FORGOTTEN

Chapter 7

Nighttime arrives in the blink of an eye which heightens Faye's nervousness. She has had second thoughts about cancelling on Errol, but she thinks it is cowardly. She finally settles on seeing it til the end and await what is going to happen after tonight.

Exiting the building's door, she finds Errol standing by the tree. He has is arms crossed on his chest, his eyes closed while taking in what he is listening to in his head phones. She watches him silently from where she is standing. Just the sight of him gives her bizarre sensations in her chest. The more she sees him, the more it gets stronger.

This is exactly what she is afraid of.

"Errol," she calls out.

Errol takes off his headphones and leaves it hanging around his neck. He then walks towards her, openly smiling at her.

"How's your day?"

"It has been quite exhausting. My throat hurts a little from talking so much." Faye answers, her voice sounding a bit raspy.

"Life of a teacher." Errol sympathizes.

They walk side by side to the station talking about random things. Faye learns that Errol is conducting some photography lessons in Madrid. His main purpose for being in Madrid is to explore, but he thinks that it will be great to give some photography lessons while he is at it.

"What do you like taking photos of?"

Errol makes a sound in his throat, which is something he does when he has to consider what to say. "I like taking picture of people."

This brings Faye to a stop, her eyes playfully wide. She is about to comment on that, but Errol cuts her off quickly. "Don't get me wrong. I love looking at different facial expressions, especially candid ones."

"Now that you've mentioned it...I think so, too." Faye says, humbled by the honesty in what he has said.

They make it to the station and are overwhelmed by how packed the station is. They wait for a couple of minutes until the train arrives. The train is also crowded by people and they are pushed back to the other door.

The train starts moving and people are still traversing all the carriages of the train. Faye feels another fluttering in her heart when Errol stands right in front of her, his arms caging her from the rest of the passengers.

Errol's head is turned to the side, allowing Faye to study the structure of his face. With the proximity of their faces, she can get to see the five o'clock shadow on his face. In addition, she can get a whiff of his smell. She does not know how a man should really smell, but she thinks that his scent is exactly how a man should smell.

He must feel that she has been staring at him as  he quickly tilts his head and faces her. There are a number of inches between their heights, but their eyes effortlessly meet.

"What?" He asks.

"Nothing!" She replies too loudly getting some weird looks from the other train passengers.

She sniffs one more time, secretly enjoying his scent. That itself makes her want to give herself a backhanded slap. The way her mind is going is outright repulsive for her. She is sure that Errol will think her creepy if ever he finds out everything going in her head.

They spend the rest of the ride in silence, although Errol tries to catch Faye staring from time to time. However, Faye has learned her lesson and looks towards the opposite direction.

"Let's eat something Asian," Errol suggests as they walk alongGran Vía.

"I know of a great Japanese restaurant. I feel like having ramen." Faye replies.

"Sure, take me there."

Dinner is served and they dig in without a care in the world. Faye groans at her first sip of the soup at which Errol laughs.

"I'm thinking of going to El Escorial next weekend. Do you want to come with me?" Errol asks.

Before she can even start thinking of an excuse, Errol raises a hand and pats her head as a brother will do to his sister. "Stop overthinking. It's not like I'm asking you out or anything."

He keeps saying that yet doubt never ceases to niggle at her mind. As much as she wants to avoid getting the wrong end of the stick, she still partly believes that it is dating that he is aiming at.

"Don't you have friends to go with?"

"I've met a number of people, but they are not really as fascinating as you." He says offhandedly.

This makes Faye wonder if Errol is saying these careless things intentionally. If he does not stop acting this way, she will undoubtedly fall for him. The worst part of it all is that it is going to be one-sided because he will tell her that she is misinterpreting his friendliness.

"Okay, let's go to El Escorial together." She states clearly and Errol gapes at her.

"What?"

"I just didn't expect you to agree so quickly."

"I don't want to be predictable, you know." Faye fakes a smirk on her lips at which Errol shakes his head.

"I really want to visit various places here in Spain. Of course, I want to take photos if circumstances permit."

"Do you have sample photos with you?"

"Yes, I do. I have some of them on my Instagram." Errol gets up from his seat across Faye and moves to sit right next to her.

He scoots in her side of the booth which makes her unconsciously move away. If Errol sees it, he does not let it show. He takes out his phone from his trouser's pocket and logs in to his Instagram account. She notices that his profiles has pictures mostly of random people. He scrolls down a little and she does not find any picture of him. This just makes him even more attractive to her.

"I met this lady carrying a crying child back in my hometown. She seemed to have been having a hard time calming her child down. Despite the tantrums, she gently cooed at the kid. It was breathtaking, really." He swipes to the left which shows a picture of a stunning young woman.

The woman has dark brown hair and pearly white skin. Even just by looking at her from the side, Faye can tell that she is one hell of a gorgeous lady.

"Who's that?" Faye asks nonchalantly, pretending she isn't affected by what she is looking at.

"That's my best friend, Lisa." There is a soft, gentle smile on his face which vexes Faye a little.

"You like her?"

His head snaps to her direction, his eyes wide in surprise. "What?"

"I'm not trying to be poetic here but the look on your face...it seems there is some sort of longing on it."

"We have been friends since we were in our nappies. She's married." He looks back at the photo, but she notices the drop in the cheerful expression on his face.

Faye takes this as a sign that what they have is not going anywhere beyond friendship. That gives her peace of mind, though she is partly annoyed by how she thought he was interested when in fact he was pining for another girl.

"Perfect." Faye says.

"What?" He turns off the screen of his mobile and looks at her.

"Nothing," She shakes her head and gives herself a pat on the back for being mature enough at the moment.

'You are safe, Faye. You are safe,' she tells herself.