Page 67 of Chasing Mr. Prefect
I put my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me.
“AGH, I LOVE YOU!” I cried out in his ear and he hugged me back with such enthusiasm that he managed to lift me off my feet. “I’m graduating on time! Take that, Summer!”
“Okay, sshh, we don’t want you to get in trouble for noise!” Cholo said, laughing in my ear. “Make sure you attend 170 class tomorrow and the briefing for our 199 Practicum subject next week. You’ll need both before they let you enlist.”
I broke off from him and squished his cheeks in my hands. “You are the best, best,bestboyfriend ever!”
“Like you had a choice,” he groaned but laughed right after. “Be careful on your way home.”
“Oh, aren’t you going home yet?” I asked, looking at my watch. “There’s no meeting for Ephemere today.”
“Um, today’s the meeting for those thinking of running for Dresden Management Club Executive Committee,” he muttered and I watched in delight as his ears turned red, a telltale reaction of him getting nervous or flustered. “And, uh, I just wanted to see what’s in store and stuff.”
“Bullshit,” I said happily and I slapped his hand away when he tried to cover my mouth. “Everyone’s rooting for you. Go.”
“They are?”
“Cholo Sunico Valiente!” I snapped. “Don’t you play coy with me. You knew that from the start. Now go make us proud.”
“You know I will,” he said and after giving me a huge kiss on the forehead, he made his way to the stairs. “You take care, Lavinia.”
I smiled and waved before leaving for home.
I was practically skippingwhile I waited for Dad to pull over at the mall exit. When he pulled over, I was surprised to see that Liana was not on the passenger seat so I took it.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, a little too cheerfully that he gave me a weird look. “Where’s Liana?”
“She’s having a few drinks with her co-interns,” he answered, not smiling. I pulled my seatbelt and fastened it, thinking of how to tell him the news. “They’re celebrating since it’s their last day and most of them are graduating.”
The last word hung in the air like an ominous rain cloud, insinuating my dad’s disappointment but I tried not to let it bother me.
“Miss Co spoke to Cholo.”
Dad looked at me once and turned his eyes back on the road as we approached the Ayala stoplight.
“Miss Co is not going to flunk me, after all,” I said, my voice small and suppressed. “I can still graduate on time!”
He didn’t react. The small balloon of hope in my chest deflated, leaving a hollow space that felt horrible.
“Dad?” I prompted again, hoping there was more to that anticlimactic reaction. I was expecting my being grounded was going to be lifted at the very least.
“Did you try to talk to your prof?” he asked me. I felt my eyebrows knit themselves together, confused.
“I… No.”
“Before Cholo told you this, were you planning to make an appeal at all?”
I blinked and stared at the windshield, feeling ashamed of myself. I could not even respond as my answer would have been embarrassing. My plan was not to attend that class anymore and I just accepted that I was not going to graduate on time. Just like that. Talking to Miss Co did not cross my mind at all because I was too scared.
Dad seemed to understand what my silence meant. “Vinnie,” he said, and his tone took on one that was more hurtful than the one he had used when he was scolding me last weekend. “While I understand that Cholo takes most of the credit for you talking to me again, I’m finding his presence a bit inhibiting for you.”
My hands clenched into fists as I let those words sink in.
“Paano kung hindi niya pala kinausap?” he asked me as we sped along EDSA Southbound, which was surprisingly traffic-free. “Will you just let things be? Stop thinking of what’s good for you?”
I hung my head.
“I have let myself be excluded from your life so I guess I am also at fault but it seems to have had adverse effects on you. Forthe longest time, you didn’t have anyone to stand up for you or tell you what to do so you learned to be independent. But now that you have Cholo, you just let him do things and decide for you. Where did Vinnie go?”