It's Magic --- PART I - Chapter 3

Silence means yes. Haha. Sparks fly.

Chapter 3

 

        It takes a while before I realize that Lawrence and Mylene are both looking at me.

        I just glance away and pretend that I am just giving other things closer looks. Well, I am successful. They stop watching me.

        “Okay. Goodbye class.” Is it end time already? Oh, well…

        “Thank you and goodbye professor.” All of us say in reply as we all stand.

        I look at my wristwatch; it’s eleven-thirty in the morning.

        “Hi, Kevin…” Lawrence says in a nice and friendly way. He smiles, of course.

        “Hello.” Kevin replies with a smile. Seeing me and Mylene on both sides of Lawrence, he also gives us individual glances and flashes a smile to each of us. “Nice to meet you three…”

        “We’d like to be friends with you.” Mylene says and smiles.

        “Oh? My name’s Kevin Smith, how about yours?”

        “I’m Mylene Carpenter,” then they shake hands. He looks at Lawrence. “Lawrence Foster here. You can call me Rence,” and they do the same.

        He then gives me the glance in which I’m really looking at his hazel eyes. It sends a sort of electricity throughout my body from the inside. His eyes are tantalizing!

        “Katherine McGraw. Kate for short…” I say, smiling, hoping that he is “Ron.”

        “Oh...” is all he says, eyebrows raising in a cute way and then he reaches his hand out to me. I hesitate for a moment, partially shocked to realize that he seems not to remember something at the sound of my name. If he’s not Ron… no, I have the pendant, but I’ll save it for last resort.

        “Hey, are you okay, Kate?” he asks, taking me back to my senses.

        “Y-yeah…” and then our hands touch. His grip tightens, and it’s like I’m back in time again, on the park, Ron’s hand holding mine.

        “Well then, I guess we’re now friends, right?” Mylene’s voice gets into my ears.

        “Yeah, we are.” Kevin lets go of my hand, and that’s when I realize that it takes long before the connection between our hands breaks away.

        “Excuse me…” I say, “I’ll go ahead. I have lots to do yet…” and then I leave them not waiting for any reply.

 

        I come back to school in the noon, about twelve-thirty after I ate lunch in the nearby café, to where I think I met Ron. How disappointing. If he’s Ron, didn’t he just at least have a reaction when he heard me say my name, “Kate?” Or maybe Ron has completely forgotten about me.

        Oh, my goodness. I think I’m just crazy over that childhood playmate of mine.

        As I enter our classroom, Kevin is just there at his seat, reading a certain book.

        I sit on the vacant chair beside him.

        He lowers the book down, revealing his deep hazel eyes that speak of a smile.

        “Oh, hello Kate. Done with your lunch already?”

        “Yeah, Ro �" Kevin… How about you, are you done with yours, too?”

        “I ate here.” And then he smiles at me again, raising the book covering his face, which I counter with a nice smile of mine.

        “What’s it about?” I ask him, to fill up silence. I glance at the book he reads.

        “Oh, it’s a love story between a visual artist and a girl rock star.”

        “You’re different from other boys.” I say truly, inspired. Inspired? I think so…

        “I think I am. What makes you say it then?” he asks as he gives me a sleepy glance.

        “You’re unlike the boys that I used to know…” I say, and the heat gathers on my face.

        “How?” he asks me. So I guess I haven’t really answered his question.

        “Umm, I just noticed that you read romance stories, unlike others. And then you’re nice…”

        “Does that make me different from them then?” A mocking question…

        “No. You have something that most of them don’t have.” I say, and I guess I blushed. So I just look away, to hide it from him.

        “Oh really?” he puts the book on the table and then he leans closer to me. “What’s it?”

        Like being attracted by a magnet, my face automatically turns to face him, which is much to my surprise when I realize that our noses are just a few inches away from each other. My eyes immediately get locked on his red kissable lips. No, Kate, don’t be a maniac!

        “Tell me.” the heat gathers on my face and only one thing comes to my mind. This is trouble. He leans closer, and that makes me move a little away to keep the distance between our faces. My eyes catch his, and for a little while of looking at him eye-to-eye, I notice his innate beauty which was greatly given emphasis by the sleepy-look on his eyes. He’s pretty. No, he’s hot. NONONO! Bad Kate… He’s handsome, and his eyes and lips make him look hunky.

        “W-what are you doing?” I ask him as my eyes narrowed, back on his full red lips.

        Then a sly grin forms from his lips across his face. And then his head falls back to how it was settled first. He laughs out. “You’re blushing!”

        “H-hey!” I just exclaim, he caught me anyway…

        “Never mind.” He says and pouts which is cute of him to do.

        “O-oh…”

        “But I’ll never forget the way your eyes look…” and then he gets something from his bag. It’s a sketchpad and a set of colored pencils. “I like your brown eyes, anyway.” And then he pinches my cheek.

        “Hey, what’s that for?” I complain while holding the spot where he pinches me.

        “Take it as a compliment.” He smirks then.

        “O-okay.” It’s all I can say.

        “Now, please keep quiet. And as much as possible, stay still.”

        “Stay still?” I ask, unsure.

        “Yeah, stay still and keep quiet.”

        “Okay.” I just remain on the way I’m seated. My head is slightly turned to him and my eyes, fixated on only two things, his eyes, and the sketchpad. “Isn’t it awkward?”

        “What?” and for a moment, our eyes meet. Well, when his face is near mine a while ago, I was not looking straight into his eyes; instead my eyes are just fixated on his red lips that also speak of sleepiness at normal look, it curves downwards.

        “You know… It’s awkward to stay still and just look at you.”

        “Just stay still, for just a while, okay?” Weird. What for? So I just follow him.

        Then my eyes glance at the sketchpad. He’s drawing circles with peachy shades… no, he’s shaping those up into… eyes?

        “You’re not following me. I said stay still. I saw your eyes, Kate…” he says, his hand relaxed, his eyes still fixated on what he draws, which surprises me. So he sees even the slightest motion in my eyes. Impressive. I wonder how he does that… Interesting.

“Oh, okay.” I just keep my position then, unable to see what he draws on the pad. And for five, six or seven minutes…

        “It’s done, Kate. You can move freely now.” And my eyes widen and those immediately get locked on the sketchpad.

        “My gosh, Kevin! It’s �"”

        “It’s you.” Then he looks at me eye-to-eye and he holds the sketchpad right to my face. “I emphasized the eyes.” Yeah, those sketched brown eyes give identity to the face. He drew just how I really looked when I was looking at him. I can see my thin brown bangs covering my forehead, my deep brown eyes, serious red lips, and the untied hair on the sides of my head falling until my shoulders. It takes a moment before I realize then that I’m holding my face all along with my right hand, and when he lowers the sketchpad, his smile and sleepy-looking eyes takes me back to my senses.

        “Wh �" why did you draw such?” I ask, confused.

        “I said I like your brown eyes.” He smirks then, and finally takes the sketchpad away. “Anyway, I’m gonna keep what I draw. I’ll take it as a remembrance of the prettiest eyes I have ever seen. Is it okay with you?”

        But I didn’t answer. Not a word gets out of my mouth. I’m shocked.

        “Silence means yes.”

        And then my heart races like crazy as he smirks at me and puts the sketchpad in his bag, backpack to be exact.

        Then he is silent and continues what he is reading a while ago. Weird.

        I’m terrified, so I stood up. “Excuse me…” and I went back to my seat.

        As I take my seat, my hand reaches for my forehead and I calm down. A small nap maybe. Our schedule for our first class this afternoon is at one-thirty anyway.

        “Good afternoon.” I raise my head and I am taken aback a bit to see him.

        “Lawrence…” He nicely smiles then takes his seat on the chair beside me.

        What takes me aback a bit is his “new look.” Well, as I could see, he now wears white-framed glasses, unlike what he looked like this morning �" in which he don’t have any glasses. His glasses make the most impact on his “change” in look. He looks handsome, too, but not as handsome as Kevin. His glasses suit him.

        “How long have you been here?” he asks me as long as he settles on his chair.

        “About thirty minutes already.” I answer and the whole while is filled with silence.

 

        The afternoon classes runs smoothly. Mylene was almost late. Well, our first subject in the afternoon is General Science, in which only Lawrence and I are classmates, since Mylene and Kevin’s schedule aren’t the same with ours.

They told us that Mylene’s General Science is her second period in the afternoon, and Kevin’s General Science was his first subject this morning. I also learned of Kevin’s course, Fine and Visual arts major. I know he can do it, no wonder he could draw my face in range of five-to-seven minutes.

        The thought about it makes me smile. I just wish he is Ron.

        The last subject this afternoon is Thesis. I don’t have much idea about this subject but it was nice going in that class because Kevin and I go together in this subject and we’re even seatmates. Well, Lawrence has a pretty different schedule than me since his last subject in the afternoon is Designing. And Mylene has her own schedule.

        Well, that’s for today. By the way, haven’t I told you that our schedules are weekly in terms of regular cycle? Never mind anyway, it’s too bulky to explain. But I believe that you will learn from it next time.

        It is late in the afternoon when I decide to go home.

        I start to walk outside our gate when a familiar pair of feet follows me. It’s Kevin.

        “Do you mind? I’m going home, too.”

        “Oh, Kevin, it’s you…” I gasp. And upon seeing him, my heart seems to skips a beat.

        And we walk in silence, so I break it. “Where do you live?”

        “I’m not from here. I just board an apartment in Clarkson village.”

        “Clarkson village?” I ask, excited.

        “Yep, why?”

        “I live there.” As I say it, his face seems to brighten.

        “Really? What a coincidence…”

        And silence follows again, which is awkward for me.

        Then, it surprises me when I flash him a glance, because he is also looking at me as well, and I guess he was the whole time.

        “Kevin?” I ask, my eyebrows rising.

        “I just like your eyes, Kate. Do you mind?” It triggers heat on my face, and I can tell that I’m really blushing.

        “No, but you’re the one with the best eyes, Ron.” I compliment him back, which greatly surprised me upon uttering the last word, the last name.

        “Ron?” he asks, surprised, which also surprises me. So he’s not Ron, after all.

        “S-sorry… I mean, Kevin.”

        “Okay…” and then we keep on walking in awkward silence.

        That reminds me… I still have the last resort. The pendant…

        My right hand immediately clutches my chest which seems to surprise Kevin.

        “Kate?” he says and we both stop walking. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

        I can feel the race of my heartbeat, which is very unnatural.

        “It �" it’s nothing… Never mind…”

        “Are you sure?” and the clutch of my hand on my chest turn to a grip on the cold metallic pendant behind my clothes.

        I just nod and then we continue walking.

        All the while before we reach the entrance of Clarkson village, silence takes over us, and my right hand is just on my chest. Well, Kevin looks at me time to time and I just flash him smiles which signify that I’m okay. It seems like I don’t want to show him the pendant. I’m tensed yet I don’t know why…

        And now here we are in the front of Clarkson village’s entrance.

        “Kevin…” I call him in my sweetest voice.

        “Yes, Kate?” he responds as he looks at me.

        For a while, I am just like that, my grip still on the pendant through my clothes.

        “Is something… wrong?” he asks me with narrow eyes.

        “Kevin…” I look directly at his eyes and then draw the pendant out, holding the lace above it just to let him see the pendant. “…do you remember this?”

        “What are you talking about?” he says, confused. “What’s that?” his index finger pointed.

        A tear runs down my cheek.