whispers and mutters • blasnique

Chapter Twenty Two

UNIQUE

I know I made a mistake. I made a mistake for lying to Blaster, crashing my car, getting to the hospital. Luckily I wasn't that injured but I had my arm almost broken.

"Remember, don't drink and drive!" The doctor says, smiling after she wrapped the bandage around my arm. "Yeah, I will." I say, frowning as we exited the emergency room.

"Why did your car crash?" Badjao asks, rolling his eyes.

"Lousy driver and I was drunk--"

"--You know that's not a great combination--"

"--It never was."

Badjao paid the cash and headed to his car. I sit beside him on the passenger's seat. It was midnight when I crashed my car and got help from a car passing by. I got bumped in this unimaginably tall tree and I almost broke my arm.

"Hey, Unique. Why'd you drink?" Badjao asks, breaking the silent atmosphere with his concerned question.

"Uh, nothing." I answer, hoping he would believe my lifeless response.

"Impossible. I remember you were three weeks clean and then you stopped. Exactly this day." He says, raising an eyebrow, eyes still on the road.

"How'd you know? I mean you keep track of my---"

"I know things." He says confidently.

"How?" I ask.

"I know. Isn't that a valid answer?" He answers.

"How do you know things?" I ask more curiously, emphasizing my words.

"One must think. That's it. You think and you listen. You don't just know. You analyze."

I honestly don't know what he is saying. I'm utterly clueless of the mystery Badjao evoked in the atmosphere and in his bearing. We awkwardly exchange glances as he start the engine and drive away.

Throughout the ride, it was just a series of silent stares into the absence and the moving surroundings we pass by at speed.

There's always something inexplicable about Badjao that just clicks within me, and it drives me insane. His vast knowledge of anonymity and what I thought was bottled and suppressed suddenly aroused curiosity within me. It was as if I was so utterly exposed to him, and I couldn't do anything about it.

I just nod as Badjao drops me off my house. I open the door and got out of the car. Before I could open my front door, Badjao rolls down his window at the passenger seat and bids me goodbye. Smiling wryly, I do the same, turning around to enter home.

Zild's absence wasn't clearly thought of because it was said that he was with Shanne. Thinking about his whereabouts is just exhaustive in itself. He could be lying beside a stranger or swooning his girlfriend oblivious of his cheating.

I open my front door and hastily lie down on the couch.

Do I want to call Blaster to ask for forgiveness? Wait, bad idea. How can I ask him to come over? Will he forgive me? Or forget about a day ago?

I don't know with him, but he tends to remember the bad and forget the good. Will he remember the good if I make memories with him? Will I bring bad memories? I think I already did.

I open the television and I saw my face again. And it says that I crashed my car.

"What again?" I groan angrily as I stare closely into the screen.

It was a picture of me inside my poorly crashed car.

blaster's point of view.

I open the television to see a picture of Unique and his crashed car. "What happened?" I mumble under my breath, i gotta go to Unique's.

"Where the hell are you going again?" My mother from the kitchen screams. I can sneak out. I'm certain I can do this.

"I'll just be heading to the mall!" I shout.

"Why the fuck are you in such a hurry?!"

I ignore her by slamming the door as vociferated in anger and confusion. Consequently, I received an innumerable amount of ear-splitting bellows of my mother screaming at me to come back.

The last thing I heard was my mother asking me to come back, but I was already far away when I realized her screaming. It didn't matter now.

No matter the grudge I hold against that man, I still manage to flock back to him like moths to a flame.

I was running as fast as humanly possible until I arrived at Unique's house. Pressing the door bell incessantly only brought me to Unique's presence, arm bandaged and patched up like a kid who tripped on a rock.

"Hi!" I say, breathing erratically and heavily while forcing a smile on my face.

"W-why are you here?" he stammers.

"Uh. I came here to see if you're okay." I was talking fast, words coming out an incomprehensible slur. My nervosity undermined the force of feigned confidence.

"I'm okay." he pauses, smiling at me awkwardly.

"You may go now." He adds, biting his pinkish, soft lips whilst trying to close the door.

Without taking no for an answer, I stop his motion by blocking the threshold with my left foot. Breathing heavily, a pang of nervosity hanging like stacks of heavyweights on my chest, I say three words that causes him to freeze like a statue,

"Can I stay?"

"Yeah, come in."