Chapter 23
Beating Heart

I wish he does. I wish he does. I wish he does. I wish he does. I wish he does. I wish he does. The words keep replaying in my head as soon as I wake up, when I see the sun glinting through the windows of my room.

Even though I have slept and just woken up, I feel tired and exhausted, as if I've run a hundred of miles from home. My body feels heavy. Inside me there's a hope that perhaps Dale has texted me, informed me his reason for not coming into dinner with my parents, with me. So I roll over the bed, stretch my arm out, and grab the phone on the nightstand. My phone lights up, but my heart drops when I see that the only I see is the low battery percentage of my phone and its notification saying that I need to charge my phone and a few notifications from Facebook, but neither of them is from Dale. I have a good signal, and a better Wi-Fi connection, how can he not message me? I would know if something bad happened to him, but I feel nothing but sadness.

"I don't want to go to school," I say to myself but hoist myself up. My mother will get angry at me. My father will probably grin at me, happy that Dale had never come into dinner. Last night he was probably celebrating. I feel mad at my father for a bit. "Today is going to be an awful day." And I mean it.

I wish I could cry more. I wish I could just cry more until I'm tired, until tears can no longer escape my eyes, until I feel empty inside. But I'm not a crybaby; people think that people who aren't a crybaby are brave, but the truth is, we don't want to let people see us being weak, and you get used to hiding your feelings until one day you're going to explode like a bomb, and everybody will hear the explosion., and there's no way to hide it, to conceal it.

There's this part of me – after what happened last night – that is convincing the most part of me that I really don't deserve him, and he doesn't deserve me. Perhaps he likes me, and I like him, but we're not meant to be yet, or we're not meant to be at all. Perhaps he's just a guy that I need to get over with just to strengthen myself, my façade, my heart. But no matter how much I try to think that I don't deserve him, or that he doesn't deserve me, my heart still beats for him. And I hate him. But I love it, too. It's confusing. Everything that is happening to me is confusing.

Maybe Dale is going through something, and he doesn't want to let me know. Or he doesn't want my help. Perhaps he's having a rough time, or has become pressured by me because of the dinner with my parents. But he should have at least informed you, or told you that he really didn't want to come, that he's not ready, a voice tells me.

Not realizing it, a bead of tear rolls down my cheek, underneath my chin, and drops to my clothed leg. I brush the tear away, take a deep breath, and look outside through the window. I turn my eyes to my phone and purse my lips, hovering my thumb across the screen, over the Contacts application. I must have been staring at my phone for so long that I jolt out when my phone rings – alarm clock. I shut it off, open the Contacts application, search for Dale's name, and then text him, not stopping myself: We need to talk.

It's better to fix things as early as possible. If we were to prolong this, if I'm right that I really don't deserve him, we're just going to hurt ourselves in the end, and it's going to be painful. Painful than being killed slowly. Because it kills your heart, then it kills your soul, then your body. And you will be forever in agony.

Rolling over the bed, I trudge into the bathroom and begin my morning routine.

The first mission for today is find my boyfriend. When I look across the Senior Hallway, I can't find him. Usually, in just about five to ten seconds, I'd catch a glimpse of him. But today is not the day. I groan out loud, feeling the pain in my chest that becomes more unbearable as my head flashes the awful night I've had. The first bell rings, and I still can't catch a glimpse of him. I catch Gloss and the others from the corner of my eyes, but there's no sign of Dale.

I don't even know if he's still my boyfriend. Are we over? Is this the end for us?

My heart is aching, and the more it aches, the weaker I get. Going into classes makes me want to vomit, to cry out, but I have to. As I pass a couple of students, men with messy brushed up blonde hair, I see Dale's face, but none of them is Dale. They will never be Dale.

We've been only for barely a week yet this is already happening. Am I cursed? Am I being punished?

I can't seem to think straight. It's like I'm being stabbed in the heart over and over again, and I can't help myself but feel this way. I'm a bit pathetic, I know, but it hurts. I attend the school with my heart aching. I can't focus at all. As the teacher speaks, it goes to one ear then escapes on the other. There are times that the teacher has called out my name, but it feels like I'm out of reach. I know that I've been told that I'd meet the principal later, but I don't care. I have bigger issues to deal with, and one of them is my heart.

The bell rings, and all the students scatter out of the room, leaving me alone. The teacher has spoken, but my attention is somewhere else though I'm looking straight at her. She sighs, walks toward me, pats me on the shoulder, sighs again, then she leaves me alone. For a moment I just stare at a distance, at the white board, but all I can see is my heart breaking; all I can see is me losing Dale. And I can't do anything about it, which hurts painfully.

A couple of minutes have passed and I'm still here in the classroom. Students, who I don't know, begin to file inside the room and that's when I snap. I get up from my seat, pick up my bag, get out of the room, and run. I run until I reach the Garden of Luck, and find the place empty. I take a seat on the bench that I see immediately when I come in, then stare at the sky, longing evident in my face.

There's cursing I hear just behind me, and I turn around. A sound of the bush being shoved, and then another curse. I stand up slowly, peering just to see who's in the garden. I thought I was alone. I thought wrong. I crane my neck, squinting my eyes. Then my eyes widen.

I see Dale, alone, cursing to himself. He seems frustrated, kicking the bushes and all, running his hands across his face and sooner or later, if he keeps doing that, his face would be rubbed out.

"Dale?" I croak. Then he stops kicking, and turns his head to face me, wide eyed and mouth agape.

For a moment I see his eyes flash with yearning, and then it's gone as fast as it appeared. I walk toward him, wanting to see him closer. There are dark bags under his eyes, indicating that he hasn't had a good sleep last night, and I wonder if that keeps happening on him. His hair is disheveled, as well as his uniform, looking like it hasn't been ironed, which I know it has been. He likes to keep his uniform, or clothes, neat and ironed and clean.

My boyfriend just looks at me, like he has seen a ghost. His face becomes white, and he's still frozen on the spot, as if he has seen a serial killer, about to murder him. Calling him my boyfriend seems weird now in my tongue, and I wonder if we're still together, if there's still an us. But the way he looks at me, it's convincing me that, perhaps, we're really over. But I have to know.

"How are you?" Small talk, and then everything will follow.

He smiles at me weakly. "I'm fine. Doing good, actually." Lie. The bags under his eyes tell me a different thing. "How are you?" We talk like we haven't seen each other for a very long time, it's because it feels that way. I feel like the last time I've talked to him was decades ago. He's in front of me yet he feels so far away from me, like he's out of my reach. His hands seem so distant, so far that I can't hold it, can't touch him. "Look..." He begins, then his jaw clenches. I brace myself.

The weak smile is gone from his face, and he becomes vulnerable in my eyesight. His shoulders sag down, and his eyes no longer shine. There are crinkles on the edges of his eyes, another sign that he hasn't been sleeping well. I want to confront him, to tell him that everything is going to be okay, but even I don't believe that. I don't believe that everything is going to be okay after this. Because I can already foresee that my heart is going to break. So I'm bracing myself just to prepare myself for the pain that I'll really get.

"Look, I don't think that this is going to work."

I open my mouth, but no words escape my lips, so I shut it close again. I look at the bushes filled with roses, the petals as red as a color of blood. My heart shatters completely. From million pieces to another millions of pieces. There are no tears escape my eyes. I just nod at him. His brows furrow.

I smile, sadly, despite what I'm feeling inside. "It's okay. I'm okay." Then I do the most ridiculous thing ever: I laugh hard. Dale puts his hands on my shoulders, and I shrug them off. "No, I'm okay. I'm okay... I... I will be." I breathe out.

There's nothing left for him to say to me. There's no need for explanation. It's written all over his beautiful and angelic face: I can't be gay. I don't want this. I'm not ready. I want to be mad at him, to scream at him, to tell him how he's breaking me, but I can't. Because no matter what, I still like him. No, scratch that, I'm in love with him. I'm in love with him and I'm breaking.

Whirling around, my back facing him, I begin to walk out. He calls out my name, but what I can hear is my heart breaking into million pieces. I run. I run away from him, from my problems. Because this is what I do best. And this is what I'm good at.

Dale keeps calling out my name, as if calling me hundred times, loud enough for everyone to hear, will make me stop. But it doesn't. I don't stop running. The wind hits my face when I reach outside, and then I bolt out of school. My heart is as cold as the wind.

I don't think that this is going to work, he said to me, and it rings in my ears a million times, replays in my head glowing in neon lights, as if mocking me.

It never did, I think bitterly, it never does.

Then:

Never in my life. Never in a million years.