Playing Hooky

A good type of bad influence.

My first girlfriend was a bad influence. An absolute bad influence.

I could never concentrate when she was around, but then again, I never concentrate on anything to begin with.

It was during our statistics class when I found out how her influence is bad for me.

We were sitting at the back of the class paying absolutely no attention at all.

In fact, beside me, we were both playing tick-tack-toe with the person in front of us.

The teacher, although aware of power point presentations, preferred to write her teachings on the whiteboard making it painfully slow and boring.

Her handwriting was in italics too.

It was so boring that before long, my girlfriend had her chin on the desk with her phone about only half an inch from her eyeballs.

Her bangs covered her forehead and she blew them away when it got in her field of vision.

Despite having an enormous amount of snacks in her bag, she's somehow thinner than she was yesterday.

She's weird.

She tugged on my uniform and had a brilliant, albeit very stupid, idea.

Play Hooky.

The classroom had two doors one at the front, and one at the back.

When someone exited at the back door to urinate, she threw her sling bag outside, startling the person.

Ah I see.

She would then pretend to want to go to the bathroom, but in reality, she would take her bag outside and go somewhere else.

I smiled at her ingenuity.

I threw my bag just as the person who urinated returned, startling him for a second time.

Then my girlfriend went out.

And so I followed.

The teacher was paying as much attention as the students were. Practically zero.

When we got outside, we decided then where to go to.

Robinsons, she decided. A mall about 3-5 kilometers away from school.

I agreed with her and decided we take the jeepney.

She scoffed at me.

How weak are your legs, she asked me. Let's walk, she said.

We walked all the way to the mall, passing by busy streets and old buildings.

We passed by the Riverside hospital which should technically be called Sewageside hospital, as the river next to it is more or less a sewage dump rather than a river.

Despite that though, the hospital looked pretty modern.

She whistled as we passed by, and I grabbed her collar just in time for her to narrowly miss getting run over by a speeding ambulance.

How ironic would it be to be killed by an ambulance, I asked her.

Very ironic, she replied.

We walked down the main street.

She stopped at a fruit vendor and bought a single piece of lemon.

Why, I asked.

She shrugged.

When we got to Robinsons, we reveled in the cool air of the mall.

After walking under the sun for about 15 minutes, we were thirsty.

So we bought some shake at Thirsties. A fruit shake  vendor kiosk.

We sipped at our shakes, hers was a watermelon, and mine lychee.

Then my eyes widened at a sudden realization.

My sister comes through here, I told her frantically.

She might see us, I added.

She gave me a look of genuine disapproval.

Am I not good enough to know your sister, she asked.

No, but my sister is quite loud when it comes to my crushes  and if she find out about you-

I barely finished my sentence when she grabbed my arm and led me away  from where we were.

She understood what I meant.

That loud squeal that girls do when they're faced with a romantic situation or when they find out their friend's or siblings crushes.

that annoying, ear piercing squeal.

She had an older sister. She understood.

My respect for her grew that day.

So we went window shopping.

We entered a shop that allowed you to try colored hair dyes.

She put some on her hands and tried to put a blue streak on my hair.

Her face was so close to mine I could almost feel her faint breath.

When she was done, my hair had a streak the shape of....... well, something vulgar.

She laughed as I hurriedly take out my hanky and wiped it off.

Having a girlfriend is annoying.

I checked my watch.

It was too late to attend my next class.
Skip it, she told me.

I sighed.

We exited the mall and she decided we go to SM, another mall.

I pointed at the jeepney terminal in front of Robinsons.

She shook her head and pointed at her shoes, signifying that we walk.

And so we did.

By the time we arrived at SM, I could only say that people would have the wrong idea of what activities we were doing before getting there.

We were sweaty, our hair were messed up, and we could barely walk straight from the ankle pains.

Grown ups just rolled their eyes.

Kids these days, they seemed to say.

We continued window shopping.

She looked for pens and cases, I went for earphones.

We visited each shop. Once we were finally dead tired, we stopped for coffee on a Mister Donut underneath a stairway that led to the second floor.

We both ate the regular Bavarian cream doughnut.

We sipped at our coffees, occasionally forgetting whose cup is whose, and arguing about it.

When we finally finished eating, we had half an hour left till sunset.

Her sister called her.

Come home, she said. Make dinner.

My girlfriend pursed her lips.

Sorry Mat, I have to go, she told me.

My heart skipped a beat when she called me Mat.

I don't know why, but the people dear to me always call me Mat instead of Ray, what most other people would call me.

She leaned forward to kiss my cheek and I reared back.

Her eyes narrowed at my reaction.

Never had a girl kiss you before, she asked.

Nope, I kiss a lot of girls, whatchu talking about, I lied.

She giggles.

She leans forward again, and this time I tried my best not to awkwardly resist.

She pecked at my cheek and left me.

The Mister Donut cashier was giving me a weird bucktoothed grin.

I exit the mall towards the streets where the jeepneys are. I realized too late that we had skipped all of our classes today.

I chuckled.

Meh, once is okay.

But that one time experience suddenly became a habit in the future.

But in the future, there was no longer an us.

We grew up, and we broke up.

But still, sometimes, in some of my classes, I could still see her waiting for me to discreetly exit the class.

She has a new boyfriend now, and I know for a fact, their love was shallow.

If she could still feel how much I still loved her, she'd be crushed by the weight of it.

We love different people now, but this one fact still remains.

We still Play Hooky from time to time, just us two.

Reviews

[Sharda]

I like your style of writing. A single sentence at a time. Feels like a poem sometimes though it lacks the meter.
The stories are short and perfect for a quick read. Simplicity in style and the narration makes this a great read.

Keep writing, you are really good