Jazzmyne's Letters Were Never Meant To Be Read

Requited

Dear Mila,

You're really not the type to pester my mind almost everyday and every moment. Because you're really not. You're actually the one who fills that person's mind, and I guess what pesters me is the absolute fact that he's irrevocably and undeniably in love with you – and I get it. I can see why, no matter how my poison shrouded eyes try to villainize you, criticize you, minimize you and your effect on him. But I knew you even before I knew him. You were one of the few that I can tolerate, that I can envision being friends with if I wasn't so fucked up and convoluted, if I wasn't spiraling out of myself, creating walls and borders that didn't need to be there in the first place like some imbecilic megalomaniac fucker ( Oh god, am I like Donald Trump? Damn, damn, god-fucking-damn).

I can still vividly remember the first time I met you. We were at the Marmalade. A comely, cozy, quirky coffee and assorted sweets place that makes THE best wild honey milkshake and almond, white chocolate cookies. The creamy goodness and crunchy, crumbling were accentuated by the sunset fairy lights and the lighthearted hum of people genuinely enjoying their time echoing through the walls. I was melting into the dark brown and olive green plaid cushion at this point, floating close to the heavens. Marmalade was my safe haven. It was everything that deserve my affections. It was a lovely day, the loveliest day. Mila was lovely. She still is.

That day was one of the Odd Days, a special event held by the cafe where twice a month they host something peculiar, or at least not something that a cafe would normally be hosting. The Odd Day event of that day was a robotics competition. Not the type of robotics competition where the whatchamacallits parade their robots and show how advanced and mobile it is, but the type where whatchamacallits make their robots fight without directly controlling them. The robots can only rely on the sensory mechanisms they're programmed with, or so the person a sit away from me said. 

There was more crowd than I expected. Mila was part of the crowd hovering around the mini stadium ring thing, tiptoeing around the sidelines. It was the first time I saw her outside of school with her chirpy group of friends, the first time I saw her outside of her running and tripping, pixie blonde hair bobbing up and down, white teeth brighter than my future, thin, frail and tiny. Blue-eyed pretty in all the conventional ways, soft-spoken and sweet. She reminds me of a fairy like Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, flouncing around and dainty, bubbling. She'd be called Stardust, or she'd make people call her Stardust. I sometimes wonder if her face muscles are numb from the wide sunny smiles she flashes or if I'm just too bitter and jealous and annoying and angsty. 

For a few moments, she stopped her pacing. 

At first, I was openly staring, curious to see her intentions. I tried to reign in my burning curiosity at her presence two cities away from our hometown, where no one in our school usually come around, and why she's in my safe haven, the only person I know, albeit barely, who has ever come to Marmalade. Well, not anymore though, now that it seems like Jack and Mila have made Marmalade their favorite spot too. Normally, I would be sharp-tongued, selfish, but I'm too weakened by my feelings and peculiar bouts of selflessness– or, in a way, self-preservation, that made me pretend to be fine, unaffected by their happiness and perfect coupley-ness. But I didn't know that this was going to happen, then maybe I would have been more hostile, or maybe not.

I approached her figure, for a moment regretting the decision to leave the warm comforts of the cushion. Upon closer inspection, she's holding two strange things in both of her hands. Well, strange for her to be holding: On her left hand was a robot roughly the size of a big baby Bratz doll( yes, I used to own one of those, yes, I sold them for a fairly good price) while on the other was a sleek, black laptop. I couldn't quite distinguish its manufacturer but it seems like it was heavily modified anyway so maybe not an Apple product. The robot, on the other hand, (see what I did there *wink* *wink*, *nudge* *nudge*) looked like Eve from Wall-E but with more rounded and cylindrical limbs and elongated waist that has the same appearance as the limbs, which, now that I think about it, seems a bit like the limbs of Dr. Octopus from Spiderman.

"That's cool." I said, voicing out my thoughts.

"Hi! Oh, thanks." She said brightly, followed by an awkward half-wave. You can probably imagine how that worked out.

"Jazzmyne, right? I sit two seats in front of you in AP Calc." Mila said, still widely grinning. Does her cheeks not hurt?

"And you're Mila, it's great to officially meet you." I replied, giving her a small smile.

"Are you competing?" She asked, looking like she's about to burst with nervous excitement.

"No, not really. Are you?"

"Yep." popping the 'p' and probably the chances of us being friends, that is if I wasn't struck with surprise at being confronted with the fact that she's part of the geeky showcase, all offense intended.

"Is that the robot you're using?"

"Uhuh, her name's EVA03, inspired by Eve of Wall-E." Ok, so plus points for that.

"Cool, I'll be cheering for you then."

"Yeah, that's if I can get to the front." She replied, sobering a bit. I smiled down at her tiny frame, knowing why that might seem an impossible feat.

"Don't worry, I got you." I said, pushing through the crowd rather forcefully with my usual armory of shoves and glares. I hated to stereotype but the crowd was definitely not filled with jocks and it was not too hard to form a path for Mila to come near the platform. No one wanted to go against the tall, glaring girl that can whip you with her hair that resembles more closely to a horse's mane.

I watched her face lit up, her eyes glimmered, the moment she powered up and turned her creation. She looked so passionate, so in her element that I envied her. She was enveloped in the comfort of being freely her. She was unstoppable in her own revolutionary way, and a sliver of me wants to be her, to know what it's like to understand my place in the universe and the power I hold in changing it. And I still envy her, especially now that she returns the love I yearn to have myself.

Love,

Jazzmyne