(alice tossed her phone around from her left to her right hand. then back to her left hand. then to her right… in a meaningless routine. alice wasn't thinking about anything. absolute emptiness had seemed to fill her head. there seemed to be a tiny bee implanted into her mind. a silent buzzing noise with no thought. but that's incorrect. in fact, the humming inside of her mind was composed of her thoughts. like a wrecked train, her thought cuddled up, collapsing into one another that it was unable to convey any message. the message of pain. a train wreck. a car crash. chaos…
perhaps it was the inert and natural body mechanism. the imbedded attempt to numb the pain. but in the futile attempt to eradicate the pain, because it seemed as if her mind had sacrificed all her other senses in her body. and she carried on tossing her phone on and on. and on.
charlie sat by her side, smoking. and during the whole time, he felt that something was amiss. not because of the fact that he was smoking, of course not. he smoking was almost seconding to eating and breathing. but it felt wrong to him that alice was not being mad at him for doing it. usually, if it was the normal alice, she would have been repeatedly poking at him to stop or throwing away the cigarette packet. but right now, there was no eagerness in her eyes. no nothing. and charlie sighed. a perfect white cloud of smoke appeared as he did so. what should he do? he didn't know how to comfort girls.)
"is this because of noa, alice?"
(alice didn't respond to charlie's question. charlie sighed again. when she's like this, there was no taste in smoking. charlie dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his feet.)
"you're not going to tell me what happened are you?"
(alice responded with silence. then a set of foot steps interrupted her silence. )
"hey, isn't that elizabeth? what's she doing here-"
(alice pulled charlie back onto the other side of the wall so that elizabeth couldn't see where they were. alice hadn't expected people to be here. charlie and she had skipped science class just so that they could have time on their own. if elizabeth had to ditch class to do something then… )
"why the hell is noa's girlfriend kissing some other dude?"
(charlie hissed. alice glared at elizabeth. she hated elizabeth for hurting noa. if she could, she wanted to slap elizabeth right across her face, to make her experience an ounce of what noa had felt. her fury boiled in her eyes. an emotion that she had never felt before. an alien yet familiar experience. if charlie hadn't been holding her hand, if he wasn't stopping her, then she would have already charge at elizabeth with all her strength and pulled her hair out. )
"easy there alice."
(charlie tried to calm her down. alice wasn't listening. instead, when the lunch bell rang, she went to search for noa.
noa was was sitting with his friends, laughing at some joke. he saw alice walking directly towards him, but he ignored her. even when alice was right in front of him, he didn't say anything.)
"noa."
(alice whispered. noa then finally turned towards her.)
"what."
(it was only one word. but it was filled with anger, resent, and grief. alice wanted to cry but she knew that she had to tell him. )
"elizabeth is snogging some other guy right now, are you okay with that?"
"what are you talking about?"
(but it wasn't really a question of clarification. it was as if he had said "so? why should i care?". alice didn't know what to say anymore. and she didn't have to say anything. elizabeth was now walking towards them. noa's friend was staring at alice as if she had grown another head. )
"elizabeth -"
(elizabeth slapped alice right across her cheeks, glaring at her disdainfully.)
"was she the girl that had been stalking you, noa?"
(elizabeth asked noa. no one asked if alice was alright. noa didn't answer anybody. he just stared at alice. tears rolled down alice's cheek. )
"are you serious? that's just wrong."
(noa's friends said. alice felt those words sting like daggers. charlie pulling alice's arm, slung one arm around her. alice had started to cry. )
"don't cry alice. at least we know the truth."
