Run (On Hold)

Chapter 3 - Silly

3. Silly

It was raining. I could see it through the window beside my bedroom table, and I could feel the unusually cool wind of summer without my quilt.

It seemed like global warming was really kicking in, huh? It's raining in the middle of summer, like yesterday. I was awake - wide awake, indeed - for who knows how many minutes - or maybe hours now. But still, I can't find the will to get up for school. Right now, I want nothing but to just lie down here on my pretty hard bed, and stare at my white bedroom ceiling while hearing the faint whooshing of the rain outside and the tics of the bedside clock that make me wonder how long before it alarmed, the only signal that will mandatory send me up and do the things I don't feel like doing.

Really, today I don't feel like doing anything.

Few minutes passed, then,

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Although the sound was irritating, I let it for a few seconds before hitting it to stop because I want my mother to think I'm doing normal, though I knew that she knew by heart I wasn't.

As I hit the alarm button with my right palm, I barely felt the pain from my mending hand; I didn't flinch like yesterday, so it seemed to be healing faster than I thought it would be.

It's been six days now, but unlike my hand which was healing at incredible rate, I was still miserable to the core. I still can't feel the will to go to school, to do the things I used to do. Maybe because I was used to do all the things I wanted with someone beside me, so now that I'm alone I can't seem to know where to start. Really, if not only for the school rule stating that five invalid absences would result to automatic drop out, I would go for my fifth.

How I wish I'd been suspended. How come that there's not a single teacher who witnessed the whole thing? It's impossible, right? Now I wished that Renz complaint on the guidance office so I could have more time with myself alone.

But I knew Renz O'Coner well enough to figure that his ego was higher thanMount Everest, that he'll lie just to keep the horrible truth that he was beaten by his clumsy classmate. I wondered what story he'd made when he went home that day. Maybe he told his parents that girls had gone crazy when they saw him so a stampede occurred, and he being the one they're chasing had been beaten to unconsciousness.

Gross.

With a sigh, I slowly got up and dragged my deadlike body to the bathroom, then mechanically cleaned myself for my school comeback. After shower, I lingered in front of the mirror and examined myself. My eyes met my reflection, and for the first time I was concerned for what I saw.

I can't believe that just six days had passed. It felt like a year to me, yes, but six days were still six, right?

My hair seemed to grow a few centimeters, and it became thick that no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard and longer I press it, some of the hairs - especially on the back - would still rise. And my brown eyes, they used to look cool. But now they looked glum, like they used to cry the maximum tears our tear ducts can produce for a week in just one sitting. Under them - another horrible surprise for me - were purple, bruise-like circles which really looked awful. I'd also spawned two pimples. One near the bridge of my straight nose, the other about an inch away from the right of my thin lips.

I can’t believe how long those six days seemed.

After giving up fixing my hair – It never settled – I went down, readying my stomach for yet another torture. Mom was there, as usual, cooking.

"Good morning," Even for me, my voice sounded as though I just woke up from a six-month comma.

Hearing my voice - and the zombieness on it, I guess, Therese turned, leaving the black crayons on the frying pan - no, it's the sausages - scrutinized me from head to toe as if I'd transformed to an alien, and shook her head slowly.