We Real Cool 1 Running Late

I type in that rather well-accepted curse word and immediately send it. I don't know how Phil would think of it, but before I could even think it through, it's already too late.

Message sent. My phone hissed before me.

I close my eyes and hit the home b.u.t.ton, sighing.

Happy thoughts, Lizzie. I thought to myself. Happy thoughts.

I force a smile, put my phone in my pocket, and shove the books I've been reading for the last couple of hours into my bag. They can't fit. For some reason, I can't get the last one in when all three of them fit perfectly well earlier. How lovely.

I look around the library to check if someone is seeing how helpless and miserable I am now. The people I was sharing my table with had already left and the old lady who welcomed me in the room was replaced by a younger woman. So much so, the reading room was close to empty.

17:50. The wall clock confirmed my being here longer than I had planned. Great. It means that I've been here for almost nine hours, and that I'm already late for tonight's activity. I'm tired and hungry, and I'm dying on the inside. I might have already been dead. And there is simply no way of hiding—not with the look I'm sporting.

For starters, my hair is sticking out in all the wrong places. I love my layered hair, but in times like this when I just read Anna Karenina in one sitting, I end up pulling my hair out of frustration more times than I wish I would. As a result, it's as though I'd just rolled out of bed. I'm also wearing my favorite flip flops, but right now, now that I have to run for dear life, they're no good.

With these thoughts running in my food and sleep-deprived brain, I bolt towards the door and head for Annenberg, which is where I should have been since 5:30. Right now, all I want is to team up with some genius, invent a time machine, and eventually turn back time. You see, I'm carrying books as thick as the Bible, wearing something that I hadn't planned on wearing for the event I'm about to attend: my worn-out cropped top and similarly worn-out jeans. Had I remembered about tonight's Red Sox game (which I actually planned to attend but have completely forgotten about), I wouldn't have spent my day at Lamont in the first place. I would have woken up a little later so that my eye bags wouldn't even exist – at least just for today. Maybe, I would have jogged along Charles' or something. I would have checked out my favorite make-up tutorials on Vogue and tried putting on the best make-up I've ever applied on myself.

I'm sure that there'll be a lot of picture-taking involved, and I, like any other human being, want to look best. I would have done all of these cool things that would have resulted to a more decent, more human version of me because up until this point, everything that happened is just the total opposite.

I woke up at seven, thanks to the alarm I forgot to cancel the night before. I picked up my phone, noticed the dark circles under my eyes, told myself to go back to sleep but gloriously fail to. I decided to start the day unusually early despite my staying up 'til 2 or 3AM; I can't even remember the time exact time I slept.

I stretched a bit, maybe a little too much, because I fell on the floor. SIDENOTE: I don't understand why the beds are so narrow. As I lay helplessly on the carpeted floor, I contemplated about how I'd spend what I thought was a free day, and eventually deciding to read Anna Karenina for tomorrow's report. Our professor required us to pick our favorite writer and I picked Tolstoy. I did this to impress her, and now I wish I hadn't.

I love J.K. Rowling, but I decided to look into cla.s.sics because I've never really finished one before. And just like that, I put on the first thing I got a hold of and walked straight to the library. I hadn't even noticed up until earlier that I was wearing my worn-out flip flops. Right. They are worn out to the core they look like they've been through a tsunami or some sort of environmental crisis.

I read and read to my heart's content and ended up doing the same thing until two minutes ago. Wrong move. Lo and behold, here I am now, running late for the bus ride leaving for Boston. I feel like crying. My fear surprised me because I've never been anxious for being late or for saying "s.h.i.+t". Looking rather unkempt never scared me either. For some reason, I would always end up arriving on the nick of time and being understood by the people I'm with whenever I look like a mess or whenever I utter "s.h.i.+t".

Of course, I never said this when my folks were around, but whenever I did say it, I'd find whomever I'm with laughing so hard and eventually telling me that they didn't expect it from me at all. In other words, we end up having fun. In fact, on the day I met Phil, I was running late. We met while I was freaking out over the orientation venue, which I did not know about. I remember running back and forth along the dorm hallway, desperately looking for someone in-charge. I b.u.mped into a few students who were similarly clueless, and upon finding out that they also had no idea, felt completely helpless.

In my defense, I didn't receive an e-mail informing me about it, so I think—I know—I had a pretty good reason for running like a madman for what could have been a good ten minutes. Also, I might have been able to keep my cool if it weren't for my 50-pound luggage that I struggled to tow while I tried to connect my phone to the internet connection just so I could access Google Maps and find out where I was supposed to be. So much so, it was kind of the same nerve-racking situation I'm currently in.

Of course, my navigating efforts failed me. My phone could not connect to the internet, and I wanted to throw it away and just sit right there in the middle of the hallway. But just when I felt my eyes tear up, Phil slowly entered the scene.

With his deep-set brown eyes and charming smile, he made me feel okay. Trust me. He is the epitome of all things attractive. Perfectly tanned and simply good-looking, he looked like High School Musical's Troy, Cinderella's Prince Charming, and The Kissing Booth's Noah Flynn. Heck, even better, if you ask me.

He was, in brief, very enthralling and I was in a daze. My admiration for how he conducted himself, however, had nothing to do with romance; my instincts told me that we were going to be the best of friends. What made him even better was the fact that he seemed rather graceful, kind of feminine (I later found out that he was bis.e.xual, and that made me love him even more). I always got along with that type of guys—you know, the girly, feminine, harmless type of male. He also looked intelligent, so that was another plus.
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His British accent and his voice that was the right blend of smart and s.e.xy-sounding were also impressive. Don't get me wrong, though. I said this before and I'll say this again: I never thought of him as a love interest.

"I'm Philippe," he said when we first met. "But please, call me Phil."

I expected him to ask me if I was okay, but I badly wanted to make a friend—I think he felt the same way, too—so I responded with a smile as I held out my right hand for a handshake.

"Nice to meet you," I replied in the most regal way possible. "I'm Lizzie, but everyone calls me Liz. It's nice to meet you." We shook hands, exchanged compliments, and eventually talked about why we decided to spend our summer studying at a place so far away. He was, after all, from the United Kingdom, and I, from the Philippines.

He told me about how hard he worked just to join this summer program, and how his parents didn't even know much about his plans until he told them that he was leaving for the United States. I'm sure he's very well-provided, and the fact that he worked hard for his attendance at the program made me look up to him even more than I already did. When it was my turn to tell my story, I decided to take the road I didn't usually take: I, for once, attempted to make a joke.

"You know why I'm here, Phil?" I looked up when I asked him as we walked towards the program orientation. He's almost six-feet-tall; I'm five-foot-nothing.

"Hmmm," he responded. "You're here at Harvard because it's your dream school?"

"Nope," I replied with a smile.

He looked at me with eyes wide open and gave me a look that said, "Oh really?"

"I'm here to check out the really hot, smart, and maybe even rich guys because my friends have been nagging me about getting into a relations.h.i.+p, and I've taken it upon myself to find the most eligible gentleman in the most elitist university there is." I playfully told him.

He laughed, I laughed, and we pretty much laughed the whole time that day. Since then, Phil has not only been my friend, but has also been pretty much my overprotective mom. He's been checking on me since then. Had I already had breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Brain break? We could always have our meals at a nearby restaurant, but since he's probably the most practical person I know, we always had ours at the dining hall. He reminds me about our pa.s.sport activities, which are a prerequisite for "successfully completing" the two-week program. We signed up for the same activities from the Harvard and MIT Tour to the trip to Newport, Rhode Island.

One time, when I had to attend an event that he didn't sign up for, he even taught me how to make the "first move" and make friends. This would have been a no brainer had I been back home in Manila, but since I was in a foreign land, I just did not have the guts to come up to anyone and introduce myself.

Phil and I, we're each other closest friend here. We just have this instant connection that I've never shared with anybody else other than my mom or my puppy. Every day since that day we met, I thank the G.o.ds that we both arrived late at the program. Had I been earlier or had he been earlier, we wouldn't have met the way we did. He would have found someone else and that person would have been the luckiest.

Now that we were nearing the end of summer school, I just cannot afford to be late. I just can't. I am no longer fine with being late or arriving just on the nick of time. I cannot screw this up. It's the second to the last day of the program, and I have to nail this last event on my list. I want and I need a positive feedback from my proctors that I could use for my college applications this fall.

I had to make it before the shuttle left for the Red Sox game at Fenway Park, which I almost forgot about until I received a text from Phil.

Liz. THE BUS IS LEAVING IN FIVE MINUTES!

WHERE ART THOU?

And just like that, I impulsively texted him back: s.h.i.+t. Knowing Phil, I just can't imagine him making dirty jokes or tolerating cussing. This is why I'm anxious about his reaction to my message. Well, s.h.i.+t. I shouldn't have sent that in the first place.

Even though I should focus on just running, I thought about sending him another message to apologize. Then, I received three more messages from him.

Message 1: LMAO.

Message 2: s.h.i.+t is putting it mildly.

Message 3: You better bring out the Olympic sprinter in you and get your a.s.s here or you're basically dead.

It's the message I was both dreading and hoping for. I'm glad that he isn't as saintly as I thought he was, but the thought of missing the event and getting called on by the head proctors almost killed me. I run faster. I check my phone again. 17:58. This time around, I definitely need a miracle because according to Google, I'm still a hundred meters from the bus stop.

This is all it takes for me to sprint. There are more people around because the bus stop is behind Annenberg, and it's already dinnertime. I b.u.mp into some people lightly and trip a few times. I probably look like a lunatic, but I don't care. I just have to make it before 6:00 PM, which, according to my watch, is one minute away.