UNOFFICIALLY YOURS

Memory (3)

Holding her gold medal in her hand and securing it at her back while consistently tapping her right foot at the ground makes her bored and nervous at the same time. She was about to strain her neck for continuously looking at the gate every five minutes watching students passed by it.

She was waiting for Kevin Solinos to enter the gate, and nope, he is not her boyfriend, she is too focused in surviving the school that being in a relationship didn’t cross her mind.

Another wave of students passes by the gate again, standing on her tippy-toes, courtesy of her being short and straining her neck to look for Kevin in a flood of students with little hope that he possibly might not entering school now because he is quite busy these days. The school is celebrating its founding anniversary, and him being part of the student’s council takes a lot of time from him.

She squealed overjoyed when she noticed him just finally entering through the gate with a downcast expression. He must have been so busy that he looks older by his age.

She hesitated coming up to him and ask what she meant to ask him in the first place, her problem is too little compared to what he probably faced. Stuffing the gold medal in her pocket and gearing up her mind to ask him later just not now until he looks somewhat okay, she turn on her heel to retreat when he finally noticed her standing at the side of the gate.

She ignored him and pretended that she didn’t actually see him when she meet his eyes. She proceeded walking with a very serious expression.

“Leilah, what are you still doing here?”

Damn! Turning slowly.“Kevin! I didn’t see you coming.” She said with a very bright smile. She's caught so she might as well act innocent. He gives her a deadpanned expression telling her that he caught on her obvious lie.

“Are you alright?” She hesitantly asked when he sigh and put his hands in his pockets.  They are not close as a friend but she was not entirely heartless either to ignore his obvious suffering. Kevin was their representative from their department for the students council and they met when he approached her for the poetry contest and he's Abby's friend. Abby said she was a good listener, that she was attentive when Abby's pouring her heart out and that she never once interrupted her. She is willing to lend her ears to him, he is Abbys friend after all, and that makes him her friend but not as close as a friend.

“Just peachy. Whats up?”

She look down at her feet when he suddenly turns his head to look down at her. She got nervous when she met his eyes up close, she doesn’t harbor romantic feelings for him, just meeting eye to eye with any man makes her embarrassed about herself. She is not confident that her face is look-worthy, so she'd rather talk while looking anywhere other than the face. Usually when she converse with Abby, she was looking at her ears or her lips, but if she do that with any man, looking at the lips, she will be labelled as creepy. So she'd rather talk looking down.

Remembering what she want to talk to him about, she fidget on her pocket and retrieve back the gold medal that she deposited when she decided to put on hold her queries.

Looking up at Kevin’s lapel, she open her right hand with the gold medal on it. “Did I really win the poetry contest?” She ask Kevin. Aside from variety of ball games, the student council decided to open up new event; poetry, scrabble, logo-making and song writing contest. She was unfortunately the poetry contestant in their department when she accidentally spilled to Abby that she was part of their school paper in her high school days, not that she was not confident that she will not win the contest, just making poem and writing news is entirely different and she was faced with different department that was surely more polished in poem writing than her who struggled to memorized body parts. See the difference?