Story of a Girl

Moving On...Really?

“been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has frozen me,
Sun has baked me,
Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me
Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!”

Langston Hughes

 

It was difficult but Lara tried her best to smile, for her own sake.

It was with much gratefulness that she was now caught up in the whirlwind of bustling activities in the school where she was teaching now. She was very busy in school and she was glad for the diversion, glad even for the kids and their petty problems that occupied much of her time. She threw herself on her teaching and slaved for the kids with much enthusiasm and they in turn—she wanted to believe—loved her back too, a little.

She taught high school and fourth year at that. She enjoyed them though and revelled in their antics and petty dramas. High school, she thought, hasn’t changed and perhaps never will. She saw bits and pieces of herself and her high school pals in the bright, young faces before her. Many times she will catch herself thinking, “Oh, this one is so much like Paige, babyish and charming; that one is more like Alex, brilliant in Math,” and so on.

And then she met KC and Mark who teased each other to no end but stayed thick as thieves just the same and she thought, with a pang in her heart and a wistful smile upon her lips, “There I am and there’s Shin.”

“How are you now?” She wrote Shin once when she was able to spare the time. “I’m feeling better now, no more of that walking-around-like-zombie-look and stuff. I’m glad to be back in teaching because it keeps my mind off a lot of negative things. The kids are super energetic and they tend to drag me down once in a while, but I’ll be the biggest liar in earth if I say I’m not enjoying it all. How about you? I hope you are happy as well.”

“And you’d better be, ‘cause I’ve put so much in stake for your happiness, you baka-saru.” She said half-longingly but with slight humor.

It was true anyway, she was feeling better and better each day. But the same thing cannot be held true for Shin because of what he told her a few days later in his reply.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He said. “I knew you will push through this one way or another; you’re really a strong person. Sad to say though, that the circumstances are not in favour of me as they are to you.”

Lara knitted her eyebrows. Whatever did he mean?

“You remember the girl I said was a lot like you?”

Yeah, how could I forget? Lara thought with a sniff.

“I confessed my feelings for her but it seems that she didn’t appreciate it because she has been avoiding ever since. She doesn’t talk to me anymore unless it’s really necessary and she had taken everything to the point of ignoring me pointedly. It hurts a lot. Last week, I bought her a gift and brought it to her house. I just left in her doorstep. It was quite a stupid and not to mention a corny move but I felt that it was something I had to do.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...Lara kept repeating in her mind, after reading that message. What a joke.  She sacrificed herself for this girl and she didn’t even have the civility to treat him well!

Sobrang ganda ba niya that she would refuse him like that? What didn’t she like about Shin anyway? She thought indignantly. The nerve of that hag!

And she really felt sorry for Shin, that poor jerk. Lara sincerely wanted him to be happy and here he is much more miserable than he has been to begin with.

Lara sent him her answer, trying to cheer him up with comforting words. She wished she could do more for him but she knew she couldn’t. 

“Thanks.” He replied. “You can’t imagine how much I value you’re presence right now. I’m so grateful because I put you through hell and yet you’re still here standing by me through my ordeal.”

“Well,” she murmured, after reading that message. “Here’s a pretty picture. It seems like life is really making fools out of us.”

Or are they the ones making the fools out of themselves?

* * * * *