CHAPTER 39

Genesis's POV

The noise reverberated through the grey walls of Crawford hall from the third floor where it sourced from. Uproarious and chaotic, it was a mess of great disturbance and bedlam, disrupting the usual tranquility associated with the dorm. There were scarcely any issues of disagreement or misplacement of concord among bona fides that resulted to such commotion up until this moment. For the past hour, I had made tons of attempts in throwing in all concentration into the dough I was kneading, but had made minimum progress. Every time I mean to pick up a specific baking equipment, it turns out to be one I never had in mind. I just never focused properly under bangarang situations and this wasn't any different.

I had initially halved our room into two equal parts, creating a makeshift bakery. Though small, it was just the right amount of space I needed to do what I had in mind. Three days and fifteen hours it had been. Tears that could fill an entire ocean I had spilled. Everywhere I turned, everything my eyes were opened to and every place I went didn't fail to torture me. It didn't fail to remind me of what I had lost.

Everything I encountered reminded me of him and the memories we had created and lived through. Those days, those happy days now seemed like it never even happened, like it doesn't even exist. I had cried so much my eyes hurt from it all and my head seemed like it was making deals with a ferocious migraine. I haven't set my eyes on him since he broke up with me. Leaving my room seemed harder than it looked and he neither called nor visited. Why would he? I shook my head at my own foolishness. The past should remain in the past, right? Isn't that how it should be?

I was done crying. I was done feeling sorry for myself. A guy like him with a girl like me? Pfft. I must have been crazy to think we were ever going to last. What prompted his interest in me in the first place was still a huge wonder. He was so out of my league. I knew it. He knew it and he finally realized it and called it quits. I wouldn't blame him. We were two worlds so far apart. So different from each other. There was no connection.

When we first started speaking, I honestly didn't want to get involved with anyone. I didn't plan to. I had other things strategically planned out for myself, things that didn't at all involve a sudden whirlwind romance with a strikingly good-looking college boy who loved me more than life itself. A suffocating, heavy feeling in my chest announced itself and I squeezed my eyes painfully.

I deserve everything. I completely and utterly deserve the unexpected split and heartbreak that came along with it. Cheating on someone like him with his bestfriend? God, I thought I had understood everything I was thought. I thought I could differentiate right from wrong. Clearly not. Not once, not twice but multiple times. Discerning the exact number of times we got intimate was going to need thorough thinking and I didn't want to remember myself in that moment and how bad I had acted.

I often thought of coming clean but each time I tried to imagine his reaction, I instantly back out. They just weren't pretty in my head or maybe, I'm so much of a coward. Yes, definitely that.

I opened my eyes, obliging a silent tear. They immediately flew open when a great bang which sped up the pulse of my heart struck the door on a whim. Quick and powerful, It was almost like someone had bashed the door with something destructive. The noise was impossible to ignore. I immediately pushed up and darted for it. The force struck it again and the moment I jerked it back, I was rewarded with a painful blow to my lips. The impact was fierce - a massive and over-powering shock that plunged me straight to the ground. I felt someone fall heavily on me and hit me in the jaw. The jab caused my mouth to drop and my chin, punched back, clashing my teeth together. Blood soaked my tongue.

The weight pressed hard above me soon disappeared and next came a level of loud, ear-splitting shouts and screams that was capable of causing severe damage to the ears and a whole lot of profanities expressing air rage and hostility thrown carelessly into the air. I turned my head to where the noise generated from and was startled to see Lana fighting dirty with a girl by the door entrance. She sat below her bust as they both scratched, hit and cursed at each other. Hair streaked, clothes torn and covering little to no skin, they clawed at each other's throat, causing a great ruckus in the hall.

I noticed a massive throng of students in the hall, laughing and cheering them on, obviously enjoying what was happening. I found it ridiculous that some even had their phones out, taking pictures and rolling cameras. They thought it wiser to watch the fight unfold than to break them apart before they wrecked each other completely. I angrily stomped towards the chaos to separate them but got hit in the face by Lana's elbow as she reared it back to slap the girl who fought back relentlessly despite the fact that she was the one losing.

She managed to break free from Lana's den and found her feet. Lana turned around for a second but the girl was quick to shove her hand in the back of her head and grabbed a clump of her hair. She yanked her down to the ground. Centimetres away from slamming her head onto the concrete floor, she was quite lucky to have crashed it on the wooden bench instead. The crowd hooted and hollered, pumping them up with more adrenaline.

I tried to get them off each other but I didn't match their level of energy. It took the intervention of I and another girl to pull them apart. They were bristling with anger, baring teeth and itchy claws. Skin bared with torn clothes and tresses untamed, yanked out from the root. I dragged Lana from the girl before she attempted going for her throat and strangling her next and circled my hands around her waist while the girl who's familiar face tampered with my mind did the same to the other girl. Together, we tried to do our best in keeping them apart.

I wasn't surprised when Lana dug her sharpened nails into my skin in a bid to let her go. Anger which I wasn't sure where it came from vibrated off her.

Exasperated and furious that the crowd weren't doing anything to help, I projected my frustration towards my friend.

"Lana, stop it. What's your problem? Stop it. Do you want to get suspended? Or worse, rusticated? Is that what you want? Tell me and I'll let you go right this second."

"I want to fuck that bitch up so bad." She screeched and squirmed in my grasp. "Let me go."

"I'm a bitch?" The other girl sneered. "Did you just...? But that wasn't what he was calling when you were blowing him. When you were blowing my boyfriend. Whore!" She screamed at her.

What?

The crowd went ballistic.

"And he told me how much he enjoyed it for the first fucking time while I made him come hard into my mouth. That's saying something since you're his bitch."

The girl gasped and narrowed her eyes, then her mouth twisted into an unforgiving line. "Oh, you stupid slut." Then she fought to get to Lana, twisting and turning but Miranda was able to hold her still.

"Gen." Miranda yelled, eyes on me. I was more taken aback by the use of familiarity she suggested. "Drag her in there." She pointed to my room. The door was still opened. "And I'll deal with this one here." I quickly nodded and did as she said.

Lana twisted and squirmed, screamed and scratched, trying to get back into the hall and back to her foe but I didn't let her get past the threshold. I forced her into the room and locked the door as soon as we were in. She growled and whipped her head to face me. Then she jerked her arm back, bringing it down on my cheek. Hard. I staggered from the impact but was supported by the door.

"Who the fuck are you?" She screamed at me, coming closer. "How dare you stop me? Did I ask you to do that? Huh? Did I?"

"You needed to be stopped." I winced from the stinging pain she caused to my cheek, feeling the hot skin against the back of my hand. "You were hurting her so bad."

"And she didn't hurt me too?" She screamed hysterically.

I tried reasoning with her, "Lana, you barely have a scratch on you."

"You always..." She hung and glowered. "You always - always get in my freaking way every freaking time. Ugh!"

"You have to understand that doing that with her boyfriend was wrong. You shouldn't have."

Abruptly, her hand slashed the air in unrestrained anger. "Oh please! Just shut up, okay? Shut up. Like you are any better." Then she stomped in the direction of the bathroom, viciously slamming the door against its hinges.

I sank heavily on the bed and breathed out wistfully, covering my face with my palms. My elbows sat comfortably on my thighs and my shoulders sagged. I grimaced at her last statement, regretfully realizing how not far from the truth she was. She was spot on. Bang on. Right on target. Who am I to sanction her for her misconducts? Who am I to try to play the saint between us when the speck in her eyes were very much easier to take out unlike the huge log in mine. I am no better than her. The same act she was involved in with someone she shouldn't have, wasn't it the very same one I had carried out?

Earthquakes just happen. Tornadoes just happen. My tongue didn't just happen to fall into another guy's mouth. I was still finding it so hard to understand the reason I was sabotaging our relationship. Then I realized what it is. It's him. It's just him. The way he is. The way he looks at me when he thinks I'm not looking. In a way no one had ever looked at me. He looks at me like I am the only star in his darkness night, like I am the answer to everything. Something about him makes me feel like I'm about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames. He is dangerous, dangerous for my heart. Deep, dark, mysterious, unexplained and perilous.

It makes my heart pound with distrust and my mind cloud with bewilderment. He is like nobody else in the world. I want to forget about him and the way his lips taste and the sound of his voice at night but he's caught inside my ribcage and wedged into my chest.

My mother once said to me, when you hold a man's hand and he makes your heart beat faster and he makes you feel dizzy and animated, walk away from this man. He is not the man for you.

If you hold a man's hand and he makes you feel snug, safe and assured, hold onto him because this is the man you are going to spend the remaining days of your life with.

In that very moment, I knew exactly what I had to do. I made a hurried decision and hastily rose up to act on it. Another second in this room and I was sure to go back on it.

I chose to push back the repercussions from my mind. I brought this upon myself. He has to know. My eyes fell on the rings of worked doughs neatly arranged in rows and columns on the tray and ready to be baked. I ducked down to pack them carefully into a box so as to take them with me with thoughts of baking the flour in the dorm kitchen on the ground floor before leaving the college premises.

***

From now on, updates would be up only on Saturdays till my exams are done with. I have decided to reduce the word count of each chapter to nothing more than at most 2500 words for easy writing and editing in case you might notice the change in chapter lengths.

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