• (*not his real name)

    It was evening and I sat backseat in the van while dad drove me and mom home.
    My phone vibrated. Him. Oh, we were talking...I almost forgot. I was too busy feeling the breeze.
    "Do you have a boyfriend?" He said in the text.
    My friends would expect that kind of question from boys.
    I told him I have none. It was the truth.
    He wouldn't believe me but i told him that I really didn't have any. As expected, he would ask...

    "Then can I court you?"

    I thought it would be just a simple question but when I was the one who was being asked, I bit my lip and I can feel my heart jump. I wasn't inlove. Maybe. No. Inlove? I don't even know the guy. Well, a bit. But No. Okay, calm down.
    I just knew his face and name. One day, he just kept staring at me and then he got my number from a friend.
    I wasn't ready for that kind of thing. I'm still a student. I was scared for my heart to get broken.
    "Are you sure? I'm not ready about it."
    "Then just tell me if I can or if I can't..."
    I didn't reply. I didn't know what to answer.
    Days passed.
    We texted each other again.

    "Don't tell your friends about me." I told him. I don't want to get teased by people I don't know.
    "I won't. They don't even know I'm doing this. If you don't have a boyfriend, is someone else courting you?"
    "There's no one else. Believe it..." I told him, "why?"
    "Nothing." He says. I tried to make a bit of fun.
    "But what if there was...would you let him?!"

    He said.."No!"
    And he made me smile. He held me for one moment. But a kind of relationship thru text, is not good. I told my bestfriend about that and she said I should've asked him back if he was also courting another girl. But It felt like he wouldn't do that. I never bothered to ask.

    We didn't talk after that. He didn't sent me any message. I didn't too.
    One day, a friend of mine let me sign her notebook as a remembrance. Marj, who was another friend of us also signed and I looked at her message. It was full of fun. Then some doodle and lovepairs or crushes. I saw 'his' name. And a dash connected to it and a girl's name...Mildred.

    Who's Mildred? I remembered. She was his first and last dance on the prom. I remembered when he texted me, "MildRed wAs mY fiRst & LasT dNce on thE pr0m!" He was really happy. And I was suspicious.

    I didn't texted him. My heart felt a sinking feeling, and I didn't spoke of him again. But inside I was thinking about him. And the girl.

    Weeks passed and me and my bestfriends talked.
    Mae's boyfriend came and I saw the way he held her. And how they looked into each other. Would 'he' be that kind of boyfriend..if ever? I just thought. And erased it in my mind then. I was arranging the bookshelf inside the room and found scrapbooks and saw this one... Submitted by: Mildred... Again. She. I let my BFF's see it. I told them, "Who's she?"
    "Mildred.." Mariel said.
    "Mildred?" Mae's boyfriend said, "*Ryan's girlfriend." HIS GIRLFRIEND?! They're on?!
    I almost cried but I smiled as if I didn't knew her. I came home. I realized he would never text ever again.

    I was such a fool. He was doing something behind my back. But I couldn't tell him. I felt like I had no right because he already had a grilfriend. HE COURTED HER! While he was courting me too. I cried. Did I love him? Or I was angry of myself to think that I let him enter my heart while he was holding someone already?
    :'c