19. "fierce"

"Fine," Jayvee agreed, licking her lips. Her pupils trembled out of despair before the girl that had murder in her eyes, and they trembled out of the shattering of her heart that we couldn't see, but on the rest of her face, she looked at Nova as competition -- as someone she wanted to beat out, conquer, and come out a winner after playing by every rule.

"But before we start," she continued, taking advantage of the battlefield. She knew all of the players and she used that for leverage. It didn't matter to her who she was closer to or who she barely knew in comparison. Everyone was equal to her, and everyone would take on her anger if she had to do something she didn't want. Not one person would escape it. "Jewee, after I finish telling all of you what happened, you have to answer my question."

The rest the group murmured words nobody could understand. We wished that he would agree so that we could have a possibility at comprehension more than we have now, but none of us knew how to tell him that we needed this more than anything, and all of us knew that his agreement was the only thing that was going to make it possible. Jayvee was stubborn, no matter how cornered you got her, and she got what she wanted in the times you would expect people wouldn't dare ask for it.

Jewee cleared his throat. "What question?"

"You don't get to know that," the woman responded, a smirk at her mouth. "You don't get to know what kind of question if you want the story."

He combed through his hair with his hands, deciphering pros and cons. "Okay," he agreed. He wasn't enthusiastic but he didn't have much of a choice. He must've thought she couldn't have such a bad question up her sleeve that would put him in danger, and since he was here, aware that each of us were relying on him, the pressure was on. "Tell it. Then, I will answer. Promise."

Jayvee's smirk fell. If she wasn't expecting him to give in, it was clearly a fail on her side, and coming to the realization that she was gonna have to say everything she didn't want to, emotions started to creep up on her.

"It was our one year anniversary. Not the exact date, but it was coming up, and I wanted to celebrate. Since he'd be back in the Philippines, I wanted to tour around to the places I liked a lot while I was staying in the province, but I wanted to start at the campus because that was where we met. I thought that'd be romantic. Makes sense, right?" She paused. It could've been to allow the story to resonate in us and so we could think about what she had to say, but to me, it was more for her. She wanted to appear strong and like she wasn't as affected as she really was, and that meant she needed the time here and there to put herself back together.

"So, I asked the staff at the school if it would be okay to follow through with my plans, and they allowed me to. They helped me to plan it. They made everything possible. The lights would turn on when we walked underneath them, and there were artificial stars on a ceiling-sky -- this sky that we didn't have to share with anybody else. It'd be the most cliche thing that you've ever seen, but it would be beautiful because it was for the two of us. Just the two of us, and so I checked the tech room to make sure that was all ready for the night."

Tears fell down her cheeks. There was no such thing as putting herself back together, though she hoped there was. That was a hope she made up in her own head, and that was evident, but she tried to pretend that it wasn't. She wiped her tears away, and she acted like they weren't going to come back, despite them already pushing through, threatening to fall over again and again.

"But he saw me when I left 327, and he followed me -- he said that we needed to talk in private and that we had to do it right then. He told me that that was the last time he was ever coming back to the Philippines, as much as he loved it and as much as he cared about me, and that everything we had between us had to end. It was so out of nowhere. We were so happy and we were thriving, and then suddenly, he was bidding me farewell.

"So many bad things crossed my mind when he said that. I thought about telling him I was pregnant with his child, just to force him to stay with me, but I knew I not only couldn't do that --it would be impossible because we never slept together. He didn't want to. He barely wanted to kiss me, but I didn't care. I didn't care at all because this was the first man in my lifetime that I loved truly for his soul and not for his physical touch, and I thought it was the same way for me. I thought that we didn't need any of those things and we could be happy. We were that couple that found love in each other's purity and simplicity, that I always thought was superior to any other. I thought I found the love I always wanted, but I guess we weren't it. We weren't the ones. I guess our love wasn't that strong. But murder? Murder was never on my mind.

"All I asked for is one last time -- one last day. I wanted him to see everything I prepared for him, and I thought that maybe if he saw all the effort I made for him, he would change his mind. I wanted him to flaunt me like I was his girlfriend because he was never the tell-the-public type, and he gave all of that to me too, as far as he was able to. He told everyone that I was the love of his life, and he kissed me front of everyone and he held me like I was the only one he would ever want to hold, but it got cut short. And everything that I was excited for and everything that I was still anticipating, even if it was going to be the last one, fell apart, because he was dead. He died right in front of me. In front of us.

"You understand me, don't you guys? You understand that that was possibly supposed to be the last day of us and I still don't know exactly why, but it was also supposed to be the very best day of my life. It'd be a bittersweet one -- maybe a day entirely sweet because maybe he would've returned to me entirely too. Maybe whatever was giving him cold feet would've went away when we spent our day together in love. We had plans for the future. Near future, yes, but the future nonetheless, and I was ready for it. He wasn't supposed to die. I loved him. I love him, and I always will."

Watching her drown herself in a flood of her own sadness got to each of us, and the most any of us could do was fidget before her, because we asked for this, in a way. We indirectly asked her to cry in front of us, which was beginning to make me feel like the bad person here. I felt like I was the one who was destroying her and like I was the reason she ached from the inside. I didn't do anything to her. I rarely ever communicated with her, but out of the blue I felt I had at least partial responsibility for her tears and for her sorrows. I felt like maybe she wasn't the monster I thought she was, but that maybe I was a monster without realizing.

It's hard not to feel like that when tears are falling in front of you.

"I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry you have to take it especially hard," I told her, kneeling down to her and hugging her like she once did me, and I prayed that when I did she didn't look at me in terror like how I once looked at her. I hoped that she saw me as a good person that wanted to be there for her. A good person who was afraid of every possibility of what killed my friend.

"Thank you," she stated, her knuckle smearing away the last remnants of the droplets from her damp cheeks, and then, she started to laugh the kind of laugh that you do when you don't want to cry anymore. Because no one else wanted to address what had happened, she, the one still fighting tears, had to take it upon herself to shift the conversation.

"D-do I get my question now? Can I ask?" She stuttered to get through it. Her gaze landed on every one of us before she let it settle on Jewee, and she saw each of us nod out of sympathy.

"Jewee," she called out, still sniffle-y, and he snapped his head up to look at her from the ground. "We talked this over when you were in your room. We talked about you, specifically. You were right. I was suspecting you, if you want to say it that way, and I have my reasons. I'm just wondering, did you take the full dosage of the vaccine?"

That's it. It sounded simple, and that's what she wanted after having to tell a personal story that made her vulnerable in front of us. It didn't seem like it was equal. It seemed like for what it was, she wasn't asking for much after having to go so far to earn that, but her expression was like she thought she'd won. She thought she got a victory.

It's as if she knew something subconsciously that comes out of situations when you love someone enough, like how a mother knows when her child is sick even if the doctor sends her away. I thought it was funny that she could be so certain about such a thing without any actual sufficient proof and I was expecting that soon after, she'd be feeling embarrassed for going out of her way for a question so simple.

But Jewee didn't answer. He shut his eyes tight. Then tighter. He begged whatever higher power he believed in to take him away, to allow him to vanish -- to become invisible for the time being. You could see the hope he had for the impossible, yet of course, it didn't happen, and when he opened his eyes and he had to accept that he was here, and that he wasn't getting away, his shoulders slouched, defeated by a memory of the past.

"No," he said, shamefully. "I didn't."

Jared perked up. He was more surprised than any of us. "What? Why didn't you tell me? I know you keep secrets, but you never kept secrets from me!"

"Because I-- because it's -- I saw -- I --,"

"You saw what? What happened?"

"When I'm putting the needle, I stop in the middle because I hate looking it's in my skin and it drop to the floor beneath the counter. When I go there to pick it up, I saw taped to the bottom of that counter a--"

"Huh? I don't understand. I don't get you," Jared told him. He wanted to say more out of feeling betrayed, but he didn't know how. He didn't know how to express his feelings, and part of him knew that this wasn't the time. That he had to allow Jewee to talk for now. That he had to wait until he could confront him.

"A gun," his breath shook. "And I'm just looking there like 'what should i do? why this is here?' -- so shocked that I cannot move for very long time, and then everything turns black and blurred, I can't see anything. I only hear you all are complaining because you can't see too, but when I am recovered the gun is not there anymore and Ryan is laying in the floor, bleeding. I should move the gun, no? I should of move it so they cannot find."

All of our jaws dropped. Even Jayvee's. I don't know what she was expecting him to say, but it definitely wasn't that.

"B-but I--," Jewee tried to continue. By now, his whole body was trembling and if I didn't see wrong his eyes were going into the back of his head. He was near to collapsing. "But I-- I didn't kill him! I don't have black out, I'm not sick! I experience same like you from the vaccine. It's coincidence only that the gun disappear after I find it. I didn't kill him. I swear to you!"

Then he did fall, and I caught him, trying to keep his weight upright, but every touch of his skin to mine stung.

I didn't want to touch him. His words were too terrifying.

Far too terrifying.