Mercury

6°C

“Um, why is he here?” Mila whispers when she arrives and points towards Troy. I shrug. “Beats me.”

Mila sits down and draws out her stuff with a look of agony on her face. I tear out a piece of paper from my notebook and scribble, “He’s a nice guy, it won’t be awkward.”

Mila still looks like she is about to cry when she passes the note back to me. “Did you invite him?” I give her a look that says ‘no’, and I can tell she’s sobbing in her mind.

Today is supposed to be Mila’s and my homework date at the public library, but I accidentally blurted it out to Troy yesterday when he was annoyingly trying to ask me out on a date today. “Don’t you dare come and disrupt us,” I had warned, but look what happens today.

I turn my head sharply to stare at Troy, who is comfortably doing his calculus homework while tapping his pen on his textbook. I sigh.

When I first saw him at the library, I thought that either my eyes were playing a trick on me, or that Troy really doesn’t know what death tastes like. I made my way to the empty tables suspiciously, keeping my eyes out for a wild Troy. When I finally settled down, he suddenly appeared and sat down beside me. I gasped and glared at him. “I told you not to come!” I had said.

But Troy just turned to look at me like I was an alien. “I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m here to do my homework in peace, and not find anybody in particular. Thank you.” He said with a straight face.

It took everything in me not to give him a slap across the face.

Since then, he has been pretending not to know me. It’s annoying and it’s irritating, but I’m beginning to enjoy his company. It’s all his fault.

“For how long are you going to do this?” I couldn’t stand it and scribble a note to him.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“Stop it.”

“Okay.”

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to make sure that you won’t cry in front of others. You’re only allowed to cry when you’re with me.”

“Who made that rule?”

“Me.”

“And why would you do that?”

“Because I know you don’t want to look weak, so whenever you cry, I’ll hug you and cover you so others won’t know that you’re crying.”

“Don’t you have other friends, or other things to do? Stop changing your life because of me.”

“I like it, so it doesn’t matter.”

I stop writing back, because I don’t see the point anymore. Putting the note aside, I continue with my Math homework. It is very silent between the three of us. I look at Mila and she’s trying to avoid Troy by hiding her head behind her books.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes and I silently thank God for making me remember to switch my phone to silent mode. My hand fiddles around in the pocket of my jacket in search of my phone, and when I fish it out, the name displayed on my phone screen is definitely not what I expect.

Johanna.

I swallow hard and look at Troy, who is looking down at my phone too, for help. “Who’s Johanna?” he whispers, and I can tell Mila overhears it by the way she suddenly jumps up and stares at me. “S-Sam’s mother,” I reply, my lips dry, “What do I do?”