Chapter 2: Dominic
I think the concept of love is to make someone happy. To make someone feel that he or she is not alone in this world. Love isn’t made for tears to be shed on pillows at night. I think it is made for the same reason you wake up every day. But what I don’t understand is to how love can actually make all the five senses of our body work and break down at the same time.
It’s amazing how a vein can be a purpose to connect your heart to your brain like a Bluetooth. How your heart can receive the messages from your brain that makes it beat faster than it should be. I’ve never thought I’d feel something like this. I mean, it’s a weird sensation. All because I just wanted to get laid. But I think I am in the course of trouble. In trouble of falling in love with someone I don’t even know. Trouble is technically the ambiguity of love at first sight.
But of course I know her. How do I know that? My heart told me. It’s like Jack Frost saying he’s Jack Frost because the Moon told him. Get the gist?
She’s that girl with cold blue eyes. She’s that girl with that sad expression on her face. She’s that girl I saved yesterday. She’s that girl who ignored me but I like her. She does nothing but I fell for her. I kept on thinking about her even though I know she had never ever thought about me.
How weird love can be. It gets you very unprepared and rash.
***
Yesterday was like a holiday but surely no one likes Monday than I do.
I go to a prestigious, private institution (which is, by the way, also named after a saint) where future world class musicians and artists are being well trained professionally. It’s not Juilliard or Rhode Island School of Design but it’s a place I like to call my play ground.
My parents and I share the love for music somehow, thank God. That‘s why in my secondary education they’ve packaged the deal to put me in St. Louise’s School of Music and Arts so that later on when I’ve mastered my brilliant skills for music the school would give me a recommendation for Juilliard. To state the not-so-obvious, I am a Music Major. My tagalong best friend, Scott Orson, has miraculously, by the grace of my saint-ness, passed the audition to get in. He sadly knows one instrument to play though and that is what you call the percussion nowadays. But he claims to be learning a good deal out of the musical instruments of St. Louis although he’d get an “A+” from me for reaping girls at our school. He also defends that he’s not stalking me on purpose. He says he just can’t live without me. Now that sounds gay of him. Affirmative points though, there is no such thing as Mathematics as a Music Major. So it’s a good high school life to live without numbers but musical notes on your music sheets.
“Her name’s Heaven.” Scott barges in my train of thought and I took my earphones off. I have no idea what he’s been talking about earlier. Probably the freshmen girls again.
The constant question mark look on my face planted a sour tint on his face. “Dom, I said: her name’s Heaven.”
I cast a skeptic eyebrow at him. He rolls his eyes at me. “Did you hear me?”
I shrugged and he gawks at me.
“Scott, I don’t care about your freshmen jailbaits, okay.” I pulled my earphones back to my ears and he stops me.
“Not even your South Park girl?”
The sudden spark of curiosity on my face intensified Scott’s cockiness. But then South Park’s an animated film that I most certainly don’t want kids to be watching.
Curiosity is such a jealous arse.
“What about her?” I finally said.
Scott purses his lips as if he’s been trying not to laugh at me. I raise both of my eyebrows at him.
“Her name’s Heaven.” He butts out in a laugh.
My eyebrows crease. “Well, certainly because she looks like an angel to Me.” a very sad angel.
He snorts and I sneer at him. “Dom, you are so slow. Seriously, pick up!”
“I’m kind of buffering right now so could you just be specific with me, that’ll be much helpful you know.”
“I am being specific with you.”
I give him a WTF look.
“Her name’s Heaven—”
“Why do you keep on saying that?”
“Because her name’s Hea-ven.”
I grew tired of him so I walked out on him. He followed suit anyway like my tail.
“Let me guess,” I turn to him. “Her name’s Heaven?”
“Anna Marie Heaven.” He pronounced every word like I’m a baby learning how to talk. I stopped walking and I turned myself fully towards him.
“How did you know?”
He snickers. “Dom, I’m Scott Orson. The Scott Orson.”
I huffed at him and I shook my head in a ridiculous way.
“And she goes to St. Louise’s School of Music and Arts.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, I’m being specific with you.”
I snort at him as he moves ahead of me. “So, aren’t you going to check Heaven or not?”
***
I found myself in the hallways of the Art department where real life Picasso paintings hang on the walls. The place is much quieter than our own hallways. Everyone seems to be at one piece and they’re BFFs with silence. The only sound that you’d hear is probably Scott’s mouth flirting with every girl he meets. He starts to turn heads and I suddenly have the impression of walking back to our building. But then this is her. This road—I mean, hallway leads to Heaven. Anna Marie Heaven.
I can’t back out now. I need to see her again. I need to know her.
Scott finally stops in front of a classroom door. He turns to me, a devil of a smile on his face. I stood frozen on my ground.
“Well, there’s your sweet paradise.” He says as he ushers me to the door.
From there, I can see her. She’s indeed here and she’s sitting there. Her eyes stay with the sun outside the window and her hair falls down her back like a dark veil just like yesterday. Her pale face rests on her hand while her teeth nip at her bottom lip.
I can’t believe it. Heaven is really here.
“She majors in Fine Arts.” Scott tells me but I almost didn’t hear him. He’s like a white noise in the background static. At least he has made himself very useful.
As if feeling that someone’s been watching her, Anna turns to my direction. Two pools of pale blue eyes stared at me like falling snowflakes. She looks at me with impaling curiosity and recognition. At that moment, I feel that tugging inside my heart once again just as warm breeze blew on my face to make it hot. Maybe she does remember me from yesterday. I smiled at her but instead, she looks away as if I wasn’t there at all. She turns back to watch the sun hit its light on the glass window.
***
I’m beginning to think that the sun is a much interesting view than me.
“Art students are snobs.” Scott again blabbers but I only get to catch that last of his phrase. He puts an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry, Dom. We’ll get that girl. We’ll sure will! I will support you!” he raised his fist up.
I elbowed his rib cage and he flinches.
“Aw! What?” he frowns at me. “You don’t want to get de-virgin-ized anymore?”
“I have piano class to attend to.” I tell him as I head straight for my locker.
“Oh, come on, Dom! You’re not going celibate again, are you?”
I gave him a pointed look and something in his face crinkles and a smile appears. That’s how I know the joke’s on me.
“Sure you can’t give up now. Can’t you see you’re a perfect match in heaven?” he says melodramatically.
“That’s blasphemous.”
“Of course, not. Look, she’s Heaven and you are totally saint boy! You’re a match made in Heaven!”
“Yeah,” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Totally blasphemous of you.”
“Gah! Such a kill joy!” he scowls at me. “If you want the girl you have to take the course of action! It’s not like egg cells are gonna swim for the sperm cells!”
Head starts to turn on our direction.
“She doesn’t even like me.”
“And how do you know? You haven’t even talked to her.”
I shut my locker and I turn to him. “I don’t know, Scott.”
He makes a sound between a snort and a groan.
“You are definitely celibate.”
“Whatever. Catch you later.”
***
They say the smarter you are the harder it is for you to be in relationships because you can see the bullshits from miles away.
Yes, I’ve seen a lot of broken relationships. I’ve seen how girls would cry over Scott when he breaks up with them. I see the changes in them the moment he inflicts his damage on them. And then I start to wonder if I’ll be in one, would I be the one to make a girl cry and beg or will I be the one crying on my pillow at night. But Scott is Scott and I am me. There’s a big difference even with the letters.
But if there is one thing I am positively sure, I don’t want a girl to cry for me. At least I don’t want to be the reason of pain to others. I can take damage to the heart. I think I can.
My classes finally end and my back aches after spending hours trying to master the art of Mozart in C Major via the piano forte. I love playing the piano and I don’t mind playing it all day as long as it keeps me out of scoliosis. The sun is still up. Of course, it’s not like we’re having a solstice that would keep the sun up all day. Right now, Mr. Sun sits right up there in the middle of the Alps as if it’s his majesty’s throne.
I don’t like to see Scott right now and hear his green mouth talk. If I get the girl, I get the girl—but in my own way. Haste makes waste. That’s what my mother says. So I’ll take things one step at a time. Knowing that Scott has fear of heights, I went up the school’s roof top. It’s a good place to stay hidden from him for awhile.
But when I got there, someone has already occupied it.
Anna Marie Heaven sits at the edge of the barricade. The scenario had reminded me of her yesterday standing at the edge of the train station platform. My heart stopped mid-beat.
“Please don’t do that.” I hear myself say out loud. She turns to my direction and her eyebrows meet in confusion.
“Don’t do what?” she says out of irritation.
“Don’t jump.” I answered as I tried to make sense. I took a few tentative steps towards her. I fear that if I come closer she would jump off the building. “You know what they say when you jump off the building? They say your head will crack open and your brain comes off of your skull. Your bones get disrupted and you lie in the ground in a messy heap. It’ll be a gruesome death.”
Her eyes adjusted to me as if she’s trying not to be bilious about me. I rephrased my words inside my head and I feel like hitting my face with my fist. I think that’s a very wrong thing to say to a person who wants to go on the route of suicide.
So to make my amends, I outstretched my hand to her. “Take my hand. I’ll pull you out of there.”
She regards my hand bluntly. “You seem to have a way of over prying other people’s business.” She says. “Go away.”
And then she let herself off the barrier.
“Jesus Christ!” I shout in shock. I forced my knees to move. I just encountered a suicide victim and I let her die. How would you expect me to react at a time like this? Her soul is gonna haunt me for life.
I want to shut my eyes and just walk away. I have to tell the authorities to get her body off the ground. I don’t have the stomach to look down when I know the images of her fractured skull and eerie twisted body is an alarming display to see in real life. The horror made my knees falter but with trembling feet I forced myself to look down and…
…there she is, sitting at the roof deck. It might have been the roof of a balcony.
I felt relieved of course. I don’t want to live with her death in my head. She looks up at me.
“I thought I told you to go away.”
“I thought you fell off the building.”
She raises her eyebrows. I raised my eyebrows.
Succumbing to the stupid feeling, I made an acrobatic decision and the derision of it had led me into following her down the roof deck. It was a five story building so the chances of having acrophobia afterwards are very slim. I was tempted to close my eyes while I hold on to the edge of the barrier. Half of me was already touching the deck but if I close my eyes now, chances of falling down are still very slim. Everything right now is very slim—I just realized.
The feeling that Scott always tell me about heights has made my whole body quake. Without knowing how to balance myself, I feel like falling down. Panic raises above everything else that when Anna grabbed my shirt, I almost shrieked. She pulls me down beside her.
“This is what happens to people who don’t know how to mind their own business.” She says acidly.
“Thanks,” I feel abashed and my sweat prickles down my forehead.
“I saved your life. I guess we’re even now.”
“Even?”
“Yep. You saved my life yesterday. I saved yours today. At least I’ve paid it off now. I don’t like owing people.”
Again, she stares at the sun. I wonder what’s so interesting about the sun than me. Hello, I almost died! Wave- wave!
“I hope you don’t mind if I owe you.”
This takes her attention and she turns to me. Her blue eyes were paler than mine; they are the color of frost up close.
“Do me a favor then.” She says.
I raise a skeptic eyebrow at her.
“Leave me be and don’t ever come back here.”
“You said a favor.” I said as I positioned my knees in a comfortable Indian sit. “It’s a singular statement. You said two things but I can only do one favor. That means I will leave you be but I can still come back here.”
If she’s irritated by that she doesn’t let it show. “This territory has already been occupied.”
“Well, you can perch on this ridge while I can perch over there,” I point at the next roof deck. “It’s a draw.”
She scoffs. “You don’t even know how to climb roofs.”
I scoff back at her. “Try and try—”
“—until you die.” She finishes.
She sighs and stands up. I did too. I glance down and my knees buckle and my insides churn. I close my eyes shut.
I hear her snort beside me. I wanted to see her smile even just for a short period of time but I was too scared to open my eyes and fall down. I opened my eyes only to find her climbing up the barrier. I followed suit, trying so hard not to look down as I climbed my way back up.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. Because you’re here.” she says when she lands back on the rooftop.
“I’m Dominic Savio.” I say.
She stops walking and she looks back at me from her shoulder.
“That’s a saintly name.”570Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvwaYljSyoy
