Answer Me

Chapter 2

"So, the essay is a pair work homework, isn't it?"

"Willow, please use 'right' not 'isn't it'." This boy had just made me want to turn daily conversation into a debate session. Tim had always thought that he was the best in the class especially grammar. He was one annoying dirtball. Like come on, he wasn't the only one in the class. Even the Malaysian guy in our class was better at grammar than him.

I rolled my eyes before opening my mouth to argue. "Man, Tim, stop being grammar Nazi like all the time. And, you corrected the correct thing," I said, my thumbs scrolling up and down the Twitter timeline.

"Why is that?" Tim was confused. I knew he had nothing to argue back. "Everyone uses 'right'." Ha ha. I caught the hints of stammering in his voice. I led the game and Erin was heading towards 1-0.

"How can you even end up doing Bachelor of English when you can't even tell the simplest thing about question tag?" Okay, that was harsh. I didn't regret letting it out. Tim was used to my outspoken attitude whenever we argued. Willow was quiet, she knew that she was right all along.

"Ah, I forgot about question tag." Tim surrendered. Hail to Erin. I won with score 1-0.

Willow stretched from her seat to whisper something in my ear. "You go, girl." We chuckled at the Annoying Tim's lost. I could be a mean girl most of the times. Somehow, my friends still couldn't get it like how my high school friends used to be. Never mind, they were cool though.

Our lecturer strode in and all of the faces in the lecture hall morphed from all smiles and carefree to all boring and 'I-wish-the-class-ends-faster' expression. I seemed to be the only one who liked the subject.

I found grammar very intriguing rather than literature. I grew up doing my own small research on grammar from dictionaries that my middle school best friend, Sam, owned. She wasn't an English speaker since her family came from Hong Kong but, she loved learning English so much. Sam and I used to have sleepover at each other's houses almost every weekend. Being language beaus, we spent hundreds of nights discovering the things inside the dictionaries. Sam was such a prodigy that she was always the top scorer for English.

Well now, Sam had gone.

Her family decided to move back to Hong Kong to run a family business there. We were in the tenth grade that time. Before she went, she gave me all of her dictionaries as a gift. I had nothing to give her back so, I cried so hard, feeling guilty for having nothing. I still remembered what did she say which made me this way now.

"Hey, it's fine. You just have to keep learning and become a great language aficionado I've ever known. That would be enough as a farewell gift for me. Well, actually all the memories that we have spent together are already a farewell gift to me," she said. Her smile illuminated her whole face and I would never forget the way her eyes looked whenever she was smiling.

A year after that, we'd lost contact of each other. I tried finding her name on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but, I found nothing. I didn't know if she still considered me as her best friend but, I still did. That was the reason I majored in English and participated a lot during lectures. You could say that I was quite outstanding in class.

I guess I wasn't outstanding enough.

"Can someone tell me about phonetic symbols and relate it to the mechanism of certain parts of our body?" Mr. Neil's grey eyes scanned the whole class for someone to answer and of course as usual, I put up my hand and answered his question. He seemed impressed and I liked that.

"Good. Thank you, Ms..." He took a long time figuring out my name. I didn't like that.

"Quinn."

"That was impressive. Any other answers? How about you, Ms. Brooks?" She pointed to Deirdre who sat in the end of my row. Deirdre wasn't the type who talked much in class. She wasn't talkative nor too quiet. Deirdre was the one of the sweet girl type with pastel colored blouses and floral patterned skirt as her daily couture.

That wasn't the issue though. The thing that made me sad was how easily forgotten I was. I had to remind my lecturers about my name in every class. No matter how active I was in class, I would always be forgotten during the next session. I knew it sounded so immature and foolish to think like that. I didn't know if this was a matter that I should feel bad for.

Was I unseen?

"Erin." I heard Ali called my name as I walked out the lecture hall. Ali was my roommate's best friend. They shared the same interest in fashion which obviously not my thing. I slowed down my pace for her to catch up while my thumbs were so agile scrolling the Twitter. I saw Riley McDonough's new photo on my timeline. Favorited. Retweeted.

"Hey. Sup? Don't you know by calling my name, you will be pulled into the caged pleas of a pepperoni pizza craver?" I asked, not taking off my eyes from my phone screen, fingers typing replies to some of my Exiter friends. It was like a routine for us; the boys posted photo or tweeted something, replied, retweeted, favorited, and quoted and the whole timeline went crazily fun to be scrolled. These girls surely knew how to joke because I would be laughing seeing their tweets most of the times. I loved them.

"You're being antisocial again," she complained. I shrugged her off with a cynical wide grin. "Let's grab something to eat. Ann's driving."

"Cool." We strolled towards Ann's City in the parking lot. The perks of having a generous roommate with car.

As we entered the car, being a good expression reader, Ann immediately shot me with a question. "Why do you look kinda gloomy, Erin? Something went wrong? Period pain? Your pet died?" Her tone changed at each question from concern to playful. The car shook with our laughter.

"Yeah. You look a little bit...sad earlier. Why?" Ali joined the interrogation squad. Should I tell them what did I feel? But it sounded ridiculous. I tried to distract their questions by going through the best app the world had ever had, Twitter. Ann drove out of the college area. Cheerleader floated from the speaker and for God's sake, I hated that song so, I stuffed my ears with earphones and played my Before You Exit playlist on medium volume. I wasn't fond of highest volume even though I wanted to shut the world out from my eardrums.

"Erin. What's wrong?" Ali shook my shoulder from the backseat, wanting for response.

"Huh? What what's wrong?" Ann shot me a half-intimidating stare, threatening me to stop avoiding. I heaved a sigh. "Okay. My lecturer doesn't recognize me again."

"Only that?" There were frustration and annoyance in their voices. "Seriously, only that?"

"I know it's not a big deal but, I'm not that kind of passive student. I participate the most in class. Not to brag, I scored highest in tests but still, they can't even remember my name instead of the silent corner seat occupant. Am I that plain? Am I invisible? Well, I guess I am." I could feel that my tone was changing. This was why I didn't prefer to let it out. I easily lost my temper and once I voiced everything out, people would be so annoyed with me.

"Maybe he didn't notice you. It'll be fine, Erin." Ann tried to calm me down though she knew my ego wouldn't let her words to do so.

"Am I unattractive? Do I have to be someone else to be seen? Do I have to change myself?"

Ann and Ali left the question unanswered.