The Star Shines Brightest from Afar //Refrain

Ding dong bing bong.

The school bell announces the end of class and the beginning of a new day.

I take my time packing all my things and leisurely head down the stairs towards the school’s wide open front door. There’s not that many people—or noise—by now; almost everyone rushes out the door the second they hear the bell.

My brief time walking through the hallways feels like a much-needed calm after hours and hours of incessant storm. The only people I ever see are teachers preparing for meetings, correcting tests or scolding misbehaving students, as well as some fellow peace and quiet enjoyers from other classes.

It’s my last year at this school, so I should keep enjoying the little things while I can—after all, there’s no way to be sure that when I leave middle school and enter the much larger local high school, any of the things I take for granted now will be maintained.

Like for example—

“…”

She doesn’t even seem to notice me passing by her on my way out. She must be waiting for someone—probably her parents to take her home. I hear she lives pretty far. I wonder why she picked this school if it was so inconvenient.

She doesn’t acknowledge me, so I try not to stare too much.

I’m just a classmate, one of twenty-seven—so I do as is expected of me and just disappear into the background.

A new day has just started, and once again I can’t wait for it to end.

***

Erika Herrera is my classmate.

Calling her a friend would be ridiculous; I can probably count from memory how many times we’ve engaged in any noteworthy conversation, and a single hand would suffice. At most, an acquaintance—occasional partner for group projects, often in the same team as me for PE out of pure statistic, and my best friend’s old friend.

Out of all my current classmates, she’s certainly in the bottom fifth as far as my level of interaction with them goes.

And yet, for over a year now, I’ve hardly managed to get her out of my mind.

Half-foreign by birth, she’s spent all her life in this town just like I have, but perhaps her Asian genes prevail outside her looks—for as long as I’ve known her, she’s felt as if she lived inside a plane of existence all to her own.

Always polite though not in an overdone way, not shy but of few words, and always at the top three of the class. Incidentally, sharing that podium with me and one of my best friends.

Though that’s not to say we are academic rivals—that would be me and Miguel, the third member of said podium and the guy I call almost every day after school to do homework together. We make quite a good pair, he and I—on one side, he’s your average hardworking student who just so happens to be pretty intelligent. Then there’s me, a lazy bum who will do as much as he needs to not disappoint his parents or teachers, and almost nothing more than that. We probably don’t look like we’re compatible, but friendships between dudes don’t really care about stuff like that.

I’ve been blessed with the gift of being able to understand things relatively quickly, so I help Miguel whenever he’s stuck on something, and Miguel helps me when I got distracted the day before or if I forgot to do my homework.

But Erika—she just goes into it alone, from what it seems. It’s not like she’s antisocial, she’s got plenty of friends among the girls, but academically she doesn’t feed off anyone. She’s up at the top competing with Miguel and I—often easily surpassing us—without needing any help at all. Her dedication feels effortless, her consistency astounding. Even though she doesn’t have Miguel’s charisma or social skills, nor my supposed learning advantage that got me in their grade while being a year younger, she feels to me like a much more complete person than either of us.

I do wish I could talk to her more. Become closer to her—perhaps learn why it is that she fascinates me so much.

***

“Can I share your laptop?”

Erika Herrera has decided to sit right next to me in Spanish class today.

Our teacher had told all of us to participate in a local writing competition for middle and high schools in the province. We were all meant to submit a work of our own and it’d be graded by the teacher before being sent to the contest organizers, but she seemed to have chosen a bunch of us to push harder for a little bit of extra quality.

“You four write okay, I think you may advance in the contest if you put in some extra effort. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do as much homework as the rest until you submit your entries.”

Herrera, my friend Miguel and I were all chosen to try and aim for the win. We were told to help each other and offer feedback so that we may produce at least one finalist between us all. Quite a noble endeavor if we didn’t all kind of suck, but there’s still nothing wrong with giving it our best shot so we’re just going for it.

Because of some stuff that went on in my first year of middle school, and also because it’s useful for them to give me extra stuff to do, they’ve allowed me to bring a school-spec laptop to class as long as I only use it when appropriate. And well, our current objective being writing some short stories to submit through an email address, writing and editing them on the computer seems far more intuitive than having to keep making new copies on paper every time we want to change something. The only issue is that, well, there’s only one laptop for the three of us. Asking the school to give them one each would waste most of our time just to get approval.

So, as I was saying.

Today Erika Herrera is sitting next to me in Spanish class, and she’s asking to borrow my laptop to edit her story.

“Yeah, sure, no problem. I need to catch up with homework, I won’t be needing it.”

“Thank you…”

I pass her the diminutive computer and the charging cable in case she needs it, and turn away to once again focus on my own work.

Or so I intended.

It doesn’t quite end up working out that way—I take a while to realize, but by the time class ends, my homework is mostly untouched.

In the place inside my mind where it should be, there’s something else hogging up all available resources—Erika.

I don’t know when it happened or why it happened, but I’ve spent most of the hour just focusing on her, stealing furtive glances, wondering about her story and how she plans to edit it.

I guess I’ll get to read it soon enough and find out.

***

“You’ve got a crush on her, brother.”

“Where’d that come from?”

“Come on, buddy, you’re always trying to sit close to her for music class. And when they changed the order in our normal classroom…”

“That’s just bullshit, we didn’t even get to decide our seats.”

“So the first one’s true.”

“I don’t think wanting to sit next to someone who makes no noise and won’t be asking you to let him copy your homework every day is unreasonable.”

“Poor Ortiz, man. I thought you were friends.”

“Sure but I’d rather not be his babysitter as well.”

“Whatever floats your boat mate. I guess she ain’t too bad.”

“She’s got a nice face.”

“She’s an iron board, your friend Alicia’s prettier.”

“Yeah look, I don’t think I like Erika that way. She’s intriguing, and I wish we talked more, but that’s it. You’re right about Alicia though.”

“Yeah of course I’m right. And I’m pretty sure she likes you, mate, just stop being a wimp.”

“Sheesh, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Fantastic.”

“Here’s the Physics problem. Have you finished those History notes or…?”

“I don’t feel like it. I’ll send them at 8.”

“Cool. By the way, I played that game you gave me last week…”

***

My first term grades arrived today, and my parents don't look too happy about them.

My father, as always, is the most vocal about his displeasure.

“You got a six in two subjects, and an eight in five... It’s not really the best you could do, is it?”

“... You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Listen, I understand you’re not that good at PE or art or whatever and that’s fine, though you should still do your best, but for everything else we know how well you can do. You still got a bunch of nines and tens in your report card so why can’t you get there for the rest?”

“Well, it was just bad luck—”

“For half the subjects? And I guess that new Nintendo we bought you with the promise you’d get better scores, has nothing to do with these at all. Nor does the fact that you’re always on your computer.”

“T-they send us homework through the Internet now, and we’re told to write essays and stuff on a PC...”

“We both know that you’re not just using the thing for homework. Don’t you dare try to lie to us. You’re addicted to all those nasty screens, and we’re the stupid ones because we keep letting you use them. This is your last chance—I sure hope your scores look better for spring break.”

“Yeah, dad, they will, don’t worry... I always do worst in the first term anyway...”

“I won’t get too annoying, it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow, but you better keep yourself in check.”

And thus the cycle repeats.

***

Today I’ve just woken up from a strange dream.

In it, I wake up in a room similar to my own, in a body that feels similar to mine—or well, that’s only until I make any movements at all.

This body—shorter than mine, slimmer than mine, lighter than mine. My hair is now a little bit longer than shoulder length, my face devoid of that nasty facial hair that has been getting stronger on mine lately, and my chest slightly yet noticeably curved.

I get up from my bed and go look in the mirror—I recognize the face on it instantly.

It’s Erika Herrera —no. I’m Erika Herrera.

And while it feels many ways—surprising, new, unknown, exhilarating, panic-inducing—there’s one way it specifically does not feel. Wrong.

It might be the complete opposite.

I’ve never felt this way before, I’ve never inhabited a body so different from mine—well how could I have? Nobody gets more than one body to ‘try out’—yet somehow, this one feels so much better than the one I know.

I get ready for class and make my way there—the dream gets kind of blurry through that part, and before I notice I’m sitting in the classroom as if nothing ever happened. On my seat.

I find myself acting with mannerisms I don’t recognize, speaking with Erika’s voice, my words imbued with a freedom that I’ve never felt before.

And then suddenly, an alarm goes off, and everything turns pitch black.

…

I’ve just woken up from a strange dream. A strange, but very alluring one. It’s not often that I remember them afterwards, but this—every detail is ingrained in my memory.

Even in my dreams, she haunts me—the ghost of who I’m not.

***

November 3rd is the day I confess to Erika Herrera.

I wrote a love letter—it’s full of big meaningless words and stupid metaphors that I already hate. But the letter has been sitting there, fully written, for two months, and just a few minutes ago I gave it to Alicia for her to deliver in my stead. I’m a massive dickhead, aren’t I…

Every period before lunch break feels like unrelenting, time-bending absolute torture.

There’s no god or devil to blame for this, I really am doing it all to myself. Even though I know the result, I’m still going ahead regardless. I wonder why. What am I expecting to get out of this exactly…?

It’s not like we’ve become any closer these past few months.

Yes, we’ve sat together a couple of times; yes, I helped her understand one class activity that one day. But that’s all. They’re meaningless interactions—at most, being optimistic, maybe I register in her mind as an awkward but nice classmate with good scores. Certainly not enough for this stupid confession to yield any results other than a blatant ‘no’—but I’m still here, waiting.

I’m still doing it.

I’m obsessed with her—her every quality is something to think about, something I lack, something I wish I could be. And in her it’s so… natural. I’m nothing more than an ordinary guy with many, many, many, many defects, but she—Erika Herrera is the closest thing to “perfection” that I’ve ever been witness to.

… At last, lunch break is finally here.

I know I should probably be there and face her directly when it all goes down. Why else would one want to confess in the first place if it wasn’t to know the answer—but I chose not to when I gave Alicia that letter.

As soon as the bell rings, I make my way to the school library as fast as I can without being shouted at for running in the halls.

Time there, too, is excruciating—arguably a lot more so than back in class, but then again it also lasts far shorter.

Not even ten minutes have passed before Miguel barges in, and motions for me to go out. Of course, I know exactly where we’re going—to that one corner right across the main school building. That’s where Erika Herrera, my friend Alicia and the rest of their group usually eat lunch in.

Upon arriving—well, I should have expected this—everyone seems to be waiting for me. Alicia hands me a piece of paper, which I immediately recognize as the same letter I asked her to deliver just a few hours ago, and I quickly scan it with my eyes.

At the very bottom, right next to where I’d signed, she’d written something in red pen—

Thank you. –Erika

That’s it, huh?

My heart is racing like never before, but for some reason I feel—relieved.

I thank Alicia for everything; she looks pained yet like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

Oh, right I forgot. I’m an awful person. I apologize to her mentally since I’m too much of a coward to tell her straight.

And through all of that, Erika Herrera—she doesn’t look at me once.

Deciding I have no reason to stay around, my heart already calming down but my mind still completely knocked out, I choose to just walk around the school grounds a bit. Still some time left until the end of lunch break after all.

Miguel, who’s apparently not stopped following me around, waits a bit until we’re far away enough before speaking up again. I’m glad I have friends like him.

“Hey, perhaps you should ask her straight…? Doesn’t seem completely hopeless to me, so maybe…”

Aah, so that’s it. He doesn’t really get it, does he? —This is how I always thought it would go.

“No need. I’ve already heard my answer loud and clear—what need would there be to hear it twice?”

***

Strangely enough, Herrera’s rejection hasn’t affected me as much as I imagined it would. Of course, the rest of that day was hellish, but after the school week ended I’d mostly gotten over it. Since I’d been unable to get her out of my mind for months at this point, I thought I’d feel a lot worse—though to be fair, nothing really had changed.

I was still thinking about her all the time.

My relationship with her hasn’t changed at all, either. We’ve even kept sharing my laptop and working on each other’s stories and will do so until we submit them at last early next week.

At this point, and I know it’s barely been any time since I confessed and got unquestionably rejected, I do have to wonder—am I really in love with Erika Herrera?

Coming to terms with my own feelings… I thought it would be a lot easier than this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, whether this is love or something else, whether they’re feelings I should be having in the first place.

Perhaps I never wanted to date Erika Herrera.

Perhaps I just wanted to become closer to her, in a vain hope that I’d somehow become more like her. That I’d somehow become her.

And if that’s the case, I can’t help but ponder on what it means that my obsession hasn’t dissipated one bit.

… In other news, today the Spanish teacher announced we’d be doing a theater play at the end of the school year. For some reason that only she knows about, she offered me the role of the main heroine—and for some reason that not even I know about, I took it.

***

Two weeks later, as the final rush of exams before winter break fast approaches, the school at large seems to have forgotten my shoddy confession. Now it’s only brought up by my friends when they want to tease me—which to be fair is quite often. I have a feeling they won’t let me forget that little mishap for a long time, not that I would even if left alone.

Though it strikes me as a tad weird when Alicia starts talking about it one afternoon, after we meet supposedly for helping her study math.

“It came up yesterday again when I was talking to her…”

“Oh yeah? Judging by how she acts I thought she barely noticed it happening.”

“I know she rejected you kinda bluntly but don’t be too harsh on her, she obviously won’t forget that easily. She says it’s only the second time she’s been confessed to.” I had a slight idea of who might have been the first.

“Yeah, sure, I was joking. So what’d she say about it now?”

“Well, uh… she had some choice words when I asked why she rejected you.”

I know you’re his friend so don’t take this too badly, but—that’s how my friend Alicia starts the quote. My gut instinct knows to prepare for what’s coming.

He’s just---I don’t know. Arrogant? He’s not very hard-working, and yet he expects results and gets upset when they don’t arrive. And in the few places where he’s consistently good, he seems to think he deserves special treatment for figuring it out earlier than the majority of the class. Well, it’s whatever—I’m sure he’ll move on quickly.

… I guess I haven’t prepared myself enough. How could I?

For the first time in this whole ordeal, I break into tears.

It feels like my soul is being torn away from my flesh only to be publicly wrought out until all its ugly contents lay bare for everyone to see. I can’t help but wonder how many people secretly feel that way about me and simply don’t voice it—I sincerely doubt it’s just Herrera.

After all, I would never have guessed that this was her opinion of me just from our interactions up to this point.

They may have been few, but they were cordial and natural, right?

At least they felt that way to me.

No—it doesn’t matter how I feel about it. After all, it’s clearly one-sided—if there’s a way to describe our whole relationship, surely there’s no better word for it than that.

I need to be better than this—can I be better than this at all?

For an instant I’m tempted to ask Alicia what she thinks about all those things Herrera said about me. Does she agree? Does she think I’m a self-entitled brat who thinks he deserves to be treated differently at every turn?

But there’s no way I can actually ask her. Of course—even the idea that she might like me is probably just a product of my own ego.

I don’t want to lose a friendship I treasure. I’ve already done enough to regret for a very long time.

***

“Would you like to make a short film as a special project for our student exchange program?”

My English teacher approaches me one day at the end of class to suggest such an outrageous idea that I have to stop and wonder what the catch, the hidden meaning, even is. But there seems to be no such thing. She says she’s the coordinator for the exchange thing and came up with the idea of making a student video to kind of… present our talents as a school, I suppose. Except she’s apparently counting on me to say yes, because when I ask her she has no backup plan whatsoever.

And when she tells me what I’d be signing up for—directing, storyboarding, scripting, shooting, editing, producing, audio-mixing, presenting, interviewing teachers and students for a ten-minute short film—the actual scope of the favor I’m being asked for starts to sink in.

It’s not like I get anything in return apart from the satisfaction of having made the thing.

It’s the same for all the other little extra tasks I’m given, allegedly catering to my “special needs”—make a presentation about this topic, explain this or that, investigate that thing we glossed over. I don’t get a reduction in my regularly scheduled work, but I do get to enjoy myself creating. I guess it is, by definition, special treatment—I’m the only one to be given these chances for the most part—but it’s not something with any tangible benefit for me. So I never have a valid reason to say yes. So I have never once said no.

And this time’s no different.

Obviously, working on something as interesting, as full of possibilities and of fun to be had as this is far more appealing than regular boring homework. So for the next few weeks it becomes my number one priority.

About a week in, I have more or less written an outline of how I want the film to go—I have a lot of restrictions and a list of topics I have to cover, but I somehow manage to fit it all in without feeling like it’s too boring. The day my teacher tells me to, I arrive at school with my compact camera, ready to start shooting as soon as I got the go-ahead.

What I am not expecting is to see Erika Herrera standing right beside the teacher at the AV room.

“I thought giving you all the work wouldn’t be fair, so I asked who would like to help and she raised her hand first. You’re both smart so I hope you’ll get along well.”

Why?

Why would you try to take this away from me?

Don’t go deciding that I need help on your own—don’t steal my only reason for enjoying this damned place.

“Y-yeah, no problem. Glad to have you here, Herrera.”

“Same here. Hope we can make a good video.”

I can’t say I particularly enjoy the rest of that shooting session, though I do manage to get a couple takes that I’m pretty happy with.

As the project goes on, I get used to Herrera kind of just being there and putting on a nice face for all the teachers who participate in some way. The creative tasks are mostly all still mine—which is a relief because from the beginning I wanted this to be my work, to have my ideas inhibited as little as possible within the rules I’ve been given. But I can’t deny it’s also a tad annoying.

Erika Herrera doesn’t write, she doesn’t take any pictures or videos that aren’t carefully directed by me, she doesn’t spend hours editing or cutting and mixing the audio at home in her free time. But what she does do is look nice in front of the camera, perform half the interviews and read some of the narration. At some point Miguel gets asked to join as well, so I give him a couple lines to read and that’s about it. But it’s not Miguel that’s the problem here.

Miguel isn’t the one giving ‘suggestions’ and ‘ideas’ that I’m forced to consider over my own yet fail to offer anything of note except giving me more work to do.

Why would you join in on this, Herrera?

Why, after you said that you hated this kind of special treatment—that it made me look arrogant?

And especially after you said I didn’t put in a lot of effort—why are you limiting yourself to the bare minimum?

Why, when you do everything so splendidly… I guess to you I’m not even worth the pretense.

You really did shine brightest from afar, Erika. I’ll never forget the you that I saw, nor will I forgive the you that you showed me.

Incidentally, the video turned out pretty decent. Around twelve minutes of length and a month or so of production time—up to that point in my life, it was my biggest creative achievement. Erika Herrera shared equal credits with me on the final product.

***

Our graduation from middle school has come and gone with no major incidents or noteworthy events.

That English teacher did gift me a book as a thank you for making that video—I have no clue if Herrera got a copy too. It remains my happy goodbye letter to an important phase of my life.

That graduation day was also the last time I spoke to Erika Herrera, when I gave her the diploma for the writing contest. We both ended up being the only runners-up from our whole city.

“Thank you”, was all she said to me.

***

Six years later.

Earlier today, I saw her again at our local videogame store. I don’t know why I was shocked at all—I always knew she liked games, and this store is the only one of its kind within reasonable distance.

I probably haven’t seen her since junior high ended, have I…?

She went to a different high school than mine and our mutual friends stopped talking with her over time. There was no reason for me to hang on, that chapter remains closed.

But today—today felt a bit different than last time.

Well, of course. It’s been six years. People change quite quickly when they’re teenagers, don’t they…? Though perhaps in my case that change may seem starker than for others.

She was about to finish paying for a new game that had just come out when I entered the store. Of course, I was talking with a friend who’d come with me, so I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t recognize her.

Then, naturally, she turned around. And, naturally, she saw me.

For the first time, her eyes lingered on my face.

“Hello”, I said with a smile. And that’s when it seemed to click.

“Hello”, she replied back, her expression polite as ever, and then walked past me, showing no difference in her demeanor. But one of her friends—another old classmate of mine—didn’t seem to be as unconcerned by the realization.

“You’re… a g—"

A smile seemed to be all the confirmation she needed, running back towards Herrera with her face tinged red.

That’s right, Erika Herrera. Even six years later, I’m not there yet, but I promise you—someday, one day, I’ll reach you.

Until then—goodbye.

And thanks for everything.