let's pretend I can write....

[levity]

Wala lang (I seem to be saying that a lot lately)... I just thought I'd post a bunch of random stuff, since I want to post and yet have nothing to post about....

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Chem. Connection for the first quarter...

My parents saw my report card the other day, and they were not pleased with the results. Yes, I had gotten into the top 10 of our class, and yes, I had gotten a fairly high average, but I had a failing grade. To be exact, I had gotten a 2.75 in Chemistry.

          They kept on asking me why, but I couldn’t explain. How could I? Even if I did, they might not understand, for it was not even just the normal explanation of failing students: that they try their best, but there is either something wrong with the results of their tests or something wrong with the computations of the teachers. I would rather have that explanation be the real reason for my failing, though, than what the actual reason was.

          The reason was one of my classmates. Her. She was one of my closest friends in the class. We always used to talk to each other, explore the school together, and argue with each other. I fell in love with her, after a while. I almost regret it now. That was the cause of my failing, but not in the way one would expect. Not at all.

 

          “Where’s the data sheet?” she asked one day in the Chem. lab, shoving aside her papers and books and notebook. Her expression contorted into a parody of a smile, the expression she wore when she was simultaneously amused and annoyed. “Guys, where in hell did that stupid data sheet go?”

          I tried to hide the growing smile on my face. “Don’t ask me. As far as I remember, you were the one in charge of it. And I don’t think it can go to hell by itself.”

          She pushed my envelope at me, in what was probably an attempt to cause me physical harm and simultaneously find the missing data sheet. Unfortunately, her gaze fell on the piece of paper that lay under said envelope.

          I mentally cursed myself for not thinking to turn the paper over. She seemed to pick up on my train of thought, and muttered a few choice words under her breath as she snatched our missing data sheet away. “Just in case you’ve forgotten, that thing affects our grades!!!!”

          “I know,” I said.

          “And we’re supposed to give one copy to Sir.” She was writing frantically on the sheet.

          “I know,” I said.

          “If we fail this lab report, I’m going to strangle you.”

          “I know,” I said.

          She capped her pen and glowered at me.

          I smiled.

          She tore the paper in half, to separate the two copies of the data sheet, and I knew that she was wishing that I was the one being torn in half instead of the paper. “Is it really so difficult to write a lab report? I mean, what’s in it anyways? Just the procedure and the results and the conclusion. That’s it!”

          I sighed and shook my head. There were times when she was completely beyond me. This was one of those times. “If you think it’s so easy, why don’t you do it yourself?”

          “I don’t want to.”

          “Why don’t you want to?”

          “None of your business.”

          “Why is it none of my business?”

          “Why should I answer your question?”

          Our teacher called, “Group 4, where’s your data sheet?”

          I patiently waited for her as she passed the data sheet, collected her stuff.

          She thrust our copy of the data sheet into my hand. “Here. Don’t say I didn’t give it to you.”

          “If you want to get a high grade, why don’t you do it?” I wasn’t eager to write the lab report.

          A different smile curled her lips. “If I survive until the meeting before the lab rep’s due date, I will.”

          “When is that?”

          “Friday.”

          Upon hindsight, agreeing to her offer was a mistake, but I did not know that then. “Deal.”

 

          Chem. had always been my strong point. That is, before the math came along. I had never liked math, and math had never liked me.  So when math reared its ugly head in the form of dimensional analyses and stoichiometry, I knew that my grades were going down the drain. The fact that she sat beside me every Chem. period didn’t help. Not at all. Not only did I feel inferior to her-who wouldn’t, when her scores were mostly comprised of near-perfects and over-perfects?-when she compared her scores to mine after every test, but I also found it hard to concentrate on the lessons. It was hardly any fault of mine that she kept on arguing with me; and even if she didn’t, her inane antics-such as talking to the test paper-amused and distracted me to no end. Due to all the reasons given above I sometimes thought Chem. a living hell; and yet there were time that I felt that I trudged through the school day only for Chem..

 

          “Did not,” I said.

          “Did so,” she contradicted.

          “Did not.”

          “Did so.”

          “Did not.”

          “Did so!” She banged her fist on the desk, and I was reminded of Father Camorra.

          “Did not.”

          “What the hell are you two arguing about?” one of our other groupmates asked, curious and amused.

          She furrowed her brow. “Good question. I forgot.”

          I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

          She raised a single eyebrow at me, and if looks could kill the one she gave me then would have massacred me, but it took Sir’s telling us that we were late for our next subject to shut me up enough to enable me to function.

 

          We made the gypsum on Thursday.

          Let me explain our schedule a little. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays were our Chem. days. A fog had rolled into the school this Thursday, as if the weather chose to concur with her mood. Both were cold, dark, and heavy. To me, this was obvious; her actions gave her away: she did not bother to argue with me when Chem. started. I wished that she did. I would have let her win, and this would have cheered her up.

          Another one of our groupmates got the stuff from our locker and the teacher’s table, and we set to work. It was business as usual, or at least it seemed to be so. I set to weighing the calcium carbonate, and she abandoned her beloved data sheets to get the hydrochloric acid. We needed 70 millilitres of the stuff, so she had to use the two beakers- the 50 mL one and the 20 mL one. But she had never been much good at measuring, and for that reason I had offered to take over her task. She declined. I should have insisted, but I didn’t.

 

          She was pouring the hydrochloric acid into the graduated cylinder. “How does this stuff taste like?”

          “I don’t know, and I don’t intend to find out.”

          “What’ll happen if I drink it?”

          “It’ll corrode the lining of your stomach. If you drink enough of it, you’ll die.”

          She studied the graduated cylinder, which now contained the contents of the 20 mL beaker. “All of a sudden, it looks really tasty.”

          I snatched the cylinder away from her. “Don’t drink it.”

          Her eyes were flashing. “Why not?”

          I gave the first reply that came to me. “I’d follow you to hell, you know, and that’d be two lives wasted instead of just one.”

          “You think you would?” she asked scornfully.

          “I promise it.”

          “Promises are meant to be broken.”

          She began transferring the contents of the 50 mL beaker to the graduated cylinder, and I began measuring the sodium sulfate. After a while I looked up, to see her pouring hydrochloric acid into the cup of her jug.

          “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, before I could stop myself.

          She put down both cup and beaker, straightening up and blinking innocently. “Nothing.”

          I tried to raise a single eyebrow, dismally failed, and ended up raising both eyebrows.

          She hopped upon her chair, speaking quickly. “I’m just pouring the hydrochloric acid into the cup.”

          “And why are you just pouring the hydrochloric acid into the cup?”

          “To make sure the right amount of hydrochloric acid is in the cylinder.”

          “So why don’t you just throw it into the sink?”

          She shrugged, and gave a smile that was almost genuine. “So that I can put the stuff back in just in case I pour out too much.”

          It was a lie. I didn’t know why she was lying, and I didn’t know why I knew she was lying, but she was lying, and all of a sudden I didn’t want to know the answer.

          I saw the grin creeping on her face, a real one this time. “I have the last word!”

          I let that comment slide; at that point in time, I didn’t really care if she got the last word.

          Perhaps she noticed, because she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to drink it.”

          “How can I be sure that you won’t?”

          “I promise.”

          I didn’t tell her that promises are meant to be broken, since I didn’t want her to break hers.

 

          She did not turn up the next day, and she told me that she was confined to the hospital. No one took much notice of that, thinking that that was due to some ordinary, non-lethal sickness. I pretended to go along with them, as if pretending could change the events of the past and their effects on the future.

          I missed her, though I pretended that was just because of my losing the deal to her about the lab rep.

          She died the next Tuesday.

          I was pouring hydrochloric acid into one of the test tubes when it was announced, and I dropped the beaker of hydrochloric acid. Aside from being a result of shock, dropping that beaker had also been a revolt, a protest of sorts on my part.

          I remembered my promise to her that day. I would follow you to hell. I wanted to laugh at myself for promising that. I reasoned out that our class might not be able to go on without two missing members, rather like the way H₂O could not form if it lacked two components.

          I broke my promise, shattered it on the floor like that beaker.

          She never liked it when people didn’t keep their promises. She would bug them, pester them, vex them, until they got so tired of her endless annoying they just fulfill their promises.

          So that’s what she did.

          I tried to ignore her, ignore everything that could be connected to her. For the first few weeks I succeeded. I managed to ignore her empty seat, the lack of her inane laughter, the absence of her witty remarks and tart replies. Above all, I managed to ignore all thoughts of Chem., especially those involving hydrochloric acid.

          But she did not forget. Neither did I. I started remembering, remembering her voice, her face, her laughter. Maybe the memories of a maniac could turn one into a maniac as well.

          And the hydrochloric acid on Sir’s desk seems to have my name on it, seems to be leering at me from its brand-new beaker.

          It looks more and more delicious each day.

---
...And for the second quarter.

February 17, 2007.

 

          I did not have to look at any old journals to remember that today was exactly one year after the day that had changed my life forever. Okay, fine: every day of my life changes my life, but this one stands out in my mind. It was the day I told him that I liked him.

          The way it came about was amusing, to say the least. He was pestering me, as was his wont, trying to force out of me who my crush was. He kept on suggesting names of my classmates, names so far from the truth I had knocked over an entire test tube stand- it was our IS period then- in an attempt to stand up straight after so much laughing.

          He- and rightly- took the laughter to as a sign that he was getting nowhere, and so, giving up on guessing names, he whined, “Who?!?!?”

          I tried to compose myself looked straight at him. This was not just because I liked him: I needed to make sure I kept my eyes away from those of my best friend. Reise was watching from the safety of her own table and her own Integrated Science group, but we both knew that if we so much as met each other’s gazes we would both laugh in amusement at what no one else understood.

          I said, “The last person you’d expect.”

          “Me,” he replied thoughtfully, then automatically added, “but I’m not a person.”

          I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter yet again, but it did not create so much of a disturbance this time since it was drowned out by the school bell.

          I put away the beakers, the chemicals, my own stuff, bossing my other groupmates around, as he pleaded, “Elissa, who?”

          “Why aren’t you with them, helping clean up the stuff?” I demanded, my back to him.

          “All right, all right, I’ll help, just tell me who,” he yielded irritably, putting down his books and bag.

          I remember thinking, Now or never? and me deciding, Now.

          “You.”

          He froze, his eyes snapping up to meet mine. “What,” he asked, not so much asking as expostulating.

          “You,” I repeated numbly, wondering why the hell I had told him on that day, during the five minutes between the end of IS and the start of English.

          The answer occurred to me: so I could run.

          So I turned tail and fled to our classroom for English, hoping the running combined with the heart condition I had ensured a heart attack, which would ensure that I never had to face him again.

          Heart condition, in someone so young? one might wonder. Yes, I had concluded that I had a heart condition, brought about by the stress seeing him brought. The symptoms were obvious, really: my heart started beating too fast every time I looked at him.

 

          “It’s been a year,” Reise pointed out today, while we were seated on the benches in the back lobby, waiting for the girls.

          It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, and we were due to cram an art project at school. That arrangement seemed to be planned perfectly for the two of us. She was an intern and I an extern, and, since she did not have permission to spend the weekend at the dorm, she slept over at our house, and in our way we informally celebrated our friendship.

          Opposite poles attract: positive charges attract negative charges; protons attract electrons, which causes the atomic radius of an atom to shrink the more protons that atom had. Sometimes it was true for human relations, sometimes not. Reise and I had a lot of differences- she was from the province and I from the city; she was good at math while I could barely pass; she worked hard on her schoolwork while I slept through tests; I loved fire and made it a point to bring a matchbox everywhere while she didn’t know how to light a match- and many things in common, such as love for science and writing and school.

          One of those like poles, so to speak, caused us to repel, at least for a short bit of time.

          We both used to like him.

 

          At the start of this school year, everything had seemed like a dream. I was classmates with my best friend in the world for the second year in a row; I was stuck with a crazy, comical class; I had survived the first year an honor student; and the guy I liked had been texting and calling me over the summer and had told me he loved me. Reise of course knew about the latter, and she accompanied us when we walked around the school. No, I’ll revise that: he accompanied Reise and me. He even accompanied Reise after I left for home, which was nice of him: Reise was a loner and didn’t have many friends. I was one of a few.

          My odd type of luck put me in the same group as him but not the same group as Reise for Chem. 1 for the entire year.

          About two weeks ago, while we were performing an experiment in the Chem. lab, Reise accidentally got hydrochloric acid splashed all over me. Well, actually, both of us were at fault here, since we were bickering over whose group was to be the first to take from the beaker of hydrochloric acid. He had made such a fuss about the fact that I had been splashed with the acid I felt like slapping him. I almost did, but my self-control stopped me. There is only a certain amount of self-control a girl can have, however: I ended up snapping at him instead.

          “Why?” Reise asked, once he had gone away.

          “Why what?” I was clueless as to what she was asking about.

          “Why’d you have to drive him away? He was worried about you.”

          I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. “Why should he be worried about me? I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

          “I did splash hydrochloric acid on you-”

          “If I had been writhing about and screaming in agony I would have understood him, but-”

          “It’s weird,” she cut me off, “the way he says he doesn’t care about you that much but worries about you like that.”

          She said this all very fast, as if she were trying to prevent the impact of those words from sinking in. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

          “Waitaminute. What did you just say?”

          Normally I was the one who spoke fast; Reise’s words weren’t slow, but they were relaxed and calm in coming. But she was talking at a machine-gun pace.

          “You know the days when you’re with him and with me and you leave for home and he accompanies me? On one of those days he told me that he didn’t really love you, that he liked you but told you that he loved you as so not to hurt you.”

          “I wouldn’t have cared,” I defended myself swiftly. “I don’t give a damn if he likes me or not, I just told him I liked him, not that he had to like me back!”

          “I know that!” She sounded as agitated as I did. “But he doesn’t! And you know what? He told me that the one he loved was me!”

          “What?” I demanded yet again, but this time I was half laughing. The entire thing was getting ridiculous.

          But one thing was different: Reise wasn’t laughing. She didn’t even seem agitated anymore, and my laughter died away without any effort as I stared her in the eye. “Are you okay?”

          The bell rang, signifying the end of class. Why did the major events of my life happen five minutes before a science-related subject ended?

          She did not meet my gaze, and not because she was afraid we would burst into laughter. “Elissa, I like him. Always have. And I decided to let you keep him. And you treat him the way you do.”

          I was stunned into silence for what was perhaps the first time in my entire life. Because I could retort to insults and explain actions and lie away faults, but I could not crush my best friend when she was already down to begin with.

 

          The days after that saw me quiet and antisocial, which I was usually not. But then again, I was usually in the good graces of Reise. That week I was left mostly alone, while Reise was with him. She refused to speak to me, and I became so irritable that by the end of that day everyone else did, too. Oddly enough, when the weekend rolled around, she called our house. She always called our house on weekends- it was sort of a tradition.

          “Elissa?” Her voice was quiet.

          “Reise?” My voice was anything but. I hadn’t expected her to call.

          “I’m sorry about Monday.”

          “Monday?” I asked absentmindedly. I hadn’t quite registered in my mind the fact that she was contrite enough to call and apologise, and while that hadn’t registered, nothing else would. “What about Monday?”

          “And about not talking to you.” Her voice was rushed again. “I agree with the dictionary: friends come before love. And best friends before friends.”

          “Best friends is two words, you won’t find it in the dictionary,” I said.

          I could practically see her exaggerated sigh of amusement at my nerdiness. “Anyways, I don’t care about him any more. Why should I? He hurt my best friend. What can you tell me about sodium hydroxide?”

          This meant we were friends again, and Reise, with her odd amount of pride, was trying to get the conversation away from what she did wrong. I understood that: I wasn’t ready to talk about the hurt, either.

          I pulled myself a chair, twirled a strand of hair around a pen I fished out of my pocket, the way I did whenever I gave a lecture. “Umm... Sodium hydroxide. Its chemical symbol is NaOH^-, and it’s a base. It’s called a caustic alkali, since it’s corrosive and all. It’s white and crystalline, but I don’t need to tell you that, we saw it in Chem.. Why’d you ask?”

          Her tone was ferocious. “We didn’t finish the stupid experiment, the one where you combine it with hydrochloric acid, and we need to complete it, but you know my groupmates, they won’t help me.”

          I knew her groupmates: the four horsemen of the apocalypse couldn’t force them to work. “Okay. If you combine it with hydrochloric acid, the result is salt and water.” The beginnings of a plan hatched in my mind. “Wait. When do you need this completed?”

          “February 19, why?”

          “We’re going to meet at school next Saturday, right, for the art project? Why don’t you complete it then? I’ll help.”

          “Sure.” She still sounded confused. “I don’t see any problems there.”

          “Reise, he still says he likes you, right?”

          “Yup, but I couldn’t care less about him. He could die for all I care.”

          “Could you get him to spend next Saturday at the dorm, then?”

          I could tell she understood me by the way she spoke. “I’ll try. I probably could.”

 

          For the first time in my entire life I arrived early for an appointment. We were scheduled to work on our art project from eleven in the morning until the guards shooed us out of the school. Reise and I arrived there at around seven, so that Reise could work on her lab experiment.

          As was expected, he was there. He came down from his dorm at around half past seven, and, seeing us, he rushed to Reise, calling, “Reise! Hi! Why’re you up so early? Why’d you ask me to stay at the dorm if you weren’t going to?” without so much as a “Hi” for me.

          Reise answered with perfect calm. “Hi! Sorry, I thought I was going to get permission from my parents, but their letter didn’t arrive in time. I stayed at Elissa’s instead.”

          She raised her eyebrows at me. She was acting nice to him- that was part of her plan- but it was obvious to me that she was tired of this charade.

          I decided to play along with Reise’s charade. “Hi. There’s a lab experiment she has to complete, and we’re doing our art project. Come along with us.” I was shocked at how normal my voice sounded.

          He complied, and we walked towards the Chem. lab. He was bugging Reise instead of me, asking, “What experiment did you miss? How’re you getting access to the chemicals? When are you working on your project?”

          If he doesn’t want to talk to me, that was fine by me, I thought.

          Reise, I thought, was being very patient with him. “Sir let me borrow the key to the lab’s storeroom. I’m doing the sodium hydroxide experiment, we didn’t finish it on Monday. My groupmates of course won’t help me.”

          I was the one who opened up the storeroom, took out the chemicals. Measured out the hydrochloric acid, which looked so innocent in its beaker. Took out the sodium hydroxide.

          “Think of it,” I whispered. “Sodium hydroxide, a caustic base that burns skin and damages the eyes upon contact. Hydrochloric acid, a corrosive acid that destroys tissues and burns the lining of the stomach when drank. And when put together-”

          “-salt and water, I know that, I’m not stupid, you know,” he said.

          And that was what made me snap.

 

February 19, 2007

 

          He was absent from school today, but then again, there was no school today to speak of. Our classes were suspended for one day, which led to a lot of irritation on my part. I made it a point to arrive early for school today, mostly due to Reise. It would have been unfair to her had she been marked as late just because the girl whose house she stayed in didn’t want to rise early.

          Our school did not suspend classes unless there was an important reason, and being us, we tried to find out what the important reason was this time.

          The reason was this:

          A corpse, burned beyond recognition, was found floating down the creek in the school. Or, to be more accurate, it would have been floating down the creek, had the creek been deep enough for a corpse to float in. Since it wasn’t, the corpse was merely stuck in some rocks in the creek. Tests later revealed that the dead person hadn’t been killed due to his or her burns, or due to asphyxiation. The corpse’s stomach’s lining was corroded away, but there was no sign of any poison. All there was was salt and water.

          And Reise and I couldn’t help laughing.

---

Maybe you can get the underlying "allusions"... Most likely not....

And, to you, even though I know you won't be reading this, but thank you, thank you for being you, and at the same time I wish you weren't you. It's too perfect to believe.

"... do or die
you'll never make me
because the world
will never take my heart
go and try
you'll never break me
we want it all
we want to play this part..."
-My Chemical Romance, Welcome to the Black Parade