2- "Classmates."

I sat in an indoor arena bleacher after running away from that firsthand embarrassment I just had experienced.

After today's shame, I felt so small. I mistook someone to be my late fiance when all along I knew that it was impossible for Noah to return back to life since he was gone for five years now.

Remembering how I lost him that one horrible afternoon stung my heart over and over. I suggested a week before the wedding that we take a trip to the beach together to celebrate our upcoming nuptials and the fact that, as husband and wife, we would then be free to travel anywhere we wanted. That was my only wish for the last few days that I was his girlfriend I was so excited about becoming his wife, and it was also my biggest mistake. Perhaps he would still be here with me right now and alive if I hadn't been so insistent.

I was busy grilling for our snacks when he went sailing alone. He was strong and loved beach activities, so I was sure he would be safe, without knowing that that would be the last time I would ever see him. His smile, his loving eyes, his handsome face, everything about him.

He was already away when the clouds suddenly turned dark and unexpectedly huge rainfalls and storms came. My chest began to pound as I worried about his safety amid the bad weather. I kept calling for him to return to the shore, but he entirely disappeared from my sight as the waves in the sea grew bigger and more turbulent.

In a state of panic, I fled to find help in rescuing my fiancé. I could no longer be at ease while waiting for them. And instead of him returning by the boat he sailed? What arrived in the cottage was the rescue team, without Noah with them, carrying the news that crashed my world that very moment and changed my life forever.

They were able to locate the boat he was on, but Noah was not there. Despite the severe weather, killer waves, strong thunder strikes, and dangerous tides of the water, they did their best to look for him everywhere in the water. But they couldn't find his body. I cried, went insane, and couldn't think straight because I was worried something bad had happened to him.

But, I never intended to lose hope. Despite my repeated requests to accompany them or join them in their search for him, the people around me didn't let me because they worried for my safety and it was too dangerous.

Over several days, the weather gradually turned back to normal. Sunlight shone after days of gloom, but Noah was still missing. Every day and every night I would cry myself to sleep. I didn't want to give up hope, but I found myself beginning to. I kept wishing that I would see him again and that we would fulfill our promise to spend the rest of our lives holding hands.

No matter how people were saying that there were huge possibilities of him being already dead in the sea—losing his life in the attack of unexpected huge waves and his body underwater becoming lunch to different sea creatures, I would never believe them. Would never even welcome the thought that he was gone. For a long time, I clung to the thought that I would see him and we could be together again happily like what we used to do during our good old days, during the happiest moments of my life when I was in his arms.

The supposed wedding day passed, weeks, months, and even years passed by already and yet I was not able to find him. A part of me was saying it's been a long time and it's time to let him go, but a huge part of me, too, was struggling to move forward since I felt like half of me sank with him that one terrible afternoon!

How I wanted to go back in time and went with him even to another life that the two of us could never be separated again!

I could not love and see anyone the way I loved and cherished Noah…

Before I’d cry the whole day again and nothing had been accomplished like I totally wasted the time I spent to go back here at school, I decided to stand up and walked to find my classroom. I’ll attend my classes because I did not wake up today and bothered to be here only to reminisce. After the storms I've been through since losing the man I loved, I want to start over and start fixing myself, and my life.

I was about to go but somebody blocked my way.

When I looked at them, I realized it wasn’t just somebody. They were two girls raising their brows at me and giving me that disgusted, and even ready-to-pull-my-hair look.

“Anything I can do for you?” I asked.

The mean girl in her white crop top blouse smirked at me.

“Were you aware of what you just did earlier? How dare you get close to Trey that way and you even dared to hug him, you shameless p*thetic girl!”

I sighed. Alright. I got it, I was wrong when I did that and it was because of my delusion of mistaking that guy for my late fiancé.

“I’m sorry. It was a mistake. I thought he was somebody I knew—”

“Oh, what a lame excuse!” the other mean girl cut me off. “Let me tell you, you weren’t the first and the only girl who made silly moves just to get Trey Gregori’s attention! There were actually already several of you who did that but they all failed and instead, they ended up getting miserable, stopped going to school, and totally dropped out and transferred because they couldn’t handle the humiliation.”

They were threatening me, I could feel it. And I didn’t exactly know how to react.

I was taken aback and flinched when the girl on her crop top suddenly grabbed my arm to warn me more. “I see that you’re a new student here and probably a transferee. Now, stay away from the Gregoris, especially from Trey, or else, you’re going to regret you ever dared to step your feet in this school!”

Both of them gave me one last deadly glare and a sarcastic smile before freeing me and walking away.

I sighed and gently shook my head. I went directly and searched for my classroom.

And to my unfortunateness, those two women happened to be my classmates in the first subjects of my morning classes.

I was only a little relieved that I was finally out of their sight when my two subjects were done and I went out of the classroom. Being an irregular student with back subjects I hadn’t been able to finish when I stopped going to school five years ago would take me now to search one by one the different classrooms I must attend for my subjects.

Noah was a fourth-year student when I met him in the last quarter of my freshman year. We dated during the first months of my sophomore year. He was my first love and the first man I allowed into my life, so when he proposed to me just a few months after we dated, I gave him my sweetest ‘yes’ and agreed to marry him. I knew we were young and still in school, but I believed getting married wouldn't be an issue. Aside from living together after the wedding, one of our greatest goals was to finish our studies together.

Noah was taking Business Management and he, at that time, just turned twenty-one. I was only nineteen and madly in love when I thought I was all ready to become a housewife for the man I dreamed of spending my life with. But due to tragic events, that supposed fairytale was totally ruined. Noah’s gone and he was dead and I remained alive, feeling wounded each day since he left, haunted by the thoughts of him that cripple me even up to this date.

I took a deep breath as I finally found the room for my last subject in the morning session. The Biology class I wasn’t able to finish after I dropped out and detached myself from everything—-school, friends, classmates, batchmates, social media accounts, literally everything. After I lost Noah, I lost all interest in the world and jailed myself inside my room, hugging my pillows, laying in my bed, crying, and wishing for him to come back to life and ease my sorrows and pain away.

But five years had passed and it was enough grieving and drowning myself in the loneliness of missing him.

Now, I’m twenty-four and old compared to my new-generation classmates, but it isn’t too late to go back and pick up the pieces of myself that I lost for years, right?

The class was already going on when I stood on the door and knocked gently, enough to get the teacher’s attention and even unintentionally the students turned to look at me.

“Yes, Miss?” the professor asked.

“Uhm, this is Biology…” I stated the subject number. “Class, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She seemed calm and even kind. Thankfully, not a terror one.

“I’m sorry I was a bit late. I’m enrolled in this class.”

She smiled. “It’s alright. Get inside. We just got started, too, so no worries. Anyway, could you go here in front first to let us know a bit about you?”

I nodded and followed and stood in front.

When I was there, I was a little surprised to have seen that the man I mistook for Noah in the corridor earlier was actually in this class, too, with his friends, and they were sitting at the back.

He’s going to be my classmate?

I looked at his friends. The two girls in their group were whispering while looking at me. The short blond haired was confused while the red-colored-haired girl had an annoyed grin on her lips. The serious man from their group remained to keep a poker face while the playful and seemed to be carefree one tapped Trey on his shoulder and whispered something.

I felt intimidated and totally distracted especially facing Trey’s deep-seated eyes directed at mine.

“M-my name is Camila Valdermore, and I am a second-year student taking up BS BioChemistry…” I looked away and tried my best to avoid his gaze.

“Alright. Thanks for that, and welcome to your Biology class, Miss Valdemore. You may now take your seat.”

I quietly walked and searched for a vacant seat but I was again feeling super hesitant when I saw that the only available chair left was that one exactly in front of Trey Gregori’s seat!

I gulped and glanced at him, he was still staring at me.

I avoided his eyes and delivered myself to sitting on that only one vacant chair. Like, what choice do I even have?

The professor in front continued her lessons. I couldn’t help but feel tensed as I felt one’s eyes were on me the whole time.

When I dared take a look to check if they were from the man sitting behind me, I wasn’t wrong at all. Trey was looking at me as if there were no other things around us he could see but me…