The Absence of Heat Does Not Mean It’s Cold

According to Raven, Daire has been absent for a week now.

And while she's filling me all the details, I'm looking at the flaring, carmine highlights of her short, layered hair, thinking about flames and fire escapes.

She tells me some students saw Daire coming to school several minutes before lunch break. He was wearing his school uniform but without his backpack, implying that he wasn't there to attend classes, and coming to school seemed to be a spontaneous decision. They said he looked very preoccupied, ignoring the social protocol of waving and smiling back to people who look up to him—then disappeared like a ghost.

In retrospect, his bizarre presence on the rooftop means something, after all.

"I know we've broken up," Raven says. "But he could've at least told me. Not even the guys know what's up with him, and even our class adviser won't tell us."

She stops spreading peanut butter on my sandwich and bites her thumb. The thing about Raven is that her deepest feelings are perfectly conveyed through a projector and spooled onto a movie screen—caught in this dramatic irony where the viewers know the extent of her being except Raven herself. She's an open book with burnt edges.

While crunching my morning cereal, I give her a couple of suggestions like any concerned roommate would, "Try calling him, send messages, give him a visit." Then as soon as the thought appears, I ask, "Why did you break up anyway? Weren't you going out since the start of eleventh grade last year?"

She looks at me. "Where's your lunch box?"

"I left it in the classroom."

"So that's why you want a sandwich for lunch…" She realizes. "You really should use that fat brain of yours to mind your things…and stop asking stupid questions." Which translates, I don't want to talk about it because I'm still not over it, and this is none of your business. As usual, her evasiveness acts as a defense mechanism for her transparency.

I began living with Raven last summer, which happens to be the biggest turning point of my life—and her favorite season. But we've known each other for so long that we had fused our individual pasts to a singularity. And without one or the other, we'd fall and vanish without a trace.

If I am air, Raven is a wildfire. If I fade and pacify, Raven wakes and blazes. For years, people are more interested in our striking differences rather than the complexity of our relationship. If I fleet and drift away, Raven creates friction wherever she goes. If I have my personality wrapped around the borderlines of calculated behavior and introversion, Raven wears her heart on her sleeve.

At school, Raven is known for her confidence. She walks across the halls with her head up high. She wears what she wants to wear. If she's elated, a smile will break through her face. If she's angry, she'll downright ignore you or worst, grudgingly confront you. If she's sad, she will be as quiet as a floating feather, but sometimes I'd hear it cracking through her eyes, aching to explode. She says what she wants to say, but if she doesn't, it would fumble between her fingers, her words but would slip through anyway.

And after all the things I said, she's wrapping the sandwich carefully, gently as though it might burn between her hands. When she notices the empty glass beside my bowl of sugar flakes, she takes it to the faucet and fills it with water. And I thank her by drinking it all the way even if I've already consumed more than enough.

It's pretty much the same when it comes to the two of us, only that she's more subtle, more subdued because she's also aware I can read her like the back of my hand.

She takes off her apron, revealing her skirt folded up a few centimeters above her knees. A clear violation of the school dress code, I tell her. But everything from her hair to her attire is an act of scholastic revolution, and yet she still survives. She tells me to shut up and get dressed.

I like to keep my uniform neat and conventional. It's not that I uphold modesty as a feminine principle, but loose blouses and long skirts offer a physical and mental sense of ease. Comfort has always been my virtue. If Raven seeks freedom away from the bounds of conformity, I find mine within it.

I tie my long, black hair to a low ponytail and swift it over my side while Raven gazes into her compact mirror, painting fiery red on her plump lips. "Your lips are chapped." She says without looking at me.

I tell her it's because the days are getting cold and I don't really mind, anyway.

"Why don't you try make-up for once? Even the girls in your honor's class are doing it."

"I don't need one." I say, "and besides, women wear make-up because they are dissatisfied by their natural features and believe that mere cosmetics can increase their morale—when in truth, all of you are just being fooled by capitalists and the patriarchal society."

"Whatever." Raven says dryly. "Just don't forget your umbrella. The weatherman says it's gonna rain in the afternoon."

Instead of swiping mascara on my eyelashes and puffing blush on my cheeks like Raven does, I express my femininity in the white lace ribbon I re-tie over my ponytail. The twin-ends run along the length of my hair, which gives its dullness strips of color. This ribbon has been with me for as long as I can remember. This is the only personal artifact I have, a testimony that even someone like me has a history.

The sun is already out in the sky when we step outside of the apartment together. It takes about a five-minute walk from our home to school, but I have to talk to Raven as much as possible because once we're on school grounds, she'll start pretending she doesn't know me.

...

In the classroom, everyone is more quiet than usual. Thus, I can hear the noise pollution the other classes are emitting. I stop by Levi's seat, one of the few classmates I talk to.

He raises his head from Kafka on the Shore. "Ten points for class behavior." He whispers.

I thank him and head over to my seat at the back of the classroom. Beside me, Alec, one of the class' misfits and a part of Raven and Daire's circle, is already deep within his day-long slumber.

We still have twenty minutes before our first period. Usually, at times like this, I'd read a good paperback I always carry with me. However, when I look for it in my bag, I find nothing but notebooks and a pen case. So, I fish my phone from my pocket and browse for e-books to pass the time.

I feel an awkward stillness in the classroom, and Yvette, the class president, stands up from her seat and turns to me. "We all know you don't need ten stupid points to pass the exam, but most of us, including myself, are desperate for it. So, if you don't mind, June. Phones are strictly not allowed."

She's saying all these things to me while there's a phone keychain dangling out of her pocket, while everyone else parades theirs on recess and lunch breaks. She sounds so assertive, yet she's not meeting my eyes, and takes a few steps back, as though I'm going to pounce on her. But the entire time, I remain seated, watching her like a bad drama. I take a few moments before returning my phone back to my pocket and then point to her pathetic pompom keychain. "You better keep that too," I say, and then later realize that everyone is holding their breath.

I find Yvette's flustered face unstimulating, so I turn away to the window and gaze at the neutral sky that equally looks down at everything in this world.

High school may be a factory of superficial and premature homo-sapiens, but from a different angle, it's a miniature replica of society where your social class is being assessed through your looks, intelligence, family background, and your quirks. But really, it all comes down to how well you project these qualities— or rather how well you are at disregarding them. The truth is people don't admire you because you're pretty or smart; they look up to your ability in letting them think that those special things you have don't matter to you. That's why Daire is on top of the pyramid because he makes up for his pleasant facial features through heroism and by being equally kind and approachable to people who come his way. That's why Raven's unapologetic personality is being praised because she struggles and works hard like everyone else. It's just like how the upper-class organize charities, celebrities befriending fans, or how politicians gain support from the masses by sharing their poverty in the past. People need you to have an equalizing force for them to accept you.

In my case, my mental capacity and family background have put me on a high pedestal, but these things counterintuitively deem me unapproachable, untouchable. The thing is, if you are born with good genetic qualities while raised in a privileged household, people expect you to act stupid, average, relatable, as though you are not these things at all. Humility is a sociocultural word reserved for lucky ones to pretend that they are just as unfortunate as everyone else. And when you go against this, class struggle will rise. If you talk too much, people will think you're arrogant. If you talk too little, people will think you're a snob. And to them, I am wedged in between. Though I find it convenient actually, for I won't have to explain myself if I don't feel like talking, I don't have to bother glancing at people's reactions while I'm just being myself. But never once I consider myself lucky.

When the bell rings, I get my sandwich and head towards the door, but Levi calls me and tells me about the book I lent him.

"I'm really confused about their relationship. Is she really Kafka's mother? But he slept with her." He adjusts his eyeglasses and runs his fingers over the pages.

"Who knows?" I say, "But psychology says it's possible for two blood-related people to feel intense sexual and romantic attraction after not seeing each other for a very long time, especially if you've never known each other before. They say this extreme feeling translates as intense longing after feeling unloved for a long time from the absence of a particular family member. But real mother or not, I guess the protagonist is just lonely after being separated from her mother since he was young, he's just seeking feminine presence for warmth and affection he's deprived of."

"You know what they say about the absence of heat." Levi grins. "Get it?"

"I don't."

"Einstein. Cold is the absence of heat." He sighs. "Fine. It isn't funny."

"By the way," I interject. "I need to contribute again."

"What? But I thought you're over it." He narrows his eyes. "What made you reconsider?"

I need to resecure my territory. "I'm bored."

"Some of my members are going behind my back, doing research. What if they found out?"

"You're the editor-in-chief. Do something about it." I say.

He sighs. "Fine. As long as you lend me another book."

"Deal."

As Levi and I stand in the corridor, Raven and her friends walk past us. And as usual, she ignores me.

...

Somewhere in the strong foundation of our relationship, there are some cracks creeping through, meandering lines slowly reaching the surface. I don't how they come into being or where they came from, but Raven does.

We never talk about it. At home, we like to pretend that we are from an alternate universe, that it's never engraved in our reality, ignoring the smoke rising from both of us. She doesn't tell me why. And I don't ask either—though I have a few guesses. But they always remain as hypotheses because part of me doesn't want to know.

As I reach the rarely traveled part of the school, I look up and see the rooftop. Placed like cream on top of the oldest, most desolate building on campus, which used to be the arts and music department. As I walk past the empty classrooms, all I can see are dusty pianos, violins, cellos, vintage easels, dried acrylics, and oils. The old portraits and landscape paintings that are hanging on the walls are covered in soot. Cobbed webs decorate the ceilings. There are rare times when maintenance staff would come to clean, clear off the dust, fix rotting floors, or broken toilets. Though the preservation is poor, they try to keep the building from falling apart as much as possible. Because it holds the school's history, memories, nostalgia, identity, that seems to linger on every corner, from the first floor to the fourth, acting as sustenance to keep the structure alive—the four things I hardly have.

However, it's not the building's age that keeps it abandoned. Students call it "the Midnight Building" because, apparently, paranormal creatures begin to appear and commence their paranormal activities at that exact time. Security guards would see flimsy figures floating in the classrooms, moving desks and chairs, and sometimes, papers fluttering in the air. They would also hear a woman's voice singing Ave Maria that echoes through the hallways, choir singing Gregorian chants, and the worst of all, the oldest grand piano on the fourth floor would play Fur Elise by itself, in a slow, arduous tone.

But right at this moment, the light brought by the day sprawls on my path.

Right at this moment, I am the one haunting the building.

Most of the structure is made out of wood and other materials in the thirties except for the concrete rooftop that is built ten years ago. The Midnight Building is scary enough, but the school's ultimate fear is the rooftop. It's the school's most desolate landmark. No one would come here, not even the maintenance staff, not even the security guards. It all started when the school paper published a short story, "Midnight Rooftop," written by Mr. Anonymous, mainly about a high school girl who desired to be freed from her body. So she made a deal with Death and became a ghost at the stroke of midnight. It all happened here on this rooftop, right on the spot where I am standing. The plot is foolish, but the students bought it anyway until it spreads across the entire campus, even to neighboring schools.

I look at the sky. If the world prefers people like Daire over authenticity, then I'd rather be alone. Levi is wrong. The absence of heat doesn't always mean it's cold. Sometimes cold is an independent variable. It's something that just unconditionally exists, regardless of the presence or absence of heat. It's because right now, it envelops me, gnawing my skin, freezing my insides so much that I begin embracing myself, even if the sun is looming over me, glaring at the utter emptiness.