“I’m sorry about walking out the other day…” Moet starts. Leighton shrugs and picks a piece of grass from the field they’re sitting on and starts to twist it this way and that. The truth was, Leighton was actually a bit hurt by her actions the other day… which was absoultely ridiculous and he knew it. Moet was obviously upset and had other major things to deal with besides the trivialities of Leighton’s affections towards her. He understood that. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with though. It was probably the first time he ever actually willingly displayed a sign of affection for another. Excluding family, of course. Great, now he sounded like a whiny child. Noticing that Moet’s hands are fiddling with something at her side, he leans in closer and catches a whiff of the naturally warm, sweet scent she carried around wherever she went. It was nice. She was nice.
“I get a bit peckish in the afternoon,” she makes a nervous giggle as if Leighton would ostracize her just for the idea of her body needing food.
“May I have one?” From the very moment he could talk, his mother lectured him on the importance of using “may” and not “can” when asking others for favors or for a snack during recess during grade school.
Nodding her head, Moet reaches into the plastic bag and picks out a ripe, dark red cherry for Leighton. He takes it and smiles his thanks, before popping it into his mouth. A few moments later, he spit out the seed into a tissue he procured from his pocket. Having nothing else to do, the pale-haired girl watched him eat. All of a sudden, Leighton’s face lit up with a smile and he stuck out his tongue with a newly tied cherry stem. Moet’s eyebrows arched a bit and she laughed. Her laugh was very nice; like crystal glasses being played with silver.
“How do you do that?” Moet asked. The barely-there tension between them was long-gone, replaced by laughter and smiles shared between the two.
“You sort of have to use your tongue and your teeth to bend the cherry stem and make sure it’s bent at a sort of U-shape…” Leighton takes another cherry from the plastic bag that Moet had moved between them. He picks the stem off and pops it into his mouth. “Then, you cross over one part of the stem over the other and push it through the hole. Just like a regular knot.”
Moet took a moment to pop a cherry stem in her own mouth and moved it around a bit. Leighton’s eyes kept sliding down towards Moet’s full, pink lips. Shaking himself out of it, he adjusts his glasses with a flick of his finger and watches Moet’s attempt at his party trick. She sticks out her tongue.
The cherry stem was still intact, barely bent at the middle. “Dih ah do et?” Moet asked, her protruding tongue marring the pronounciation of her words. She looked so damn adorable right then that Leighton couldn’t help but smile. He picked the stem off her tongue and showed it to her. A small frown appeared on her face before it was wiped away with a good-natured smile.
“Oh well, I tried.” She looked back up a Leighton’s face and stared for a bit.
“What?” Leighton asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Did he have something in his lenses?
YOU ARE READING
Strawberries & Cigarettes
Teen FictionShe has obsessive-compulsive disorder. He finished all the required classes for graduating by his freshman year. She trains in ballet four hours a day, five days a week. He doesn’t understand people. She’s scared of waking up. He’s scared of not kn...
