Immature Mistakes | mj.q✓

Thirteen

Jiaqi felt that familiar feeling of coming into consciousness, but this time he wasn't sure why he had gotten into such a state. He looked at the white ceiling and white room, confirming to himself that he wasn't at school.

'Oh he's up,' he heard the school nurse's voice announce.

A doctor who was already in the room walked over to Jiaqi. 'Well that's better. You see, when you took the pills and lost consciousness, you fell to the ground and hit your head hard. So this leaves your head still sensitive so you must avoid bumping your head, it's still healing so you may lose consciousness.'

'I see,' Jiaqi nodded. 'It was a mistake.'

'Oh I already know it was. Apparently one female student pushed you.' The doctor pointed at Ava who was standing next to Chengxin.

Jiaqi slightly rubbed his head. 'It's okay. I'm okay now doc, can I go back to school?'

The doctor nodded. 'Sure, just be careful next time.'

Jiaqi got out of the bed, and he left with the school nurse to return back to school.

...

It was now around 10 am when Jiaqi was returning to class. He didn't feel like going back, but it sure beat being at the hospital and having nothing to do.

Jiaqi continued to walk through the almost empty hallways when he felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned around to the person, noticing that it was Ava.

'Oh hi, shouldn't you be in class?' Jiaqi asked her.

She nodded and stretched out her hand to give him his bag. He slightly smiled and received it. 'You had to go out of class to hand me my bag? You should have left it with Chengxin. We're classmates.'

'I would have but the guy wasn't even talking to me,' she mumbled. 'And, I'm really sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to almost kill you.'

'Almost kill me?' he raised his eyebrow.

'That's what Chengxin said. He said you were in critical condition, and I didn't want to be the cause of that.' she spoke with a guilt Jiaqi felt was not appropriate for what had happened. He thought there was something else going on which she never told him, because her reaction seemed a bit uncalled for.

'I wasn't in critical condition...' Jiaqi corrected.

'Whatever. Is there anything I can do to...make you feel better?' she folded her hands together, her eyes glistened almost like she was about to cry.

He slightly chuckled. 'Well...you can try to make my job as a counsellor easier.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Geez, why does it have to go that far?'

'Hey, you almost killed me remember!?' he teased. 'So you've understood the request right? I could have found a much harder one. Now go to class.'

Ava shook her head at Jiaqi as he walked away. She wasn't willing to do what he wanted, but it was perhaps the least she could do for what she had caused. She seemed to be some kind of bad luck to him. And even though she didn't feel much guilt, and sometimes wondered if she had a conscious, she felt bad for what had happened to Jiaqi.

Jiaqi looked back at Ava and watched as she disappeared from the hallway to her classroom. He couldn't shake the thought that she was the angel who had appeared to him in the hospital, but it just didn't make sense. Chengxin was right, if someone in the school was an angel, it most certainly was not Ava. But if it was all in his imagination, why would it be her of all people?

He shook the thoughts away as he entered the classroom, finding the literature teacher reading a book that sounded nothing but ancient to Jiaqi. He sat down and ignored all the eyes that were on him, including his former friend who was soon becoming his arch enemy: Yaowen.

...

At lunch time, Jiaqi was one of the last students to receive their meal. He didn't particularly feel like eating, but he knew that he had to. Even though his parents probably wouldn't hear of him skipping meals, he somehow didn't want to worry them of things even they wouldn't be aware of. He watched with slight disgust as the lunch lady put a heap of mashed potato in his tray. He loved mashed potato, but it seemed nauseating on this particular day.

Jiaqi was about to go over to the seat where he was usually alone, but he caught site of another person eating alone: it was Ava. As her counselor, he felt it was good for him to attend to her, and he was very curious about her life. It was his duty to help her out, and he wouldn't be able to do that without finding out more about her.

He walked over to her table and sat opposite her without asking for permission. But he had license to do this anyway, after all, it was something she was supposed to do in exchange for "almost killing him".

'Hey!' Ava immediately complained and looked around the cafeteria. 'You can't sit here!'

'Why? You're alone aren't you?'

'I am but...I don't want Evelyn to see me with you.' Ava's eyes landed on Evelyn who was with her group of friends and was not looking in Ava's direction. But Ava knew she could look in that direction any time. 'In case you didn't know, you're a goody two shoes now. And goody two shoes are not cool.'

Jiaqi frowned for a moment before replying. 'You can just tell Evelyn that you're sitting with me because I'm your counselor. Besides, I think there's no one who's worse than me in this school. I'm the guy who apparently assaulted Janine and left her for dead.'

'I don't believe that.' she answered confidently and took a spoonful of her mashed potato.

'You...you don't? Why?' there was slight joy in Jiaqi's heart. Nobody believed that he didn't hurt Janine, and now finally he was talking to someone who didn't think he was the culprit.

Ava looked at him with a surprised look. 'I mean...even when you were a bad boy you were always a little tender. You never really hurt others, you just caused trouble for yourself.' Ava was hoping Jiaqi wouldn't decipher from that statement that she had a crush on him and almost stalked him every day at lunch time.

He sighed. 'At least one person believes me. So that's that, don't worry about your sister. You promised you'd cooperate though, so I'm just gonna ask you a few questions to get to know you better. As a counselor.'

She looked up from her food to him. 'Do I even have a choice?'

'Well you don't,' he shrugged. 'I already noticed you don't get along with your twin sister, which is weird cause everybody is supposed to get along with their twin sister right?'

'Not in my house I guess,' she shrugged.

'Who do you get along with?' he asked curiously, noticing she didn't have any friends around her at all on the table.

'Not many people,' she admitted with a little self-pity. 'Well there's Mark from our class, he's nice. Just that most people don't really like my personality, they think I'm mean and grouchy.'

'Hm,' Jiaqi looked at Evelyn then back at Ava. 'But you guys have practically the same personalities. Why would you have friends and not her?'

'Just that...' Ava started. 'Evelyn is prettier and perhaps more social, I'm not.'

Indeed, even Jiaqi had noticed that Evelyn was prettier and more talkative, perhaps that played a big role in why people were attracted to her.

He nodded. 'I get it. I don't have friends either, even though I used to have a lot. Wanna be friends?'

Ava's heart slightly softened. This was someone she used to crush on, and she would have never guessed that he would have an emotional side to him. But he was too much of a good boy for her to hang out with him now, it was something she wasn't willing to do lest she got made fun of by her sister.

'Nah, you're too good.' She answered.

'Well I can't say I'm good, I'm just doing what's best for me. I didn't change, I just realized what's good for me and what's not. And that's exactly what I want you to achieve. It's not anything spontaneous.'

'Good luck with that.'