"Hearts will never be practical
Until they are made unbreakable."
— Wizard of Oz

C H A P T E R  0 8| Through Tough Decision

That entire night my eyes stared blankly at the very same page of homework; but my thoughts were zeroed somewhere else.

My mind fought between a yes and a no, between Cyan and Amelia, between Andrew and I.

Love always finds a way.. Amelia's words swirled around.

Pushing the chair away with a loud screech, I got up and picked up my laptop. Once the screen lit up, I went straight to Facebook.com.

I couldn't gather up the courage to text or call him. What if he had already deleted my numbers from his phone? It wasn't very strange for a man who was trying to cut off old strings. When I opened Facebook, I couldn't be surer.

My Facebook News Feed was flooding with his posts. Parties, pictures with lots of boys and girls, drinks, smokes, random 2 a.m. shots on the streets—it was not a good impression.

Something was clear as daylight in those pictures: heartbreak.

I opened one of the pictures. It had 279 likes, and it was only posted yesterday. I scrolled through the comments. There were all types of comments. Hottie, sexy boi, rockin' bro, the party was insane, etc. Even people from our school had liked and commented.

Because love doesn't last, Eloine. You are so better off of it.

Cyan's words first echoed inside. Then my dad's, then mom's, then everybody else's.

That boy isn't good for you.

We don't fit in their class.

Attention-seeker. How is she even dating the football captain?

Ew. She doesn't even have a good body.

Good body? She looks like a sausage!

The voices in my head were too loud to be ignored.

No, I couldn't do it. Andrew was far better off of me. He was having a good life. He wouldn't be interested in a relationship with..pff, me? Again?

***

The next morning I didn't even go for concealer to hide the dark eye bags. It was too evident. Plus, no one cared if I had dark eye bags, I knew.

I hadn't completely disregarded the whole idea of talking to Andrew. The lure was strong; but I was scared. So I decided what I was best at.

Asking people for advice; only to get more and more confused. I decided to talk about it to that one person I really needed to talk to right now—Stacey.

"Hey Stace," I called out once I spotted her stepping out of her diamond white Chevrolet.

I tried to calm my nerves down. I couldn't risk looking nervous or desperate; I didn't need more embarrassment after how Jayden had insulted me yesterday.

"Hey Elo!" She flashed her signature grin. Then before I could even open my mouth, she attacked me with her usual have-you-completed-the-homework question with such ferocity that it felt like she was the one waiting for me for the last twenty minutes; which actually was the other way round.

"Thank Gawd!" She heaved away dramatically. "You totally have to show me the homework. Or else Ms. Joanna is gonna kick me out."

"Of course, don't worry," I replied with a smile.

"Thank you, Elo!" She squealed in happiness and hugged me. It felt good actually. These gestures of her reminded me that I had a friend in her who was the closest I had to a best friend. It reminded me I had someone with whom I could discuss about Andrew.

"Aww, no problem!" Hugging her back, I repeated the question in my mind; something I often did when I was nervous and unsure how the other person would react.

"So, umm.." I cleared my throat, which finally caught her attention and made her turn to me. "I—I was actually..you know, thinking.. Just like that—"

She cut me off. "Eloine, ease up. What happened, tell me?"

"Andrew, you know." I started again. "Do you think I should call him? Or maybe try to talk to him?"

"What for?" She smirked, probably at the irony of the situation.

"I just..want to." I didn't admit the real reason. However, I blushed; remembering the dirty remarks Amelia had made yesterday. "I really want to know why he suddenly left."

"Elo, I think he doesn't wanna contact anybody. He left for good. Plus—" She paused for a while and studied me, then her eyes moved back to the hallway again. "You and him have a history together. I don't think he'd particularly be interested to talk to you at the moment."

She was probably right. But it also reminded me of the promise Andrew and I had made; of staying friends, of having each other's back.

"What if we still have a chance?"

She turbed her full length toward me, and then she came close and shook my shoulders.

"Chance?" She hissed. "What's done is done, Eloine. Broken pieces don't just glue up."

I stopped walking. I didn't know why, her advice sounded more like a threatening. Why, just why was the world so against us being together? At least Stacey was never like that.

"Not even when he is failing so damn hard at moving on, Stace?" I spat. I could feel something boiling inside. Was it my love for him?

She was a few steps ahead of me as I had stopped walking. This statement, however, stopped Stacey Williams dead in her tracks. Perhaps it was the ever missing confidence in my voice; or something unusual about what I'd just said.

She turned around and looked me straight in the eyes with her now widened, piercing blue eyes. Her eyes burning with something I couldn't decipher.

Then the fury went down. "Trust me, moving on is hard," she spoke calmly. "Leave him on his own for a while, Elo. It's for the best of the two of you."

I nodded to her words, which I didn't actually agree with. The more I thought about it, the more unreasonable our break up sounded. We deserved a second chance. I deserved a second chance to have him back.

"But Stace, we'd decided to stay friends—"

"No." She shut me up suddenly. "He's moved on. Let it be that way."

I couldn't understand why she was hissing. She was never that way with me.

We didn't talk afterwards. That I was disagreeing with her was probably evident. But for once I wanted to disagree.

At that moment some of her other friends came up, and she got busy talking to them. Seeing her concentration was no more on me, I took out my phone.

Opening Facebook I tapped on the chat box. He was online. My heart drummed inside. Now was the time, Eloine. There was nothing to lose anyway.

So I typed away a quick message, that neither sounded too desperate, nor very casual.

Eloine: Hey Drew, how are you doing?

Not willing to glue my eyes to the screen and wait for his reply—which probably wasn't gonna come, I turned to leave for Ms. Joanna's class. But then my phone buzzed in my hands with an incoming call.

My eyes hovered over the contact image; it was a John Lennon poster of Imagine. I didn't have to look at the caller ID anymore. I knew who this John Lennon die hard fan was— he who had set up this Imagine poster as his contact image on my phone.

I ignored all kinds of noises— the thumping of my heart, the loud voices of rebel teenagers around, even the ringing of the school bell —and tapped on the green call receiving icon. Then I pushed the phone against my ear, not daring to speak up first.

There was a silence on both sides for awhile. The silence much alike the ones we used to shared on phone when the clock struck midnight and there wasn't much to talk about, but none of us wanted to hang up.

"Hey." The familiarity of his voice, which I had missed for so long, filled my ears and heart and every other fibre inside of me.

"Drew.." I wanted to say a lot more, but all the words fumbled and stuck inside my throat like paper to an adhesive gum.

"Hey." He took a pause, as if to form the upcoming words. "Eloine, I miss you so much."

Now I was sure I couldn't speak anymore. Everything from the day we broke up started to creak me, tried to bury me in gloomy nostalgia.

"Drew, I—" I resisted. I had thought I could do this, but to talk to him after the break up seemed so hard. Especially knowing there was nothing left between us; or maybe there was.

"How are you, Drew?"

"Hmm..trying to adjust." He murmured. "It's hard Eloine, it's so hard."

I gasped. Why was he making it more difficult than it already was?

"Then why did you leave?" Vulnerability was clear in my voice. I couldn't help it.

He sighed on the other side. "Eloine, was there anything left in Islaire?"

I flinched. "Was there not?"

"No". I could see him nodding his head with his eyes closed in my mind. "Not anymore."

The hallway was empty. Stacey and her friends too had left. It was strange that Stacey didn't even ask me for my homework copy before leaving. Was she pissed off at me? But, why?

I knew I was getting late as well. But I wanted to hear the reason behind his sudden departure.

Because if I knew one thing for sure, it was that Andrew loved Islaire Town more than his parents.

"You are living with your parents now?"

"Yeah," he replied flatly. "They want to prepare me for college properly now." He laughed in a disgusted tone. "I need to take over their business in future after all.

"But then I thought, what was the point in staying there as well, Eloine? So when dad came home during summer, I didn't decline his offer, or should I rather say his order."

"You could've at least thought about James and Mia!" I exclaimed, referring to his grandparents.

"They cannot stop dad, can they? Plus when I'm willing to go myself."

"Why, Andrew Evanston, why?"

He remained silent. And in that silence I realized how lonely I had become after he had left. I realized I actually had a best friend; and it was him, and I had lost him while ending the relationship.

"I am really sorry."

"You can't just be sorry, Drew. I know we've broken up and everything, but you can't just be sorry."

I was shattering.

"Trust me, Eloine, I'm getting mad trying to adjust in here. I'm going nuts without you."

Do you want me to cry out loud in front of you, Drew?

"Then what happened?" I tried hard to not choke. "I thought we still had a way. I thought we deserved that so-called second chance."

He didn't say anything for long, which actually irritated me because I was probably gonna get a good lecture from Ms. Joanna for being late; but mostly because I wanted a damn answer from him.

So when he spoke up, his words made me freeze.

"You'd never give us even a half chance if you knew all the things, Eloine. If you knew what kills me a little everyday. If you knew what made me leave the town, and what made me leave you."

****

So! How do you guys like it so far? How about the cliffhanger?

I'll be on vacation till next week, so no guarantee on next update. However, I'm on an airplane while writing this, and I'm happy af ahh!!

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