“Did you ask her if she hates you?” I posed that question to him.
“It’s pretty obvious she does. The way she treated me makes it pretty clear.” He was referring to when she was Ria. “It all makes sense now, everything. I got my just desserts. I can’t even be mad at her.”
“Did you ever consider that you might be misunderstanding something?”
“There’s no way I’m misunderstanding anything. You have nothing to do with it. You only saw me together with her that one time. How could someone like you who barely knows anything about what happened between us possibly see things better than me when I was at the center of it all? Know your place, you’re just an uninvolved outsider in all of this.”
“Sometimes when you’re far removed from the situation you can see things that those closely involved can’t. Besides, how can you say for certain there is no misunderstanding if you don’t talk to her?”
“Even if I talked to her, what would it matter? It wouldn’t do anything now. She’s probably getting along well with that first-year brat right now as we speak.”
Why was I doing this? Well, it was to keep him away from Angela. Since he knew me, he was a nuisance. I’d be more than happy to dump the problematic Angela on him and have him take her off my hands, but because he knew me, that option was off the table. Also, it didn’t seem Angela had any interest in him. If anything, she’d just use him to find out about me.
Was she watching me even now? That was my greatest concern.
I hid my phone behind my leg out of Zale’s sight, peeked at it from the corner of my eye, and clenched the phone tight when I saw the most recent title of the song she tweeted out. The song this time was called ‘Warm.’
My eyes darted around the area as I scanned the large open area. I didn’t see her in any of the windows or on any of the stairs that led to the second, third, or fourth floors at the center. She wasn’t by the flight of stairs to the left that led underground which we came up earlier either.
Where the hell was she watching us from then?
Unable to find any sign of Angela, I opened my mouth and finally responded, “Do you forever want to be plagued by a ‘what if’ question for the rest of your life? ‘What if she really did like me still and I just missed my chance because I was too much of a coward to ask?’ Even if she does turn you down, what do you have to lose right now?”
“What do I have to lose? Well-”
I cut him off, “Nothing! You have absolutely nothing to lose! Since you have nothing to lose, don’t be a little pussy ass bitch about it. Get off your ass and ask her. At least you’ll be able to find out whether she really does hate you or not. If she does hate you, then so be it. If she doesn’t hate you… then maybe the two of you can at least get along. Don’t you think that would be a preferable choice? Rather than sever a connection you had with someone for three years, why not try to see if it’s salvageable?”
“Well… now that you mention it, there is a big benefit in salvaging things even if she doesn’t like me anymore.”
Yes, her connection to Angela. However, I was taking a gamble here hoping it would pay off. The gamble that she still liked him and they would get together. That would be the ideal scenario. I didn’t know what her feelings were toward Jass, but I doubted they’d be that strong. So what if he pulled some knight in shining armor crap and whisked her away?
There are no knights in modern times. Besides, I wasn’t Jass’s friend, so there were no hard feelings here.
Rosa’s side won the battle, but who said she won the war?
While Zale had fallen into a state of deep thought as he pondered things over, I checked my phone again. I saw something that left me rather confused. There were a few updates. A song called, ‘Ice Cold’ then right after there was one called, ‘Scorching Hot.’ As I read her tweets, she tweeted another song, ‘A cool breeze.’
What the hell? How did any of that make sense? Unless… she’d been posting random temperature-themed songs at random intervals to throw me off since the very beginning and she’d never been watching me at all. No way. Had I… been played this entire time? I had nothing to worry about at all?
Not long after I was struck by this realization, groups of people started to pile into the engineering building. I recognized some of them as third-year students from convocation. It wasn’t limited to students only from our high school though, there were students from other high schools as well.
When a group of Zale’s and Ray’s friends noticed them together on the couch, they approached and called out. I scooted away from Zale to free up some space for a few of the girls in their group who gave me nasty looks. It was pretty obvious what they wanted. They wanted the pesky fly to get lost so they could flirt with prince Zale.
When I recalled the video of Rosa slapping him, it eased my weary heart. He deserved every slap she gave him. I didn’t have an ounce of pity for him in that regard. In fact, I think Rosa let him off a bit too easily. She should have slapped him more.
I bided my time for a bit and patiently waited until my presence was completely forgotten by their group. Only then did I stand up and sneak around the corner when no one was paying attention to me. I walked around the back and exited out one of the building’s rear entrances in the direction of the university center.
I let out a long sigh of relief. It was uncomfortable being around so many people I was unfamiliar with. Well, forget about them for now, the real question was the current location of the root cause of all this. Angela.
I’d wasted over an hour of my life I’d never get back. It was a miserable experience to be toyed with by Angela. But if she hadn’t been watching me this entire time, just where had she gone?
I felt like even if I searched the entire campus, if she didn’t want to give me any real hints, I’d never find her. After all that, I doubt she was really in the university center.
Looking at the time, I had about three hours until I had to head out for work. The campus tour would start soon. Might as well head back.
I passed through the university center on my way back to the museum and bought a Steak and Cheese with chipotle sauce from Subway since I was hungry. When I arrived at the entrance to the museum, I facepalmed when I figured out where Angela had escaped to.
I was an idiot. Why didn’t I double-check here before I ran off? It was because she pressured me and didn’t give me time to think about it.
Her legs were sticking out from around the corner of the couch. She was barefoot and the low white and transparent ankle strap heels she’d worn today were on the ground in plain sight.
Seriously, what’s with her? Isn’t she a bit too defenseless? If this place wasn’t so desolate and had more traffic I’m sure there would be guys who’d take advantage of the situation.
When I rounded the corner there laid sleeping beauty, eyes closed, back flat on the couch, with her phone clutched in her right hand over her chest. Was she feigning sleep? There’s no way she’d really fall asleep like this when she knew I was at the university looking for her, right? Was this some sort of trap to lower my guard and lure me into a false sense of security?
But her phone was right there out in the open. If it was unlocked this was a perfect chance to delete those pictures. Though she could have easily backed them up somewhere making all my effort useless.
No, to begin with, it was just a little game. Surely she’d at least play by the rules and not do that.
I moved to her side and slowly extended my right arm out toward her phone. Careful. Nice and easy. So she doesn’t wake up. It felt like I was defusing a bomb right now. If I cut the wrong wire, my life would end.
Translation: If I accidentally fondled her breast, the bomb would explode.
Steady, hand. Hold steady. You can’t go grabbing anything else by accident even if she’s your self-proclaimed girlfriend. I studied electrical engineering, and you needed steady hands when soldering circuits or cutting wires. I was a man born for bomb defusal. A little chest isn’t going to defeat me.
Little… yeah… it definitely wasn’t little. Ample was the more suitable term here. Well, she was a celebrity after all…
I held my breath, stopped hesitating, and went in for the kill. I pinched the sides of her phone between my index finger and thumb then slowly raised it up. My stomach turned when the phone didn’t slip out of her hand as I’d hoped it would. Damn it, it was so much easier to snatch her phone on Valentine’s Day.
I leaned in a bit closer as I ever so gently held her right wrist with my left hand as I pulled on her phone...
“Did you ask her if she hates you?” I posed that question to him.
“It’s pretty obvious she does. The way she treated me makes it pretty clear.” He was referring to when she was Ria. “It all makes sense now, everything. I got my just desserts. I can’t even be mad at her.”
“Did you ever consider that you might be misunderstanding something?”
“There’s no way I’m misunderstanding anything. You have nothing to do with it. You only saw me together with her that one time. How could someone like you who barely knows anything about what happened between us possibly see things better than me when I was at the center of it all? Know your place, you’re just an uninvolved outsider in all of this.”
“Sometimes when you’re far removed from the situation you can see things that those closely involved can’t. Besides, how can you say for certain there is no misunderstanding if you don’t talk to her?”
“Even if I talked to her, what would it matter? It wouldn’t do anything now. She’s probably getting along well with that first-year brat right now as we speak.”
Why was I doing this? Well, it was to keep him away from Angela. Since he knew me, he was a nuisance. I’d be more than happy to dump the problematic Angela on him and have him take her off my hands, but because he knew me, that option was off the table. Also, it didn’t seem Angela had any interest in him. If anything, she’d just use him to find out about me.
Was she watching me even now? That was my greatest concern.
I hid my phone behind my leg out of Zale’s sight, peeked at it from the corner of my eye, and clenched the phone tight when I saw the most recent title of the song she tweeted out. The song this time was called ‘Warm.’
My eyes darted around the area as I scanned the large open area. I didn’t see her in any of the windows or on any of the stairs that led to the second, third, or fourth floors at the center. She wasn’t by the flight of stairs to the left that led underground which we came up earlier either.
Where the hell was she watching us from then?
Unable to find any sign of Angela, I opened my mouth and finally responded, “Do you forever want to be plagued by a ‘what if’ question for the rest of your life? ‘What if she really did like me still and I just missed my chance because I was too much of a coward to ask?’ Even if she does turn you down, what do you have to lose right now?”
“What do I have to lose? Well-”
I cut him off, “Nothing! You have absolutely nothing to lose! Since you have nothing to lose, don’t be a little pussy ass bitch about it. Get off your ass and ask her. At least you’ll be able to find out whether she really does hate you or not. If she does hate you, then so be it. If she doesn’t hate you… then maybe the two of you can at least get along. Don’t you think that would be a preferable choice? Rather than sever a connection you had with someone for three years, why not try to see if it’s salvageable?”
“Well… now that you mention it, there is a big benefit in salvaging things even if she doesn’t like me anymore.”
Yes, her connection to Angela. However, I was taking a gamble here hoping it would pay off. The gamble that she still liked him and they would get together. That would be the ideal scenario. I didn’t know what her feelings were toward Jass, but I doubted they’d be that strong. So what if he pulled some knight in shining armor crap and whisked her away?
There are no knights in modern times. Besides, I wasn’t Jass’s friend, so there were no hard feelings here.
Rosa’s side won the battle, but who said she won the war?
While Zale had fallen into a state of deep thought as he pondered things over, I checked my phone again. I saw something that left me rather confused. There were a few updates. A song called, ‘Ice Cold’ then right after there was one called, ‘Scorching Hot.’ As I read her tweets, she tweeted another song, ‘A cool breeze.’
What the hell? How did any of that make sense? Unless… she’d been posting random temperature-themed songs at random intervals to throw me off since the very beginning and she’d never been watching me at all. No way. Had I… been played this entire time? I had nothing to worry about at all?
Not long after I was struck by this realization, groups of people started to pile into the engineering building. I recognized some of them as third-year students from convocation. It wasn’t limited to students only from our high school though, there were students from other high schools as well.
When a group of Zale’s and Ray’s friends noticed them together on the couch, they approached and called out. I scooted away from Zale to free up some space for a few of the girls in their group who gave me nasty looks. It was pretty obvious what they wanted. They wanted the pesky fly to get lost so they could flirt with prince Zale.
When I recalled the video of Rosa slapping him, it eased my weary heart. He deserved every slap she gave him. I didn’t have an ounce of pity for him in that regard. In fact, I think Rosa let him off a bit too easily. She should have slapped him more.
I bided my time for a bit and patiently waited until my presence was completely forgotten by their group. Only then did I stand up and sneak around the corner when no one was paying attention to me. I walked around the back and exited out one of the building’s rear entrances in the direction of the university center.
I let out a long sigh of relief. It was uncomfortable being around so many people I was unfamiliar with. Well, forget about them for now, the real question was the current location of the root cause of all this. Angela.
I’d wasted over an hour of my life I’d never get back. It was a miserable experience to be toyed with by Angela. But if she hadn’t been watching me this entire time, just where had she gone?
I felt like even if I searched the entire campus, if she didn’t want to give me any real hints, I’d never find her. After all that, I doubt she was really in the university center.
Looking at the time, I had about three hours until I had to head out for work. The campus tour would start soon. Might as well head back.
I passed through the university center on my way back to the museum and bought a Steak and Cheese with chipotle sauce from Subway since I was hungry. When I arrived at the entrance to the museum, I facepalmed when I figured out where Angela had escaped to.
I was an idiot. Why didn’t I double-check here before I ran off? It was because she pressured me and didn’t give me time to think about it.
Her legs were sticking out from around the corner of the couch. She was barefoot and the low white and transparent ankle strap heels she’d worn today were on the ground in plain sight.
Seriously, what’s with her? Isn’t she a bit too defenseless? If this place wasn’t so desolate and had more traffic I’m sure there would be guys who’d take advantage of the situation.
When I rounded the corner there laid sleeping beauty, eyes closed, back flat on the couch, with her phone clutched in her right hand over her chest. Was she feigning sleep? There’s no way she’d really fall asleep like this when she knew I was at the university looking for her, right? Was this some sort of trap to lower my guard and lure me into a false sense of security?
But her phone was right there out in the open. If it was unlocked this was a perfect chance to delete those pictures. Though she could have easily backed them up somewhere making all my effort useless.
No, to begin with, it was just a little game. Surely she’d at least play by the rules and not do that.
I moved to her side and slowly extended my right arm out toward her phone. Careful. Nice and easy. So she doesn’t wake up. It felt like I was defusing a bomb right now. If I cut the wrong wire, my life would end.
Translation: If I accidentally fondled her breast, the bomb would explode.
Steady, hand. Hold steady. You can’t go grabbing anything else by accident even if she’s your self-proclaimed girlfriend. I studied electrical engineering, and you needed steady hands when soldering circuits or cutting wires. I was a man born for bomb defusal. A little chest isn’t going to defeat me.
Little… yeah… it definitely wasn’t little. Ample was the more suitable term here. Well, she was a celebrity after all…
I held my breath, stopped hesitating, and went in for the kill. I pinched the sides of her phone between my index finger and thumb then slowly raised it up. My stomach turned when the phone didn’t slip out of her hand as I’d hoped it would. Damn it, it was so much easier to snatch her phone on Valentine’s Day.
I leaned in a bit closer as I ever so gently held her right wrist with my left hand as I pulled on her phone...
