Chapter 13

March 2014

Papa tried to smile at me after his call with Mama. "Let's go, Nene. Your Mama will be mad if I don't get you home."

"But it's raining, Papa! And it's already dark! And your car's not here, not even your motorcycle!"

"We'll just try to ask the neighbor if we could use theirs instead, okay?" he patted my head before ordering, "Come on, let's go."

"Papa!" I whined, "I don't want to go back! I haven't been here for a long time! Why can't I stay?"

He smiled patiently at me and uttered, "Because your Mama will be really angry. We don't want that, don't we?" he peered at me before he added, "I barely convinced her to let me see you and if I9 don't get you home now, she might not be forgiving anymore."

I looked at him, defeated, and sighed. "Okay. It's not like I have a choice now. You can't even go against Mama for me", I grumped and turned to leave. Pain flashed in Papa's face upon hearing my words but I didn't bother to apologize anymore.

~

"Ma'am, can we use at least half of the time to film?" I cautiously asked Ma'am Angelica after he stated that we had the entire morning to practice our dance. We really needed to finish filming so we could focus on our other tasks. There were just two scenes left, anyway. It wouldn't take much of our time.

She frowned and I gulped. "It's okay if it's not oka-"

"-Do what you have to do. Just make sure you'll have something to perform next week", Ma'am Angelica assented sternly.

A wide smile formed in my face. "Yes, Ma'am!"

"Okay, you can go now."

I was just about to turn around when I remembered something. I looked at Ma'am Angelica again and gave him another wide smile. "Thank you very much, Ma'am!"

•••

"Cut!" I shouted louder, my wide smile earlier turned into a deep frown. "Okay, we are done! Let's wrap it up!"

We just finished filming the last two scenes for our movie. It was already a quarter to nine, and I had vented my frustration in every "Action" and "Cut" and directions I said in the last couple of hours but it still hadn't dissipated.

James has been ignoring me after our breakfast together. He didn't respond to any of my instructions all throughout our shooting. He just followed them without a word and went to it. He didn't even glance at me. And it was driving me crazy! It was worse than what happened in the resort.

Was he that hurt with what I said? But I was just stating facts! I hadn't really told him my decision whether or not I would allow him to court me. I never said a word and it was not like I had intentionally led him to assume. He was the one who continuously approached me even when I never really appreciated his presence. Sometimes.

"Then, maybe, you can finally tell him to shut off", my very warm subconscious coldly adviced. I pursed my lips, deep in thought. "You know that you're such an hypocrite, right?" my subconscious added. "Why would you still think about it when you said so yourself that you didn't want him!?"

I exhaled deeply. I was very sure I didn't want James in my life but I also didn't want to be out of his eyes. I was beginning to get used to his presence much more than I cared to admit. But then again, I didn't want to get used to it. Oh goodness. I should really make up my mind.

•••

"You're such an idiot! Don't you know your right?!" Jeric hissed at Mark who was going to his left. They were carrying the small bed we needed for the play and I was instructing them where to put it. "Tati said left!" Mark countered.

"You fucking idiot!" Jeric gritted, losing patience with his friend. I stifled my laughter while watching them. This was definitely worth of popcorns. "Tati said left to me! We're opposite to each other which means you go right!"

When Mark finally understood what his friend said, they continued to move to the direction I said. "Okay! That's there! Gently put the bed d-"

And they dropped the bed. "You idiots! That's Jane's bed!" I shouted at the two and tried to smack them with the cardboard I was holding but they were already running away, laughing like fools that they were. I exhaled loudly and decided to just go the our room to check on the actors. They were changing into their costumes for our rehearsal today.

I was climbing up the stairs when I saw James running down. Our eyes met but he quickly looked away like I was a sight for sore eyes. He just walked past me and continued on his way. A hint of pain traced my heart but I shooed it away. This was actually good. He wasn't tailing me anymore. That was good.

I continued to climb the flight of stairs and headed to our room which was very chaotic. The actors were all over the place, donning their costumes. I saw Rizza with Lea Evangelista and Justine Hernandez tying their hairs. They were wearing matching blue dresses that looked really great on them. They were playing the role of the spectators on our play and they had never failed me.

I walked towards their direction. "You three look amazing!" I complimented while grabbing Rizza's hair to tie it for her. "Thank you."

"Tati, I'm anxious for tomorrow. What if we stutter or fall on our faces?" Lea voiced, looking very much anxious.

"Don't include us in your what-ifs, Lea!" Justine uttered simultaneously with Lea's apology, "Tati I'm sorry in advance!"

I chuckled. "Why say sorry to me?" I glanced at Lea and said, "Just do your best and if things don't go our way, then fuck it!"

Lea and Justine laughed while Rizza whined with my insouciance about our play. "Like you'll take it lightly when we fail", Rizza jeered at me.

"Oh, Rizza. I will just be relieved that we've actually finished it", I retorted half-heartedly just as I finished tying her hair. "Come on. Let's go down now." I turned to everybody else and ordered, "Let's go down now!"

•••

"I'm Melissa McHiney McNormous McWhale", Carol sang in the center. Everybody else was on their respective positions and some still had scripts on their hands, including James. He, along with Kyle and Marlon Garcia, were the choruses and they were not doing a very great job. I actually had no choice but to assign those important role to them because they were the most fitting among our other classmate. The only problem I had with them was they were a bunch of tardy asses, and that was very apparent by the way they looked at their scripts when it was their turn. I sighed helplessly.

They continued to sing and act, dancing and moving around, until the end. Our classmates clapped to show their appreciation to the actors while I just smiled. "It was good enough but I just wish you guys would drop the script", I uttered, "Take a break everyone then come back here after five minutes. You guys did great!"

They all started to leave while I went towards the stage. I didn't like how the buildings there were scattered. It made the background looked empty so I decided to rearrange them.

I tried to collect the buildings all at once because I was lazy like that. I wanted to align them in a straight line facing, of course, the gym. I was holding three buildings on each of my mind when someone took the other three from me. "Why are you always left behind?" James asked, quite agitated, while collecting the other buildings. "And why do always find some work to do?"

"Why do you care?" I hissed, suddenly feeling so irritated with him. He stopped and regarded me with an impatient look. "Why do I care? Really, Tati?" he sighed and added, "You know I like you so, of course, I care! You haven't even eaten anything else except the pandesal!"

My irritation went to another level. Did he think that after he went on and ignored me, he could just blurt out he liked me so what?! So he could compensate for his shitty behavior?! "Are you fucking kidding me?!" I snapped at him. He looked taken aback with my language since I didn't curse often. His impatient look wavered and I took that as a chance to lash out at him.

"You ignored me the whole time then you nagged me for nothing and now you're gonna blurt out you fucking like me? Do you think that you can just act like everything's perfectly fine when you're done being fucking upset?!"

"I was thinking, okay? I was collecting myself because you just literally shattered my expectations!" he glowered. "Here, I thought I had a chance with you because you were clearly flirting back but then you'll say that that wasn't it?! Like what is it, Tati?!"

"I wasn't flirting with you! You were flirting with me!" I retorted and he just snorted. "Really, Tati? You're gonna go on with that kind of mindset? That's shit."

I tried to calm myself down, trying not to shout, because we were literally fighting in an open stage. We're lucky that it was still class time so they were no students around. "Aren't you supposed to be winning my affection?"

He scowled loudly. "How can I when you're being so in denial with it?" he returned, "You should really give yourself a break, Tati."

He then sighed and continued to collect the buildings. "What are we gonna with these?"

I cleared my throat before answering, "Just align them in front."

He nodded and started to place the buildings accordingly. I tried to help him despite the reluctance of my shaken form. We finished quickly since it wasn't really much of a work.

He glanced at me and said, "Take a break and eat something. You're taking advantage of yourself", then he left, leaving me with mixed-up feelings.