The Heart Never Lies

Chapter Ten

Andy

"What is a soulmate?" A young girl asked. The boy replied. "It's... well, it's like a bestfriend but more." The boy continued in the darkness. "It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone." I opened my eyes but all I can see is darkness. "It's someone who makes you a better person." The piano started playing in the background.

"Actually, they don't make you a better person, you do that yourself." Emotions started flowing from the piano in a calm state. "Because they inspire you." I feel like I am in an immersive cinema for blind people. "A soulmate is someone who you carry with you forever. It's the one person who... who knows you and accepted you and believed in you before anyone else did."

"And no matter what happens. You still love them for who they are." The piano transitioned to an intense state as if preparing for the final climax. "Nothing can ever change that because they are all that matters." In one moment, the piano and the voices stopped abruptly. All I could hear is silence and all I could feel is the tickly breeze of wind on the surface of my skin. "Someday... someone will love you for exactly who you are." The girl spoke. "Sometimes... it just takes you longer than the rest of us... that's all. Right?" The voices echoed in my head before my eyes decides to open to the real world.

It is drizzling slightly outside the bus. The inside of the bus is quiet with an occasional flashing of broken lights. I could hear the tiny rain pellets dropping on top of the bus, generating a peaceful ambience similar to that of reading a book with a cup of coffee in a balcony. I looked at the window and see the raindrops trickling past the bus, sometimes hitting the window, forming a pattern of bullets like how meteorites hit earth. I look at the droplets of water as they diverged into many small droplets and touched the cold window as I try to calm the loud voices in my head.

I dare not look to my right to which Carol is situated closely. I am afraid that I could not face her with what I had just shown her. My dark side. Everyone has one I guess. But so far, I am the only one that I know of who has this kind of violent dark side that I wish I could just kill it. I look at the slight reflection of my face on the window. I look like I had just vomited three times in a row. She put her hands on my chin as she turns me over to face her. She prepared some wet tissues as she slightly touches it on my eyebrows, cleaning the blood away.

I keep telling her that I don't need it but she seems reluctant to give up and continued wiping with an expressionless face. It is as if she hates me for who I am. She got closer to me as she tries to examine the parts where I am hurt the most. Both of us sat quietly in the bus without a word uttered apart from an occasional glance. Everyone in the bus has already gone home apart from me and Carol and the bus driver. Kyle, Max, and Bailey all comforted me as I told them I fought with a bunch of gangsters to show them my taekwondo strength. I need to keep a secret from them. Rumours would be going around school if they knew that I was saving Carol. I also need to keep a secret from Carol that I have a crush on her.

They told me that they would buy me some snacks when they come by my house for the next 14 days. Let's hope that they actually do that. Carol stopped wiping as soon as she feels that my face is spotless. Both of us continued staring at the front of the bus, just jiggling along with it. Time seems to slow down as the rain stopped and all I could hear is the bus engine, accelerating and decelerating. Then everything went back to normal when Carol gave me a note. I am sorry. Carol nudged my arm as she showed me the note. "For what? You did not do anything wrong" Her head was still facing downwards, afraid of looking at me. "I just did what I think is good" I looked at my bloodied knuckles as I replayed the scene.

She shook her head. Please. I beg you. Do not do that again. She almost sobbed as she passed me the note. I sighed heavily. Who am I to you anyways? I became speechless. For once, I had never thought of answering that question when the time comes. Who is she to me... anyways? Just a casual school friend of mine that I made a few days ago. A casual friend that... I would do anything to protect. A casual friend that... I have a crush on. A casual friend that... is more than a friend.