CHAPTER 35
"Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them. "
:~Marcel Proust~:
****Samantha's POV****Another day at school. Another
stirring day. Another—...I stopped scribbling in my notebook upon realizing the fact that Luke was already at his seat. In a fury, I quickly drew large circles to conceal the words that I just wrote.
“Mornin'!” Luke jovially greeted.
“M-morning…” I mumbled oddly, not finding the courage to look him.
Oh. Yeah. This might be what I call ‘
anxious-feelings-for-the-upcoming-play-because-of-the-upcoming-kissing-scene-with-him’. And oh, it can also be called as ‘
trying-hard-to-not-complain-about-it-and-acting-like-a-professional’.
That’s all.
“Read the script?” He asked with a playfully happy smile.
I cringed.
“
Y-yeah. It was…" I silently gulped,
"...n-nice.”“Sure is.” I badly wanted to throw my bag at his glorious face.
Out of the blue, Erica, Lucy, Cindy and Mark appeared right before us—just like that; heh.
Erica, Cindy and Mark all looked excited and ready to puke gold bars, whereas Lucy looked……… the
same as always, as what I’ve seen of her recently—
bored and irate.
“DAMMIT! Did you grow a hell lot when you were away to that Kingbum or Kimsamtoon? Or something something?” Erica exclaimed,
“!@#$. Men grow like weeds!”Luke only managed to laugh back in reply.
Curiosity bit into me, so I shouldered Mark,
“Err, Mark, big mouth and big ogre… close?”“Huh? Sister… You didn’t know?”“What? No.” 
“Oh don’t tell me your jealous! Don’t take him all to yourself!”“Shut it, pixy. I'm just asking!”“It’s time you know that we all are close to him, silly. Why would we not be?” Mark replied, and then, without missing a beat, he leaned closer to whisper in my ear,
“Except Lucy, dunno what’s happening to her. She seems troubled lately. But sometimes, I feel, she’s just trying to flirt her way out to Luke.”I stole a look at Lucy’s direction, and surprisingly, our eyes met. O___O
...and I smiled at her.
What happened next however, was something that
I didn’t expect.She looked at me piercingly, frowned, and quickly looked away.
Now that’s disturbing.
My eyebrows furrowed.
Something’s definitely wrong.
After a short while of conversation—with Lucy mostly silent—the bell rang. Classes officially started, and I find it really hard to concentrate. I’m bothered about how Lucy is extremely acting weird; and I'm bothered at how naive I've been, not noticing these changes around me... Was I too focused on Luke?! BAH!
Anyhow. I had that nasty sensation that she somehow loathed me. Or somehow loathed everybody.
I refuse to think she converted herself to the
‘emo’ side though.
But… Have I done something wrong? Have I done something
idiotic to irritate her? As far as I know, there was none. Besides, we barely see each other lately…
Lunch came and surprisingly, Lucy didn’t come with us. Up until classes were over, I didn’t caught sight of her again... except this one time when I just left Mr. Solar's good ol' office.
The scenario was like this:
I was just about to go downstairs to my next class when my eyes caught sight of this flying greenish neon color just by the next corridor—that's when I remembered that Lucy was wearing a scarf which was in that hue when I saw her this morning.
I quickened my stride and true enough, I caught sight of Lucy's back as she was about to walk away.
"Lucy!" I called out.
I saw her stop in her tracks and stood still for a good two seconds. She tilted her head to look back at me and uttered gruffly,
"What?"What 'what'? Why is she talking like that all of a sudden?
"Are you—""What?" This is kinda...getting irritating,
"Are you okay? You didn't come with us to lunch—""It's just lunch. I've got things to do. Okay?""You don't seem to be fine. You know you could always tell me.""Whatever."Wait. Did I hear that right? She said 'whatever'? What's with this attitude?
"Pardon? Lucy?""Nothing. I'm going ahead."Before I could utter another word, she strode off like a storm and I just stood there like a damned astonished statue.
So here I am... walking back home deep in my thoughts, and I could feel Luke’s anxiety growing by the minute as he walked by beside me.
“Something is definitely bugging you.” He commented. Of course, he would know me too well by now; or in other words, he knows me too well ever since.
“No… nothing…”
“You could always tell me… you know…”“I know that. You make that clear to me always.”Even as we reached home, I still can’t put the thoughts away and I can’t find the will to share it with Luke. Maybe I’ll save it for later when we ran out of stories to tell—or when we run out of our teasing remarks.
Hmm… This is starting to get
serious—I could feel it. I just couldn’t put my finger to it on what is the thing that made us seemingly drift away like this. I think she has a problem with me.
She has always been jolly around me, and she never failed to smile back… never failed… unless she happened to be angry about something—which rather happens barely. And I'm not sure if it's happening now.
“SAM!” 
I jumped up in surprise. Complete utter surprise.
I snapped my head back to look at Matt who was playing chess with Luke on the dining table,
“What!?” Matt just looked at me with big bloodshot eyes.
Luke shook his head,
“You’re about to cut your finger…”“Huh?” I mused. When I looked down, I gasped. The knife was really just about a centimeter above my index finger.
Goodness!“Big sis shouldn’t chop her body parts! That’s gory! Ewww!” Chriss squealed.
Seemingly irritated by the squeal, Luke pinched Criss’s cheeks.
“Owww!”“You know what? I think I’ll do the chopping,” Luke declared as he pushed back his chair.
“No,” I said,
“I’ll do it, I c-can manage.”Matt interfered,
“Let Luke help you, besides you really look like you’re in dreamland or something. You shouldn’t do the cooking when you’re in a state like that. Dad will freak out. And I will freak out more.”“O-okay.” I muttered.
I felt Luke’s eyes on me, and I met his gaze.
“I’m fine.” I said, trying to assure him, but he wasn’t convinced.
With a sigh, I thought that I would write this down in the red journal. Not only for Luke’s sake but also for me. I badly need to put these thoughts out. I need an exhaustion. I know I could do the talking directly to Luke, but I guess I made a distinct friendly connection to Mr. Red Journal over these days.
I’m starting to doubt writing on the red journal.
Why? Because the next couple of days, Luke started assuring me
non-stop that Lucy might just be going through a ‘
phase’. A very womanese phase.
I thwacked his head when he said that its just menopause.
He said that I shouldn’t worry about it.
Riiight. I know that he knows perfectly well that it’s the
opposite—that it’s not just any phase and that it’s something that I should worry about especially since we/I haven’t seen Lucy since the incident by the corridor....
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Finally, Friday!
Another ordinary school day... but that's too soon to say.
We: Erica, Cindy, Luke, Mark and I, were all just talking about usual stuff... usual nonsense stuff... when all of a sudden, we heard low murmurs echoing around the room. Curious, we tried to find what the commotion was about.
Might be RJ again? When I looked at the back of the room, I saw him just sitting peacefully in his seat—more than
peacefully because he was practically asleep. Again. Always.
“Sister…” Mark muttered,
“L-look over the d-damn door.”I did...
...and what I saw really surprised me.
YAY! Cliff-hanger!
T__T
Bear with me. Okie?
Next update; will come sooner than you'll expect it.
