The 100th Guy (English - Uned...

Chapter Seven

Because there is one destined for you

“Hey, de la Fuente! How dare you just lay there idle! We’ve been practicing and composing for hours and you’re still asleep? How dare you, times two! Rise there, lazy!”

          “Go away,” I covered my face with the pillow that Heart threw to my face.

          “Wake up, Maisen! Or do you want me to chop you piece-by-piece then distribute your parts to your ex-girlfriends?” I heard Heart walked away then come back. “Wake up!”

          “Hey, Maisen. Wake up.” I suddenly rose when I heard Terrence’s voice. When he said something, there was no other option but to follow. Terrence was never angry and it scared all of us just imagining how our leader would just burst one time. You would not want a dormant volcano to just erupt.

          “Could you please leave me alone?” I said as I brushed my hair with my fingers.

          Heart pointed the butcher’s knife that she was holding in front of me and I swore it was really big. She could cut my head with one strike using that. “Jerk! You don’t have any right to request something like that. You are not even practicing!” She even shook the knife in front of me and I could not do anything but put a pillow in between us.

          Terrence bent to put the knife away. “You might kill him. Our fans would be halfed, if ever.”

          But Heart would never want to be defeated. She slapped my forehead with her hand and I almost pushed her to the ends of the world for doing that. “Ouch! Heart!” I said as I touched my forehead. “What’s your problem? This already hurts and now you’re even increasing the pain! You’re a freak!”

          “W-What?” she asked, dumbfounded.

          “What?”

          “T-This? This hurts?” She held my hand, and that was the only time that I knew that that hand was on my chest.

          “Sheesh! I can’t believe this! I think I’m going crazy. I’m going crazy. I don’t know what’s happening anymore,” I ditched my hair with my hands and buried my face to the sofa bed. I did not really know what was happening anymore. It felt like I was possessed last night. I was possessed by a good spirit. And that was scarier.

          “Why? What happened to you?”

          “I don’t know. I have no idea who that girl last night was. She caused me pain! And now she gave me a problem! I would not want to carry this all my life!”

          “Oh my!” Heart stood in shock. “I told you, Maisen! I knew this would happen! It’s your fault, I already told you before to stop being a ladies’ man! Oh my… There is no cure for AIDS!”

          I slacked my jaw with my eyebrows meeting and heard Terrence chuckled. Heart just stood there, stoned in her place. “Silly! Who told you I have that? That’s not what I mean!” I said as I pulled her back to her seat.

          “So what really is your problem?” Terrence asked, still smiling because of Heart’s absurdity.

          “Last night... I went on a date. With some girl. She’s not really beautiful. Just... okay.”

          “So?” Heart asked as she tied her hair into a bun. “What’s so strange about that? You always go on a date, there’s nothing new.”

          “I know, but it’s not the point. When I met her, I had this feeling that... that... I don’t want to go on a date with anyone but her. That I like her. And that I want to see her and go on a date with her again.” I slouched on my seat as I realized all the things that I just said. “I’m really going crazy! Does she know how hard it is to breathe just thinking about her? She’s making this ache!” I said as I pointed at my left chest.

          I was not able to have a good and comfortable sleep because of what happened last night. My head was aching, I had this feeling that my skull would just crack open, but she was still all that I was seeing. Even if I opened or closed my eyes, or even if I did cartwheels and push ups, she was still in my sight. And it might sound crazy but I could not breathe whenever I thought of her. I really wanted to go outside and search for her but how? I did not even know her. She said she had no phone to call. How could I even see her again?

          And another thing... was she a fairy who used to lure men like me? What had she done to me? Why was I acting like I was all over her?

          “That’s just cholesterol, dude,” Violet came into the room and smilingly sat beside me. “You falling truly in love is just unbelievable. Aren’t you Mark Isen de la Fuente, and making every girl fall for you is your forte?”

          “That’s so good, Violet! I love how that rhymes!” Heart tapped my shoulder as she agreed, “That’s right, Maisen. Maybe, you just ate lots of cholesterol last night during your date. And besides, every food today has lots of cholesterol so yeah. That’s just it.”

          “Is it?” I asked. So that was why I could not breathe? It was the cholesterol? “Maybe, I need to get a check up. For sure, this cholesterol thing is unsafe.”

          Both Heart and Violet nodded. “So you get your ass off there now and let’s go to the music room!” Violet ruffled my hair and went ahead with Heart.

          I was about to go too when Terrence spoke, “What’s her name?”

          I heaved deep breaths of disbelief for like thrice as I stomped my feet on the ground like a kid. “Dude, how dare you! I just forgot about her five seconds ago and now what? Why did you mention her again? That’s so wrong!” I heavily sighed again, my heart gripping.

          “Don’t act like you don’t have the resources, Maisen. Searching for someone is easier these days, why don’t you try to hire someone who could do that for you?

          I stood straight in front of him. “Why would I do that? I don’t even know her! She’s just... she’s just a cholesterol stuck in my heart.”

          “No. She’s the first woman to make your dead heart beat.”

          “I— I said I don’t want to...”

          “Why? Because girls are just toys for you?”

          “Absolutely! They’re just sources of entertainment for my boring moments.”

          And that was what I would like to believe in. Girls were one of the of the things that should not be taken seriously. Guys could own as many girls as they wanted. Getting one then ditching her in the end would never be a problem. There were endless of them.Fool them, deceive them, make them cry, they could be easily kicked out of your life. I should not be disturbed by a cholesterol stuck in my heart. I would just get checked by the hospital later.

          Terrence stood and faced me. “Whatever kind of person you are, there is one being destined for you. It is either God, or a woman whom you will live the rest of your life with. That’s a fact. It’s even on Google.”

“There’s no way I could get out of here, there’s no way I could ever keep this clean. I got to find you. I need to see you. I thought I would be happy, to see you down the same place where we met, I thought it was good, to see you smiling. And then he came out of nowhere and it struck my heart somewhere. That’s when I proved, when I proved that the saddest day was, the day I found you.”

          I crumpled in my hands the scribbled paper on the table. The song that kept playing on Avril’s restaurant was Kyela Marjorene’s. And hearing it was making me bothered. I could not erase Maisen’s face in my head. True or not that he was a member of the band that I had been admiring, my thoughts were already interrupted with every Kyela Marjorene- related thing. And this song was just so mean to me. It kept saying the words “I have found you” like it wanted me to imagine that I had found Maisen.

          “Hey, girl,” Jane sat at the empty seat in front of me. I did not even notice her come.

          “Hey,” I said just for the sake of answering her.

          “Are we going now?” She put her handbag on the table. We were about to go to other hospitals for diagnosis. Avril would not just let it pass and he kept insisting that I should get checked on five more hospitals. That was expensive and too tiring but he clamored that he was rich and I could not do anything but say yes to my “rich” brother.

          “Jane, what are the symptoms and effect of brain cancer?”

          “Why? Didn’t the doctor explain to you?”

          I shook my head. “He did. But it was difficult to absorb that much revelation that time. And besides there were scientific terms on every statement he told me and that made everything more difficult to understand.”

          “You should have asked him about the things that you don’t understand!”

          “You know, Jane, my nose bled—”

          She cut me mid- sentence saying, “Because he kept saying scientific terms?” I just looked at her with a ‘what-the-hell’ look. She was trying to be funny again! “Okay fine, I’m sorry!”

          “My nose bled last night. I just woke up and there were blood stains on my face and on my pillow. Was it really bad?”

          “If you really have that sickness, it’s just normal. Headache, vomiting, being forgetful, confusion, and many more could happen, Midori,” she confessed in the lowest voice possible, like Jane found it hard to say those things. “You know what’s making all of these so unpredictable? The problem is in the brain. And we don’t exactly know what really will happen. We can only make assumptions. And if there’s something that the doctors tell you what could happen, there’s a possibility that it could change. So we have to move fast, Midori. By now, you should be getting your medication and other things that will help you cure this thing.”

          “Will I undergo chemotherapy?” There were not much information I knew about chemotherapy. But I knew how it sounded so scary and intimidating.

          Jane shrugged. “You better ask those things to the doctor once you see him again, okay?” I nodded. “Wait... Where’s Avril? Shouldn’t he be the one to accompany you?”

          I shook my head. I remembered how Avril obviously tried his hardest to avoid  to go with me today. “He did not say that he won’t come. But when I told him that I will be going today, he just told me to be careful on my way. He asked me who I would be with, and I said your name. And he just said, good. I don’t know why, but Avril is not with me in this fight at all.”

          Jane held my hand and smiled, “He is. He is just too worried to show you his craven side. Of course, how can you depend on him if he is weak?” I smiled at Jane too and told her that we should go.

          We went to five more hospitals, even six. The days ended with me feeling so heavy. When I lay on my bed, I did not even want to stand up. I did not know if it was my sickness or just my pondering side that was making me so tired. Days passed and the results were out. They were all the same. Positive.

          “Midori, I got one more result,” Jane said as she entered my room. She had in her hands the envelope from the last hospital where I was checked. “I haven’t seen it yet, don’t worry. You should be the one to open this.”

          I curled on my bed and embraced myself. “We already got six results, Jane. All told us the reality.”

          “But we never know,” she said, trying her hardest to sound so hopeful and positive. But what should we be hoping on? That this last result would say negative? That we should be happy because one out of seven results told us that I did not have cancer? What hope were we holding on? Was there even a hope?

          “You can open it,” I said.

          “Are you sure?” I did not answer. I saw Jane opened the envelope. I saw how her face turned dark and heard a single sob escaped from her. She covered her mouth and quickly got out of my room. The door was closed but I knew that she was just at the doorstep, crying. I could hear it. I could even hear how Avril came, how he asked her what was wrong and how the sound of his knuckles knocked the wall outside my room. Every punch on the wall was a punch in my heart.

          I felt so bad about myself. Of all the people in the world, why was it me? Did I do something so bad that I was chosen to have this? Everyone around me was suffering. All because of me. I wanted to hate myself. What had I done?

Few minutes more and the noises of grief outside my room faded one-by-one. I thought of what my life would be when my sickness started to eat the whole me. Would it be like this also? Would the people around me be gone one-by-one? Would time come that I would be alone?

          I closed my eyes and talked to Him. I prayed that all of these were just a joke. I prayed that the next day, when I woke up, everyone around me was smiling and telling me how beautiful that day was. I prayed that I could live forever, and that I had longer life to appreciate the stars, the skies, and the fireworks.

          But the next day, when I woke up, I rushed down the house only to find out that no one was there.

          I was alone.