While I was still enjoying my alone time at the café, my phone chimed with an incoming message notification. I took it out of my bag. A whole bunch of messages had come in at once. Apparently, they were from members of the friend group.
Adi: where are you? Tian: aren't you coming in today? Lana: the exam's about to start. Nela: are you running late? Tina: you're not coming to school? Yuna: what's wrong with you? Don't forget, we have an exam today. Don't end up with a zero!
I stared blankly at their messages, with no intention of replying. They were already panicking after being left on their own for a little while. During exams, I usually secretly helped them because I felt sorry for them. Especially Yuna—her parents hoped she'd become a doctor someday. But that didn't seem possible.
Their grades used to hover around forty or fifty. Ever since I helped them with their assignments and exams, their scores had climbed as high as ninety. Let's see how they do when I'm no longer an answer key they can use.
They'd probably fail this month's exam. During exams, the teacher collected everyone's phones. More and more messages came flooding into mine. They must have been panicking because I still hadn't shown up. I kept ignoring their messages until, eventually, the phone went silent. Once it stopped making a sound, I opened it and found two hundred unread messages waiting for me.
They must be taking the exam by now. It was time to reply. I typed out a response to all of them.
Me: sorry, I can't come. I'll take the makeup exam later. You guys go ahead and take it first.
I couldn't wait to see the looks on their faces when the exam ended and they found this message. My drink was already gone, so I decided to head home. I called my private driver and asked him to pick me up. Not long afterward, the black car I knew so well arrived.
"Well, this is unusual. The young miss wants to be picked up," said Pak Raka, my driver.
I usually took the bus home, of course, so no one would discover my identity. My car was far too conspicuous. Even when I went to school every day, I always asked to be dropped off a little distance away and walked the rest of the way to the school gate by myself.
"Yeah, Pak. I just don't feel like taking the bus."
Pak Raka didn't ask any more questions and drove me straight home. When I arrived, I was greeted by the confused stare of Auntie Nur, my caregiver, who had looked after me since I was five years old.
"Oh, you're home already, miss? Don't you still have a few hours before school lets out?"
"I'm just not feeling up to it. Auntie, please make me some chocolate milk and bring it to my room later, okay?" I put on a pitiful expression so Auntie Nur wouldn't continue questioning me.
"All right, miss."
After getting past Auntie Nur, I went straight upstairs to my room. The first thing I did was change out of my school uniform and into my house clothes. Then I took a shower. When I came out of the bathroom, there was already a glass of warm chocolate milk on my desk, beside the phone I'd taken out of my bag earlier.
I sat down at the desk and opened my phone. They had finished the exam and were messaging me again.
Yuna: what happened? Yuna: you didn't tell us anything. Yuna: are you sick? If you are, please tell us so we can come visit you.
I simply stared at Yuna's messages. So she really was two-faced. Just this morning, they hadn't even acknowledged me, and now she was pretending to be my best friend. There were only messages from Yuna. The others were probably still mourning the exam they'd just taken.