CHAPTER 26
"I'm so confused." Aurora blurted out. She gulped the margarita she ordered. "I'm annoyed at Max. I'm annoyed that I keep thinking of him. I hate this confusion." She emphasized each word. "All of a sudden, after that first day we met him when we got there, I started thinking about him. I was shrugging it off for maybe I was just curious because he's my childhood friend."
"Pero dati may crush ka na sa kanya, di'ba?" (But even before you had a crush on him, right?)
Her head snapped in Ade's direction. "Crush? I told you it wasn't like that." She mentioned to her before, when they were in secondary school, that she found him kind and charming. That he was different from the guys she knew. And she liked him as one of the persons that she was acquainted with. She stopped thinking and exhaled a frustrated breath. "Fine. If that was what it was." She admitted.
Ade's eyebrows scrunched up. "I see that it still is." She faced her directly and looked straight into her eyes. "And there's more than that." She added.
The loud noise as the band started again seemed so far away from her ears. What Ade said was much louder, and it reverberated in her mind. And the possibility that she could be right was echoing in her brain.
Ade was waiting for her reply. She didn't want to conclude when Aurora was sharing things.
"Back to Cuba Libre, please, Arch." Aurora said to the bartender, and he nodded. The bar was packed with people as it was already 10:00 in the evening.
The bar counter was their favorite spot to settle inside a club because they didn't need to call a waiter's attention, and they were not facing the people. So, there was a lesser chance of getting asked by men, for they wouldn't see their faces. Though there were some who tried as they approached the bar counter, they didn't pay attention to them.
Archie gave her the order, and she immediately swallowed some. She had to slow her drinking, for she was just sitting now. Alcohol would invade her mind quicker this time.
"It was nothing before, Ade. It was just a simple crush. It was nothing." She was even shaking her head. She drank again and picked some food in front of her friend.
"Well, I can't really blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself either. Sa pogi ba naman ni Max. (In how handsome Max is), it's quite understandable." She playfully bumped her elbow.
Aurora was in fits of laughter. "Pogi din naman si Primo. (Primo is handsome too.)" she commented.
Ade gasped and covered her open mouth. "At last, you admitted it."
Her brows furrowed. "What? I never said he's not!" She shook her head at her. She didn't praise Ade's crush, and she mostly wasn't saying anything about Primo. Her friend knew that for her he didn't exist.
"Max is Max. You like him because he is Max." Ade said after a few moments.
Aurora stared at the glass she was holding. "Do you think I like him?"
Ade took a deep breath about the question. They never talked like this before about boys or as seriously as this. This was the first time Aurora had a problem with what she was thinking because she knew she was always decisive in her thoughts. So, she didn't know how to respond correctly about such things. She should be careful what to say to her.
"You're starting to. That's what I think."
Aurora clicked her tongue and chugged her drink.
"You wouldn't be bothered like this if you didn't." Ade solidified her thoughts. "What changed, Aurora?"
"Right. What freaking changed exactly?" She was asking herself too. She wanted to laugh off her own confusion. "It was never like this before. I wasn't bothered by this because I'd never really given it much thought." She paused and shook her head. "Maybe I'm just overthinking. This would be gone."
"Hmm. Maybe." Ade's mere reply.
"My parents are matching me with him." She spilled some more.
"What?" Ade looked at her with a taunting smile. "But honestly, I'm not surprised." She stated in an amused tone. "It would be more shocking if I paired you up with Primo." She chuckled. "I could never imagine that happening."
She groaned. "It's too soon for it anyway."
"Not exactly. You're lucky enough that you didn't have a fiancé yet." She responded in a matter-of-fact way. "You don't want to fall in love with him?"
Aurora suddenly turned her head to Ade and gave her a ridiculous look. "What falling in love are you talking about?" She was stunned by the question.
Ade rolled her eyes at her. "Fine. You don't want to like him?" She asked instead.
Aurora drank first before she gave her an answer. "Yes." She hissed.
Ade's forehead creased. "What's wrong with liking him more?"
She blew out a frustrated breath. "I just don't. I don't want complications. I just don't like these things."
Ade just shook her head. She couldn't completely understand Aurora's thoughts right now. "You think you could evade when your parents already had a plan with you and Max?"
"I don't know what to do about it. I just told them that I don't like Max."
Ade snorted. "As if that would solve everything. It would take nothing to change their minds if they really wanted you two to end up together. Especially when your parents are super close. I bet they already talked about it." Ade paused, then she gasped in realizing something. Her eyes widened also. "Oh my God! Maybe that was also the reason why your parents enrolled you at the same school as him. In all the schools, why does he go to the one he goes to?" She almost roared in excitement.
Aurora groaned again and placed a hand on her temple. It was just then she realized it too. "So, they already planned it." She swallowed all the contents in her glass. "I felt like they sent me to battle unprepared."
"You think Max had the idea?" Ade was munching something.
"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'd no idea at all."
"Rosa, tawag ka ni Omar sa stage. (Rosa, Omar called you on the stage.)" The bartender in front of them said.
"What?" She wasn't really paying attention to him.
He tilted his head to the direction of the people. "He's been calling you twice already."
She looked at where the band was. She just noticed that they stopped playing and their attention was on her. Omar was holding a mic.
"The audience would like to hear a song from you. Can you sing for us, please?" He was smiling while asking.
Oh, shit. Kanina pa ko umiinom. (I had been drinking since earlier.) "Sure." She still agreed and stood up.
"Kaya mo pa ba? (Can you still do it?)" Ade asked her.
She furrowed her brows at her. "Of course. It's me that we're talking about." She turned her back to her and went to the stage. She was thankful for the distraction.
Their night ended, and they went home when it was almost 12:00 midnight. She wasn't that drunk, just a slight buzz but it was nothing for her. She was hoping that she could be able to vanquish the growing admiration when she woke up so that she'd be in her right state of mind again.