Elesis stood there in stunned silence, repeating the last words of Callisto in her mind like a broken record you'd rather throw away to get rid of the sound. Each time, the redhead's face slowly creased in genuine disbelief and pain, her breathing ragged as small beads of tears formed at the corner of her eyes.
"I'm sorry for pretending to be your friend, Elesis... Pretending to be your friend... Pretending to be your friend... Pretending..."
"No... You're lying."
Gritting her teeth, Elesis shook her head, trying to shove those dark thoughts away as she ran straight for the exit door. With a hurried stride, she climbed down the stairs until she reached the first floor's hallway.
Elesis looked at the long stretch of the hallway to her right. A few students were chatting animatedly outside of their classrooms since it was still lunch time, but there was no distinct silhouette of Callisto in sight.
With the way Callisto left with slow, normal strides, there was no way Elesis wouldn't have reached up to her after basically running down the stairs just to catch her friend. Which means, the silver-haired girl didn't go back to their classroom.
"The school grounds."
As an idea of where Callisto possibly went formed in her head, Elesis turned to her left and exited the building toward the big school grounds.
"Calli! Wait!"
Unbeknownst to the redhead, a pair of sky-blue eyes was watching her through the grilles from above. Back in the building's rooftop stood Callisto, her expression dark, seemingly exhausted, and devoid of any enthusiasm.
Callisto used her golden eyes as soon as the door to the rooftop closed shut to reach the ground floor as fast as she could and went around the back of the building. Not to use the emergency ladder to climb back up, but to leap several floors high to reach the rooftop once again.
Once Elesis's silhouette disappeared from view, Callisto slumped down on the floor, her back against the wall as she tried to convince herself to relax.
"I did the right thing. This is for the best."
Then, her eyes caught sight of what remained of Elesis' lunch just lying on the floor and her breath hitched. Realization dawned on Callisto. Realizing how much her words affected the redhead, tears began forming on the corners of her eyes as she buried her face between her knees, trying to keep herself together from the pain.
* * *
Lunch time was almost over. The sound of labored breathing and heavy footsteps hitting the ground vibrating through the air, exertion clear on a sweat-sheened face under the blazing sun. Elesis had been looking around since she left their school building, but there was no luck.
"How... How is she so fast? Where did she even go?"
Just then, John Dimaculangan, one of their classmates came passing by and noticed the exhausted redhead. Concern overriding the attraction he felt the instant his eyes landed on her form.
"Hey, Fredream? Are you okay?"
"Oh, Dimaculangan."
Elesis' eyes widened for a second before asking her classmate if he saw Callisto anywhere. Unfortunately, he didn't. If anything, he was wondering why she was looking for her when she was supposed to be with Callisto having lunch on the building's rooftop.
Elesis tried to play it humorously despite the palpable emotions weighing down in her chest.
"I had to go somewhere real quick, so I left her for a moment. But when I came back, she was already gone."
Dimaculangan nodded at the redhead's explanation, and an idea sprang in his mind.
"Maybe she already went back to the classroom. Did you already look for her in there?"
"... No," replied Elesis after a brief pause, thinking.
Considering the amount of time that had passed since Callisto left her on the rooftop, Callisto might have gone back to the classroom already, as Dimaculangan suggested.
A flicker of hope flashed over the redhead's crimson eyes as she gently patted the young man's shoulder, a polite and grateful gesture.
"Thank you, Dimaculangan. Talk to you later!"
"Sure thing!"
Elesis wasted no time and headed straight for their classroom with a purpose. Unfortunately, when she arrived, Callisto was nowhere to be seen.
One of Elesis' close friends took notice of her arrival and invited her to come join him and the others hanging out while there was still time before classes resumed. When he didn't receive an immediate response, he called Elesis one more time, who seemed to stare fixatedly at Callisto's empty seat. Though in their eyes, she only looked as though she was spacing out.
"Hey, El? Are you good?"
Yes, it was empty, but Callisto's bag was still there. Elesis' fading hope was renewed at the sight of her friend's personal belongings just sitting on her seat without their owner.
Elesis turned to her friend, approaching them as she regarded him with apologetic eyes.
"Yes, sorry. I spaced out for a second there."
Knowing Elesis, her friend and the others jokingly believed the redhead was definitely self-inserting herself in a story or fanfiction she created in her head.
But in truth, Elesis was thinking about just staying put and waiting for Callisto to return. There was no doubt in the redhead's mind that her friend would return to class at any moment.
The moment Callisto would appear through that door, even if there was only a minute or half left before the teacher would return and begin classes once again, she intended to confront Callisto. Why? Because Elesis refused to believe that Callisto was just pretending after all this time.
Elesis refused to believe that she didn't leave even a dent on the wall between herself and Callisto after all this time. Much less, even touch it.
And so Elesis waited. She waited patiently while killing time with their friends. Before she knew it, the ringing sound of the bell signaled the end of lunch time.
Callisto was still nowhere in sight. At least not yet.
The teacher, Novelyn Nalicia, entered the classroom just in time after the bell ended. Elesis' gaze shot up wide as the teacher came in whilst talking to Callisto.
"All right," the teacher spoke, raising the pitch of her voice so that everyone from the front to the back could hear her. "Return to your seats. Save the chatter for when classes are over"
There she was, the person Elesis had been waiting for finally came. However, the redhead realized her window had already closed. And worse? It wasn't just Elesis being unlucky for some reason. Callisto returned to class with the teacher on purpose. And there was no doubting it.
That was when the silver-haired girl's intention became clear to the redhead.
Elesis and Callisto's eyes met for a brief second as the silver-haired girl walked past them, greeting her and the others politely like nothing, as if their entire dynamic were less than friends and more like acquaintances that happened to be classmates. Without saying a word, the redhead returned to her seat, far from where Callisto was situated.
As the sound of the bell echoed once more, signalling the end of today's class. Elesis got approached by her friends, the same ones she was with during lunch and she had to force a smile at them.
"El, we're hitting the Megaverse on the way home. Wanna join us?"
"Sorry, I need to go home early today. I'll go next time."
"Really? That's unusual."
"Wait, Calli already left?"
"She's probably heading to work."
"Oh, right. Man, I envy her energy."
Elesis pretended to clean her desk and put stuff back in her bag as she said her goodbyes to her friends. Once she was certain there was no one else left in the classroom but her, the movement of her hands inside her bag stopped. She took them out of the bag and let them limp on her sides, her shoulders seemed to shrink as if life had been sucked out of them.
Then, as she looked down at herself, her vision started to blur. Her skirt started getting soaked as tears fell from her eyes.
"What have I done?"
In her attempt to figure out why Calli was keeping a wall around herself, to break through that wall and reach her friend, Elesis ended up finding out she never made any progress with their friendship from the beginning.
No, they probably never had any connection from the beginning.