Chapter 9

"Well…" Wendy couldn't continue her words. No matter how hard she tried to twist it, what happened at the karaoke joint was still Cheryl's fault. But as her best friend, Wendy was bound to stand by her unconditionally. "Nathan, don't you think you're going too far? Is that how you talk to a girl? Are you not a gentleman?" Justin stood up, indignation and anger evident on his face as he spoke. He was clearly trying to show off his masculinity and grab Cheryl's attention. Nathan looked away after giving him a quick glance. He clearly wasn't bothered to respond. Oscar didn't say a word either. He just raised a fist at Justin. Although Nathan had been a troublemaker since childhood and had only gotten worse, Oscar still wouldn't allow anyone to bully him. Oscar had told Nathan to think of him as a brother, and he wasn't kidding. "Let's go. I'm done here," Cheryl finally said. She glanced at Nathan before walking out without looking back. Justin quickly followed her. "From now on, I'm staying out of this mess," Wendy said before quickly following them. In that brief moment, she clearly saw tears welling up in Cheryl's eyes. "Cherry, are you crying? Don't tell me you actually like Nathan?" After catching up to Cheryl, Wendy asked with concern written all over her face. Cheryl's eyes did indeed have traces of tears. "Of course not!" Cheryl shook her head firmly. She wasn't crying out of regret but because she felt wronged. Nathan's eyes had been filled with disdain when he looked at her earlier, almost as if he wanted to keep as far away from her as possible. How could someone as proud as her tolerate that? "Wennie, Nathan is doing it on purpose. He's just trying to upset me." Cheryl's expression grew more aggrieved the more she spoke. She knew she had made a mistake that night, but she had already apologized. What else was she supposed to do? He used to hang around her all the time. Just one word from her could make him happy for the whole day. Now, after several hints that she wanted to make up, he still kept that sullen look on his face. Did he not care about her at all? Wendy thought about how Nathan had been eating lunch with Lily every day lately. She suspected that Nathan might not be trying to provoke Cheryl on purpose this time. But seeing how distraught Cheryl was, she dared not mention it. Instead, she went along with Cheryl's thoughts. "Of course, Nathan is just pretending." "Really?" Cheryl asked. "Absolutely. After what happened that night, he just couldn't find a way to smooth things over, so he's pretending to be indifferent. Just wait, he'll regret it later!" People always liked hearing what they wanted to hear. Cheryl instantly felt better after Wendy's words and returned to being her usual proud princess self. "Hmph, even if he regrets it, I won't bother with him anymore!" she said proudly. Wendy thought about how Nathan and Lily were getting closer by the day. She thought if Cheryl found out, it might crush her and even affect her performance on the college entrance exams. The best thing to do now was to cool Cheryl down and make her detest Nathan from the bottom of her heart. She quickly agreed, "Exactly, Cherry. Who does Nathan think he is? He has no right to treat you like this! It's not like you don't have other admirers!" Seizing the moment, Justin chimed in, eager to make his presence known. "Yeah, yeah! Cherry, you've still got me, right?" Cheryl shot him a cold glance, not even bothering to respond. Feeling awkward, Justin scratched the back of his head. He was just a clueless "nice guy" without any dignity. … "Nate, did I see that right? Cheryl's eyes were red when she left, like she had been crying…" Oscar said, looking surprised. Nathan smiled lightly. "So what if she was crying? What's that got to do with me?" Oscar mumbled, "B-But she was crying because of you, wasn't she? Doesn't that mean she actually cares? If you just give in a little, you two could probably work out." Lily was great, of course. In terms of looks, personality, grades, and family background, she surpassed Cheryl in every way. But that was exactly why Oscar didn't think Nathan had any chance with her. Cheryl, on the other hand, was more like someone Nathan could barely reach if he tried hard enough. And besides, Nathan had liked Cheryl for three years now. How could he just stop liking her that easily? Listening to Oscar's serious analysis, Nathan couldn't help but laugh. "Of course not. She was just upset and feeling wronged. Believe me, girls like her only ever love themselves. If I go back to her now, she might be nice for a few days. But the second I start caring for her again, she'd go right back to her old games." "Nate, come on, it wasn't that bad. I'm pretty sure she was really heartbroken just now…" "Alright, enough about this. I can't believe you're more willing to believe Cheryl cried over me than to believe aliens are about to invade us!" … In the afternoon, Nathan's performance in the math exam was nearly flawless. He finished in just an hour and a half. He checked his answers twice and didn't find a single mistake. "Damn, could this be a perfect score?" Nathan chuckled, a bit startled by his own performance. He was seriously unstoppable now. Of course, it helped that the difficulty of the semester exams was relatively easy. But still, a perfect score meant he had truly mastered high school math. Even if he took the notoriously difficult national college entrance exams from 2003, he would likely score a nearly perfect score. The next day, he had science in the morning and English in the afternoon, and again, he did pretty well. By Saturday afternoon, the exams were over. With Sunday off and no classes, they were released early for the weekend. The semester exams' difficulty wasn't high. Even Oscar, who had a solid foundation but often struggled with harder problems, felt like he had nailed it. The moment he saw Nathan, he started bragging, teasing him to get ready to treat him to lunch. Nathan just smiled and stayed quiet. With just a month left before the college entrance exams, the sooner the results were out, the better. It would give students time to pinpoint and address any remaining weaknesses. The scores would probably be out by Monday at the latest, so Oscar only had one more day to gloat. "Hey, Nate, now that exams are finally over, want to hit up the arcade this afternoon?" Oscar asked. "Sure, let's go." They soon rode their bikes to the arcade and played Punch King 1997 for over an hour. Nathan ended up losing miserably. When it came to gaming, Oscar had always been more talented since they were kids. After leaving the arcade, they walked home together. As they walked, Oscar asked, "What's your plan for tomorrow? Want to go hiking?" Nathan shook his head, saying he had plans. Oscar almost asked what kind of plans Nathan could possibly have, but he stopped himself just in time. After all, Nathan was pretty close to Lily these days. They were probably going on a date tomorrow, and he would just embarrass himself by asking about it. … After Nathan got home, he went straight to his bedroom and pulled out his Nokia 5200 from the drawer. They weren't allowed to bring phones to school. After turning it on, he logged into the WAP version of MySpace. Because of Layla's warnings, they had to keep their friendship low-key. At school, they avoided meeting each other. They would only chat on MySpace when they got home. As soon as Nathan logged in, Lily's profile picture was already blinking non-stop. Clearly, she had been home for a while, eagerly waiting to talk to him. Since Nathan had been at the arcade with Oscar, he hadn't replied. Lily had sent a bunch of messages. May 14th, 5:31 pm Blooming Lily: "Nathan, I'm home. What are you up to?" May 14th, 5:42 pm Blooming Lily: "It's been ten minutes. Why haven't you replied?" May 14th, 5:50 pm Blooming Lily: "I'm so bored, so bored. Please message me back! (dagger emoji)" May 14th, 6:03 pm Blooming Lily: "What are you even doing? There's a cute cloud in the sky, and the more I look at it, the more it reminds me of your face." May 14th, 6:17 pm Blooming Lily: "Nathan, I really want to talk to you! It's okay, though. I can wait. But I can only hold out for another half hour, max." May 14th, 6:31 pm Blooming Lily: "Oh, my mom's calling me for dinner. Message me when you see this. (smile emoji)" If Nathan from the future saw that final smile emoji, he would've definitely felt uneasy. But luckily, it was 2009, and a smile emoji was just a smile. There was no hidden meaning. "I just got home and saw your messages," Nathan replied after glancing at the time, which was almost 7:00 pm. He figured Lily would take a bit to respond. After all, the WAP version of MySpace didn't have notification alerts like the apps of the future. One had to refresh constantly to see new messages. To his surprise, Lily replied with two smiley faces in just a matter of seconds. Nathan Frank: "How could you reply so fast?" Blooming Lily: "I've been refreshing MySpace non-stop since dinner." Nathan Frank: "Why are you so silly? If I hadn't replied, it's obviously because I wasn't home yet." Blooming Lily: "But… I was worried that if you messaged and I didn't reply right away, you'd be upset."