Chasing Possibilities

1 - Of Anonymous Messages and Secret Admirers

I was absentmindedly chewing the inside of my cheeks as I flipped through the pages of my high school yearbook. It was actually a spur of the moment thing to do. All because of pure curiosity on an anonymous message I received through viber earlier today. I didn't recognize the phone number and since there was not profile photo either, I had no clue who that person was.

Anonymous: Hi. How are you?

Me: Who's this please? You're not in my phonebook.

Anonymous: Oh sorry. I'm Rye. We went to the same high school.

Me: Sorry, I can't remember you. Your name don't sound familiar.

I hadn't received another response from him after that. I probably scared him off with my unfriendly reply. I just couldn't help it. I usually said what I had in mind, so whoever was on the receiving end would have to deal with it.

So back to where I was, slumped down on my bedroom floor, scanning through my high school yearbook looking for this Rye person.

After going through half of my batch mates' profiles on the yearbook, I gave up. I tried recalling who among my batch mates was named Rye or had that nickname but I couldn't remember anyone. Well, what did I expect. I wasn't exactly very friendly in high school. I wasn't very outgoing either. Add the fact that I detached myself most of the time from other people.

I realized then, after a while of flipping through the yearbook pages, what a huge mistake it was for my old high school to have allowed printing our numbers in the yearbook. That was a very easy way to get stalked.

I looked at my phone again and just stared at the message on viber. This Rye person was very intriguing. There was something about him that made me want to be his friend. Suddenly, I remembered I haven't showered and I'd be late if I stalled for a few more minutes. So I showered as fast as I could because today was a Monday.

Oh how I hated Mondays. The end to an awesome weekend. First day of the work week. Eight hours filled with workload. Eight hours of unbearable, congested office space. I could go on and on with my list of why I hated Mondays.

Anyway, today was another one of those stupid company ideas. Today was the last Monday of the month, which meant it's Mad Day Monday again. During this day of the month, agents were required to participate in the HR's choice of activity.

This month the activity was "Dress Up Your Station". Each account's Team Leader picked a theme from the magic bowl and whatever they got would be the theme for their account's station. The winner of the activity will win for their account an additional P3,000 Team Building budget.

Our TL picked the "Halloween" theme which was pretty easy, but, since our TL was born competitive, he wanted the bar raised higher for our team. He thought of a complete package so we could win the contest. So our brilliant TL told all of us in the team to dress up with our best Halloween costume.

It was February for Pete's sake. I wasn't in the mood to wear a zombie costume to work. That would be a totally absurd idea. Therefore, just so I could comply with our crazy, outrageous TL's idea, I decided I'd go to work in a Wednesday Adams outfit.

I was waiting for my jeepney ride to work when my phone beeped.

Rye: Hey, sorry been busy earlier.

I usually didn't entertain messages from strangers but this Rye guy was something else. I had a feeling I knew him from somewhere.

Me: It's okay but I still can't remember you. Were we classmates?