Kiss of A Titan
Chapter 40

The school bus hadn't left yet when I got to the car and I was somewhat unlucky to notice quite a few stares from those in the school bus directed at us through the window. "You needn't have done that", I said to my aunt, the very moment I got to the car and went to the other side.

I waited for her to join us first and watched her looking towards the school bus from where she stood at a distance till she saw what had infuriated me. Then she returned briefly to the car and entered inside.

I quickly joined her at the front seat and soon, she drove us out of the vicinity. Her saloon car hadn't gone farther away from the school grounds when I saw Lori entering a taxi instead of tagging along with the rest of her friends. She was still dressed in the same cheerleading outfit she wore to entertain the audience at the games. Without looking, she slightly hitched her skirt downwards as she entered the back seat of the taxi.

Lori arrived home, depressed and fatigued in the same cab I saw her enter at the front of the school perimeter. She got there early around three pm before we reached home since her neighborhood wasn't too far off from school. It was unlike her to have ditched her cheerleading mates especially the likes of Claire and Lauren, her two close friends to take a short ride home.

There was no one home when she arrived in the taxi cab but she was able to pay the fare with the last cash she had left after purchasing three smoothies for herself and her two friends during the games.

Not until the incident took place during the games, she had felt cozy sitting in the midst of her two friends on one of the seats reserved for cheerleaders at the very forefront of the audience. Now she was left alone, feeling angry and utterly depressed with herself for failing to avoid the unexpected. Luckily, the broad porch of her house was still gravely quiet like the way she had left it and there was no one around to hear her heavy sobs as she sympathetically made her way up the stairs to the swing.

There she sat down to cry her eyes out. A severe feeling of rejection and heartbreaking thoughts had crippled her spirit terribly after the game ended. Deep down, she knew it was the first time she was feeling really hurt by someone she once knew and cared for.

She sank her fingers deep into her as flashes of implanted memories of what she witnessed kept plaguing her helplessly. Then she drifted further into memory lane to confirm if she had been daydreaming when it all happened or the event that happened during the games was a figment of her imagination. Lori felt the stung of witnessing a horrifying nightmare in a recurring day-mare that kept on replaying in her thoughts and she helplessly could do nothing to stop her mind from capturing every bit of the moment she will never be able to forget.

What had happened was unbelievably hard for her swallow and she felt half of her whole world crashing down. She could vividly recall the whole thing as though it occurred a few minutes ago. She remembered having drunk the last drop of her smoothie before the athlete who was to represent Titan team was clearly mentioned and the nonstop shrieking of the audience almost blocking her ears as they kept whistling wildly to motivate the athletes competing at the arena in the middle of gymnasium when it all happened.

Claire had whispered something into her ears moments before the mention of Rosalie Thomason from the commentary through the loud tannoy system followed by rippling shouts of wild screams, chanted from one corner of the colossal building to the other.

Then her attention drifted apart from what Claire had told her, to watch the athlete making her way to join the other contestants at the swimming pool. She regretted failing to listen to Claire who was trying to distract her friend with their usual girlie talk about the sturdy muscles of the male athletes from Denver which had been their topic of discussion and flattery since the indoor games started.

Little did she know that her curiosity at the performance of the rookie would cost her dearly.

She must have heard and seen the umpire inform the contestants to get ready before the shot, which will tell them to leap into the water, resounded loudly into the enclosed air. Part of her knew she wasn't the only cheerleader who saw the Titan athlete hesitate before the umpire tried to come to her rescue.

Lauren had seen the entire engrossing fiasco as well and also felt enthralled like the other spectators to be among the many that saw Richard getting up from where he seated at Titan's bench beside his other teammates. Before Lauren could take her eyes off Richard, Lori stood up in anxiety and amazement of what was to befall her ex boyfriend. For the number of games Lori had been present, watching Richard swim from the sidelines at earlier competitions, she hadn't seen him leave the bench on purpose after completing an event before retiring to rest a bit at the bench nor had she seen him unnecessary make random movements away from watchful eyes of the Coach.

To her, it wasn't habitual of Richard to leave the bench at such a crucial time and she knew at that moment something else was the causative factor for his odd behavior. Knowing Richard, he was by far coolheaded and egoistic in some sort of ways but never an athlete who loved to draw attention to himself in the midst or cause commotion on purpose for the pleasure of uplifting his ego though he had enough popularity and influence in school which she always knew was one of the major reasons she had being in a relationship with him only for it end up in a breakup like most teenagers do and she did witnessed the repercussions of her own actions at the preseason games.

Like the other spectators, her mind had gone vaguely blank and the fleeting air at that moment of seeing Richard getting closer to the transfixed female swimmer tightened her breath to the point that she didn't notice when the smoothie she held fell from her left hand.

The smoothie accidentally landed on Claire's outfit and it soiled the fabric with the liquid residue that was left inside. Claire was mad as hell when she saw the stain and yelled at Lori but her bestie was too spellbound and bewildered to pay attention to the woeful pleas of the victim beside her. From her angle, she didn't quite see the entire thing happened but she heard that the inevitable occurred right before her very eyes from the commentary.

The aftermath wasn't pleasant. She became sick to the stomach that her heart kept telling herself that she was not only devastated but hurt by Richard's actions. The only comfort she had received was the appalling state of the girl after Richard kissed her. Every nerve in Lori's body became paralyzed with a deeper hatred for the girl whom Richard kissed accompanied by a deeper pain of regret which informed her that she was going to live the minute without Richard in her life.

What followed soon after the incident occurred, she couldn't clearly picture since half of her senses had gone numb but all she could really feel during the aftermath was that she had lingered in one of the restrooms, staring dazedly at the mirror for an hour before leaving quietly for home.

Claire, who wanted to repay Lori for what she did to her dress at the game with a quarrel, didn't get the chance to see her friend from the flock of people streaming out of the school building before joining Lauren to find a seat inside the school bus. Five minutes after she sat on the swing, Lori was already shedding hot tears on her bare thighs on which her head rested upon as well as her damp hair.

Prior to the indoor game, she had made a proper hairdo in one of the saloon close by as an added feature to her pretty facial makeup to enhance her chance of looking spectacular at the game in the course of carrying out their cheerleading routine and didn't quite realize that she would end muddling her hair herself. Expecting to see someone to talk to, she slowly lifted her head from her laps but only profound silence of the kept her company as she sat looking around the surroundings. She became conscious enough to realize that she had been crying heavily as a result of what happened and got up when she tried reassuring herself that she would be fine after some sleep in her bedroom inside the house where her dad, who was a cop, lived.

Delirium and lightheaded, She trudged towards the front door, pulling her weight on the floorboard despite the flightiness in every part of her limbs. Luckily, the front door wasn't locked and she easily wriggled it open using the doorknob. Then she went inside and shut the door behind her. Lunch was the last thing on her mind and a couple of minutes later; she had struggled to find her way up to her bedroom where she found a cozy spot to lay down her fatigued body on the bed.

She slept on the bed for three hours in her cheerleading outfit and didn't quite remember when she tucked herself underneath the blanket only to wake up when it was already nightfall.

Still distraught and overburdened with sadness, she didn't get up from where she lay on the bed and kept looking at the ceiling as though there were hidden inscriptions written on them. It was only when she felt a gust of cold breeze brushed her skin that she noticed that the window was open accompanied by distant sounds of cars honking in the streets around the neighborhood but she was too broken inwardly to leave her only place of comfort.

The lightheadedness she wanted to get rid of only returned in threefold along with the unforgettable heartbreaking experience she encountered during the day.

She was now left in total isolation in the darkness as a result of the opaque night outside and it didn't quite seem to bother that her room had been far too quiet and too serene to have a goodnight sleep.

She wasn't expecting anyone else except for the sun to come wake her up in the morning. Her dad usually wasn't around most of the nights to keep her company and she had gotten used to the lonesomeness and distance between her and her dad.

In spite of the boredom and dead silence, it was a perfect night for her to reflect on her past memories with Richard as well as the circumstances surrounding their breakup which at one time was pleasant but now, it's the other way around and she did so while crying silently with the aid of the serenity hovering around in the shadows around her till she fell asleep and she didn't know when she allowed her senses to succumb to awaiting arms of slumber.