Games of the Heart

Stars Appear

Eliza wasn’t sure if she was the brunt of a huge cosmic joke or the universe just really had it out for her.

Ever since the tour and that embarrassing incident in the laundry room, she had been trying to avoid any interaction with Marco. Alex was right. The girls were now aiming for Marco. And she wouldn’t want to be in a situation that involved jealous girls. She knew how petty they could be, how cruel and spiteful they could become when they were enamored with someone. All she wanted was peace. She was graduating soon and she didn’t want to be caught up in another mess again.

But the teacher, during the lecture, declared an assignment that required having a partner. If they could have been the ones to choose, she would instantly partner up with Anthony. He might not like it but she could be persuasive if she wanted to. But unfortunately, the teacher divvied them up herself. And now Eliza found herself to be partners with Marco Dy, of all people.

The jealous stares of all the girls in the room bored into her back. And Anthony, he was sure to give her a hard time about this too. But when she glanced at him, he was preoccupied with arguing with Sheila, who apparently was his partner. Eliza cringed when he called her chicken legs again. If looks could kill, Sheila would have murdered Anthony on the spot.

“Eliza.”

The beating of her heart spiked. She hadn’t even realized Marco had dragged his desk over until it was touching hers.

“We’re partners,” he said.

The blood rushed into her face immediately. She laughed softly because she was too embarrassed at herself to say anything else. Marco was too polite to point it out, he must be used to girls blushing and stammering around him. Whatever the case might be, she was glad he didn’t call her on it.

Was she nervous around him because he was too good-looking? Or was it because she was afraid of the girls’ jealousy? She hoped it was the latter. She hopefully wasn’t that superficial to only judge him by his looks.

“Yeah,” she mumbled as she dug into her pencil case for a pen, a pencil, another pen and another. 

God, but she was really nervous.

Her eyes flickered towards him. His expression not changing in the slightest, he silently read the sheet the teacher had distributed out earlier. Unlike her, he was rather calm and indifferent to their partnership. She scolded herself and straightened in her seat. It was just an assignment. And it was going to be over come Monday. After that it’ll be back to ignoring him. She could handle this professionally.

“We only need to work on two accounting problems then make the presentation,” Marco started to say.

She took a deep breath and nodded. She picked up her assignment sheet from her desk and looked at it. They could divvy up the work. She could do one and he could do the other. Though she wasn’t that all bright, she was rather good with Math and was confident she could do this. It was fair enough and she and Marco wouldn’t have to interact much with each other at all.

“I can do the first problem and you can work on the other.”

It was like Marco had read her mind. This made her feel relieved of course.

“But we have to work on the oral report and presentation together. When should we work on this?”

Her thoughts came to a screeching stop.

“Umm… well…” She was hoping he’d do the Power Point presentation alone and just give her a script or something for the oral report. But he probably wouldn’t let her freeload on him. Dang, oral reports were her worst enemy. “Later after school, maybe?” she offered.

The sooner it was done the better for her.

“I can’t do this after school,” he answered. “I’m thinking of joining a club. I have to meet the coach later to sign-up.”

She blinked.

Coach? Did he say coach? Was he going to join a sports club?

Despite her nervousness, Eliza found herself curious. “What club?” she asked him.

“Basketball.”

“Oh,” she grinned. “Then that means you’ll be in the same club with Alex. He’s the co-captain of the team.”

Leaning back on his chair, he said, “That’s good to hear. I’ll at least know one member. It’ll make me less nervous.”

Her brows drew together. “You? Nervous?”

His lips twitched. “I’m not exactly an outgoing person.”

In complete awe, forgetting about her earlier trepidation, Eliza leaned slightly towards him. “Why do you think that?”

He shrugged. “I’m not the easiest person to talk to.”

“You seem to be doing fine with Sarah and the others.”

“They do most of the talking, Eliza.”

A bubble of laughter burst out of her and she covered her mouth with her palm. When she could trust herself to speak without laughing, she said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. They really do most of the talking. It’s just that my earlier impression of you was… well…”

“What is it?” he prompted when she trailed off.

She had his full attention and she suddenly wished she hadn’t spoken. The blood returned with full force to her face and she cleared her throat. “I thought you were pretty confident and sociable,” she mumbled, playing with her pen, flipping it around her fingers. “I mean, you made lots of friends on your first day.”

“Friends,” he muttered, looking away. Maybe she imagined it but he seemed to have said it in a sarcastic manner. “I guess I do have friends.”

“I’ll put a good word for you,” she blurted out, putting the pen down. “To Alex, I mean. Try-outs are next Friday and if you have any troubles at all you can talk to him. He’s a good guy. He’ll help you.”

He returned his eyes to her and stared at her for a moment.

Then he said, “Thank you.”

She bit her lip and turned her gaze back to the sheet on her desk. Will she ever get used to him staring at her? “Okay, um. If we can’t meet after school then the weekend will have to do. I have to look after my brothers Saturday morning but we can meet in the afternoon if you want.”

“That’s fine with me. Where should we go?” she heard him say.

There was a crease on the bottom of the page and Eliza focused on it, pressing her fingers to it in a sliding motion to straighten it out. “There’s this small book café at the town center. It doesn’t have too many customers and I know the owner so we can stay as long as we want.”

“Then we’ll go there. I can bring my laptop with me. Ah, wait a second.”

Eliza dared to glance at him again. He was pulling his cellphone from his backpack. Handing it to her, he said, “I need your number in case something comes up. And you can text me the directions to that book café too.”

Gingerly, she took the expensive phone from him and inputted her number. Then she gave it back. He tapped his fingers on the screen for a moment then Eliza felt a vibration inside the backpack hooked to her desk.

“I sent you a text,” he informed her. “Save my number.”

She nodded at him. “Okay dokie.”

His voice was tinged with humor when he said, “Excuse me?”

Her brows drew together. “Okay dokie? To saving your number?”

Marco shook his head.

Then he grinned.

And she drowned.

It wasn’t even a full-on grin. But it still caused a devastating effect on her.

Seriously, it was no wonder the girls were crushing hard on him.

“You’re cute but you can also be a little goofy,” he told her.

“I’m not goofy,” Eliza stammered, her thoughts still befuddled by his grin.

Marco shook his head again. His face was back to that carefully nonchalant expression he seemed to often wear. The teacher soon told them to return their desks to their positions since the class was ending. Still stunned, Eliza watched him slide his desk and chair away from her.

Then she realized something.

He had just called her cute… didn’t he?

**********

“Can you spell awkward, Eliza?”

Alex watched his two friends approaching him in amusement. The two were squabbling again.

“I wasn’t awkward,” Eliza denied hotly.

“Sure, you weren’t,” Anthony scoffed. “And you definitely weren’t playing with your pens and flattening the assignment sheet with your hands until it could reflect light. And you definitely did not blush so hard you looked like the red light on a stoplight.”

“What happened?” Alex asked when they were in front of him. “Why did you blush?”

“I didn’t blush,” Eliza denied hotly.

Alex didn’t believe her. His best friend sucked at lying because whenever she tried, she couldn’t look at him straight.

His disbelief must have been apparent on his face because she sighed in defeat. “I got partnered with Marco for our accounting project. Anthony’s just blowing it all out of proportion.”

“She got all flustered,” Anthony smirked. “It was real cringe-y.”

“What about you, Anthony?” Alex intervened when he saw Eliza getting pissed. “Who did you partner with?”

The amusement died on Anthony’s face. Anthony flashed him a dark look. “No one,” he mumbled.

“His partner is Sheila,” Eliza whispered up to him, a worried expression on her face.

“Sheila with the chicken legs?” he confirmed. Oh, this was bad.

“Yes. And he had to call her that again when she was trying to talk to him about the project.”

“You mean try to push it all on me,” Anthony dryly inserted.

Alex sighed. “Damn it, Anthony. Why don’t you try to be nicer to be girls? You won’t get a girlfriend at this rate.”

“And this is where I disappear,” Anthony quipped, raising his middle finger as he pushed past them. “See you never, morons.”

“He is such a sweetheart,” Eliza sighed as soon as he was gone.

Alex laughed. It was just like his best friend to think positive.

“I got to go to the faculty room for a bit,” he told her when they reached the ground floor. He didn’t have club today because the gym was going to be used for a seminar. “It won’t take long.”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ll wait for you outside.”

Alex walked to the faculty room at the end of the hall. The PE teacher wanted to talk to him about the basketball club and the possible number of people who was interested to apply for the basketball club. After their conversation and a reminder that the coach wanted Alex to come early the next day for practice, Alex told him his thanks before leaving the faculty.

He was about to round the corner of the hall when he heard familiar voices and Anthony’s name being spoken.

“I heard Anthony pissed Sheila off again this morning. That guy's a douche.”

“Her mother's a w***e so maybe that's why he's like that.”

“A w***e?”

The last voice belonged to Marco, Alex was certain. He might have spoken to him only once but he couldn’t mistake that deep voice for another. He stopped walking and peered around the wall. Sure enough, it was indeed Marco and some girls from Eliza’s class.

The girls were just happy to oblige Marco his answer. “I heard from my mom that Maxino’s mother used to be an entertainer in Japan. She came back pregnant and with no idea who the father is.”

Alex felt a surge of protectiveness well up inside of him.

It was a well-known fact in their small town that Anthony’s mother used to be an entertainer in Japan. When she returned a few years later, pregnant and with no idea who the father was, the religious townsfolk condemned her. Getting pregnant out of wedlock was scoffed at back then because it was considered a sin. Her own parents also turned their backs on her when they were the very same people who pushed her to go to Japan.

Because of this Anthony turned distrustful, cold and hostile.

Because of this Anthony was routinely bullied throughout his life.

And Alex wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Anthony ever again.

“I see him hanging out with Alex though.” The conversation went on and Alex pushed aside some of his anger to focus.

“Ugh. Alex should stop letting that creep follow him around.”

A girl whose name Alex knew was Jennifer asked Marco, “You know Alex Fernandez right? He's like, the hottest boy in school.”

“Before you came,” said another.

There was another bout of giggles.

“Alex is good at everything,” Jennifer told Marco. “Sports, academics and he can even sing. He can't dance to save his life though. Last year’s PE festival still cracks me up everytime I remember him dance.”

“Has he ever had a girlfriend?” another girl with her hair in a ponytail asked.

Her friend shook her head. “As far as I know, he hasn't. He always hangs around with Eliza what's-her-face anyway. I bet Eliza’s keeping him all to himself.”

“Eliza the class president?” Marco asked. “You don't like her?”

The girl with braces pursed her lips. “Well, she's okay I guess. But it just annoys us how she seems to act all innocent and shy.”

“Maybe she is innocent and shy?” Ponytail asked. “What do you think Marco? You sit next to each other right?”

Before Marco could answer, Jennifer scoffed. “She probably isn't. Underneath those goodie two shoes might be some pretty dark socks.”

Alex felt his stomach knot while more anger pumped through his veins.

He wasn’t going to let them talk about Eliza like that. Damn it, but weren’t they friends with Eliza back in grade school? They were all friends with each other. How quickly they forget such things as soon as they hit puberty.

Alex may not like getting into fights, especially with girls, but damn if he didn’t protect his best friend. He prepared to reveal himself to give them a good scolding when suddenly, Marco spoke.

“I don’t judge people based on what I hear,” Marco was quietly telling the girls. “And I don’t know her that well enough to judge her. But I do know one thing.”

“And what’s that?” Jennifer asked.

“That before you judge a person, make sure you’re perfect. Or else, you’ll only just make an ass out of yourself.”

Silence.

Alex shook his head, chuckling down low. He barely heard Marco say goodbye to the group. He was staring at the shock and disbelief on each girl’s faces.

Still chuckling, he stepped around the wall, giving the girls fright, making them jump and step away.

“A-Alex,” they stammered. “How… how long have you been there?”

“D-did you hear?”

He looked at the girls who he grew up with and who were in too much hurry to grow up.

He looked at them one by one, making them nervous and sweat.

Then he ended their suffering by declaring, “Marco’s a good guy.”

Tipping his chin at them, Alex then left to look for his best friend.