Chapter 120 - A Message of Great Importance (1/2)

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.