You Like Me?! | ✓

| 11 |

"You looked like a love sick puppy, son." Dad suddenly said.

"W-what?" I choked out. Love sick puppy? What does he mean by that?

"The way you admired and looked at Maureen." He told me in an obvious tone. "You had this smile in your face that is different from the other looks you have and you keep staring at her . You like her, don't you?"

Do I like her? Yes, as a friend. But something more? Maybe. I just want to be around her and see her smile and I like making her laugh and I get this weird feeling inside my stomach. Why am I sounding like a girl from middle school falling head over heels.

Okay, I do like her.

Maybe more than like her.

I've been having this warm feeling about her since the last couple months of Junior year. You know the feeling when you're starting to like someone and you don't have any clue what to do about it. There's something about her that I have quite noticed about her that I didn't see before.

"I'll let you figure it out on your own, buddy." My dad chuckled, patting me on my shoulder. "But don't think about it too much or your head will explode and I'll have to ask your Uncle Gilbert to do your surgery, and you know he doesn't make any exception in giving a discount, even to his own brother." He joked.

"Geez, thanks, dad." I rolled my eyes, sounding sarcastic. "I'm sure Uncle Gilbert will kick your ass for making your own child blow up his mind."

"Hey!" He was about to give me a light punch but I called out mom.

"Mom, look!" I ran beside Mom. "Dad's being a huge jerk."

"Garner," She warned.

*****

"Merry Christmas!" Someone shouted behind me. I looked over behind me to see Maureen and Janette was standing behind me. I was outside beside the cafeteria since I had free period and I had some homework I have yet to finish.

They quickly went to sit in front of me, smiling wickedly for some reason.

It was only the second day of September, and they're already talking about Christmas.

"Uh...Merry Christmas?" I greeted them back, but it sounded more like a question.

They just laughed at me.

"What are you doing?" Janette asked me, eyeing my homework that I was doing.

"Doing my English Literature homework," I sighed out. I might be great in other subjects like Science and Physical Education, but I hate Literature.

To hell with Romeo and Juliet.

"Oh-kay." She looked at wrist watch and a panicked look on her face appeared. "Bushyett!! I have Calculus in three minutes! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" She shouted before getting up hurriedly.

Maureen and I just laughed.

"Don't you have a class?" I asked her, tapping my pen against the table. "And what's the deal with this whole 'Merry Christmas' thing?"

"I have a class before lunch, so for now it's a break time for me." She crossed her arms on the table. "And the whole 'Merry Christmas' thing is it's already the holidays. It's the -ber months already. I even started on my Christmas wish list yesterday during Math class because I've got nothing better to do than listening to the teacher mumbling about those numbers." She laughed a little.

"I still don't understand," I questioned.

"You know, since we're Filipinos and we tend to have the longest Christmas celebration on earth, from the first day of September until the first or second week of January. If I were there right now I bet there would be so many Parols or Christmas Lanterns in the street by now and the malls will be already filled with Christmas decorations and playing Christmas songs." She said with a very excited tone. "Then the Christmas break will be at least three weeks long. So my cousins are very lucky they get to have three weeks and a couple days off from school. But I think we have the same duration of Christmas break with them, it's just that their break starts earlier than ours."