Back Then

It was a normal day in Lestington High. A cloud-covered sky above me, combined with the post-lunch afternoon made me feel groggy during the break. To combat this, I headed to the vending machine to get a coffee to drink, hoping the walk would help energize me as well.

When I arrived at the vending machine, someone was already using it. I stopped and hid from them because I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now.

I poked my head out to see when they would be done so that I could come out of hiding. A girl with long butter-blonde hair was using it. She struggled between two choices of drinks: strawberry milk or milk tea. She hovered her finger on the button, switching between them before she came to a decision.

Beep!

The button was pressed, and the vending machine acknowledged with a beep, but no drink was dispensed.

She cocked her head to the side before she pressed the button again.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Still, nothing came out.

She now knocked on the machine, pressing all the buttons as if she was fine with anything as long as it came out until the vending machine gave in and pushed out all sorts of drinks and snacks into its pick-up compartment.

The girl turned left and right in panic. After judging that no one saw what she did, she picked up a drink and ran away. And while she was running away, I happened to catch a glimpse of the drink she chose.

A plain milk.

She probably panicked and picked the first thing she saw and ran away.

Now that she was gone, I walked up to the vending machine. Indeed, the malfunction caused it to drop so many items into the compartment. Before I bought my drink, I looked at the compartment to see that one of the items was what I needed.

A latte coffee.

Picking up the can and popping it open, I took a sip of the coffee; it tasted smoother than usual, probably because I didn’t pay for it. I toasted in the direction of where the girl ran off to, thanking her for the free drink before I returned to my friends.

That was the first time I ever owed a drink to someone.

A simple can of coffee owed to a girl I didn’t know the name of.

Technically, I didn’t owe her anything since she didn’t pay for it. However, the whole situation was so stupid that I decided to pretend that that was the case just for the sake of it.

Maybe one day I would be able to pay her back, but who knew? We were nothing but strangers, after all, that might be the last time I ever saw her, either.

That is, until the very next day, I was sitting in class, talking to my friends about some weekend show as we waited for the Math period to start. The bell rang, and the door swung open.

It was that girl again.

The teacher scolded her for being late and running into the room before letting her go. As she made her way to her seat, our eyes met momentarily before she looked away. I had to assume that our eyes met because her bang was covering them as well as her black frame glasses.

But as she was turning away from me, there was a slight moment where I caught a glimpse of her face behind that curtain of hair; she was unexpectedly cute. Sitting down in her seat, she greeted her red-haired friend as she prepared for the class.

Not long after, the teacher did a roll call. Each student raised their hand after having their name called. Anderson Peak, Jordan Trece, Kayle Holter. Until...

“Lena Marshal.”

“Here.” The blonde-haired girl raised her hand before putting it down after the teacher marked her down.

That was the moment I was finally able to link a name to that face.

‘Lena Marshal. So that’s the name of who I owed my drink to...’

From that moment onward, Lena stood out from the background, probably because of the one-sided promise I made as a joke.

And how would I repay her exactly? I didn’t know that myself. But it shouldn’t be hard since I’ve learnt that we shared a lot of classes. There would be an opportunity to repay her in the future, so I kept observing her from afar from that day onward, and honestly, the more I learnt about her, the more amusing she was to watch.

First, I learned that she was shy. When we had to do a presentation, she would always sucked on mints. One time, the teacher called for her, and she panicked and almost choked on her mint.

Then I learned that she was clumsy. One time, she was taking a break from her schoolwork, and she perched her glasses on her head to rest her eyes. And when she was done resting, she couldn’t find her glasses, so she asked a seatmate if he had seen her glasses, and when he pointed out that they were on her head, she hurriedly got them down, thanking him as her face grew red from embarrassment.

And then I learned that she was a fan of mine. There was a series I starred in that bombed since the first episode. I was lured in by the reputation of the studio without knowing that the old crew that made it famous had left after a disagreement with the owner. The moment I read the script, I knew it was already over, but I couldn’t quit because I’d already signed the contract. I was pretty bummed out by it, but one time, I happened to see Lena watching it during the break. Her friend asked how it was, and she said:

“It’s pretty bad, but Rachel tried her best, so I’m gonna continue.”

Her comment stuck with me. I never cared for my job as an actress, but I always tried my best with my work. They paid me, so I repaid them by playing whatever they wanted to see. Only the result mattered, as long as they got what they paid for, they would be happy. But at the end of the day, they didn’t see me; they only saw characters and the reputation I built up since I was young. This was the first time someone saw me for me and the amount of hard work I put into my craft.

Time passed by without me being able to repay her. The distance between us has stayed the same ever since the first time I got to know her.

And then one day, I noticed that our eyes met a lot. I first noticed it during Mr. Spencer’s class when he was talking about some historical fact that I was sure wouldn’t be on the test. I was growing tired of his rambling, so I looked around the class since it was better to do that than to listen to him.

My eyes wandered until they landed on Lena. For a moment, our eyes met before she broke eye contact. I didn’t think much of it, and I continued ignoring the teacher. That is, until our eyes happened to meet again.

‘What a coincidence...’ I thought before I took my eyes off her.

I couldn’t get my answer until one day, during a lunch break, I was headed to the vending machine for coffee like usual. When I got there, someone was already using it.

It was Lena. This time, she was accompanied by her friend.

Brushing the sense of deja vu aside as I hid away from them, I listened to their conversation from my hiding place.

“I know you like her, but at least you gotta be sneaky about staring at her, y’know? I’m pretty sure she caught you staring a few times before.”

“You think so?!”

“Yeah! I saw her stare at you right after you looked away. So I’m sure she’d caught you at least once.”

Now it made sense, our eyes met because we kept staring at each other. I could probably guess that Lena stared at me because she was my fan, but what I didn’t understand was why my eyes were drawn towards her.

I repeated that question and thought about it long and hard throughout the day, from when I took a bus back home, to when I ate my dinner and finally until when I was lying in my bed.

By then, my mind was a jumbled mess as a result of thinking too much, and to relax my brain, I turned on my phone to scroll on social media. There was a poster of the show I starred in. As I was reading the post, I caught myself wondering if Lena would enjoy watching it, and I felt a smile naturally appear on my face.

That was the moment I realized;

“I have a crush on Lena.”

Just by saying that changed the way I breathe. It made my every past action clear. Why my eyes were drawn towards her, why I wanted to repay her for the can of coffee, why I kept thinking about her when she wasn’t around; it was all because of a slight crush that I had no idea when it first began.

From then on, nothing really changed aside from the fact that I was aware of my own feelings. I would watch Lena from afar, never approaching her because I never had the chance to– no, because I kept making excuses not to.

I would tell myself that since she was shy, she would be anxious if I approached her all of a sudden. And even if we somehow managed to become friends, she would be approached by all the people who wanted to get close to me; that was why my friend kept me around, after all. All those excuses led me to maintain the distance between us, so that she couldn’t get hurt from being associated with me.

And so the last day of school arrived. After the graduation ceremony was over, I chatted with my friends about where we should go to celebrate our graduation.

From today onwards, we will finally become adults. Many talked about which college they got into and their plan there, though I didn’t plan on going to one since my job as an actress already brought me good money, so there was no need for me to go to college.

As I was listening to my classmate talking about his plans in college, I happened to see Lena heading towards the school gate.

I wanted to talk with her, asking her what her plan for the future would be like. Even though I knew that this might be the last time I would be able to see her, I didn’t take a single step forward, all because I was hiding behind the wall of excuses. I took my eyes off her as I shared my plans with my classmate.

That was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.

The first few weeks after graduation, I went about my day just fine; a little bored because I couldn’t see her, but nothing to worry about. But then time went on, and pieces of her would appear in the briefest of moments.

When I was on the set, I would wonder if she was going to watch the show as I reviewed the script. Every time I walked past a girl with long blonde hair, I would turn to look at them, thinking that it was her. And whenever I drank a canned coffee, I would be reminded that I still hadn’t repaid her.

Those moments didn’t make me miserable; it merely felt like I lost a chunk of me, and I still thought that it was there, and I had to remind myself that it was no more.

Time passed by once more, and I was notified that someone was planning a secondary school reunion at Lestington High. I cracked a light smile as I read the details of the event. The wave of nostalgia flooded my mind with the scenes of the bygone days. The crowded hallways, the squeaky seat of the cafeteria table, and the lone vending machine at the end of an empty hallway.

Only then did I consider that there was a possibility that Lena would go to the reunion, though I doubt that she would, due to her introverted personality. But still, I decided to go anyway.

And if by miracle we got to meet again, I swore I would not make the same mistake because I couldn’t bear to let her go for the second time.