Yes & No

Surprise Me

Friday came so fast it seemed unreal. Classes went by so quickly. As I sat in my classes, I forced myself to not think about anything. I just wanted to relax and that’s exactly what I did, at least, most of the time. By the time lunch came around that changed.

As I was paying for my lunch (Grilled cheese with a side of tomato soup and a bottle of green tea.) I was tapped on the shoulder by someone I didn’t want to talk to: Blake.

“Hey,” I greeted as coolly as possible. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, just buying lunch. So your hanging out with the new kid-”

 “Yeah. By the way, his name’s Darrel.” I said basically implying him to refer to “the new kid” by his first name.

“Good to know…. So, how come you never invited me over to your table but you’ll invite some stranger to eat with you and your posse?”

“Jealous much?” I asked, smiling slightly. Blake always knows how to make a simple thing sound so outrageous. Sometimes I want to say to him, “You’re so cute when you get jealous.” It’s the most adorable thing in the world. Trust me, his checks start to redden and his lip stretch into a confused smile and his eyebrows raise a bit. In other words, he looks like one of those puppies trained to tilt the heads and look confused for calendars and movies.

“Me? Jealous? Heck no…” I gave Blake my “Yeah right” look. “Stop looking at me like that. If you keep it up, your face will stay like that forever. It’s possible you know.”

Yeah, I thought, it’s also possible for me to embarrass you in front of the whole school and get away with it too… Hopefully, nothing would ever lead me to doing that. It would not only hurt his reputation but it would hurt mine. I’ve worked too hard to lose that: my reputation is everything. Without it I’m just some teenage girl.

I stopped giving him my “Yeah right” look as I received my change from the cashier woman, shoved it in my pocket, walked around the cash register and waited for him to pay. When he was done, I gently pulled him to the side and asked him a very important question.

“Blake, I’m only going to ask you this question once. Why do you still like me?”

The smile on Blake’s face quickly disappeared and he tensed up. Blake looked me in the eyes and attempted to hide a smile. “Who told you?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. No one told me anything. I always knew how much Blake likes me. It was one of those things that's just so obvious that everyone knows.

“No one told me anything,” I shook my head softly as I managed to look him straight in the eyes. “Blake, you’re not the best at hiding how you feeling. Anyone, well really everybody, can read you like a book… Back to my question: Why?”

“I just do and there’s nothing you can do about that-”

“Except just not liking me. It’s as simple as falling asleep.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Blake leaned a few inches closer to me. “No one can.” That’s when he kissed me quickly on the lips and then backed away, looking at me with a satisfied smile across his face. I wanted to scream and slap him across the face so hard. I wanted him to feel what I felt: used.

Through clenched teeth, I warned, “Stay away from me or I’ll tell someone you took advantage of me.” This warning made his satisfied look fade into a mischievous one; a look that showed me that Blake knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. He knows I’m not that stupid.

Blake started backing away when he bumped into someone. At first, from where I was standing, I couldn’t see who it was.

“Oh sorry. I didn’t see you there.” A familiar voice apologized. That’s when I saw who Blake had backed into. It was Cole.