Little Me

4: He spies with his squinty eyes

A disheveled array of colors limned the gray metallic walls. To me, it was my abstract masterpiece. To others, it was just a bunch of books lazily shoved into my dull locker. It could have been beautiful, but it was still a mess. A representation of the emotion roaring inside me called anger.

I took time to stare at it. Upset, I thought about the months I had left before graduating high school. These paperbacks will no longer be of use. Well, I could burn them in the winter to create a comfortable and stress-free feel. Something these have been preventing me from doing for the past months.

My backpack hung loosely and open on my right shoulder, awaiting to be filled with heavy books and homework. I stretched an arm and grabbed three books, equivalent to three diverse kinds of homework I had to fulfill for the night. When surprisingly, an unexpected force closed my locker, nearly chopping my hand off.

Vince, who was blocked from sight by my locker door earlier, was standing to my right with a mischievous grin. The boy wasn't sorry for almost chopping my hand off, not a bit. "Hurry up, Cupid. This project won't finish by itself," he said.

Vince and I weren't childhood friends nor were we best friends. Damn, I bet we're not even meant to be friends, but here we were, one year and months into our friendship. And in that short period, he was able to come up with an annoying nickname for me. Cupid. Brilliantly (according to him) derived from my name, Valentina (Valentine.)

"No, but that project is obviously going to finish with only my help," I bit back, not even bothering to look at his immediate reaction as I arranged my books in my backpack.

Vince brought his hand to his chest and feigned hurt. He made a lame attempt of puppy dog eyes and pouted his lip. I only flicked a finger at his nose and his acting career immediately got flushed down the nonexistent toilet. The pain he felt on his nose wasn't fake; that's for sure.

I knew what I was doing that night. I was going to set my homework aside, put my earphones on high and sadly, spend the night with Vince at my house to finish our Science project. The other three will be done at dawn with my trusty companion, coffee.

Tonight, I hoped Tina would be staying in my room, playing with my stuffed toys or whatever she could play with. Away from Vincent. She really was a handful since on a daily basis, she leaves her toys anywhere in the house. When I left in the morning, she was surprised to know that I actually had to go to school.

I mean, did I look that dumb?

She begged me to stay and skip classes to play with her, but I turned that offer down. As much as I loved to stay at home instead of learning about probabilities of one's offsprings, I wanted to have a promising future. Education paved a large road with 80% success rate. Therefore, school would be my choice for that one.

Tina didn't understand that concept - young as she was. So, I gave her my phone number just in case she needed something. For the past hours, she texted me roughly twenty messages. Mostly about my time of return. It flattered me to know that someone wanted my companion. But that feeling was buried deep somewhere in my being, and all I could feel was frustration for having to handle a strange child.

In the teenager-infested hallways, I pushed ahead and left Vince behind. I really wasn't in the mood. School wasn't a big problem for me, but it was a pet peeve when teachers decided to give out projects and homework at the same time. This day was one of those days. Scratch that. This day was worse than those kind of days because of Tina in the picture. Vince would sadly have to endure the wrath I was going to release.

"Hey, hey Val! What's up? You seem moody today. And I mean not the normal kind. Like level 3 kind of moody. You're actually frowning." Vince caught up to me, hand covering his nose. Every time he sincerely worried for me, he would say the words quickly. It always came off as if he was in a rush to tell me he was concerned.