My Ex-Boyfriend From Kindergarten

Chapter 2: Funny Feeling

“You’ve got something on your sleeve,” said Nairobi as she pointed to my sleeve.

“What?” I immediately checked my sleeve and saw nothing.

“Gotcha,” she smirked then returned to paying attention to our English teacher, Mr. de la Vega.

Just like her to do that. She’d get bored of the lesson and have fun by distracting people who were paying attention. Nonetheless, Nairobi is my best friend. If distracting me for a few seconds is what it takes for her to regain interest in the lesson, that’s fine by me. However, the lesson was again disturbed. This time, it was by a knock at the door. Our teacher opened the door and Ms. Co, the assistant principal, entered the room.

“Good morning, Ms. Co,” the class said in chorus.

“Good morning, kids,” she called everyone, from pre-elementary to high school, ‘kids.’

She and Mr. de la Vega talked between themselves before Ms. Co finally spoke again.

“You’ll be having a new classmate,” she finally said.

Everyone in the class inevitably had their own reactions. Most of them were positive. Nairobi and I just looked at each other and smiled.

“He just arrived from London. No, he’s not British. He’s Filipino. He will be joining you starting Monday,” Ms. Co continued after the class calmed down.

Whee! Nairobi and I high-fived as soon as we heard Ms. Co say ‘he.’ Our class has an enormous lack of the male population. I’m sure we were both imagining this new classmate of ours to look heavenly.

“So please treat Mr. Ocampo nicely. He’ll be doing a lot of adjusting. Well, with all that said, you may now resume your class,” she smiled, patted Mr. de la Vega’s shoulder, then left.

Ocampo. London. Our year level.

CAIRO???

Noooo. It can’t be! He’s coming back? But wait. Why am I affected?

Well, of course I’m affected! I still have everything he gave me for Pete’s sake! But… Does he still know me? Does he remember that… I’m his ex-girlfriend from kindergarten…

I kept thinking about the possibility that our new classmate is Cairo. This was only the second time in my entire life that I was enthusiastic to go to school on a Monday. I guess not much has changed about me because he’s still the reason.

Monday, a.k.a. the moment of truth, was nerve-racking. I couldn’t sit still on my seat. Nairobi nudged me a couple of times and asked me what was up, but I couldn’t tell her. I haven’t told her about Cai and I was planning on telling her never. Why would I want her to know that, at age six, I already experienced being dumped? As far as she’s concerned, I’ve never been in a relationship.

The fact that our new classmate wasn’t around for the flag ceremony was another sign. So far, the clues about this guy’s identity are that he’s a Filipino who lived in London, he’s our year level, and he doesn’t attend flag ceremonies. Wow. That’s Cai, alright.