Ms. Zoom-in

“Ruby!”

I hear someone call my name from afar. I look around me, and I can’t find where the voice is coming from. I squint my eyes, and sure enough I see my superfriend Le-an from the other side of the road. She waves at me, and crosses the road as the traffic light becomes green.

“Your ‘zooming in’ powers are amazing.” she jokes just as she hugs me.

I stick my tongue out to her like an eighteen year old should, as we walk into the donut cafe. We wait for our other friends to arrive, as we munched on some tiny donuts.

“Sooo. Do you have a boyfriend?” Le-an asks.

I laugh at her question, and she raises her left brow at me. My laugh is cut short when I see who comes into the cafe. I didn’t have to squint my eyes to know who came in. With his bowl haircut and pimply face, I hung my head low. Le-an notices it immediately, and her eyes shot daggers at the loathed specimen who’s a sorry excuse for a human being. Visions of fluffy elephants and my high school uniform flash into my mind, and I try my best to shake them out. Luckily my four other friends come in, completely ignoring the specimen near the counter. They sit down in front of me, blocking my view of him. They huddle protectively, and I smiled at their gesture.

“What do you want me to do with him?” Alyssa,my best friend, asks. She pulls her sleeve up like getting ready for a brawl, but I simply laugh at her.

“Nothing. I’m over him anyways.”

The five of them look at each other, then looks back at me. We soon forget about him when one of them opens their mouths. We shift from one topic to the other, and with us six girls in one table, it’s like a whole crowd chattering away. Soon enough an old lady shushes us, and we all talk in whispers but utterly fail because once again the old lady curses at our noise. We look at each other in silence, gather our stuff and walk out the cafe. As soon as we all step out, we burst out laughing at our antics. We soon hug each other goodbye, and we go to our different schools. I missed the times when we belonged to the same school, but it made up for the times that we met with each other.

I climb on the jeepney on the way to school, and my thoughts drift away to a day two years ago, during my freshmen year of college. Everything was falling apart between me and him, and it was only a matter of time before things ended the way it did. The jeepney suddenly stops, thrusting me forward, ending my reverie. I hold on for dear life as I held a person’s arm, screaming a bit. The driver apologizes, and we look at the almost hit to the Toyota car in front of us. Suddenly the driver hops off the vehicle, and screams profanities at the Toyota driver.

“Ouch.”

I look up at the source of the voice, and I saw dark brown eyes looking at me in annoyance. That’s when I realize that I was still clutching someone’s arm, and I let go. I look down, hoping he doesn’t see how embarrassed I was. The vehicle then starts to move again, and soon enough I reach my school. Annoyed boy hops off before I do, and I walk slowly behind him. He rubs his arm and I feel guilty again. He then looks back to me and smiles. He approaches me and runs his hand through his hair. It made my heart skip a bit, and I willed myself to stutter the words

“S-sorry”

“I should be the one who should be sorry. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

The sincerity of his voice catches me off guard, and I look up to him. He was really tall, and for my 5’2 height I was just at his shoulder level. He smiles at me and holds out his hand.

“I’m Michael.”

I stare at his hand for a few minutes, and finally I shake it. Sparks flew from my hand to my heart, and I smiled at him.

“Ann Ruby.”

———————————-
When I went home on Friday evening, I turned on my computer as always. I checked my Facebook, and I smile when I see that Michael added me as his friend. I begin to go stalker mode, I mean admirer mode, and checked his account. He was a senior student, and he didn’t open his Facebook that much. I was disappointed that I didn’t learn so much, and just logged off the computer.

I sit on my bed and I put on my glasses as I begin to study for tomorrow’s quiz. Soon enough I drift into slumber, and for some reason I dream of someone I haven’t dreamt of for a while. We were in our high school homeroom, and he was just looking at me. My heart melted the way that his eyes were just on me. He held my hand and leans in for a kiss. He suddenly laughs, and I see him in his college uniform with another girl.

“Ann Ruby? She’s just an ex. You’re better.”

He whispers to the girl’s ear, who just giggles. The girl turns around and I see that she looked almost like me, and I run away from them. That’s when I woke up, with the light streaming from my window. I shook my head with thoughts of my ex, and simply walked towards the bathroom to do my morning ritual. My head was still confused on why I dreamt of him, when I was over him years ago. I had plenty of crushes after him, but I didn’t get a boyfriend because I wanted to put my studies first. I sigh deeply as I put on my pencil skirt uniform and walked towards our kitchen.

When I reach school, I was just in time before the teacher walked in. I do my best to concentrate on the lesson, but my thoughts kept drifting to my dream. It couldn’t just have happened without a reason right? I try to think of reasons why I dreamt of him, and concluded that I was just stressed with finals coming up. I am pulled from my thoughts when I hear people getting up from their seats, and I realize that class was over. I mentally slap myself for not listening to the teacher, and I walk on to my next class. I shove through the throngs of people who were also rushing to their classes. Stephanie runs towards me and smiles widely.

“Hi Rubyyyy”

She says, stressing out the last letter. I smile at her as we get into our next room. I shove my hand into my bag, and I frantically try to find my eyeglass. My eyes widen as I realize that I might have left them in the other room, but I remember that I kept it in the front pocket of my bag. I slump on my chair, realizing that it might have fallen while walking. I then see a bright reflection, and I see my glasses in someone’s hand. And not just anyone’s hand. It was Michael’s.

“I saw this fall from your bag earlier.”

He says, smiling at me. My lips tug and curve into a smile at my eyeglass savior, and I mumble a thank you. He then waves goodbye as he goes to his room. Which was right next to my room. I felt my day instantly turn around, and I look at Stephanie who smiles at me knowingly. That’s when I concluded that I had a crush on Michael. And I was happy.

—————————————-
From that day on I always tried to take a peek in the room beside mine whenever the teacher didn’t come. I always saw the back of Michael’s head, and I always felt disappointed. I did it again anyways. I noticed other things about him, like how he was thin and that he was a bit silent in class. He always seem to know when I was looking at him, and he sometimes turns around and smiles.

‘Staring at me again?’

I smile when I read his text. We exchanged numbers a few days ago, and he was a hilarious guy. I look up from my phone and see him looking at me from across the canteen.

‘Look who’s talking.’

I text back. It doesn’t take long before he replies.

‘You’re quite hard not to stare at.’

I stupidly grin, and my classmates look at me. One of my friends steals my phone and her eyes grow wide at the text. She nudges my arm, and looks between me and Michael. I take my phone back, and I shove it into my pocket. I feel someone sit beside me, and I look up to see him. My heart jumps high, hoping he’d catch it.

“Why did you stop texting?”

His voice travels from my ears to my heart, making it leap higher.

“They took my phone”

He simply smiles at me, and opened his mouth to talk. Just then a pair of thin arms encircle his eyes, and long flowing hair covers the side of his face.

“Guess who”

The girl says, clearly enjoying what she’s doing. Michael holds her hand, and my heart drops 30 feet below sea level. He then takes the girl’s hands off, and he smiles at her. He walks off when she grabs him by his arm, dragging him to God knows where. I look at my lunch, suddenly losing my appetite. I scold myself for not thinking that he might have a girlfriend. Standing up from my chair I walk to my next class and I bury my head onto my arms. I try to empty my mind of Michael, and I felt like it was a repeat of a past. I sigh, thinking that history does repeat itself. At least I didn’t fall for him.

———————————-
I squint my eyes as I find for Chenee. We were in the mall for our usual hang-out, and I forgot my glasses making it hard for me to look for my friend in the food court. I see a hand waving at me, and I walk towards it, hoping it was her. My whole body stiffens when I realize it was Michael, but it was too late to walk away. I haven’t seen him in school, avoiding him. I haven’t even replied to any of his texts. I respected guys who had girlfriends, because I knew how girls felt when their boyfriend is close to another girl.

“Hi Ann Ruby.”

He smiles at me, or I think he does, and I awkwardly smile back.

“Want to join us?”

My heart ached when he gestured to him and the canteen girl and I shake my head. And as if on cue, I see Carrie walk towards me with Divine.

“Where have you been? Chenee is over there.”

She points to the other side of the food court, and I squint my eyes to see Chenee. I say good bye to Michael and the still unnamed girl, and walk with my friends. I’ve known them for most of my life, and I rarely saw them because of our schedules at school.

“So who was that guy?” Divine asks.

“Nobody.”

They don’t ask further, and soon Stephanie, Alyssa and Le-an arrive.

“Where’s Hannah?” Alyssa asks as she sits down.

“I texted her, but she didn’t reply.”

Soon enough we were lost in each other’s conversations. Luckily we were in a more public place, therefore there were no old ladies to scold us for being noisy.We ended up deciding to watch a movie, and as we walk into the theater I saw a familiar tall figure sit in front of us. He was surprisingly alone, but I tried my best to focus on the movie. After the movie we all went home.

Unfortunately for me, Michael got on the jeepney I was riding in. He sat two people away from me, and I sighed with relief that I wouldn’t be facing him the whole ride home. The rest of the ride was uneventful, that was until I passed my fare to him. Our hands touched lightly, and that familiar spark traveled from my skin. Our eyes locked, and I immediately pulled my hand away and he passed my fare to the driver. I got out the jeepney when I saw my house, and I turned around without saying goodbye to him.
————————————
On the last day of the finals I was feeling sky high. I was finally over half of my junior year in college, and semestral break was just around the corner. I smiled to myself thinking that I would see my friends again and I was too much lost in thought that I bumped into someone.

“Sorry.”

“Did you know that was the first thing you said to me?”

My head immediately shot up, and I saw a grinning Michael looking down at me. I noticed that he had a new haircut, making him look more dreamy. I snapped my head back down, and walked away. I then felt sparks flowing from my arm, and I saw that Michael was holding it.

“Can we please talk?”

He looked at me with pleading eyes, and for some reason I nodded.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

I swallow hard, and I bravely look at him.

“Because you have a girlfriend” I whispered.

Silence took over, and I didn’t know if it was comfortable or not. I didn’t know if he heard me or not. I was just about to say it again when he cut me off.

“Sam isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my sister.”

My jaw dropped six feet into the ground, and my heart was beating lively after almost a month of staying still. He looked at me in the eye, and said.

“Did you really think I’d keep texting you if I had a girlfriend? I’m a loyal guy Ruby. I wouldn’t text someone I like if I had a girlfriend.

My lips curled a bit at what he said. But I was still speechless. All that effort to avoid him, and it was useless. Sparks once again flew when he held my hand. I was surprised, but I didn’t say anything. That’s when I realized that even though I tried to zoom out my feelings on him, my heart still squinted and zoomed in. We slowly made our way to the school gate, our hands still intertwined.
—————————————-

This story was fictional except for the characters that I based them upon.
Here’s Ann Ruby. She’s my superfriend in real life, super nice yet has the ability to be evil. 😀

Ann Ruby, Chenee, Divine, Alyssa, Stephanie, Carrie, Me, Sharmaine and Frances 🙂