Chapter 19: Confrontations

JADE:

What did I expect? Of course the last person to borrow the book was none other than Marian Rabelo.

I looked in front of the book. Introduction to the Theory of Autosuggestion – what a strange title!

I flipped through the pages of the book. It seemed to tackle something really bizarre. I remembered seeing other psychology books inside her locker and reading about this topic in her diary. Could this have been like those kinds of books too? Why was she obsessed with topic in particular?

Also, what did those boys mean when they mentioned about luring her into that website? Is it possibly the same website Marian mentioned in her diary?

“Hey, Jade, are you even listening to me? Why are you ignoring me,” Dianna said impatiently.

I sighed. I really didn’t want to talk to her now and hear her lecture me about Kix when I can’t even get over the fact that he was already here at this school, at my classroom, and in the seat next to me...

“Look,” I finally said, “Let’s just not talk about that for now… I’m busy, so let’s talk another time…”

“Jade, don’t you want us to patch this misunderstanding? Do you really want to stay mad at me for this? I only told you my honest opinion as your friend because you needed to hear it.”

Perhaps it was the way that she said it, or perhaps it was just based purely on my perception of what she had meant, but something in me snapped. Before I knew it, I was raising my voice to Dianna.

“You just gave me your honest opinion as my friend? So all this years, you weren’t honest at all with me, is that it,” I said, my hands trembling in the rising anger from my chest. “Didn’t you think I haven’t already heard those words of doubt before? Goodness, Dianna, I even went to a therapist just to forget that stupid boy, and now you’re telling me it was all just my delusions from the start?”

“Hey, what’s all this?” It was the librarian coming in to see what the matter was. I immediately wiped the tears that threatened to flow down from my eyes.

I thought that was the end of my discussion with Dianna, but the words that tumbled out of her mouth next shocked me beyond belief.

“Jade, what do you mean?... I was just saying that you needed to slow down a bit. Why are you getting angry at me for no reason? Were you making up these stories about me because of Liam? Were you jealous of me because Liam and I were close, is that it?”

She said it loud enough for the students around us to hear. My mouth hung open in disbelief as she continued.

“You said so yourself, you need to be brought to that psychiatrist because you imagined that you and Kix were in a relationship when you really weren’t. Aren’t you doing the same thing right now? Aren’t you pretending that you and Liam are in a relationship that’s why you are trying to humiliate me like this?”

“W-What are you…” I trailed off, shaking more violently from shock and fright than ever before.

There was a coy look in Dianna’s eyes – something I haven’t seen through the many years that we’ve been friends.

Why was she saying all these nonsense? Why was she bringing up Liam when he wasn’t even the reason we fought in the first place?

I glanced nervously around me. Most of the students there were from my college, many of them upperclassmen who didn’t exactly know who I was but could very well get close to people in my class and whisper things about me…

All it would take was a single piece of gossip. Eventually, news like this could spread like wildfire… I knew this because it had happened before with those stupid photoshopped nude pictures of me…

Did Dianna just set me up to be humiliated right now? Am I going to re-live my awful high school experience all over again?

Before she and I could speak further, I felt an arm rest firmly into my shoulder.

I winced and closed my eyes out of instinct. I didn’t want to see who it was who was half-hugging me out of fear that he was the very person I had ran away from moments ago...

“Jade, have you been here all this time? Why didn’t you call me over?”

That voice – it wasn’t Kix!

I looked to my left, and instantly, my eyes fell on a pair of brown eyes. Liam’s jet-black hair still looked perfect, but his face didn’t wear the usual pleased expression he always had.

“Dianna, I don’t know what you and Jade were fighting about, but let me make one thing clear,” he said just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Jade isn’t delusional about the two of us.”

“What-?… What are you saying, Liam,” Dianna whispered.

“Jade and I – we’re together. We are officially dating each other,” Liam declared firmly.

I would have already fainted in the spot if I could!

**********************

KIX:

I heard that blasted Liam say it by the fire exit earlier, but hearing his confession a second time in the library was making me angrier.

Jade was really a quick, little thing, always someone out of my grasp, always someone who ran away when she’s scared and hurt…

Ah, why did I have to hug her? Even if I had missed being near her after all those years, I shouldn’t have done that…

Feeling empty and alone that my mate wasn’t by my side anymore, I left the fire exit. I had only walked down one flight of stairs when I met him – that stinky rat Jade called as ‘Liam.’

“Where’s Jade? I thought you went together?”

“Well, change of plans. We decided to play hide and seek, and I was ‘IT’,” I said in jest.

I didn’t want to talk to this smelly rat, who seemed to like hovering around my Jade. How else would he smell like her if he wasn’t always by her side?

“Hey you,” he said as I walked past him. “I don’t know who you are or what your business is here, but I have to make one thing clear… Don’t come near Jade, and don’t provoke her.”

I looked back at that insignificant little pest before me. I was several inches taller, but his brown eyes were looking at me as if I was beneath him in height.

“What is it to you? Are you her brother or her body guard? Why should I listen to your stupid words,” I said.

Normally, my stance and my voice were enough to send people cowering in a corner, but not this damn boy.

“You should listen while I’m still being nice. Jade is mine. She is mine alone!”

I wasn’t mistaken from the very start… This boy really liked Jade the same way that I like her.