It Doesn't Matter (Matter #1)

33. The Aftermath

Malkia had spent the entire trip back to Uiths biting her nails, it was a bad habit and she had out grown it but it came back when she was really nervous and boy was she nervous. She hadn’t expected Ryuu to leave them all like that, she felt guilty for putting herself and Naya in that kind of position because they were the only ones who couldn’t afford tickets back home but Luke offered to pay for them and then Jay insisted on paying for Naya. He was now seated next to her on their first class cabin.
She was next to Luke and thanks to the servants that worked at Ryuu’s beach house everyone knew why he had ditched them, they were all looking at them like they were judging them even Naya was judging her.
But none of them were as bad as Tom.
It wasn’t like she could feel bad about their stares and judgement, she was judging herself too. She was judging Luke as well because he was acting like himself, he didn’t look bothered or like he cared what was happening. He was just as aloof as always, it pissed her off especially because he had caused this mess.
Why did she get to be the one that was losing her shit and biting her nails?
Because you were not brought up to handle bad situations with ease sweets, see what the difference in your wallet can afford you?
They were almost home when Luke touched her hands and stopped her from biting the skin around her fingers, she was already out of nails then.
“It will be alright,” he said, his voice was calm, so calm it sounded detached “trust me,”
“I can’t.” she said, she was dreading the next day because she was sure Ryuu would retaliate in the most Ryuu way and make her not only hurt inside for what she did but physically as well. Would he red tag her again? Could she handle going through that again, after she had learned to be comfortable? It would be so much harder than the first time, because it wouldn’t end this time, not after she did that to him.
She felt the tears pooling in her eyes and looked away from Luke.
He looked at her for a while; he wasn’t as scared as she was. He didn’t even feel shaken. He felt alright. He knew that he had to feel some other things, like guilt for kissing Ryuu’s girl but he didn’t and all he wanted to do was kiss her again but he couldn’t. Because she was panicking and she didn’t trust that he could protect her.
He held her hand when they got off the ship and all their friends looked at them funny but he didn’t care. He took her to his car, his driver was there and he wanted to take her home.
“What are you doing?” Jay asked after she’d gotten into the car.
“What do you mean?”
“This,” he pointed towards the car where Malkia was.
“I’m taking her home,”
“It’s bad enough that you kissed her and Ryuu saw it, it’s bad enough that she liked you first but the moment Ryuu starts making some headway you do this?”
“Why do I have to care about how Ryuu feels?”
Jay was surprised by his words, he could tell because his lips were apart but he controlled himself and said “because that’s what friend do,” and turned to leave.
Malkia was exhausted, that was the only reason she was riding with Luke, none of the others would of have bothered and she didn’t even want to see the look on Tom’s face, he didn’t look judgmental like everyone else. He looked like he didn’t recognize her at all and he had spent the entire trip here trying to see if could, she didn’t think that she could handle the thirty minutes it took to get her home with him looking at her like that.
So Luke it was, she wanted to ask Naya to come with them but she was with Jay and they were looking at each other like they were the only one in on a joke. She didn’t know how she felt about that but she was not in the position to say anything.
“Will you be alright?” Luke asked her when they got to her house, she’d asked him not to get out of the car lest her mother see him.
“Yeah, thanks for the ride.”
“It’s nothing,” he said tugging her hand so she couldn’t leave just then, he slowly leaned in like he wanted to kiss her but it all felt like it was too soon for Malkia so she moved back and opened the door before she quickly got out.
“See you at school,” she said and rushed inside.
She had not expected to be ambushed by her mother but she realized that she should of have expected it but she would not of have been able to guess the words coming out of her mouth even if she had expected it “Why are you so stupid! Why did you break up with Ryuu? Who is this L friend of his, was he the one that dropped you off?” she peeked behind her to look at the car as it glided off.
“Mama!” Malkia’s voice was sharp but it also betrayed her unshed tears, she was not in the mood to deal with this new version of her mother that idealized money and the people that had it.
“Did he break up with you?” she asked her voice becoming softer.
“How do you even know about that?”
“From Gossip Lover, you’re all over the page – so stupid. I’m not the only one who think so, all the commenters said so.”
“Ugh!” Her father was on the couch watching some electric sport, there were too many for Malkia to keep count “Baba, please help me out here,”
“Pendo let the girl rest first,” her father was a meek man but there was times when he didn’t seem meek at all and that was one of them.
Malkia went into her room, took off her clothes then went to take a shower. She started crying in there so it was pretty much none stop crying with hiccups by the time she got to bed. She was glad her mother didn’t see her and Maki was at a sleep over so no one disturbed her until she fell asleep after running out of tears.
But all that crying didn’t help her with her biggest problem, what was she going to do tomorrow?
She woke up early and took the train to school. She wanted to get there before everyone so she could hide. She had found out from her mother that there was some gossip page that was writing about her, it was bound to stop mentioning her now that she was no longer affiliated with the F4. But thanks to that page, everyone at school was bound to know what had happened and they were all bound to blame her the way all her friends had done on the trip.
She wanted to disappear but she knew she could manage with just coming here so her mother knew she was in school and she could hide out in the library and cover the syllabus so her grades didn’t slip.
She was in the library when someone came to stand in front of her hiding the light that was shining in through the window. She looked up certain it was one of the first people to attack her but it was just Luke.
Her stomach did a summersault but her head was not thrilled, they couldn’t be seen together it would only make people have frenzy, especially Ryuu.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked him.
“I always come in here – to sleep mostly because I can’t always sleep in that classroom,” he smiled at her and sat in front of her on the two seat table that the library had for the private studying area.
“Oh,” she said trying and failing to hide her detriment.
“Is something wrong?” he asked trying to study her face, she wasn’t as lively as she usually was and it seemed like his arrival had brought a cloud over her face.
She took a deep breath then looked him dead in the eye “What are you doing?”
“I’m sitting here with you,” he was trying to be funny but she didn’t laugh, she didn’t even smile.
“Why are you sitting with me, we don’t need to be seen together after what happened.”
“But how else do I get to be with you then,”
“What do you mean be with me?” she didn’t like how her heart was reacting to those words, she knew what was right and what was not right but her heart just couldn’t seem to listen to her head.
“I didn’t kiss you by chance, I wanted to do that, I want to be able to do that every day.” 
She blushed and ducked her head, suddenly she was very shy “But we can’t,” she remembered to say “Ryuu-”
“Don’t worry about Ryuu, I won’t let him hurt you.” He said and his eyes were so earnest she wanted to believe him but she understood that the wrath of the people was coming at her one way or another.
“What about Jamila, I can’t do that to her,”
“Why not?”
“She’s my friend,”
“Is she?” he asked like he’d never thought them as such. 
“Yes!”
He took a while before he spoke “Will you live life with fear of what your actions will do to other people or will you live it with the fear of not being able to do all that you could? I contemplated, it took me a while to decide to do what I did but I did it because I know that we feel the same way, I know that this is what I want and I know that life is too short for me to think of the repercussions of my being happy, I decided to just be, I hope you can choose this path with me.” that was quite likely the most Luke had ever said in one seating.
She looked at him, his words had touched a part deep inside of her and she felt that it was alright to do it this way, as dirty and wrong as it was, if it meant she got to fulfill her heart’s desires.
“I’ll walk with you on this path then,” she said reaching for his hand and squeezing it.
They spent a long time in the library, doing their favorite activity together; learning. It was nothing like what they usually did in the classroom, Luke was reading on some class related materials and Malkia was solving different questions.
Luke offered to walk her to class when the first bell rang and she offered him the option of ditching so they stayed in there even longer but it was hard to keep on staying in there when the lunch hour arrived.
Unlike Malkia Luke was not warry of anything, he felt hungry and he wanted to go eat and he urged her to go with him. She refused of course but then he moved really close to her and stared into her eyes in a manner that she thought ought to be illegal and then asked her again.
She felt the eyes on them when they stepped out into the hall, Luke was oblivious because eyes were always on him wherever he went.  Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at them when they got to the cafeteria, it was so silent you could basically hear a pencil drop, Malkia wished one would drop right then so she could take it as a cue to turn around and leave.
Her eyes roamed the great hall, she noticed Tom on the lunch line just as he was looking at her, she threw him a smile and he sort of smiled back but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Jay and Simba were sitting on their table waiting for someone to bring them food two girls were obviously on their way to do just that. Ryuu was nowhere to be seen and that made Malkia feel a little more relaxed.
Luke walked her to the F4 table and asked her to sit down, she could see that she was not welcomed there and she looked back at Luke to suggest another table but he wouldn’t have it. He asked her to sit down once more then went to get the both of them food.
Malkia sat there self-consciously, she tried not to meet Jay and Simba’s eyes but they were staring at her so she finally raised her head and faced them.
“What?” she said cuttingly just as Tom joined the table.
“Did she just ask us what like she doesn’t know?” Simba asked Jay.
“I thought they said she was smart?” Jay retorted.
“Can’t be, a smart person would not cheat on a guy with his best friend and then come and sit in his table with his mates and ask what like she doesn’t know what’s wrong,” Simba said.
“You’re right, but I also think that a smart girl would simply not do that period.”
“First of all,” Malkia said before she could hear what Simba said “Ryuu and I were not officially together, he was simply courting me,” the word courting didn’t seem right but how else could she explain what was going on between them. Ryuu had offered to make her forget about Luke and she had agreed to have him try but they were never explicitly boyfriend and girlfriend.
“Ah, so it mustn’t hurt him at all then that you’re with Luke?” Simba asked, the sarcasm in his voice cut her.
“I didn’t plan for it,” she defended herself; she felt the tears pool in her eyes. She couldn’t believe how guilty she felt, she couldn’t believe that she had any tears left to cry at all after all the crying she had done last night.
“Whether you planned for it or not does not excuse the fact that you did it,” Jay said, his voice wasn’t as mean anymore “it especially does not excuse the fact that you’re still doing it”.
“I know,” she sniffed, she really didn’t want to cry in the cafeteria with all the eyes watching so she pulled her chair back and walked out of the hall as gracefully as she could and ran all the way to the girl’s bathroom. There were a few other girls there that all looked at her with the same stares that she had ran from in the cafeteria.
She opened a stall there and started crying as quietly as she could. It really was no good, she still felt horrible, and she couldn’t feel happy just because he felt the same because this couldn’t be their story. It couldn’t be her story; she was not that girl that made other people unhappy for her own sake. She just wasn’t.
She heard a knock on her stall and replied “It’s occupied.”
“Oh, I was right, you are in here.” Jamila’s angelic voice said before it added “get out all of you,” in a catty voice that made all the other people in the bathroom scatter in a matter of seconds.
Malkia felt her heart drop, she couldn’t face Jamila. She just couldn’t do that especially after she had deluded herself that it was okay for her and Luke to be together.
“Can we talk?” Jamila asked her, her voice was not sharp or catty. She still spoke like her friend.
She wanted to refuse but she was the one in the wrong so she had to let the other girl do whatever she wanted, she promised herself she would take it all in silence because she deserved it.
She opened the door and walked out to where Jamila was leaning on the bathroom sinks looking like a beautiful model and a misfit at the same time.
Jamila saw her face and her own beautiful face crumbled as she moved closer to her and hugged her “I knew you were crying, I just knew,” she said with a sympathetic voice.
“I’m so sorry,” Malkia said as more tears fell from her eyes “I really am sorry,”
“Sweetie, why do you have to be sorry?” Malkia wondered if it was possible for her not to know about her and Luke, the entire school knew, even her mom knew.
“For…” the words wouldn’t come out.
“Oh, don’t be silly. What right do I have to be mad about you and Luke?”
“He’s your ex and we’re friends, I broke the girl code.”
Jamila laughed then “You know girls have always hated me, part of it was because I never seemed to care about that silly thing. What are codes for anyway? But also, I can’t be mad because I knew how you felt about him and I tried to stand in the way of you two when I noticed that he might like you too.”
Malkia looked up at her, she was surprised that Jamila was not yelling at her or pulling her hair.
“Remember when you asked about us and I told you that we might as well be married? I lied and I did it knowing exactly what you would think, I did it because I was jealous, I wanted him to be mine. He was before I left and he had to be when I came back because I didn’t know just who I was. But I’ve been long enough to know that none of it matters.” She took a deep breath and let go of Malkia before she leaned on the stall “I didn’t know who I was without all the people around me, I had people around me at boarding school and they made me feel like I was the popular girl who sneaked outside to hang out with the boys from the closest boarding school, I was easy, fun and outrageous. Those words weren’t new to me but I came back here, and all of a sudden, I just couldn’t remember who I was or just who I was supposed to be here especially because nothing was the same. Claire wasn’t talking to me and Luke wasn’t as in love with me. It made me desperate to wear those words again I wanted to be popular, fun and just absolutely outrageous.”
She sighed and then moved around the room before she said. “I didn’t know this until just now but when I got to know you, I wasn’t fun or outrageous and you didn’t look up to me because I was popular, you simply liked me and you thought I was kind and a good friend. You thought I was the kind of person that gets to be admired by someone like you and I liked that too. I liked it a lot and I think those tags will be enough for me. So I don’t want to fight,” she laughed bitterly “Luke and I have always been in love but we’ve never dated because I always knew deep down that we could never work, I just figured I should try when he was slipping away. But you know I think you two might work, you’re the same, somehow. I mean you’re a bright person but a different kind of bright from me and that will be good for him. You know he likes bright people, Luke, his mom was one too.”
Malkia could hear how much she still loved him in her voice and it made her heart ache, it ached for so many reasons.
“I’m sorry you guys broke up,” she said, and she was, she was because she felt how sad it made Jamila and yet she was right here telling her it was okay.
“It’s fine, I have my whole life to find someone that looks at me the way that R-” Jamila cut herself short and laughed nervously.
“What?” Malkia asked looking at the older girl “What were you about to say?”
Jamila sighed and thought that she ought to say it anyway, there was no ulterior motive to what she was about to do “I was about to say that I have my whole like to find someone who looks at me the way that Ryuu looks at you, I’m not trying to mean anything by it but it’s just that I really like the way that Ryuu looks at you,” He looks at you like you are the world and he only ever wants to exist in it, she thought.
“Oh,” Malkia did not know what to make of it.
“But you have to be strong, you can’t let people be in the way of your happiness.”
“But I can’t hurt people because of it either.” Malkia countered.
“Why not?” Jamila didn’t understand her at all she stepped on everyone when she went after Luke, her best friend Claire included.
“Because!” Malkia was frustrated “It’s just not right I can’t just do as I please because I can. Oh my…I have been telling Ryuu not to treat people mean just because he has the power to do it, I am simply doing the same thing.” She started crying once more and Jamila hugged her until she stopped.
“Are you sure this is because you’re doing something wrong and because you’re with the wrong person?” she asked when Malkia had washed her face and made it look slightly less puffy from all the crying.
“What?” she was confused by this statement she liked Luke, loved him even. 
“I think he wore you down,” Jamila said touching up her own make up.
Malkia didn’t say anything.
She agreed to go outside with Jamila. Jamila had offered to walk her to class, the way they had done in the past but Luke was waiting outside the bathroom.
“Hey Jam,” he said to Jamila but his eyes were on Malkia, he noticed that she had been crying, why had she been crying?
“Hey, guess I’ll take my leave,” Jamila said before she hugged Malkia and left. People were already talking about that hug when she got to class. 
Luke didn’t comment about her eyes, he simply dropped her off at her classroom door and threw her a heart stopping smile when she got to her seat and noticed he was still there.
He walked with a swagger that day; it was something that made him look more alive and approachable than his usual distant taciturn manner.
Malkia spent all of the rest of the classes going through her conversation with Jamila, she wondered if there was truth in them or was she trying to get her to go back to Ryuu. It was possible; she could say one thing and mean another, especially if Claire was her best friend again. But something in her told her that that was not the reason.
“You alright?” Tom asked her when the final bell rang.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Yes,” he said looking at his feet “I don’t have a right to be but I am,”
“Why are you mad?”
“It’s just that, we’ve been together for over two years and I don’t think you would of have broken your principles for me.” he looked into her eyes after he was done “See? I have no right.”
So that was her answer, she was not that girl and Luke only made her one because she was so overly in and over her head when it came to him.