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The Girl Who
Sat Beside Me
    It was the day
school reopened after two months of summer break. There was so much
catching up to do with friends and I had planned to sit with one of
them, but our teacher put me in the last row with her. The last row
away from the windows.
    She was a smart
girl and one of the few I liked in class, but there was one awkward
knot between us. Have you ever tried threading a needle and found
out that the knot you made at the end of the thread wasn’t big
enough to catch in the cloth? It was that kind of knot—apparent but
useless.
    A year ago she
had wanted to date me, but I was seeing another girl and politely
declined. It was the honorable thing to do but didn’t score me any
points with her. Two-time but never turn down a girl’s proposal, I
have learnt since then. Anyway, she bore my refusal
pleasantly—outwardly, at least—and talked easily whenever our paths
crossed. It must have been difficult because she hadn’t made a
secret of her liking for me and the other girls mocked her.
    Then I heard
she was seeing another boy, and felt easier myself. But just before
summer, we both fell out of our first affairs, and the class
grapevine caught the news and didn’t stop spreading it till the
holidays started.
    When I walked
up to her bench with my bag, she slid inside towards the wall but I
protested and gallantly offered the aisle seat to her. The first
class passed in silence as we both made a great show of being
engrossed by the teacher. But I couldn’t help noticing that she sat
with the fingers of her right hand clenched in a fist and the thumb
pressed between middle and forefinger. She had a thin olive skin on
which the veins showed very green. It was a very pretty and small
hand but the nails were sharp and shapely without being too long.
They were clean pink nails without any of the white discoloration
that is so common among teenagers.
    Bitter from my
first breakup, I felt a pang of regret for turning her down. She
wasn’t so pretty but would have proved loyal, and we would have
gone steady. Who knows, maybe to the end of our days!
    She was very
stiff when the class ended and looked straight at the head in front
of her. “Where did you go in the summer,” I asked to break the ice.
She lowered her elbows but keeping her fingers locked, faced me. I
don’t remember her answer because I was watching her teeth. Two
uniform rows of sparkling white set between wide but thin lips.
Those lips showed her teeth to full advantage and she looked
beautiful smiling. But she had a habit of pursing them tightly
which made them spread wider and gave her a duckish look, which was
tolerable in a living, fluid face but marred her appeal in
photographs.
    She wasn’t
being a duck talking to me. She unmeshed her fingers only to cross
her arms tightly before her waist. They pressed down on her white
shirt and I could make out the outline of her slip and the small
curves underneath it. I looked away sharply in the direction of the
teacher’s table but continued talking. She was being very pleasant,
smiling and talking with her best manners. Very prim and proper,
and I noticed that, too, because that wasn’t how we classmates used
to talk to each other.
    Another class,
and then another, and another. We talked every time the teachers
changed. We talked in the lunch break too because it was the rainy
season and it was raining heavily outside. And we talked about
things neither of us cared for. We were talking because ...
because—and this is just my view on it—when a boy and a girl feel
physically attracted to each other, words are like touch. We were
feeling up each other with words and I had no doubt she felt as
aroused about me as I did about her.
    Another teacher
came but my mind was wandering far from books and lessons. I was
thinking, considering in fact, my chances of succeeding in a
proposal to her. As things stood, I wanted a girlfriend very much,
and she was better than most girls I knew. She