Entry 3: Plan A – Confrontation

Date: March 11, 2013

The first thing I woke up to on Monday morning was my mom screaming in my ear: “Seven! Why are you sleeping on the desk?”

My eyes immediately snapped open and the sunlight that streamed through my window nearly blinded me. I groaned, raising a hand to cover my face, and suddenly felt something wet around my mouth. I sat up, my stiff muscles popping and my head aching. I looked around.

I was sitting on my chair, with tons of crumpled papers scattered on my desk, and there were messy words and drawings that I’d scrawled in one of my schoolbooks. My lamp was still on and it illuminated the pool of drool on the hard wood where I had slept the whole night.

I turned my head slowly towards my mom, who looked at me like I was crazy. “I…I think I was doing homework,” I mumbled sleepily, but I knew that it wasn’t homework.

Last Friday, the worst day of my life so far (worse than the time I was running in the park with vanilla ice cream in my hand and bumped into an old man, getting it all over his nice sweater. He looked horrified and I felt so embarrassed and so mortified at what I’d done that I cried all the way home after my mom had profusely apologized to him and taken me away), I had waited after school for Colin in the place where I knew he usually exited the building.

When he finally arrived with his group of friends, he actually had the guts to smile at me and say, “Goodbye, Seven.”

Any other day that would’ve made me walk back home on clouds, but that day was different. “Give it back to me, Colin,” I’d said to him with gritted teeth. “I mean it.”

“Didn’t I tell you already?” he told me, walking away slowly with that stupid smile on his face. “That would be too boring. And I don’t do boring stuff.”

Determined, I’d stomped back home and immediately shut myself inside my room. For the whole weekend I went through my sci-fi, thriller, and suspense novels and movies, analyzing how the hero had fought the villain and got what they wanted in the end. It wasn’t much of a strategy, but it was all that I had. And I had to protect everybody’s secrets.

Even as the calls and texts came again, I ignored them, not because I was starting to get annoyed or was tired, but mostly because I felt too guilty to talk to anyone about any more secrets.

With all the information I had, I tried to mark out a plan that I could unravel first thing on Monday. And that morning, despite my sluggish appearance, I was ready.

My mom shook her head incredulously at me and said, “Well, whatever it was you were doing, it must’ve taken you all night because you overslept and now you’re going to be late for school if you don’t get in the shower right now.”

“But, Mom, what about—”

“Forget breakfast, Seven.”

I whined as she left the room and I headed to the bathroom with fresh clothes in my arms. In the shower, as hundreds of warm droplets fell on me, washing away my tension and morning fatigue, I took deep, slow breaths.

Thinking about talking to Colin still gave me the occasional butterflies, but I kept reminding myself that he wasn’t as good a person as I thought he was. I needed to prepare myself for this.

After I’d done my morning preparations, I was out of the door with my backpack over my shoulders and on the way to school.

Even though I had several ideas on how to get the black notebook back sneakily, or in a way where Colin would have had no choice whatsoever (at least I hoped), I knew that I had to take baby steps first. I would beg him verbally, pleading again and again. I had to make Colin think that that was all I could do.

So, the moment I saw him in school, I strolled over to him, pushing aside my shyness, and said, “Colin.”

“Well, hello there,” he replied cheerfully. He was wearing a checkered shirt over a long-sleeved black undershirt and old jeans, but despite its plainness and slightly tattered appearance, he looked amazing. “And what do I owe the pleasure of your company this morning?”

As we walked through the hallway together, people greeted and waved at us, and while I responded as I usually would, I whispered to him, “Please, Colin. Give me back my notebook.”

“Why do you want it so much? Hey, buddy!” he said, grinning at a friend who was just passing by.

“I told you—it’s important to me.”

“Hmm…yes, but I want to see exactly how important,” he said, smiling at me mischievously.

The blood drained from my face. “Don’t you dare look inside!”

“Oh, daring me now, huh?” he asked, chuckling. He was obviously enjoying tormenting me. What did I ever see in this guy? “I like dares.”

Panicking, I thought quickly and said, “Please. I beg of you. What do you want? I’ll do anything.”

His emerald eyes sparkled with interest and danger and everything else in between. “Anything?” he asked.

The way he was looking at me held so many frightening possibilities that I started to say, “Um, on second thought—” but then I remembered all the things I’d written in that black notebook, all the secrets that I was supposed to be responsible for keeping. “No! I mean—ugh!”

Colin laughed and I distractedly noticed the crinkles around his eyes. Man, his laugh sounded really nice.

Idiot! Focus! I told myself, mentally shaking my head.

“You’re funny, Seven.” He suddenly stopped at a classroom door—it must’ve been his first class—and turned back to me. “But that isn’t going to convince me to give it back to you.”

“But—”

“Excuse me, Ms. Warrilow, are you in this class?” the teacher, who was already seated at the desk inside, asked me, cocking an eyebrow.

Fortunately, most of the students in the room were too busy laughing and talking to notice us, but there were a few who looked over curiously. I shrank back and shook my head. “No, sir.”

“Well, I suggest you go back to your class right now or you’re going to be late,” he said, shuffling papers and pushing his seat back, the chair’s legs screeching against the floor. As I nodded, Colin snickered at me.

I glared at him and was starting to turn away but his voice called after me tauntingly, “See you later, Seven.”

***

I’ve always loved math. It was easy but, at times, challenging. It was simple and always had an answer, even if that answer was a negative, a zero, or an undefined. That was one of the reasons I chose twelfth grade calculus as one of my subjects for junior year.

And another reason was so that I could be with Colin.

I sat directly behind him and would always get all nervous and stiff. When he’d lean back, his arms behind his head, I could smell his cologne mixed with the crisp freshness of his shirt and the detergent used to wash it.

I could smell that same scent right then as I jogged to keep up with Colin’s long and quick stride. I never ceased to whisper, “Colin, please give me back my notebook.”

We neared our classroom and he chuckled, saying, “You can annoy me all you want for the whole hour of calculus, but I’m not going to give in, Seven, even if you stab me with pencils from behind, which I don’t think you can do.”

“What makes you think I can’t?” I challenged.

He stopped at the door all of a sudden and I nearly bumped into his back. I tilted my head to face him and found myself staring. His body was covering the sunlight that streamed through the glass windows and it engulfed him like a halo. He looked down at me and those stupid butterflies started fluttering to life again.

With a smile so radiant, he said, “Because your conscience wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

And just like that, he turned away and walked into the room, his presence activating a series of friendly greetings and one-armed hugs from the people inside. As soon as he stepped away, the sunlight spilled over his silhouette and caused me to squint.

I followed him in, quietly edging around his circle of friends and taking the seat behind him.

The moment I’d placed my things on my desk, somebody called me, “Seven!”

I looked around and saw a girl, with long blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, waving over at me. It was Laura, the captain of the cheerleading team, and yes, you’d better believe it: the most popular girl in school was calling me over.

But that was only because I was with her when she was still just one of the cheerleaders and she had confessed her insecurities to me, crying. As I’d patted her back soothingly, she said, “I hate it. Why was I born with this?”

You see, Laura was very beautiful—blessed with blonde hair, green eyes, and a nice figure—not to mention that she was actually really nice, but there was one hamartia: she had a flat, crooked nose.

Despite this flaw, she still got to join the cheerleading team, thanks to her amazing flexibility and outstanding balance. The rest of the cheerleaders were mostly there because they were pretty and could do some stretches and high jumps.

She was a year younger than me but had been admitted to school early, which was why we were in the same batch. She was fourteen when I’d repeatedly told her there was nothing wrong with her and handed her the wads of tissues for her to sneeze in while her shoulders shook with sobs and hiccups. And then, when she turned fifteen, she came back to school from the Christmas break with a straight nose that was slightly upturned at the tip.

Laura told me later that she’d begged her parents for a nose job, which they’d given her reluctantly as her Christmas present. Everybody was shocked, of course, but she reasoned that it was simply puberty finally hitting her and working its magic. Nobody questioned her—perhaps out of pity—but nobody really believed her either.

I stood up from my seat and walked over to her. “Hi there,” I said, smiling.

“How are you?” she asked, gesturing for me to sit beside her. I did as I answered, “Fine, I guess. What about you?”

She bit her lip and sighed, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah, well, I’m…not so fine.”

I could sense another secret on the verge of being told. I swallowed and asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Well…you know Beatrice, right?” she asked uncertainly, mentioning her best friend, a girl I knew from talking to only once. I tried to remember what secret Beatrice had told me back then, but without the black notebook (the reason for its absence laughed loudly in the background) my memories were murky.

“Yeah,” I said, urging her to continue.

Laura raised a hand to brush her ponytail, which was draped over her shoulder. “She’s…she’s been acting really weird lately.”

“What do you mean by ‘weird’?”

“Like, for example, this morning, I told her that I really, really loved this new purse she got, and I even commented that it matched her personality, but instead of saying thanks or just smiling she narrowed her eyes at me as if she didn’t like what I said or something,” she said, demonstrating it by narrowing her own eyes.

And then it clicked into place.

Oh, right! Beatrice was the girl who thought that her best friend actually hated her and was plotting against her. This was because of the times that Laura had answered sarcastically, either because she wasn’t in the mood or because she was just making a joke. You could say that Beatrice was very…sensitive to these things, and after those said times she started becoming suspicious of things that weren’t actually taking place.

For the sake of confidentiality and their relationship, I couldn’t tell Laura that. I raised my eyebrows instead and said, “That is weird.”

“I’m starting to think that she doesn’t like me,” Laura said, her insecure side acting up. Despite being fawned over by almost everybody already, she still had that side of her that needed a confidence boost.

“I, uh, I think that she just didn’t understand what you meant,” I said carefully, picking out my words. “What did your tone sound like?”

Laura looked over at me and asked, “Does that even matter?”

“In some cases, it does,” I said and then shrugged. “I mean, she could’ve thought you were being sarcastic.”

Laura gasped, snapping her fingers as if she’d suddenly realized something and had it just at the tip of her tongue. “You’re right!” she marveled at me. “Maybe it’s just like that one time with Brandon! Remember? I told you about it.”

I knew Brandon was her other best friend and I was pretty sure he’d talked to me before as well, but I couldn’t remember what it was about. And that “one time” Laura was talking about was no better.

“Um, are you sure you told me?” I asked uncertainly, glancing up at the ceiling as I scraped every corner of my brain for the memory.

Laura looked at me as if she thought I was losing my mind. Maybe I was. “Yes, I’m pretty sure, Seven. You were even so guarded about…” her eyes darted around before she leaned forward and whispered, “about Brandon’s secret and wouldn’t tell me what it was until I said that Brandon told me about it already.”

And can you enlighten me as to what that secret was? I wanted to ask her, but instead kept my mouth shut.

I was able to fumble over something in my foggy head and then asked, “That one time you were talking about was when…when you were being sarcastic and Brandon didn’t pick up on your tone, right?”

She nodded eagerly, glad that I remembered. I continued, “It was something related to Brandon’s secret which is…which is…” I knew it was a mistake to mention it the moment the words left my lips.

Laura watched me expectantly, waiting for the words she knew should be coming from my mouth right there and then but were apparently having a delayed arrival.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” she said, but even in a quiet voice, you could hear the incredulity.

I laughed weakly and scratched the back of my head, shrugging. “I guess I’m getting really forgetful nowadays.”

“Yeah, but his secret isn’t something you could forget about that easily, Seven,” she said. She lowered her voice even more. “It isn’t easy to forget the fact that he’s…you know, the other term for happy.”

This was good. Laura was giving me clues. Maybe I could find my way back to the right path with that.

“He’s…in love?” I asked hesitantly, my gut twisting in nervousness and anticipation.

She shook her head at me, disbelief obvious on her face. “I can’t believe you don’t remember it, Seven!” she whispered. “He’s gay!”

I wanted to smack myself. Brandon was gay! That was something you shouldn’t be able to forget about—at all.

“Oh, right,” I said, grinning sheepishly at Laura. “I had a feeling it was that, but you know…I get it all mixed up.”

“I suppose,” she replied, looking at me warily. A few seconds of awkwardness stretched between us before I was literally saved by the bell. The teacher, Mr. White, walked into the room and I quickly got up and headed to my seat.

Colin’s group had scattered to their own seats, and once I was seated behind him, I leaned forward so that my words could reach only his ears, “This is your fault.”

He slouched in his seat so that he could speak to me without having to turn around. He chuckled and murmured, “What is?”

“What I just went through,” I said through gritted teeth. I glared at the back of his red hair, hating the fact that I was still fascinated by the way it shone with gold flecks against the sunlight. “I need my notebook, Colin. Give it back.”

Mr. White was saying something about the lesson but his voice was only the background music in this sitcom. Colin shook his head and I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “The fun has only just begun, Seven.” He raised a hand and my eyes cut a glance at it, widening the moment I spotted the black notebook held lightly between his fingers.

I lashed out instinctively, seeing my chance. The tips of my fingers were able to brush the leather cover but he pulled away in the next second, slipping it under his textbook. My sudden movement caused my chair and my table to screech against the floor, and Mr. White picked that exact moment to notice it.

He turned to look at me. “Seven Warrilow, did you hear a thing I just said?”

I slowly backed away from Colin, my eyes focused on the teacher. “Y-Yes, sir,” I stammered.

He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously and asked, “What did I just say, then?”

“You asked me if I’d heard a thing you just said.”

“Very funny,” he deadpanned, turning back to the blackboard and resuming his writing there, “but flirt again with Colin here and we’ll see who gets the last laugh.”

Blushing, I blurted, “But, sir, I wasn’t—”

“Seven, this is your last warning.”

“Sorry,” I said bashfully. In front of me, Colin snickered. I bared my teeth, the temptation of biting his head off too great. I’d never before in my life felt so violent.

The only time that I’d attempted to use violence was in kindergarten when a girl I didn’t like came over to my castle of blocks and kicked it down. And then she would say that she didn’t mean it and tell me to clean it up. I’d been very close to throwing one of the blocks at her stupidly big head.

I crossed my arms and sat back glumly in my seat, once again staring at the clock and waiting for its hands to move.

A few minutes in through Mr. White’s lecture, Colin suddenly raised a hand—as if to scratch his back or something—and dropped a piece of folded paper on my desk.

I raised an eyebrow at the back of his head but he didn’t say anything. I reached for the note and opened it hesitantly. Inside there was a surprisingly nice drawing of the black notebook, its accurately straight lines and shading so vivid that it almost seemed to be right there in front of me. I never knew that he could draw so well.

Below the drawing, Colin had written: So close and yet so far.

My fingers curled around the paper, crumpling it into a ball.

***

My plan, although it was supposed to be the easiest and simplest of all, was becoming harder than I ever imagined it would be.

The day had been spent more in routines rather than not. I would corner Colin, he would edge past me with a witty remark, and I would be left waiting for the next class to end to corner him again, beg, and have him slip through my fingers like sand.

By the time it was my last period of the day, nothing had changed.

Not only that, but I had to ignore the odd looks I was getting and the snickers I could hear behind my back. It was beyond embarrassing, and I was hoping nobody had noticed it, but unfortunately for me, a few already did.

“What’s going on between you and Colin Stillman?” asked Stefanie, my seatmate in English Lit, while the teacher was reading out a chapter of The Great Gatsby to a bunch of students who weren’t paying him a shred of attention. I’d already read it before anyway so I didn’t bother listening.

As I watched the teacher talk, not really hearing what he was saying, I considered telling a teacher or my parents that Colin had stolen something from me—although that sounded very much like third grade—but then I thought about it again. He could simply lie and pretend that I was some kind of lunatic who was just desperate for his attention or something. It wasn’t that unlikely.

“Yeah,” my other seatmate, Nina, chimed in eagerly, “I always see you two together, like this morning and after classes, talking heatedly and laughing.”

Laughing? I thought with a cocked eyebrow. Was that how I looked like? I was supposed to be scowling. “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said airily with a smile. “We were just…as you saw, talking.”

Stefanie suddenly gasped and whirled around to gape at me, her hand covering her mouth in surprise, “Wait, could it be—are you two going out?”

I almost choked. And of course, a blush just had to appear on my cheeks. “N-No! We’re definitely not going out,” I said. “I told you, we were just talking.”

Nina leant forward curiously and asked, “About what?”

I narrowed my eyes just a little bit at her. I didn’t need the black notebook to remember that she also liked Colin.

I remembered the time when she’d whispered it excitedly to me and I felt torn apart between telling her to go for it and shooing her away from Colin with my wrath. As if I even had the right; I wasn’t his girlfriend.

In the end, I told her honestly that I didn’t know who Colin liked and that she should be careful because he was unpredictable.

Right then, I couldn’t help but smile slyly and shrug, “Oh, you know, stuff.”

“Come on, Seven!” she begged, pulling at my forearm. “Tell me!”

I put a finger to my lips and winked. “Sorry, it’s a secret.”

Stefanie laughed as Nina pouted disappointedly, but she didn’t take it to heart.

The teacher finished the chapter and then started distributing pieces of paper. He asked us to answer the questions there about the chapter we’d just read—well, that he’d read—using our own copies of the book.

I sighed as I retrieved the novel and started flipping through pages in search of answers. I was so tired—and not only because of the many secrets I had to remember until I got my black notebook back, but also because of chasing Colin around wherever he went.

I’d even gotten to the point where I’d gone on a full-on marathon by chasing him down the hall.

“Let’s play a game of tag. If you can catch me, I’ll give it back to you. Ready? Go!” After he said the words, he immediately took off. He laughed as he ran, looking back at me over his shoulder at times. I had weaved through bodies as fast as I could but I still couldn’t keep up.

By the time the people had dispersed and he was cornered, I panted, saying, “I’ve…got you…now. Give it, Colin.”

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself, Seven,” he said, grinning wickedly. “I said you have to catch me, not corner me.”

I growled—I didn’t even know I could do that—and reached out to “catch” him, but he was always one step ahead of me. He swiftly slipped into a room and before I could follow him in, thankfully, I saw the blue sign hanging on the door, clearing stating: MALE.

I screamed in anger and stomped like an angry little kid who hadn’t been given the toy she wanted. I crossed my arms and paced restlessly outside the boys’ bathroom.

He could hide in there all he wanted; I wasn’t going to give up that easily.

Boys had filed out of the bathroom, giving me weird looks, but I turned away from them, glaring at a fire hydrant behind the breakable glass instead.

Finally, after a while, Colin came out and I immediately stood in front of him, spreading my arms out and saying, “Stop right there.”

He looked down at me with a smug smile and cooed, “Yes?”

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice turning to a whine. “If you want money, I can give you some. Just give me back my notebook.”

“Sorry, Seven, but I don’t take bribes,” he said as he started to step away from me. I grabbed his hands and did my best impression of adorable and utterly irresistible puppy-dog eyes. “Please?” I asked, looking up at him from under my lashes, “Pretty please with cherries on top?”

Colin stared at me for a moment but I couldn’t find any emotion or hint that he was giving in at all in those emerald eyes. And then those eyes drifted down to his hands, which were being gripped by my smaller feminine ones.

A smile slowly spread across his face as he said, “You know, Seven, I haven’t wash my hands yet.”

I blinked, confused. What did he mean? I looked down at his hands. They looked clean enough.

Behind him, the door to the boys’ bathroom swung open and a guy squeezed out, shaking his wet hands to dry them off. My eyes went wide. Colin was in the boys’ bathroom for a considerably long time. He probably went to—

I released his hands quickly as if they’d burnt me and held out my own in disgust. Before I could say anything else, Colin burst out laughing. He bent over, clutching his stomach, and said in between barks of laughter, “You—I can’t believe you actually bought that! Oh, man! Of course I washed my hands!”

I blushed from embarrassment at how easily I’d been fooled and blushed even more each time his laugh became louder. “Shut up. It’s not funny!” I said weakly.

Colin’s laughter died down to a few chuckles and he wiped his eye with a finger. “You just don’t find it funny,” he said matter-of-factly with a smirk, “because you’re the butt of the joke.”

A scowl I didn’t know I could muster started to appear on my face as I glared at Colin. “Just give it back already!” I said, fisting my hands at my sides. “Or—or else—”

“Or else what?” he asked, crossing his arms. From the look in his eyes, you could tell that he knew I had nothing to bait him. I hated it. “What can you do, Seven?”

Nothing, I thought, but immediately pushed it away. Gritting my teeth, I murmured, “You just wait and see, Colin.” And then I turned on my heel and walked away.

“Okay, I’ll wait,” he called after me, “but I don’t think I’ll be seeing anything.”

Jerk, I thought as I sat in English Lit, fuming as I prepared how to launch the other plans I had in mind. I may have failed that day, but that was why there was a tomorrow. And I wasn’t going to stop trying until I had the black notebook safely in my hands.