A Lover of Rain

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY:

Sometimes when you're heartbroken, you get tunnel vision over ideas that were supposed to be bad for you. Ideas that you promised to deliver because a friend needed you, but it was a bad one so now you're paying for it. Just like when a glass of wine turned into two bottles with only the two of you chugging every ounce down in the middle of the night after your first day of class. I almost missed my first class at nine in the morning until Sera knocked on my door an hour before it started because she wanted us to come to school together. Two classes later, my head still feels like it'll split in a half and the sunlight will burn my eyes out any second.

I grabbed my sunglasses to put on as I walked around the campus to find Maya who asked me to eat lunch with her. Tuesdays were the only day our lunch schedule aligned so even if the culinary students were on the south side of the campus and my building is on the northern part, she still walked for fifteen minutes so we could have our hour lunch break together. "Oh my God, you look terrible." Maya said after giving me a quick look before going back to being chirpy in her yellow preppy outfit like she's a cast member from Clueless.

"Thanks, if only one other person in the house drank wine with Markie last night then maybe we didn't have to finish a bottle each." She couldn't see it because of the black sunglasses, but I rolled my eyes at her while speaking. Maya clung her arm on mine while her other hand was holding a beige lunch bag with three cute bears designed on the front.

"I know! I'm sorry but I was heading out last night..." I glanced at her after hearing what she said, only to find her biting her bottom lips to stop herself from smiling. "Jae texted me all of a sudden, asking me to eat dinner with him. He took me to his favorite restaurant–but it wasn't a date! No... that's why we paid the bills separately."

"But still!" Maya couldn't keep her smile off of her face as she recalled what happened last night when she ditched us drinking on the balcony, drowning our pain because of the Javiers. "I feel like things are going well between us. He's not sure yet about his feelings but I'm more than willing to wait... because I know at the end there's a positive outcome to all of this. Maybe I'm being delusional, who knows! But I feel really really happy with Jae right now and I think he's starting to like me too."

I listened attentively to Maya opening up her feelings about Jae whom I still dislike for her. As I watched her be this ecstatic about someone she has deep feelings for I couldn't help but wonder if I have done enough to show Maya that I'm happy she's happy. I truly am. It was horrible to watch her being shy around Jae who didn't care enough about her existence before, and she'd always say she's fine not being noticed yet you could see a glimpse of sadness behind her eyes that's always smiling. No matter how much I dislike Jae for being a bad influence on Kylo when I first met him, a part of me wants to try to accept the possibility of the two of them having a future together.

I tried to open my mouth to congratulate Maya but the thought of Yohan crumbling into pieces made me stop saying these words. "Good for you." Those three words were the only ones I could say with enough sincerity. Maya wasn't suspecting at all from the lack of congratulations on my side since her smile still wasn't fading away.

"They're actually starting their practice today for the upcoming tournament, so I made Jae a lunchbox. Tada!" Maya held the bag up on my eye-level to show me what she made. I lowered my sunglasses to glance at the lunchbox before raising my brow at her. The lunch bag wasn't for Maya, it was for Jae. That's when I realized the way we were heading was towards the gym where the basketball team held their practices, not to the cafeteria where we're supposed to have lunch. It was also the same gym I went into to watch Julian tryout before and the mere sight of it makes me want to break down into tears as memories start flooding in. But instead of crying, I breathed a few times to control myself. I already had done enough sobbing last night drinking wine straight on the bottle after unexpectedly crossing paths with Julian in the parking lot yesterday. I gave in to Maya's wish of doing a detour from our lunch break to drop Jae a food which I'm sure she poured her heart into making for him.