HOME ALONE

Thanks to the unknown guy who helped her out, she got home in twenty minutes time and told him to park down the alley since taking her to the front of her house would be a suicide mission.

“Thank you so much, you saved my life today” she said removing the helmet and stretched it to him

“It’s nothing, I just helped a friend” he responded with a smile and for a reason she doesn’t understand, the word “Friend” struck her heart.

“Friend?” she asked with a confused look

“Yes. Or you don’t want to be friends with me?” he asked narrowing his eyes into a frown

“No, it’s not like that. It’s just that I am confused if this is how easy it is to make friends” she explained and he was too stunned to speak for a second

“It’s not like there is any hard process or step to making friends. You can be friend with anyone as long as you decide and set your mind on it” he remarked and laughed a bit

“I see! I have to quickly go in before my mother starts looking for me” she said to him and raced up the alley.

Thankfully, her mother was not back from her night shift at the office so she ran to her room to change into her pajamas before visiting the kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cereals since it was so late and she’s too tired to cook anything for the night.

She couldn’t stop fantasizing about the chest of the guy she had met earlier as she lied in bed and it was that time she realized that she had missed something.

“I didn’t even ask for his name, what was I thinking?” she grunted and hit her head a little for forgetting something that important

“Well I won’t see him anymore so let’s just forget about it” she added and closed her eyes before she finally slept off.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Every other thing continued in her life as usual and she had even forgotten about the guy who helped her the other day. She was preparing hard for her final exams in high school and it has been tough on her.

She had to extend her classes and reading hours, take up many past questions textbooks and devoted herself entirely to reading. She got nosebleed several times but that didn’t prevent her from studying as if her life depended on it.

Well, it did depend on it.

She was coming back from the academy late on evening when she ran into a guy who almost hit her with his motorbike.

“Are you blind?” she shouted at the person whose face was covered with a helmet before proceeding to pick her scattered books that fell from her hand due to the shock

“I am very sorry, it was a malfunction from my brake” the guy apologized and removed his helmet before their eyes met and they went “Uhn?” at the same time.

“Hey!” she called out to him and without her consent, a smile appeared on her face

“It’s really you, how have you been?” he answered with a smile too as he parked his bike to approach her

“I have been doing fine. Thank you for the other day” she said to him and he waved it off

“You don’t need to mention” he said helping her to pick up the last book

“I have been trying to reach you again but couldn’t see you no matter how I searched. No one knows you or is your friend around the neighborhood” he added and moved closer to her

“That is because I have no friends” she answered and he nodded in agreement

“Are you going home now? Do you want me to take you home?” he requested and she shook her head

“No it’s okay. I will just walk home” she responded sharply and quickly started going her way

“She must be really scared of her mom” he muttered with a smile and climbed on his bike

“Mike is my name” he shouted to her and she stopped for a while

She had forgotten to ask for his name again and she was glad that he told her himself this time. She smiled and turned to face him

“My name is Bridget” she shouted back and they both smiled brightly at each other before waving a bye.

Just like that, she might have made a new friend but she’s not sure if she could call him her friend for the time being. She had never had any relationship with anyone because she was always afraid of wasting time.

She felt the time she’s wasting to speak with friends would be enough to cover at least one chapter and it was one of her mother’s rule never to keep anyone as friend.

She hopped home, ate her dinner and brought out her book to continue from where she stopped when her mind suddenly went to Mike again.

“He’s so warm” she muttered as she remembered his bright smile

She quickly shook the thought off her head so as not to get distracted before studying hard into the night once again like every other day.

****

One evening, after two weeks of meeting Mike in the street, they encountered each other once again at the academy and this time he was there as a student. She was about leaving the academy when someone called her name and she wondered who it could be.

She turned to see him waving at her from the staircase and she paused to exchange greetings to him.

“We keep running into each other, is this a sign?” he said with his hands in his pocket and she was confused about what he meant by that

“A sign?”

“A sign that we are meant to be friends” he stated and she smiled

“Do you study here too? I have never run into you” she asked as they walked into the street

“Well I recently joined the academy last week even though I don’t see the need to because I can always do well on my own” he said with a hint of pride

“You still need the help of the tutors though, how come you are sure that you can do well on your own?” she asked further

“You can call me a genius then” he remarked and she chuckled

“Do you want to get some ice cream? It is highly recommended after a day of extremely hard work. The math class today was tiring” he suggested and she was not sure how to respond to it.

She was not used to all these types of outings because she had always been a loner and even if she wanted ice cream, her mother would get it for her when she’s coming home. She wanted to decline but he just grabbed her hand and pulled her into the ice cream shop.

“I don’t think we should stay here, I have to study to cover up for the classes today” she protested

“Ma’am, it is okay to take a break once in a while. If you keep stuffing your body with the same food every time, It will rebel one day” he remarked to calm her down

“Do you want the peanut, strawberry or chocolate flavor?” he asked as the person at the counter wanted to take the order

“Chocolate should do” she finally succumbed and he ordered for a pair of chocolate ice cream before carrying the tray to one of the tables

She quickly started to dig into the ice cream bowl so she could finish it fast and leave for her house and he noticed it quickly.

“You should calm down. You are supposed to talk, discuss or chat over a bowl of ice cream. Do you want them to melt it so you can gulp it down at once?” he countered her and she sighed in defeat, he was always reading all her moves and thoughts.

They started to have their ice cream in silence and she didn’t know what to do in that type of weird situation. Since she didn’t want to appear boring, she decided to ask about the classes they had that day.

“Don’t you think that the teacher was weird today? It felt as if she didn’t understand how the final answer was gotten for the last question” she blurt out and he hit the table out of the blue which made her jump

“You also think so right? She was so obvious with it that I couldn’t suppress my snort. It wasn’t even that hard” he responded before scooping a large portion of the ice cream

“You know the steps to the answer?” she asked in shock and he nodded

In a flash, she unload her books on the table and rushed to his side

“Can you please explain to me then?” she asked desperately and he agreed immediately

He ended up tutoring her through the problem and she was able to grasp it at the end of thirty minutes and by that time, they had finished up their ice cream. They left for their house and he ended up walking her down the alley before leaving for his own house.

Things continued that way and she began to get comfortable with him. they would wait for each other after classes, go over their notes again and explain to each other what they feel is not clear since she was good at sciences courses and he was good at mathematics.

She rose back to the top of the class the next semester and she was glad that she would not be receiving another round of beating from her mother. This continued until she finished her finals and graduated but she didn’t stop going to the academy because of her university entrance exams where she also met Mike taking the same class.

“I was sad that I won’t be seeing you anymore but here you are” she said to him when she ran into him and he smiled

“We can easily talk and chat each other up, why don’t you give me your number?” he responded and she scratched her ear a little

“I don’t have one” she muttered and he was shocked to hear that

“Even elementary school children carry one around” he remarked

“My mom haven’t gotten one for me” she shrugged

“It’s okay, we can continue to catch up in school” he concluded and they nodded in agreement.

A week after she wrote her entrance examination, she was at home all day but her mother didn’t come home for the night. She was worried and didn’t have a phone to call her on so she didn’t sleep a wink for the night.

The next day too, her mother didn’t come home so she began to worry. She thought of going to her mother’s company but she didn’t know the place and there was no one she could call. She was thinking about what to do when a knock landed on the door and a deliveryman brought a letter.

She opened it and saw that her mother sent her a letter that she was going on a sudden business trip for three days so she should take care of herself.

“I am really nothing to this woman” she muttered with a pained heart as she dropped the letter on the table and went to find herself something to eat since she couldn’t eat out of worry.

She was watching the TV alone around eight in the night when she heard a weird movement at the back of her window. She didn’t mind it before but when it became louder and clearer, she turned down the volume of the TV to hear some men murmuring behind her window that nobody seems to be in the house so they can just knock on the door and pretend to be a deliveryman just like in the afternoon.

She quickly jumped off the couch and slid the curtain a bit to see the deliveryman who came in the afternoon with two other men dressed in black. She knew that she was about bring robbed and raped if possible so she firstly put off the light, locked the front door securely and crawled to the kitchen where she opened the back door quietly and rushed out of the compound before she was sighted.

She ran straight down the alley and luckily for her, Mike was passing. She jumped in front of his bike and he was forced to stop for her.

“Why did you do that? Do you want to die?” he yelled before seeing that she was the one

“Uhn? What are you doing here?” he asked removing his helmet

“Please help me” she cried out with tears flowing down her cheeks and he tossed her a helmet without even asking why

“Get on” he instructed and she quickly mounted the bike before he zoomed off.