Chapter 120 - A Message of Great Importance

I am deeply sorry for not having updated this novel for quite some time. I have been very busy. For one thing, I am in the middle of crafting a screenplay for a Netflix show (fingers crossed!). And as you know, we're all trying to survive this pandemic. So I hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there!

What am I trying to say here?

I only have one important request. Help me write again. For this month, please send this story power stones. The more the better, so that it will have a Power Rank of 50 or higher. As soon as the story gets this Power Rank, it will be enough to motivate me again to write. And motivation, as everyone knows, is key: in the absence of everything else, such as earnings, fame, or even a small fortune, it's the ranking that thrills us aspiring writers here on .

So just a recap of This Crazy Rich Boy so far:

In the last chapter, Claire/Bella is stalked by none other than Miguel Tan. It's crazy, I know, but sometimes unrequited love can drive someone to the brink of madness, or weirdness.

Many years ago, my husband wrote a story called "Blind Spot," which eventually won a literary award in the Philippines. Here below is an excerpt:

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If you want her so much, why not stalk her?

That's Andrew speaking. That's Andrew giving me another of his many advices. He's the teacher and I'm the student. He's Socrates and I'm some bumbling Athenian youth. And the subject is unconditional but unrequited love.

No, Andrew says. Unconditional and unrequited love. It's the tyranny of the "and." Unconditional "and" unrequited. Andrew laughs.

We're fond of this teacher–student fiction. It's some form of catharsis for me, some outlet where most afternoons I cross the grassy vacant lot behind our house to Andrew's art deco home and listen to his intriguing opinion on most things under the sun.

The question's not for me, I say. It's for some friend, or some friend of a cousin's friend, who happens to be a victim of unconditional and unrequited love.

Stalk her and when it gets unbearable, let her see you, Andrew says. Let her see you and wait until you see terror in her eyes. Wait and look in her eyes until you learn first-hand why they all say the greatest love in this universe is the one that is never returned.

She's this figure that comes out of a door. She's this perfume that so subtly floats in the air until it surrounds me and drowns me. She's the core of a swirling mass of weird friends and crazy parties. She's the hollow sound on the concrete pavement, the click-clack click-clack of little shoes that thinly echoes in the night.

She's the reason why there are many things I never tell people, not even to the ones I'm closest to. She's the reason why I tell lies, why I obfuscate, why I insist that the question is not for me, but for a friend of a friend of a friend Andrew no longer knows.

And Andrew, of course, doesn't believe me. He so easily sees the lie through the teeth.

I am her shadow each night she escapes from something that's so near it burns her. She's this moth that hates the darkness and flutters toward something that burns so damn bright. She goes to these parties crawling with other desperate kids. She drowns her little head in the mind-numbing repetitive beats of trance music. She sinks in the swirl of tax-free gin and tequila and surging sėxuȧŀ hormones. She lets loose herself in these parties, and these parties swallow her up like a quicksand would. Sometimes I am tempted to claw her out, to save her, to be her knight in shining armor, with a golden broadsword in my hand and courage in my heart. But she doesn't really need me. I'm really an outsider. Always have been, always will. I stand outside, always outside of where things happen, staring through the glass walls, patiently watching her every move.

Every languid sway of her mandolin hɨps excites me. My heart leaps with her laughter. I see her flirting with a boy and I close my eyes and imagine I am that boy in the worn-out leather jacket, sipping my wine. I am that boy ċȧrėssing her white knee as I reach the climax of my small talk. For a fleeting moment, I am that boy, tasting what he's tasting, speaking what he's speaking, enjoying my two minutes when I am the center of her lethargic attention. I am that boy who tells her what I feel and maybe, when she's not looking, brush my hand against her soft skin and feel its warmth, its tenderness, its hidden longings.

She comes out in the night when her father is dead drunk. I see her as I stand in the shadows across the street. I watch her as she slips out of the door so carefully like a cat in stealth. At the crack of dawn, just before her father wakes up, she steals across the dark streets in half-drunken gracefulness. And across the street, in the bluish shadows, I stand and watch and wait and bite my lip.

Every night, I take out my heart, lay it on the pavement, and watch it bleed. Bleed until it's dry. Powder dry. Every morning, I wonder how it is to actually see your own heart dried up on the pavement. How would I feel? Would I poke at it with a stick, search for the waves of love and ŀust that used to animate it? Dried up on the pavement, I'll probably see my heart for what it really is: just a piece of black, rotting flesh. Just organic cells and tissues bound up together that any stray dog can eat. Not the end-all and be-all of the universe. Not the magical thing that makes the world go round.

I want to tell these discoveries to her face, to tell her how small she is, how ridiculously insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But each night, when she comes out and her perfume tells me otherwise, my heart beats so fast like it's going to jump out of my ċhėst.

My heart tells me one thing: You're an idiot.

I am an idiot. I am an idiot for daring to defy its power. For refusing to believe that, yes, it is really the be-all and end-all of the universe."

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It's quite a long story, so if you're interested, you'll be able to read it in whole by ordering on Google Play (play.google.com/store/books/details?id=X7fwDwAAQBAJ&fbclid=IwAR2EeCEq2wcGXRro7pIhH6rdBTwf8SPQS3RJRGRDOyv9EATL78a70BpDlhg) or on Amazon (just search for Don't Blink ** Lazarte in Books).

But back to This Crazy Rich Boy.

To tell you the truth, this story isn't earning that much. The sheer amount of time I spend writing here is not rewarded with what it deserves. In other words, I came to the point of questioning myself and my own aspirations. I wanted to be on the Webspirity Awards, but for some technicality, it turned out I was not qualified. And it was heartbreaking for me because the Webspirity Award and getting a chance to win that prize money was the very thing that inspired me to sign up on this platform. And now it was not possible.

So now I'm at a crossroads. What do I do? Should I continue writing the novel here on , or should I take this story elsewhere?

I would love to hear your opinion. Or at least some encouraging words. I miss Claire/Bella. I miss Gabriel Tan. I miss writing about them, but I am saddled with the need to do something worthwhile, finance-wise, and do something I love, which is this thankless job of crafting a story for this platform.

In any case, please leave a comment. Or send Power Stones my way. If this story ranks 50 or higher, it would re-motivate me to keep this going.

And most importantly, please stay safe, healthy, and happy!

--- Claire Ysabella