Miss Make-Believe

Chapter 8

Sliding the moment of me being a victor for winning a bet aside, let’s just say that peace has never come to me easily. Due to deficiency of admiration in me for a place like high school and my consistent, compulsory visits to it, teenage life had never been much of a peaceful journey for me. But luckily, a few hobbies and people like Suzanne and Noel have managed to keep me sane all this while. Up until now, even Manuel to be honest.

Talking about sanity, I was on the verge of losing it completely. But being a person of valour and sportsmanship, I decided to give a shot to redemption. I tied my hair in a loose ponytail and took a shaky breath before moving and sitting on the bed of my hotel room. Licking my lips and heaving yet another tenuous breath, I shifted and folded my legs so as to sit in Indian style. I rotated my neck twice in a circular motion, placed both of my hands on the lap in such a way so that one rested over the other and finally straightened my spine in a crisp body posture. My nostrils flared as they took in the pleasant air of the exquisite room and I closed my eyes, ready to hunt harmony even from the nooks and crooks of the space.

But I would repeat my earlier confession. Peace has never come to me easily.

During the meditation, instead of a still mind, I was having a barrage of thoughts. Notions about Noel, Manuel, Suzanne, May, the cursed bet, horrible consequences if I lose the bet, wonderful results if I win it were crowding my mind as if it were a Wal-Mart selling free groceries for an hour or two only. It was frustrating as well as engaging.

But after an estimate of fifteen minutes, every concept started fading. My head was being abandoned of thoughts and I couldn’t be more grateful for the blessing. After five minutes, I was nearly at peace.

Nearly.

A knock on the door finally strengthened my above testimony.

I groaned loudly, running my hands over my face in agitation. I snatched a fluffy pillow from the bed and threw it at the entrance wildly. I was angry and out of breath. Hopping off, I strutted towards the door and opened it brusquely so as to silence the knocking. My eyes landed on Noel’s beaming face and the rage dissipated just a bit. “Hey!”

I didn’t have the strength to share freaking pleasantries with him. Therefore, I didn’t say anything, just backed off and quietly invited him inside. Sensing my dark mood, Noel’s smile vanished in an instant but he entered the chamber anyways. I closed the door behind me abruptly, startling him and crossed my arms over my chest.

I was still seething with bitterness towards him for cutting my lonesome time short. In the midst of all the shady emotions, I vaguely noticed him eying the fluffy pillow I had thrown on the floor. He casted me a questioning glance but I raised my eyebrows at him, daring him to ask the bloody question and annoy me to the point of me morphing into a cannibal and him turning into a victim.

He didn’t interrogate and bore me for at most five minutes.

He knows me too well!

I spent those silent five minutes ogling him. At last, he gathered the guts to speak with his distracting mouth. “Manuel’s not good for you.” His voice was only a few notches above from whisper.

I sighed, tired of talking or thinking about Manuel Wilkinson. “Why do you say that?”

He gave me a one shoulder shrug and stated. “I saw him taking a walk on the beach with May.” He peered at my face after blurting out what he’d seen out at the beach. I was bloody sure he was expecting brilliant, dramatic mono-acting on my behalf. He was looking forward to me either having a panic attack or whizzing past him out of the hotel room, heading to my boyfriend, thrashing him for being verbally intimate with another girl and throwing a grand finale by breaking up with him. But all his hopes shattered when I shrugged my shoulders at him indifferently and plopped down on the bed comfortably.