Keeping the Distance (I Heart Iloilo Book 1) Read online

  He sat behind her the entire morning without saying anything. Mr. Rodriguez, their psychopathic Physics teacher, even wondered aloud at his apparent lack of dumbass comments during class. When the lunch bell finally rang, he hurried out of the classroom.

  "Lance, wait!" Melissa grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop.

  He froze at the sound of her voice and whirled around, his eyes glued to the spot where her fingers were still firmly clutching his arm. Students filed past either side of them on the way to the cafeteria. Eyes wide, his gaze darted around the hallway before he shook off her hold on him. "People can see."

  It was like jumping off a cliff and changing your mind mid-fall. He knew he was being a jerk, but he somehow couldn't stop himself. It was too late to stop the freefall.

  But Melissa only shook her head. "I don't care. Not anymore."

  He wanted to believe her, but he saw the principal, the father she wanted to please so much, appear near the end of the hallway, hair combed over his head and black leather shoes shining. Every part of Lance that wanted to give what they had another shot turned sour.

  "Yeah?" Lance said, his voice crueler than he'd ever heard it. "It's a little too late for that."

  ***

  It had been two days since Melissa watched Lance walk away from her, the space between their bodies magnified with each step he took. Two days that she sat in front of him during class and restrained herself from begging him to listen to her.

  Two miserable days.

  Now, she had a plan.

  She crossed a thousand imaginary fingers that it would work.

  At the end of the day, speakers all over the school sometimes blasted announcements about upcoming school events or a student’s accomplishment at an interschool competition. The announcements were all pre-recorded, and it was Mr. Chua’s job to play them at 4:45 P.M. every day.

  It was a good thing she spent three weekends painting a classroom with him making sure she didn’t sneak out. Those three weekends added up to a convenient bonding moment that allowed her to call in a gigantic favor.

  Melissa sat in her seat, back straight and hands clasped tightly on her lap. She listened to their teacher wrap up their discussion for the day’s last class. On the outside, she calmly wrote down the next day’s homework with the same gold pen Lance had stolen from her. Deep down, a storm raged inside her, counting down the seconds until school ended for the day.

  She glanced at Cam and found her best friend staring back at her.

  Are you sure about this? Cam’s eyes asked.

  Absolutely.

  Amused, Cam raised her eyebrows. I can’t wait to see this.

  Her gaze flew to the clock hanging above the classroom doorway and watched it count down the seconds. Six. Five. Four. Three. She was going to be sick. Two. Maybe this was the dumbest idea ever. One. It was too late to stop things now.

  “Hi, everyone. This is Melissa Ortiz.” She heard her own voice being blasted through the speaker outside their classroom door. “I know you’re expecting an announcement about the basketball team winning against some other school yadda, yadda, yadda, but that’s not happening right now. Today, you’re going to hear an entirely different announcement. In the form of a song. Cool? Okay, here it goes.”

  Absolute mortification filled Melissa as the sound of her ukulele streamed through what must’ve been almost a dozen speakers throughout the entire Saint Agnes Catholic Academy. It was the audio from the video she’d first recorded with Cam, her ukulele cover of the song about the boy who did everything for a girl and all the things the girl wanted to do for him in return.

  She sang it less than twenty-four hours after Lance had kissed her, and it had felt wonderful, like she’d been living in a glass bubble her entire life and she smashed through it. Finally.

  The excited chatter about the end of the day that filled the classroom turned into absolute silence. Her classmates and even her teacher all stared at her, eyes wide and a little unbelieving. She couldn’t blame them. They all knew her as shy, quiet Melissa Ortiz, the principal’s daughter who studied hard and always did everything right.

  Well, she wasn’t that girl anymore.

  She never had been.

  It took every fiber of her being to stop her from turning around to see Lance’s reaction, to see if he knew that all this was for him.

  After the song ended, her normal speaking voice came through the speakers again. “Right now, maybe you’re wondering what that song was about. It was for Lance, the boy I ate hamburgers and fries with in his car, because I was too afraid to tell people we were together. The boy who taught me that you don’t walk away when things get tough. So, that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m not walking away.”

  Silence.

  Melissa, not to mention the entire classroom, waited for Lance’s reaction, holding their breaths as one, unable to move until he decided to do something. She held her hope back when his chair scraped against the floor.

  She didn’t dare turn around, but her heart slowed down and sped up all at once. Her fingers, which had gripped the gold pen the whole time, unfurled themselves, sweaty and shaking.

  Unable to stop herself anymore, Melissa stood up and whirled around to face Lance. He was already standing, his face as devoid of emotion as a mask, backpack straps slung over his shoulders. Without saying anything, Lance took a sharp turn and walked out the door.

  Her heart broke into a thousand pieces. Pain spread through her body. It flowed down her veins, filling every nerve ending and attempting to take over. The heartbreak so painful she couldn’t believe her body was big enough to contain all of it.

  She couldn’t let things end like this. Blinking back tears and forgetting about the notebooks still scattered all over her desk, Melissa ran out of the classroom and followed Lance. A part of her told her to keep at least a tiny shred of dignity, but she told it to shut the hell up.

  He was no longer in the hallway, so she hurried to the stairs where she found him in the stairwell leaning against the wall for support, one hand rubbing his face. He stood up straight when he heard her coming closer, his face red and more confused than ever.

  For the first time in two days, Lance looked her in the eye. “I can’t do this, Mel.”

  There it was again, that crippling heartbreak, but Melissa steeled herself. She could cry later in the privacy of her own room, but right now, she needed to be strong enough to fight for him. “You told me that you don’t want to be the person who walks away. Well, you’re walking away right now.”

  “Do you think this is easy for me?” Lance closed the distance between them, his eyes burning.

  “Nothing has ever been easy for us. That’s the way things have always been.” She lifted her chin, full of fake bravado.

  Lance shook his head at her with a bitter laugh. He tugged on his backpack straps and headed for the next set of stairs. Melissa was through with letting him walk away. She grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her.

  “That’s it?” she said, her tone unbelieving. “You’re going to walk away like a fucking coward?”

  She could hear students beginning to stream out of classrooms, their excited conversations about their after-school plans. Soon, they would be walking down the stairs in droves and witness the disaster blowing up in her face.

  Right now, though, the only thing she could concentrate on was Lance and the way he was looking at her like she was worth eighteen years of birthday wishes. Ever so slowly, his hand reached up to hold hers, the one that was still gripping his shoulder like she’d drown if she ever let go.

  “How long do you think we’ll be together before you start to hate me?” His eyes weren’t angry now. They were sad, which was even worse. “How long will it take you to realize you disappointed your father for me, and that maybe, I’m not even worth it? I’m walking away, Mel, not because it’s the easy thing to do. Maybe it’s the right thing.”

  “Lance, don’t—”

  “Let
’s forget everything ever happened, okay?”

  He pulled her hand away from his shoulder. No matter how much she tried to hold on, he was stronger. All the fight drained out of her. She couldn’t do anything but watch the boy her heart refused to let go of disappear down the stairs.

  As students streamed past her, giving her strange looks the whole time, Melissa stood in the middle of the stairwell, unable to move.

  Maybe he was right. They should forget everything and move on, put a thousand Band-Aids on the wounds they inflicted on each other.

  But then, she thought of all the times Lance fought for her, of all the times he refused to give up on her. It was definitely more than twice.

  With renewed energy, she ran down the stairs, even pushing past a group of girls who were talking about how she’d made a fool of herself over Lance Ortiz, the biggest player Saint Agnes Catholic Academy had seen in years.

  Melissa almost smiled despite her fear, because love was all about making a fool of yourself.

  Only if the person was worth it.

  She reached the parking lot and found him dumping his backpack into the backseat of his car. As he pulled the door open and climbed in, she dashed through the cars, hoping she wasn’t too late.

  Upon reaching his car, she yanked the door open, plopped herself on the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut. She turned to find him with his eyes on her, key frozen on the way to the ignition.

  “What are you doing?” Lance said, his voice more than a little wary.

  “How about you and me on Saturday night?” Melissa gifted him with a watery smile, echoing the first words he said to her that school year, the words that started everything.

  He tilted his head and blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, do you want to go out with me this weekend?” Seeing that he was about to answer, she held up a hand to stop him. Sure that she sounded beyond delusional, she continued, “We can have dinner at that seafood restaurant in Atria I told you about. I’ll meet you there this Saturday. Is 7 P.M. okay?”

  Lance only looked at her, and her last piece of courage chipped away. Blinking back tears, she touched his cheek, taking in her favorite face in the entire world.

  “Ending things between us isn’t the right thing. It’s the worst thing ever. I’ll give you space for the rest of the week, but I hope you’ll show up on Saturday,” she whispered. “If you don’t, I’ll understand.”

  Leaving the ball in his court, she stepped out of his car, but hopefully, not out of his life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lance didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed that Melissa kept her word. It was Friday, and she hadn’t spoken to him or even looked him in the eye since the day she jumped out of his car.

  He sat on one of the benches that lined all four sides of the quadrangle, his eyes on the double-doors of the principal’s office. The ground was still wet from the earlier rain shower. A few kids jumped around a huge puddle, the sky a blanket of gray above them.

  “Do they know how dirty rainwater is?” Jace’s horrified voice broke the silence. As if he was being contaminated by the sight of it, he dug sanitizer out of his pocket and started spreading it through his hands.

  “Seeing you like this makes me want to hide a dirty sock in your backpack,” Lance said, amused, but his eyes were on the principal’s office again.

  Jace stuffed the sanitizer back into his pocket and followed his line of sight. “You going to talk to him soon?”

  Lance nodded.

  He had already made up his mind about whether or not he was going to show up at Atria, whether he was going to give this crazy whirlwind of a relationship with Melissa one more try. He needed to talk to her father first. Sometimes, his conscience refused to make an appearance, but now, it wouldn’t shut up.

  Jace leaned back on both palms as Lance stood up, his eyes never wavering from the door that led to the principal’s office. No words needed to be spoken between them.

  The wind picked up as Lance made his way across the quadrangle and carefully avoided one puddle after another. The sound of the laughing kids pierced through the quiet afternoon.

  He took a deep breath upon reaching the doorway and raised his hand to knock.

  Something stopped him.

  He had been a student at Saint Agnes Catholic Academy since the ripe old age of six, and throughout those years, he’d been a frequent visitor to the principal’s office. For idiotic things like dumping the liquid soap in the boys’ bathroom down the drain back in Grade Three. Or for more serious things like getting in a fight with Joey Villaruz for stealing the other boy’s girlfriend the year before.

  Never in his whole life had it occurred to him that he would walk up to these doors willingly.

  With a sigh, he rapped his fist against the door, and the principal asked him to enter. Mr. Ortiz was so shocked the second Lance walked through the door that anyone would’ve thought Mr. Rodriguez burst through them wearing a cheerleading costume and a huge smile.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Ortiz,” Lance said as respectfully as he could, shutting the door behind him. “I was wondering if I could speak to you today.”

  Mr. Ortiz continued to stare at him as if he’d been petrified, mouth agape and the pen he’d been holding slipping through his fingers and rolling across the open ledger in front of him. He cleared his throat. “Take a seat, Mr. Ordonez. What did you want to speak to me about?”

  “Your daughter.” Lance could only hope his voice wasn’t as shaky as his knees. He took a seat. “The last time we spoke, you said I wasn’t good enough for Melissa. I’d like you to know I completely agree with you. You see me as this arrogant boy who gets by on his father’s money. I can’t blame you, because up until a couple of months ago, you were right.”

  “Go on.” Mr. Ortiz clasped his fingers together and leaned forward.

  “But your daughter sees something in me, something worthy, and I’d very much like to prove her right.” He bit his lower lip, his palms sweatier than they’d ever been in his life. He took in a deep breath and let it out before saying, “I’d like your permission to go out with her.”

  You could’ve heard dust motes floating through the air in the silence that followed.

  Unable to stand it anymore, Lance continued talking, “Don’t get me wrong. I’ll probably follow Melissa around like a puppy for the rest of my life, but your approval would mean a lot. To her. Even to me.”

  Mr. Ortiz’s eyes darted to the framed family portrait on his desk, the one with Melissa in the center with her smile as bright as the summer sun. Then, the principal, the father of the only girl he wanted to be with, opened his mouth to speak.

  Lance could only hold on to the armrests and brace himself for impact.

  ***

  The world was mocking Melissa. It wasn’t Valentine’s Day or any other special day where people felt the need to flaunt their significant others, but there were couples everywhere she turned. Seated together and sharing churros inside Army Navy. Walking hand-in-hand while sipping matching cups of coffee. Browsing inside the comic book store around the corner.

  Maybe this was karma for taking too long to follow her heart.

  She stood outside Seafood Island as the sun descended and bathed the world in pink and purple light. Cotton candy clouds streamed through the sky. She looked down at the toenails she painted lavender earlier to match her dress, the one Lance had given her not so long ago.

  Digging her phone out of her purse, she glanced at the time on the screen and sighed. It was five minutes past seven.

  Was he not going to show up?

  Was it time to give up and go home?

  She could recover from a boy like Lance if he decided he didn’t want to be with her anymore. It would take a long time, but she could do it. She just wasn’t sure where to get the energy required.

  She dialed Cam.

  “Did he show up?” Cam didn’t even bother with hellos.

 
“He isn’t here yet.” The bigger part of Melissa, the one that wanted to believe things weren’t over, continued to look around Atria, scanning for one particular face in the crowd.

  “I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, Mel.” Cam sounded only a little less upset than she felt. “But I have ice cream and Mean Girls prepared just in case.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” she said, her voice breaking on the last syllable.

  It was true. On a normal day, Cam’s offer would’ve been wonderful but not today of all days.

  “Is it too soon to say he’s just a boy?”

  She almost smiled. “Probably. I should get going—”

  A hand, warm and familiar, slipped through hers, weaving their fingers together. It felt right, like a lock clicking into place. She couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. Lance looked down at her, the smile on his face beautiful enough to triple her heart rate.

  He wiggled his fingers in hers. “Is this okay?”

  She shook her head as she wrestled her hand out of his. “Definitely not okay.”

  A lined formed between his eyebrows. “Mel, I thought—”

  Before he could continue, she curled her fingers around the fabric of his white V-neck shirt. “I want more. So much more.”

  Her hands trailed their way up his chest, and she gripped his shoulders and pulled him lower until her lips could meld with his. This, this moment right here, is how a kiss is supposed to feel. Like I’m taking my first breath after swimming a thousand miles. She closed her eyes and held back a shiver as his tongue traced her lower lip.

  Lance’s arm hooked around her waist to pull her up against him, while his finger traced delicious circles around her neck. She couldn’t hold back the shiver anymore, and it raced down her spine. Lance smiled against her mouth, like always.

  This boy drove her crazy.

  In the best way imaginable.

  After he let her go, she buried her face in his neck and breathed him in, inhaled the scent that wasn’t perfume or anything artificial. Just the pure smell of Lance she’d missed so much.

  Gripping his T-shirt between her fingers, she pushed back and found him staring back at her, his eyes reflecting the emotions in her own. “I love you.”