A Lot

The light paints her skin so warmly, the trees are dancing ladies, each in dresses more fabulous than any designer can craft. They move, choreographed by the wind, in perfect time with one another. They are the life and soul of this early morning, and Ella wonders how many hues of green her eyes are witnessing.

It was her first day at her new school. The hallways seemed busier, the students seemed less friendly and, the teachers didn't seem to care that she didn't know her way around.

Finally, the lunch bell rang and she was freed from the suffocating classroom.

She slung her backpack over her shoulder, determined to find the cafeteria without help.

Male students that are too tall for their age raced past her in an effort to get their lunch first and cliques of girls clotted the stairs.

As she walked into the lunchroom alone, looking desperately for an empty table, someone tapped her shoulder.

"You look lonely," he smiled at her, a bright smile that made her day a thousand times better.

"Would you like to eat with me?"

She befriended the boy who introduced himself as Autumn and developed a liking for the cute, kind and chubby boy, the friendliest person in their class.

If you would ask Ella, how she will describe Autumn, she will say that he's the kind of person who sent you smiles so bright you could see them from across the Pacific Ocean and whose thoughtfulness warmed your heart.

Eventually, she got to know more of her fellow students. And she found herself totally wrong with her "first impressions", turns out they were actually her "worst impressions."

And now she was in her sixth grade, best friends with the boy whose blue eyes sparkled like those of a child in a candy store and whose laugh was so contagious you often found yourself breathless in his presence. 

When she arrived from completing the task her teacher ordered, it was already lunch. To her surprise, there is already a lunchbox on her desk. There is no note to let her know who brought it yet one sniff tells her that it's her favorite - shrimp in coconut milk. She sinks into her chair and peers around. Hardly anyone is here yet and no-one even looks her way or acknowledges her at all.

Ella turns her attention back to the lunchbox. It's a cute, pink lunchbox and still warm. She wants to resist it until she knows the giver, but without conscious thought, she opens it and the first stuff of the creamy shrimp into her mouth creeps over her taste-buds and down her throat.

After only a few minutes she was bathing in the deliciousness of her lunch. The time for finding her benefactor has passed, the next subject is already slated to begin. So she carefully placed the now empty lunchbox inside her bag and adjusted her seat.

Students started filling up the room and Ella returned the smiles send to her way. Finally seeing her best friend made her heart twirl. And the way he moves. He trots along, effortlessly looking cute and handsome at the same time. She stops to look at him and admire his perfection as she knows that's as far as she could ever get.

Ella felt the heat rise to her cheeks as Autumn looked in her direction, he grinned and she snapped her head away, knowing that if she continued to stare she would get lost in his sky blue eyes. She could feel his eyes still on her, Ella silently inhaled and exhaled, hoping that his thoughts about her were good.

"How's your lunch, Ella?" he asked, his voice laced with curiosity over something.

Hearing his voice made her stomach flutter. Ella can't help but feel this way about him.

"Oh, it was delicious, " she replied absentmindedly.

"Good to hear that, " a stupid smile crept into his chubby face.

Ella narrowed her eyes at him, "It was you wasn't it?"

"I thought you wouldn't notice."

Ella folded her arms, eyebrows arched, waiting.

"You were eating like food was going out of style. You crammed it in fast, consuming a meal that had taken two hours to prepare and cook in a matter of minutes. Then, you belched loudly. Are you even a girl?"

Autumn breaks out in laughter like burst water arching into the brilliant summer sky soaking everyone around him with unrestrained gales that debilitated him to a thigh-slapping and pick a faced picture of glee.

Ella wanted to stay straight-faced, flip her hair and ignore him - he was, after all, laughing "at her", not "with her." But before she could stop herself her poker-straight mouth twitched upwards and she was giggling despite herself.

Time flew and they were leaving. Ella was chatting with one of her friends when suddenly a commotion broke out outside their room. Due to curiosity she peeks out of their window.

"Jason!" the girl gasps, the betrayed expression on our youngest classmate's face making her feel even more guilty, "It's not what it looks like."

Jason stays silent, staring at her, his wide eyes becoming glossy with tears. 

"You texted me and acted as if my love was owed to you, but the truth is you only gave me apathy." Jason, their youngest classmate kept his eyes steady, resting on the girl's face like they were home, but just briefly, the sorrow already building.

Lezabel stayed rooted to the spot, the breeze moving her hair softly away from her beautiful face. Her features buckled just slightly before she spoke, the only betrayal of her facade.

"Apathy? You couldn't even buy me a dress. What use are you to me, aside from doing my homework and projects? If you could have been richer, I would've kept you." Lezabel said with a sweet smile as if nasty words aren't coming from her.

Jason broke his gaze, preferring instead to rest his eyes on the ceiling. Then he spoke with indifference, "You said you loved me and I took you at your word. You said I was your soul mate. Then one day, you will just suddenly announced you were in love with someone else behind my back. Oh, how stupid of me to fall for somebody like you."

Lezabel didn't response instead, she stares at him as if he's nothing. As if his outburst is meaningless.As if she's a holy grail and dismisses anything of importance Jason has to say as he continued, "Love?What a joke, " Jason snickered. "I could've tolerated your nasty attitude but cheating at me? I'm tired being a fool, Lezabel. I'm out."

Then he turned back to her, face set like an adversary, eyes cold and muscles tense, to go back inside his classroom. Lezabel took off her innocent facade and sneered before putting it back on.

"You think I should fix this?" Lezabel said, looking at Cameron before clinging to him.

"Nah," Cameron couldn't even be bothered with Jason.

For at that moment, Ella had seen the monster under the veil of the pretentious, scheming Lezabel that would've made her such a great actress. Ella knew right there and then that love to her was nothing but based on a whim.

"What are you looking at?" The familiar warmth enveloped Ella as Jaiven suddenly appeared.

Ella spun around to face him and smiled. Then she dragged him outside of their building, brushing pass at the people crowding outside their room, all the way to their canteen.

"Nothing. I was just wondering how can others play with one's feelings, " she said after buying a banana cue.

"Why? Does my little kitten has been played? Who is he?" Ella had never seen Autumn look that way, his eyes had a deadness, a stillness. The boy who laughed often, the one who was everyone's friend had developed a hardness.

"What? No, it was just pure curiosity. I mean how could someone they trusted and loved - and who they thought loved them back – betray them in such a shocking and hurtful way?"

Autumn scrutinized her. And when he saw that she was telling the truth, he sighed.

"There are no excuses when it comes down into cheating. Cause if you truly loved this person with all of your heart, there would be no one else. Other men or women would not even exist for you, "

Her skin tingled when they locked eyes and her heartbeat erratically in her chest so hard that she felt as if she would burst. Looking into Autumn's ocean blue eyes felt like looking into the sun for too long - it almost burnt, but the burning sensation was satisfying to Ella. There were butterflies - no, an entire zoo - in Ella's chest, but it felt good.

She finally admitted to herself what she knew all along, but was too afraid to admit it: She liked him. A lot.