Keyholes To Flowerage

IV. Keyholes to Flowerage

IV. Keyholes to Flowerage

STROLLING FROM our school ground, empty walkways and fallen leaves, to the façade of sanitary engineer's building derailed my attempts of making it all up to April again due to Malboro-headed guys inhaling gray fumes-sighing and relaxing beneath the green papers and honeyed sunlight. The circled amalgam of yellow and orange lit the tanned-tree, its rays penetrated the holes of leaves, highlighting the cluster of guys smoking halcyons and abeyances.

My feet were soaked in earth soils, I hesitated whether to approach thus I could put my attempts into actions or leave it all behind for a brief period of time.

"Hi!" It could've been audible if it wasn't for my heart that played the track of thump-thump as though it was an almost epilogue of my existence. In front of me, a Brandon Urie type. Bulky but effeminate.

"Are you a junior student?" I nodded in a whirled motion.

"I'm Gabriel, 2nd year college. And you are..." He looked exactly down at my ID. "Marceline."

His approached was dull and was sending me the idea of waltzing out from his vision.

"Dude." Distracted, we both looked at the sudden approach of the guy who spoke. Gabriel surprisingly showed both of his arms in the air, watering the bonfire he lit.

"I'll see you around, Marceline."

It was silence screaming when the figure towered over my shadow. He was tree. Scented like Marlboro and an earl grey tea. Brown sugar-curls. Skin of cowhide and clean paper. Large hands holding a flirty cigarette. His ocean irises shone flames, just like the habit.

Terrified to get suffocated, I pleaded him to cease smoking cigar. "Ah, you care."

"Second hand smoke." I was abruptly blinded by the sun rays directly hitting my sight. When I opened my eyes, he was tapping the edge of cigarette, charcoaled smudges dropped on the soil. "And besides, Mary Joy wouldn't certainly like seeing you smoke like a pro."

"Not convincing." He slid his hands and crotchet on his pockets. "Don't come back here again, alright?"

"Why, though? April likes being here and making friends with some college guys." He laughed at me, kinda reminding me of Mary Joy.

"That girl's hard-headed. I also warned her but yeah, she just really wanted this. Earning attention and compliments from guys here. Listen, junior girls are prohibited to go here." My brows met.

He looked down at me, his ocean irises softened. "Unless you have intentions of getting a college boyfriend."

"W-what." I gripped onto my sling. "I, I didn't know it's like this. I was just intending to chance April because you know-"

"I know, I know. Keep cool, alright." I beamed and earned the stares of guys behind him.

"Thank you, Charles."

"Damn." He then scratched his nape, apple ears.

I slanted my sight and it landed on April. She was watching us talk. Pulling a long face and hitting the road with weighty heart. Preventing her to misinterpret some stuffs, I quickened my pace and grabbed the crook of her elbow. "Please, hear me out."

Her nose turned apple, "I'm upset, Marceline." She settled under the same olive tree we loved staying at before. "You got everything that I wanted."

Her words turned snow and knife, "Lovely personality, a kind mother, Mary Joy and even her brother."

I sat across her and gave up my ears. "You know that I liked him and I still do. A lot."

When we were little, April was always showy to what she felt for Charles. She'd always try to look beautiful in his eyes. Cherry-painted lips and rainbow eye shadows. Grown-up dresses and pink infatuation. However, Mary Joy's elder brother was always distant and short-tempered.

"April, he was just warning me not to go there anymore. Nothing less, nothing more."

"No, you didn't get it. The look. His eyes. On you. He was always glancing at you when we were little and his stares didn't change." I refuted her conclusion by shaking my head a triad of times.

"You're just thinking way too much." I put my bag next to me, preparing to reconcile with her and to preserve the memories we had to be cherished one decade or two from now. For a couple of seconds, I gazed upon the farm milk sky and admired the peacefulness it bragged today. "Mary Joy's probably looking down at us."

Surprisingly, April matched my seas and minus-ed the hurricanes on her skull as I continued. "Asking why we became like this. So distant to each other. So chaotic. So broken."

"She broke us." I looked at her, just wondering how she made it through despite my unlooked-for ghosting. She reciprocated the same desolation, the same brokenness, and the same intense. "And you broke me."

"That's why I'd like to start with an apology."

"Oh, goddammit. I'm tired of it, Marceline. You can't just plunge me with a knife and say sorry afterwards." She got on her feet, her eyes so clouded, wanting to cry and to synopsis the horrifying eruptions she conquered alone three years ago.

"April, please..."

"I want you to be as broken as I am." I found my eyes adoring how she departed so quiet and quick away from me.

I pirated my attendance in my afternoon class. From front to back, to-and-fro, our lecturer shifted. Discussed. And epilogue-ed the class with her overrated a'right trademark. I was moving like a turtle, packing my exhaustion when our lecturer called me.

"Yes, Mrs. Stevens?" With my stuffs set to leave, I neared her.

"How have you been recently?" She busied herself shutting down the laptop's life, then looked at me.

"I, ah. I'm good."

"Within the seven months of school year-I know this is too early, but you really have a bad attendance and failed grades in your two major subjects." Tensed, I swallowed the lamp on my throat. "The principal requested your compulsory visit tomorrow. In his office, after the lunch break. You direct him and fix your records as early as possible, okay?"

"Yes, sure. Thank you, Mrs. Stevens." What awaits for me tomorrow won't surely sound nice to Mom.