Light That Never Goes Out

Chapter II

She don't know how but apparently, her parents knew everything about all her dates and fun moments with Rem, about how they sneak after class just to hang out and date without telling her parents.

Having a boyfriend before you finish college is a huge sin, advised by her mother. Maybe because they are just scared that she might turn into her older sister who is now a teenage mother, raising her child on her own after their family abandoned her due to her stubbornness. Of course she was scared about it. She knew that they wouldn't allow her even if she try to tell and convince them about it.

She even notice from the first place that every time their class gather around on her house, her parents will always eye on Rem and it is certainly obvious that they will always throw cold responses to him whenever he tries to start a conversation. They wouldn't even try to hide it. That's when Sefi think that it will be a problem.

She then was confronted by her parents and lectured her about how she thought they wouldn't know the thing that is happening between her and Rem. And for the first time, she tried to stand up for that and disagree with them. She was indeed a different person now that she changed herself to become deserving of Rem. She's not her old self anymore.

That caused a huge impact on her image in the family. They are starting to lose their hope and trust to her that she wouldn't finish college just because she has Rem now.

But that didn't stop them. They remained low-key and more secretive about their relationship for months. In which their friends are being supportive about because they are the one who pushed and advised her into this relationship in the first place. They will always sneak out after classes all together with Yne, Cloe, and Marien along with their partners, which are all Rem's friends. And Sefi felt so wrong and guilty about this.

Although their thing started flawless for couple of months, she's starting to see clearly the unpleasant things about them. She realized that they are likely to be less compatible with each other. They always argue. She feels like every time they try to talk or decide about things, it will always turn into an argument. And her performance in academics aren't satisfying her enough.

Sefi is not doing well, she's losing herself more and more. She feels like the relationship drains her and is starting to feel like they are both manipulating each other sometimes. And she's getting sick of it.

She tried to open this all out to her friends thinking that they would understand. And since they all like him because of their boyfriends who are his friends and are rooting for him, they keep assuring her that Rem is not a bad person. They advised her to change herself again for him to be 'better', which kind of made her feel upset.

Instead of feeling validated, she feels like she just confused them and they're puzzled about how and why is she thinking that way. She wonders about herself because of that. She's slowly convinced that the problem is really her and the one to be blamed. Why does it feel like she doesn't belong to the right people and their presence is trying to make her feel off? She indeed feel out of place when she's with them most of the time.

She also tried her best to forget this thought and started to act different as if she just adjusted and invented a new personality just to match her surroundings. And even if she's naturally born with bad temper, she bottled up all of her emotions and resulted her to learn how to show fake treatments.

Things suddenly worked well for a while and even her fake actions resulted her relationship with Rem to be more peaceful and healthier. But she's aware that it is so wrong.

She could've just broke up with him as early as possible but she's really pressured about the people around them. Their environment will definitely be affected and the fact that Rem's family know her well now just because he always tend to brag about her. He basically brag about their relationship to everyone and that is probably why it is hard for her to end things out suddenly.

So when the final argument with her parents about this secret relationship sprout again and when her parent's lectures started to make sense, she didn't fight against them anymore. There is a reason why they don't like Rem for her. Some sort of animosity is happening between their families and her mother convinced her that she can do better than him. Her parents are just scared for her future and concerned about her performance on class. She's getting out of her track. She's starting to understand them now more.

She then started to think of ways on how to end things with him. The guy is clearly fond of her now and she sometimes think that he's obsessed. I mean, who wouldn't be. Her ego whisper sometimes. She feels like her old and true self is coming back. She's starting to feel like herself again.

She remembers how she used to plan to not make things with Rem deeper because she might regret soon. She even says promises she's not even sure of actually doing it. Sefi is now starting to feel bad to fight back with her parents because she figured that it's not worth it. As what her nature is, she's not really committed. The only thing she wanted to be committed into, is with death.

That's the time when everything seems so confusing and getting out of hand because of a hectic semester ender requirements, her paper works have gone missing from her portfolio. And of course this bad luck will happen to her perfectly now that the deadline of submission is near.

'I wanna kill myself so bad.'

She sometimes consider to do what she's planning whenever there is a major inconvenience in her life. That acid she once stole from her previous high school is still stored safely on some of her secured storage on their house. She knew this would be helpful to her when the perfect time comes and she thinks about drinking that most of the time.

The pressure of maintaining her grade and keeping up with the Highest Honors, her training for upcoming competition with journalism being the campus journalist representative, keeping up with her missed classes due to her trainings, the plan of ending things properly with Rem, which is she hasn't had any action yet, and of course her school requirements that miraculously went missing perfectly just right the day of submission for God knows where she lost it.

She is now starting to believe that God is real out of desperation.

Today is the last day of their finals and she must submit her school papers today. She is panicking inside while thinking of where did she place those goddamn papers. This is starting to drive her insane so she just reviewed her notes for her Entrepreneurship exam for later.

Not until her white noise 1hr loop stopped playing on her phone and received a notification.

She felt her breathing stopped for a second as she read the message request.

Thank you God I love you!

She's an atheist.

———

☽