The hallway was empty, eerily silent as her footsteps echoed in the long, winding path. Her heels clicked rapidly on the smooth cement; her heart pounded strongly inside the cage as if wanting to leap free from it. Her breathing was coming in fast shallow breaths for she was almost running in her desire to be there as soon as possible. Her fingers were bent towards the palms, knuckles white as snow. She resisted her body’s screamed protest to stop and rest. Instead she had pushed it even more to its limit when she’d actually raced in a wild daze to him.

Panting and catching for air, she stopped at the doorway of her classroom, her eyes closed for she was half-afraid to see what was inside. When she had the guts to open them, she dashed to him, as he was about to fling a book. She stopped in the nick of time.

“what are you doing? What happened?”

“Leave me alone Bom!”

She was not hurt by his words, but by the ways he snapped them. “not until you tell me what’s all this about.”

Resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t relent one bit, TOP stated coldly, “I caught her necking with some other guy.”

The statement softened her up. Touching his arm lightly, she whispered achingly, “and now you’re hurt.”

“don’t you pity me, you know i hate it.

“yeah i know. But it’s not pity i feel for you.” It’s love, she added, but only to herself. And admiration for your courage and willingness to stand proud after what happened.

“I understand---“

“Do you? Do you really understand all these? No... you don’t. Because you hadn’t been in my shoes. Because you hadn’t been here with me in the first place when I need you most. Because you hadn’t been crawling with me when you should have since you’re my so-called ‘best friend’. Because you haven’t been in love in your entire life since no one would want you, no one would care to look at you, even a sidelong glance.”

If words could kill, Bom would have been long dead. But it wasn’t, and she wasn’t. Normally, this banter of words had no effect on her. She would have been challenged by it and she would have succeeded winning it. But her life wasn’t normal; nothing was normal. In fact, she didn’t know what was the true definition of that word anymore.

Worse, the person who spit the lexis out at her, which instigated her world to cease turning, her heart refuse beating, and both to start crumbling, was the same person whom she had trusted with her heart. He aimed, and aimed true. His arrow of despair and loss hit dead center her beaten soul.

Swallowing and in a large amount of air (for unfortunately she was still alive), she straightened her spine and lifted her chin a notch higher and looked up at him with eyes shooting daggers. The way she held her head high made her seemed like a queen scrutinizing a pathetic commoner begging for help.

“Maybe your right, TOP. Maybe I really don’t understand at all. Maybe I haven’t been in your shoes. Maybe I haven’t been with you when I should have. Then again, maybe you’re wrong. For I have been in love, and the ugly part is, I’ve fallen for the wrong guy. He’s so stupid that he couldn’t see love when it’s offered to him freely. He wouldn’t open his mind and heart so he could realize that the right girl for him is just standing in front, heaving her greatest efforts to make him understand that she loves him, her so-called ‘best friend’ ever since time began.”

With that, she turned and ran for her life. And left him feeling dazed at the revelation and reeling with it.