After Midnight

Chapter 2

Ten years ago.

Rory Madrigal and Jackson Cortez grew up on the same street in a subdivision in the heart of Pasig. The Madrigals lived in the busier part of the road – nearer the gates, where tricycles and other vehicles would pass to access the adjacent roads. The Cortez home was a number of houses down, nearer the quieter end of the street.

Rory and Jackson were neighbors, yes, but more than that – well, not really.

Rory didn't really have friends in the neighborhood. Sure, everything was different when they were in grade school – Jackson, Mike Sison and Sophie Marquez used to come by and play the then-new video game console with her every afternoon. While they were all from different schools, they were the kind of friends that were present in every birthday celebration, that entered each other's houses anytime they wanted.

But middle school suddenly happened and everything changed – Sophie concentrated on math competitions and getting into a tough science high school, and Jackson and Mike were more interested in basketball than, well, anything else.

There was a part of Rory that grew annoyed, sure, but she figured her old friends wouldn't be so fascinated with the drama club or understand her heartbreak over her favorite boy band disbanding. There was also larger part of her that was secretly relieved. She didn't really want to advertise that her parents had been fighting consistently – even if they were already doing an excellent job of doing that themselves, with the raised voices, the occasional plate shattering and the staple I'm-leaving-you scene that ran from the living room up to the front gates but never past that.

And now, high school. Rory would see Sophie at church every Sunday morning, but they never talked or even said hi to one another. Mike and his family had migrated to Australia. And Jackson – well, he was now the finest male specimen in Rory's universe.

Gone was the lanky kid with the grotesquely bushy eyebrows, the guy who messed up her hair every time he beat her in in every video game, the same one who acted like the big brother she didn't have.
In Rory's eyes, he was practically a man – turning 18, a senior in high school. Tall and lean, his shoulders were always pulled back, his chin titled back. His eyes were dark and piercing. He rarely smiled. There was a seemingly permanent furrow in his brow, even when he was merely walking down their street.

He made her so curious that her insides churned and twisted and bing-banged whenever he paid a visit to her daydreams. She wanted to know him, wanted to talk to him, wanted to uncover the secrets that lay behind the smug, conceited façade. She longed for his fingers to touch hers, wished to be so familiar with his voice that all it took was one hello to know it was him on the phone. She yearned to know him, maybe even call him hers.

But she also wished he looked at her with the same level of fascination that she had for him. She wanted to be the finest female specimen in his universe too.
Unfortunately, their interaction was limited to Rory watching him coming home from school anywhere between 5:15 and 5:30 in the afternoon. She would already stand by the window of her room on the second floor, making sure the lacy curtains were drawn so only those that stared hard enough could see her on the lookout.

He would walk past her house, taking his sweet time, his step confident, almost smug. The blue polo shirt of his school uniform was usually unbuttoned, his inner shirt flapping in the wind, held down by the backpack slung over a shoulder. His shoes were gray with dust from scuffing the asphalt. He never looked up or even glanced in the general direction of her house but she was almost 100% sure that he knew she was watching.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, from simply being the leading man in her daydreams, he surprised her.

The last day of classes of her freshman year fell on a Wednesday. Final exams meant an early dismissal and the first afternoon of summer. She and Janina had splurged on iced coffees after school, giggling and smiling prettily at the boys from another exclusive high school.