MIDSUMMER CRUSH

Chapter 16

When Giselle returned home all she thought was about  Aariz and their little stare game. To get her mind off him, she thought of studying  and switched on her computer. Invariably she opened f*******: like any other teen and scrolled through everyone’s updates. It was when she noticed Aariz’s  name in the friends you may know section that she paused and felt butterflies in  her stomach.

Curious, she thought of visiting his profile and found that he had very limited set of friends from St. George compared to the remainder in his friend list. “Seems he’s very picky when it comes to sharing his online presence with students in college…” she sighed and switched the tab to google when her mom entered.

“Stop wasting time on the internet and help me instead. It was your duty to take the garbage out,” Her mom complained and glanced at the screen.

“I’m not wasting time, I’m searching vital information on the internet for our group project,” she lied and hoped her mother would leave sooner.

“Is this one of those group projects where you do all the work and the rest simply take all the credit?” her mother questioned.

“Mom please, I’m really busy right now…can we have this discussion some other time,” Giselle felt irritated and frowned.

“Sigh! Wait till you have kids,” her mom huffed and left her room

“Kids? I wonder if I’ll ever even get a boy to begin with!” she sighed and got distracted when her cell phone buzzed.

It was a conference call among all her four friends. “What’s up? Did you guys hear about the annual college festival?” Aliyah  exclaimed in excitement. “Ye I did, it’s going to be the same stuff as usual,” Reece sighed. “I did too, I’ve heard there’s a  prize money for the winner in the singing talent event,” Katnis stated. “Oh, wow that’s cool, what about the other events? You guys planning on entering any?” Giselle enquired.  “I may join the doughnut eating  event, what about you?” Amber said.

“I’m not participating in any of the events, remember they’re all being organised by the sorority girls and I hate  them,” Reece huffed.

“Well I don’t bother. I’m really looking forward to enter the singing talent event. I need the money you know,” Katnis expressed her eagerness.

“Hmm, Giselle why don’t you enter the singing event as well ? You have a good voice,” Reece interrupted and annoyed Katnis.

“Giselle’s planning on entering too?”She sulked and suddenly sounded low.

Giselle sensed her disappointment and decided to cheer her up. “Nah, my throat feels itchy these days, I guess I’ll be coming down with a sore throat pretty soon so I don’t see any logic in entering the singing event. You go ahead alone, Kat, we’ll support you,” she said and sent a sigh of relief to Katnis while Reece rolled her eyes because she knew Giselle was lying.

“Enough of the annual festival, I’ve got something more to share too,” Aliyah interrupted. “Guess what I ran into our class representative at the bowling alley a few days back. We had a brief chat, and I must say he’s quite the shy type,” she added and startled everyone.

“Wow it’s hardly been a month and you already tried hitting on him?” Amber and the rest  laughed while Giselle remained quiet.

“Well I tried my best, but it seems he’s too shy to respond. He’s cute but a bit too reserved. I was talking the whole time while he merely smiled,” Aliyah complained and sighed.

“Yup, I’ve noticed that too. Being a class representative I assumed he would be boisterous and flamboyant like other frat guys, but he seldom talks or interacts with anyone except his set of close friends,” Katnis explained and agreed to what Aliyah had to say.

“You forgot queen bee, Zehara!” Amber added.

“Yup, she sticks to him all the time,” Reece said.

“That’s coz he’s got large female following, “ Katnis stated.

“Yea I’ve noticed that too. Girls like mysterious and quiet guys. It excites them I suppose,” Reece said. “He sounds more like the vampire in that movie don’t you guys think the same?” she added while the rest agreed.

It wasn’t long before Amber realised that Giselle hadn’t spoken a word. “Giselle are you there?” she enquired until Giselle responded.

“Yup I’m there…hey you know what I haven’t finished Prof. Grace’s assignment. See you all in class tomorrow,” she said and hung up.

That night Giselle lay in bed thinking over what Aliyah and the rest had said about Aariz being reserved. Giselle had noticed it too, though she thought he was the opposite during her initial interactions with him. Aariz didn’t speak much in class and only spoke when spoken too. Needless to say he never spoke to Giselle too while on campus. It had been long since she had last interacted with him through txts.

She did receive his updates on class schedules and assignment deadline, but all his txt sounded too formal than the earlier one. “I guess he doesn’t want to acknowledge me publicly, but that’s pretty rude since I was supposed to be the only one he was familiar with in the beginning,” she sulked and  cribbed. “I wonder why he was staring at me though, Jeez he’s more confusing than a Rubik’s cube,” she sighed and decided it was best to sleep over it.

But her confusions didn’t end there. Giselle continued catching him stare at her during intervals but found it odd that he wasn’t attempting to speak or greet her like before. One day the two happened to cross paths in a lonely corridor in campus. Giselle assumed he would smile or show some signs of acknowledgement, but to her dismay he merely looked through her as if she didn’t exist and walked past her. “I guess he’s forgotten me…oh well, I don’t give a damn either!” she felt hurt and decided to go help Katnis prepare for the upcoming singing event.

Days rolled and the annual festival commenced, but the pattern of him stealing glances at her  and not talking continued. It was the day of the singing event when things changed. “I ruined it! I’m never going to win this singing event!” Katnis cried in distress while the rest comforted her.

“How did this happen? Kat, I thought you were taking extra precaution with your voice,” Giselle got  worried and pitied her.

“Yup she took extra precaution by having ice-creams over hot soups last night,” Amber remarked while Aliyah wiped katnis’s tears.

“This is bad, you’ll be called in next as soon as the other contestant finishes,” Reece informed as she joined them back stage. “I guess you can kiss your prize money goodbye,” she added and made her cry all the more.

“This is so unfair, I was hoping on wining this,” she sobbed until Giselle couldn’t tolerate it any further.

“You can still win this if you want to,” Giselle said and grabbed everyone’s attention.

“What do you mean, she already sounds like Niki Minaj,” Amber teased.

“Don’t be so rude on her, I meant I would sing back stage while she lip syncs before the judges,” Giselle announced and startled them.

“Are you crazy?” Reece  retorted.

“Yes, for my friends I’m game to do crazy stuff like this one. So Katnis, are you ready to rock the audience?” She laughed it off and gave Katnis a ray of hope.

“Are you sure you want to do this for me?” Katnis asked feeling elated.

“Yes, I do,” she smiled before Katnis’s name was announced.

Reece was extremely angry about Giselle’s decision, but knew that there was no point in arguing with her. When Giselle wanted to help there was no stopping her.  As planned they arranged for a mic backstage and spread out to keep a watch to see that nobody caught their little secret.

It wasn’t long before Katnis lip synced to Giselle’s song. As expected the audience loved it and soon declared Katnis as the winner. “Awesome! You did it!” Amber and Aliyah congratulated Katnis as they left the stage.

“Hello, it was Giselle not Kat!” Reece frowned and reminded them but all were too excited to hear anything.  “It’s alright Reece, look how happy Katnis is,” Giselle smiled and walked behind them.

“This is ridiculous! Don’t you have any expectations like at least some appreciation for all the efforts  you put in? You deserved the reward, not she,”  Reece protested and felt upset.

“Forget it, Reece. I’ve stopped keeping expectations from people a long time ago,” She sighed when all of a sudden Aariz approached them.

“Hey  there! You sung beautiful at the event,” He winked and rushed to join his friends while Reece and Giselle looked on in astonishment.

“How did he find out?”  She gulped and blushed in embarrassment.

“Why bother! You finally got your pending reward, I bet you weren’t expecting that either” Reece laughed and teasingly nudged her with her elbow.