say that I've found the two things I've been looking for, in one person?

The moon glowed brighter on this particular night. Stars scattered around the sky like a painter splattered white paint on a dark canvas. Ellie's head was resting on my shoulder. And I could sense her staring at my face a little longer than she should.

What is she seeing right now? I want to know what keeps her eyes from staying still because when I look at myself in the mirror, all I see is a blank. And you don't usually look at an empty space for such a long time. There are so many more wonderful things out here to see, yet she's looking at a face I can't even see clearly.

"You're beautiful Karlene, do you know that?" she asked in a whisper. I don't think she has control over what she's saying.

"How drunk are you?" I chuckled. I couldn't pull my eyes to look at her. I was stiff as a rod, if not, I was frozen at that moment.

"No, I'm serious."

"Just drunk," I insisted.

"People are more honest when they're drunk."

She has no idea what she's making me feel. And I'm not going to refuse the truth, I also have alcohol in my system. That explains why I don't deny these thoughts. Thoughts that my sober self is too scared to confront.

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This night is too good to miss. The moon and the stars were at the place they originally were. They did not change at all. And as I looked at it from the ground I was sitting on, I was taken back years ago, at my childhood, when I thought everything was permanent. The night sky remained the same, but here on the ground we constantly change.

I leaned close to her ears so I could whisper, "You don't know how nostalgic this is to me." 

"What does this remind you?"

"My parents. My Dad and I used to stay up all night watching the night sky. Then we point at it. We'll guess who mom is at the sea of stars above our heads because you know that myth that when a person passes away they become a star?"

Ellie nodded.

"Yeah, we believed in it. They said my mother was a glowing ball of energy, she was noticeable. So at times when my dad and I were hopeless, we point at the brightest star visible in the sky. And somehow, we'll feel her looking back at us too. That reminded us to keep going, someone out there is watching and we can't afford to disappoint that person."

Our mouths were then silenced. We gazed upon the stars as I gazed upon them when I was a kid. Still, the same fascination, but with a different person beside me. No way was it awkward or uncomfortable, but it was rather neutral and maybe a little consoling. Consoling because for the first time I've told someone a part of me that has been kept hidden from people. A part of me I'd never thought I had the courage to open about.