Chance

Getting close

I couldn't understand what's this feeling inside my heart.

The more I looked at her, the more nervous I became.

To figure out this weird sensation within myself, I did what I'd never thought I'd be doing. I texted her for no reason.

"Yo, hi... Err, how are you doing?"

"Hi Ryan... What a coincidence. I'm about to text you." she replied.

"What? You wanna text me? For what?" I was surprised. That's not how I expected.

"I think I won't be able to attend the rehearsal today. Can you tell the leader about that later?"

"Owh, sure. No problem. But don't you just post it in the group?"

"Nah... I'm not that... overly fond... of posting anything in the group. It's going to get noisy later."

That's weird but also logical at the same time. If we posted anything in the group chat we had, it would trigger a chain reaction of conversation that would never end and it was quite disturbing sometimes.

We chatted for some time until she decided that she would need to go somewhere so we ended the chat. That actually felt... good. 

Rehearsal time, and the moment I entered the club, I could see everyone except for Darwin. I remembered that he said he had something to attend to that day. Something about a family event or what. I approached Anton and reported to him that Viona would be absent from the rehearsal. Andre looked quite pissed with me being the one who reported about Viona's absence. I didn't pay too much attention to him and started practicing with the others.

The night after the rehearsal, I texted Viona again. I started to make this a habit because of how good it felt whenever I was connecting with her.

"Yo, sorry if you're busy but I've done what you asked me just now." 

"Oh hi, thanks a lot for that. Nevermind, I'm just working on my English homework." 

"Wow, that's great. Should be very easy homework then if it's English subject."

"Wha... Easy? This is easy for you?" She was quite shocked with my statement.

"Yeah, I scored almost 100 when I was in the same semester as you."

"WOW, that's very awesome. Can you help me, pretty please???"

Just like that and I became her private tutor for English lesson. I taught her everything I knew about the lesson, the grammar, vocabulary and we even practiced some of the conversation inside the book together. 

This went on for a few days and I thought, maybe I should step it up a bit.

"...and that's how you end the sentence. Easy, right?" I said to her as I explained the final part of the chapter in the book.

"Not quite easy, but I get it now. Thank you very much, my teacher~" she replied me with a smiley emoticon.

"Hahaha, don't mention it. Err, by the way, have you heard of this movie, Hansel & Gretel that's recently playing in the theater?"

"Hansel & Gretel? Yeah, I really wanna watch that. The trailer looks nice."

"Oh great. Err... Do you want to watch it together?" and that was the first time I launched my move but it didn't went pretty well.

"Yes, I'd love too. I'll tell my sister so we can watch it together. Oh, I'll ask the other friends as well."

That went south pretty quickly. At least we would be watching it together, though not just the both of us.

Anton agreed with the movie time we planned and he said he would be the one ordering the tickets for us because he had this application so he didn't need to queue. We still needed to pay by ourselves though. Andre couldn't join us because he had a family matter to attend to during the day of the movie. After Anton bought the tickets, he posted the time and date in the group chat.

"This Sunday, 5.30 PM @SunMall. Don't forget guys"

Everything went as planned and it was finally Sunday. Viona said that she would join us after she finished performing for her ballet school exam at around 5.15. She would just take a cab to the theater and after the movie, we could bring her home. That day, I drove my father's car and I brought everyone to the theatre except for some who decided to ride their own motorcycles there. On the way there, Anton said that he mistakenly bought the tickets for TR Theatre instead of Sun. We were okay with it but we forgot something really important and this really turned out very bad.

After reaching the TR Theatre, the parking lot was very crowded. We had no choice but to park my car at the VIP slot which was quite pricey. We went straight for the theatre studio and I had a really bad feeling as I sat down on my seat.

"Hey Anton, did you tell Viona about the change of place?" I asked Anton, who was sitting beside me.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did that." Anton answered in a relaxed manner.

Suddenly, Anton's phone rang and it was Viona.

"Hey, where are you guys? I'm in front of the theatre already."

"Okay, we'll go out and give you the ticket. Ryan, can you please? Since you're sitting near the end of the row."

I went outside the theatre and I couldn't see her. I opened my phone and read the group chat again.

"Oh no... Damn you Anton..."

He didn't post about the change of plan in the group. Viona was literally in the wrong theatre. I quickly returned inside the theatre.

"Can anybody borrow me your bike? And damn you Anton, you forget to tell her!!!" 

One of the member passed me the keys and Anton was just there, smiling in a very guilty way.

I rode the bike and headed directly to Sun. It was quite for from TR Theatre and the road was quite packed since it was Sunday evening. Once I reached my destination, I phoned Viona.

"Hey, I'm in front alrea..." and she suddenly hung up the phone. She seemed pissed. Very pissed.

I waited  for a few minutes and suddenly a car hit me from behind. The driver was an old man and he apologized for what he did. Fortunately, I didn't fall and I also didn't have time to argue with him so I just let him go. Then, Viona approached me.

She hopped onto the back seat of the bike. She didn't say anything. Her expression was very, scary.

"Sorry for being late, are you okay back there?" I asked her.

"..." 

She didn't reply me. I could hear her sobbing behind me. Of course she would be sad. She highly anticipated that movie and because of Anton's mistake, she couldn't watch it. Same thing for me.

Since the road was very crowded and there were traffic jam almost everywhere, we spent more than 30 minutes to reach the theatre. Once we were in the theatre, the movie had ended.

Anton tried to apologize for his mistake but Viona didn't say anything to him. If I were Viona, I would have kicked him in the face.

The night didn't go very well that day. I wasted my money for parking in the VIP slot and movie ticket. The worse thing, looking at a really mad Viona.