That was all.
As Seth left the building and headed down the path, toward the station, he felt lighter. Calmer.
His heart no longer beat unevenly at the thought of Nina, and he no longer felt the need to reach into his jacket pocket and check whether Nina responded to his text yet.
He felt so light that Seth almost skipped a little down the footpath.
It was decided, thatthatnight, Seth would focus on doing something productive, like clear out his email inbox or something.
He’d been so distracted chatting with Nina and constantly losing focus. If he wanted to graduate, secure a good job and make his internship permanent, he’d have to step up the game.
No more distractions. No more temporary people.
As he reached Central Station, he wondered how long he would have to wait for Nina now. Wondered if he even should.
He started toward their waiting spot.
And Nina was there already waiting for him.
She was leaning against the brick wall, right beside the entrance to the station. Her head was down, wisps of her hair falling all over her cheeks, messier than it was in the morning when he saw her.
She had her earbuds in, and her shoulders were hunched over her phone. Honestly, there was nothing significant about the sight.
Nina, to anyone else, was just another tired university student, leaning against the brick wall, having finished another day of classes.
Seth stopped, a few metres from Nina, and just stared.
She was smiling. Whatever she was watching on her phone was making her smile.
It was making his heart race like crazy. To anyone else, Nina was just another university student, but to Seth….
To Seth…
Damn you,Nina Mendez, he thought.Damn you.
9
Then
— An excerpt from Nina’s diary, June 1, 2015
In Year 9, the whispers of Seth and Nina had died down, to nearly none.
Even Joshua had finally hung up his exhausting hat of being at the frontline of the taunting. Understandably so, since he had his own girlfriend-type-fling of sorts to obsess over.
Sometime during mid-term 1 of the new year, Joshua and a girl from the class below them, Sasha, hooked up. They kept hooking up, with Seth having to hear some of the cruder details of their intimacy.
After the fourth time, Seth asked for his sake, and Sasha’s too, to stop hearing about it.
“That’s not something to announce,” Seth told Joshua during their history class, with distaste pouring from his tone, “That shit is private, you know?”
“You’re just jealous, because you haven’t found anyone to fu -”
Seth didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. He’d gotten up from the desk and sauntered over to Will and some other boys, who were watching a replay of a soccer match. They had a substitute that day, who wasn’t bothered to quieten down the rowdy class.
Truth is, Seth didn’t care about all that. Sex. I mean, sure, he’s thought about it, like every other boy has.
But it’d never been a priority for him.
