“Karl.” She saw him respond to her voice. A twitch, a flinch. She saw how he slowly stir from his sleep. Her voice when she called for his name was barely a whisper and considering the two chairs between his and her seat, she can’t help but to feel a little flutter inside her chest. He heard her.
He finally glanced at her direction. The intensity of the eyes that are staring right through her caught Jeng a little off guard. The eyes that are supposedly still be in deep waters because of the remnants of a peaceful slumber are gazing at her with naked affection and burning warmth. She suddenly felt weak. He’s beside the windows making the lights of the approaching sunset filter through the curtains and cast themselves upon him. He looks like a god.
She knew it by now. He likes her. Or so much more than just "like". She has a lots of moments with him or of him to revisit. Moments like he would call her in the middle of the night just to ask how is she doing and would hang-up right away when she answers she’s fine, or when he’d go off his way to his apartment just to drop by her door and see her. When she would ask him what does someone like Karl Alejandro doing on the city’s side for people with unfortunate fates, like her, when he resides on the city’s side for opulent people, he would answer “I visited an old friend and thought I might see you since you’re just around his block.”. Months of his "unplanned" visit already convinced her his lying. And even though he would say those words with a hardly trace of emotions on his face plus with his hands in his pocket, his eyes say it all— I like you, I want to see you.
Moment like how he would hold her elbow, guiding her away from the crowded plaza of Naga, and it’s nerve-wracking how he knows she hates crowd. Moments like those, the close proximity of him made it possible to share the heat radiating between their bodies. The close proximity of him made it possible to make her feel safe and secure and frail and fragile all at the same time. As well as his voice dripping with a crazy amount of possessiveness and jealousy when he asked her why she was with Russel, thinking about it now, she feels giddy.
And right at his moment, what does a student of Architecture doing at the College of Arts and Letters? The fact that the campus of Institute of Architecture is two miles away from her campus and yet he’s here with her inside this empty room of EL-03, just the two of them, Karl looking at her and Jeng trying so hard to refocus and remember what was her original question. Crap.
“Are you not going home yet? It’s getting dark. You really don’t have to join me here. I have tons of papers to finish. I can’t have you here looking so bored and...” and godly.I might kiss you so go home. She stopped mid-sentence. Or rather, mid her sentences. Go on, tell him that and your dead.
She’s blabbering. Right, her mouth is in complete dysfunction now. As well as her mind and heart.
She tried to clear her throat and tried to shrug off the feeling his making her feel with those unbelievably deep brown eyes.
“You live far from here Karl.”
“Say it again.”
What?
She knows he can read her confused reaction with his words. It's basically written all over her face.
What is it that she has to repeat?
“You live far from here?” She asks more than tell to him.
“My name. Say it again.”
What?
She swears the boy is crazy. And handsome as hell. His godly countenance is not helping her right now and she just wants to scream in ecstatic frustration.
“Karl.” Her voice sounded so weak she suddenly felt her eyes stung from... from what?
Danica Gonzaga. She reminds herself once more. Because it seems like the more this thing she feels for him grow inside her, the more she forgets about the girl.
Danica Gonzaga, daughter of a mayor, model and young dress designer, beautiful, smart and innocent and most importantly, girlfriend to Karl Alejandro.
For the hundredth time for the past five months, just like that, she feels defeated and wicked and disappointed with herself. And with her heart.
Falling in love with Karl is achingly both heaven and hell.