bare | 18+

5. Pandemonium

3 months later...

The entirety of Lakewood Academy is in its auditorium. Despite the vice-principal speaking on the stage behind the podium, low murmurs surround me. Guys push each other for no reason, girls are on their phones texting their friends sitting across the auditorium.

Mary is off to the side on stage, occasionally bringing a tissue up to her face. It's all she'd been doing for the past week. She'll cry in the bathroom, in class, at lunch. It's not like she was constantly crying for grieving purposes, she'll just shed a couple of tears whenever someone brought up the missing girl or needed a reason to be pitied and excused. Everyone was sick of it.

"Would you like to share a few words?" The vice-principal asks Mary when she pulls away from the mic. She nods and steps in place of the podium.

She clears her throat.

"Vanessa was my other half—there wasn't a moment where we weren't together." Her voice slightly cracks, she looks down momentarily and continues. "I am utterly disgusted and devastated that someone could do this to another person. That night, many people lost their loved one. Vanessa was a sweet girl—everyone adored her. She had so many dreams...we had so many dreams after high school–"

When her voice slightly hitches and she brings a fresh tissue to blot the corner of her eyes, Ciara groans, immediately calling bullshit. She's great at putting on a show, yet everyone knows it's all a big, dramatic facade.

As she said, many loved Vanessa, but she was only noticed because of Mary—she only put up with her out of fear. What I had been a few years ago is today's Mary, and it's only a matter of time before she gets a new Vanessa.

People were devastated to hear of her absence, but it's almost pathetic and derisive how Mary plays the victim—as if she was the one who is suffering the most.

"I've always hated that bitch," Ciara's cousin whispers to me as the play goes on. It's like everyone got pulled out of class for a little movie.

"She practically treated Vanessa like a dog," I mutter back. "Right?"

When Mary finishes her speech, she leaves the auditorium through a back door while the vice-principal acknowledges her bravery.

A few rows up and columns over was a set of dark hair, a tattoo peaking underneath his wispy ends. It's something I hadn't noticed on Roman before. Besides, the tattoo wasn't my fixation. Despite my heartbreak a few months back, I still have my eye on him.

It's quite absurd, to be honest. All this while, I've been drawn to him without sharing a single conversation. He's everywhere all the time. He's in my classes, in every hallway, in the blue house next door, in my head—my dreams. They started off tame where I'd be in certain scenarios and he'd so happen to be in them. I didn't pay any mind to it, I'll dream about people I've rarely seen sometimes. After a while, they'd start to escalate and I had to suffer with every memory until the end of time.

My eyes are closed, my body is still and I'm in deep slumber, yet these dreams felt so vivid and fresh. Whenever soft fingers lightly skim my skin or run through my hair, I get flashbacks when I'm awake as if those moments were real. I'll dream of his nose grazing against mine while he inches closer to my lips. Maybe his slow fingers would find their way to the hem of the baggy shirts I sleep with most nights, slip up, and massage my hips.

And each time, I'm left unsatisfied and craving Roman more than I had before. He's leading me on, but he's not. It's all in my head.

There's a thrill that comes along with gaining a crush or liking someone. You're so nervous around them all the time, but at the end of the day, you find yourself enjoying that anxiety and flutter in your heart whenever you come across them.