Her and Her Unofficial Love Affairs

CHAPTER 5

Upstairs at our typing laboratory, our teacher gave us a short activity test. After the test, she told us that we're free for the rest of the afternoon given that we'll just stay inside the lab and keep our voices low so we could not disturb the other classes. And to make the time worthwhile, I took a copy of song lyrics from my friend and typed it.

Surprisingly, my crush came to us and sat beside me! He asked me what I was typing. I told him, "The song It Might Be You by Stephen Bishop". Just recently, the song was sung by the school's heartthrob, Mark Carlo Gualberto during a school program. He swept all the girls off their feet for the song was also the theme song of a famed love team on Philippine TV. Every girl in school was on a lust-song syndrome until now.

Without warning, my crush took the copy from my desk and asked me if he could dictate it for me. "Oh, my God! I guess I couldn't type a letter anymore," I thought nervously. I didn't say yes nor nod but he started to dictate the song for me.

"Something's telling me it might be you. It's telling me it might be you. All of my life." The song said. Exactly the lines I was about to type before he came to the scene.

I typed what he just had dictated clumsily. In contrast to the perfect grade that I just had in our activity test, I would rate zero for this.

"Looking back as lovers go walking pass," he continued to dictate.

I continued to type.

"All of my life. Wond'ring how they met and what makes it last," he dictated again.

I typed again with a lot of backspaces and alterations.

"If I found the place, would I recognize the face?"

I couldn't help it anymore. I knew he was looking at me and that made me feel so nervous. I told myself to just type what he said but I couldn't control myself. There was some kind of a magnetic field that pulled me to him and all of a sudden, I turned to him to see his face.

"Something's telling me it might be you. Yeah, it's telling me it might be you," he said as our eyes met.

He stopped dictating. I stopped typing. We both stopped dead on our tracks. My heart was pounding so intensely that I could not move nor say a thing. It was like that we were the only two people in the room. The world seemed to stop revolving. I didn't notice anything else. It was only him. His eyes, his lips, his face.....

For what seemed like an eternity, we stayed there eyes to eyes, face to face. Then he leaned closer to me. We were so close now that I could feel his breathing. "I have to stop this," I said to myself. "This should end," I said to myself again. Trying hard to gather my senses, I suddenly withdrew myself from the magical moment. I turned to the typewriter to type the line he just dictated a while ago. Realizing that I didn't catch the line, I turned to him again avoiding his stare.

"What was the last line again?" I asked him shyly.

"Have you listened to the tape?" he asked instead. I have forgotten about the tape he lent me. The situation on how to return the tape that bothered me the whole day had finally come.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Did you listen to the song, Mysterious Girl?" he asked again.

"Yeah," I nodded again without looking at him.

"How do you find it?"

"It's nice," I answered. It's the only complement that I could say to him.

"You know what," he said but did not continue. I waited for a few seconds but no words came out from his mouth.

"What?" I asked him still not looking at him. Oh, I shouldn't ask him that. I was so afraid that time to what he might say. What if he'll say that the song was for me? What if he'll say that he likes me? I really regretted for asking him that.

"That song is classified as reggae," he explained.

"Oh, I see," I replied with a relief. I was not ready that time for someone to tell me that he likes me because I didn't know how to react and handle the situation. On contrary, I was also hoping for him to say what he felt about me. Does he like me or not? Is he considering me to be his girl? Does he feel the same way as I do? A lot of opposite thoughts were debating on my mind. And preventing him from saying anything else, I took the cassette tape from my schoolbag.

"Here's the tape. Thanks!" I finally managed to hand it to him.

"Oh, you're always welcome," he replied taking the tape from me.

"Now, where were we?" I asked motioning to type again.

He continued to dictate the song for me line by line. This time, I had quiet adjusted to the situation of him very close to me. And after a lot of mistakes, I finally finished typing the song.

"Girl, it's time to go," my friend called me up.

Time ran so fast. It was time to go home. I wondered why I didn't hear the bell rang. Our classmates started piling out from the room now saying goodbyes to fellow classmates and to our teacher. Then I realized that I am now back to the world, back to reality. I sighed and gathered my things as well as myself. On the other hand, my crush stood up to get his things from his desk. Without saying our goodbyes, I followed my friend outside our classroom. I was hoping for him to catch up but he did not. He went out with the boys instead. Crestfallen, I walked with my friend silently. "At least we had a moment," I thought consolingly to myself.

Then I went home savoring every detail of what happened that afternoon. I was so blessed - very blessed of having my crush so near me. Of course, I also had high hopes for him to say that he liked me too. I also hoped that it will be us. But we were only kids then - too young to have a romantic kind of relationship. At that age, people with boyfriends or girlfriends were always the center of attraction and gossip. I was not hoping for that to happen to me. And why was I even thinking of that? It would be so far from reality that he's gonna like me too. I was just an ordinary school girl who was undesirable to be liked.

Anyway,I always had the opportunity of seeing him everyday. With that, I was more than satisfied. I was enjoying every precious minute of theday with him and always looked forward to go to school the moment I wake upeach day. I couldn't explain what I feltfor him because it was the first time that I ever felt that way to a guy. I have had a lot of crushes prior to him butthis time, it was different. Maybe, myfriend was right. It was different goodbecause I must be in love and it was different bad because I might get hurt. This wasn't just a mere attraction anymorebut this involved feelings - feelings of happiness and of sadness.-