Just This Time

4

As I'm looking at the clouds and the movements of the buildings and postlights while listening to "Meet me in the city by My friend Alan" my eyes caught the attention of a massive white gate. On the right side of the gate there was a little guard house and the guard was checking the taxi's bunk before signaling the taxi to proceed with his hands.

When we passed the gate, the school was huge. It had three main buildings and was decorated with statues of the virgin mary and other saints on the fields. They have a track field along with a swimming pool. I looked at the given map for the school and there was still other areas behind the main buildings such as the gym, the botanical garden, the sleeping quarters of the nuns and so on.

"Which building" the driver asked

I immediately looked at the papers to see if there was any information on where the seniors gather

"Sto. niño building the one on the far right" I replied.

The driver dropped me off at the stairs which is like the rest of the other things here, which is huge. At the top of the stairs it was the lobby. It was packed with so many different faces and because of that my hands started to shiver. I was getting nervous, I quickly tried to breathe in and out slowly and keep talking to myself to relax until from the sea of crowd I finally saw a familiar face.

She was tall with deep black hair and wearing a polo shirt with pants but you can still see the curve of her body along with the formation of her breast. I slowly walked my way up to her without her noticing.

"December?" I said with a voice that lacks clarity and sounded more of a whisper. I wish she heard me the first time because it was awkward waiting for her to turn around that took almost two minutes. I called for her again with a much louder voice.

"December" she stopped reading the paper and turned around.

"Oh my god, what are you doing here? Did you just transferred?" She asked

"Yea, I just did"

"Why didn't you tell me? We should have went together. It's been forever since we saw last each other. Was it freshman or sophomore year?"

"Freshman" I replied

December and I used to go to the same grade school together we were also bus buddies along with Nori. During our freshman year, it was always the three of us. We would get in trouble, cause fights and always ended up in the guidance counselors office. Which ended to us befriending the counselor and going there every lunch to enjoy the air conditioned room.

But, during the last 3 months of the school year the counselor was changed and during the last year of freshman Nori and December transferred. We tried to communicate anr keep in touch but it wasn't enough it ended with me cutting the connection between them. But, I don't remember why I did that or why it happened.

I was brought back to reality when she asked again. "Are you having trouble finding your classroom too? What strand are you?"

" Kinda, I just got here. Not actually familiar with the places here" I said
"Room 205. Humanities and Social Science" I added

"Sweet! That's the same as mine! Let's go together. We should have our attendance first before we leave our luggages in our dorm"  she said

I just nod and followed her to our classroom the walk was dead silence I didn't know how to start a conversation and I'm not really good at keeping one but December kept talking about what happened during her summer which I replied with a smile or a nod and a smile. Why is it hard to talk again to your once close friend.

Walking to the hallway a classroom with a number 205 at the top, along with the name of the section. The section is named St. Thomas of Aquinas. If you're baffled why the sections are saints well this is a private Catholic school. Inside our classroom, majority were girls in fact we were only twenty nine in the classroom. While the ABM and STEM classes have more than fifty in one classroom.

All of them seems like they already knew each other as they were talking and haing fun. They were friendly, but I don't know if there intentions were real. You are the newbie. The fresh meat. The easy victim. They asked me if I wanted to join them but I declined I was too shy and I know they'll get bored with me. But, honestly. I was scared. I hope they would understand me and wouldn't label me as a freak soon.

It's already noon, they gave us half of the day to get to our dorms to rest. December said she was called by the registrar because she's missing one requirement. I didn't want to bother her so I just "okay" and started walking out of the classroom while rummaging my bag for the map of the school to find the dorms.

While walking through the fields, it was scorching hot. I really hate walking during the afternoon but atleast this day it was windy one. I stopped for a minute because it seems like I got lost again and there were no security guards patrolling in the area while the other students were with their peer groups. I took time to  analyze the map when suddenly I heard a slight sharp sound.

Click!

I turned around wanted to know what was that sound and where did it come from and to my surprise there was a guy holding a camera to his face. Slowly putting the camera down, he smiled.  Making his eyes disapper because of how small it was and showing the little dimples that he has. I made eye contact with him but I instantly looked down and  slowly turned away from his direction. I started to walk while my hair was being harassed by the wind so I had to tuck my hair behind my ears.

"What a beauty" he said

"But with sad eyes"

Ignoring him while still walking he started jogging towards me and stopped in from of me.

"Where are you going" he smiled and his eyes disapeared again "I'm pretty you sure you're lost since you were looking at the school map"

"Dorms" I replied

"What?" He asked and there it is again he's smiling making his eyes disappear

"I-m looking for the school dorms" I replied again

"Well, then. It's the first building on the left, the one named Immaculate heart. just go straight ahead" he said then smiled again. Why does this guy keep on smiling. I was about to say thankyou when a large wind suddenly blew my little tucked hairs behind my ears. So I started putting them back in when he took my hair and put it behind my ear. I looked at him and  again he smiled.

"I'll see you later" after he said that he started walking to the opposite direction from mine. I turned around but only seeing his back.

"Thankyou" my mind wanted to tell him.