"Meg... hey." My voice trembled as I spoke.
Harry moved away from me, careful not to traumatize the kid further. He rubbed the back of his neck in distress. Meg's blonde locks bounced as she giggled, her hand concealing her mouth.
"Happy birthday." I gave her a weak smile.
"Yeah Happy birthday, Meg." Harry added, trying to loosen the awkward tension.
"You guys were kissing!" She finally spoke.
My hands shook. "Shh... who else is with you?" I advanced towards her and knelt down to meet her eye level.
"Harry and Helly sitting on a tree," She started to sing.
"Shh, please Meg. Don't sing!" I begged.
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G." She completed before giving out a loud laugh.
"Who's kissing?" Polly appeared behind Meg. Her deep-red lipstick matched her flame coloured hair. Her eyebrows were slightly narrowed as she talked. "Oh. It's you guys. Not really a surprise."
"We weren't kissing." I quickly told her.
"It was more like licking! Like two puppies." Meg chuckled.
"Sure you weren't." She sarcastically replied before turning to Harry. "Harry, you were supposed to meet me for breakfast."
"Polly, we went through this last night. We're not meeting up anymore." He told her.
Polly pursed her lips and stayed silent for a while, thinking of what to say. "Whatever." She finally asserted before grabbing Meg's hand and walking off. "Let's go shop for your toys, Meg."
"You broke up with Polly?" I asked Harry.
"We were never even together. We went out a few times and she just assumed that we were a couple. Besides, she kept bitching about you and Daniel all the time and it was becoming a little too much." Harry explained.
The revelation that Polly had been bad-mouthing Daniel and I drove me to think that Polly was the anonymous sender who sent all those videos and pictures to my parents. I couldn't believe my own assumption at first since Polly and I were best friends (or used to be) and didn't think she would ever do something like that to me.
But Polly was the obvious suspect. No one holds a grudge against me except her.
"It's her." I muttered.
"What?"
"She's the one that sent the messages to my parents. She's the only one who really hates me and knows their number." I realized. "And she was in Daniel's college to look for scholarships a few weeks back. She must've taken those videos then."
"That makes sense." Harry added. "It's such a weird thing for her to do. You guys were friends before."
"I know. Polly's just... changed so much." I sighed, leaning against the shelves.
A white-haired woman with dark circles below her eyes walked up to us. Her right eye twitched as she stared at us.
"Can we help you?" Harry asked, confused by her behaviour.
"One of our customers just reported to us that the two of you have been committing indecent acts right here in this aisle." She told us, licking her skinny, discoloured lips. "This is a children's toy store. You hormonal teenagers should really learn how to take care of yourselves."
"We weren't, I-" Harry was interrupted.
"I'm going to have to tell you to leave this store immediately." She pointed to the revolving doors.
"Let's go, Harry." I pulled his arm, leading him out of the toy store.
We strolled back to the yoghurt stall, Harry constantly trying to get me to laugh. But I wasn't in the mood to crack up although some of the things he said made me smile.
As we arrived at the stall, we were met by Daniel sitting cross-armed with large grocery bags surrounding him. I'd totally forgotten about him.
He stood up. "Where have you been?" He asked firmly.
"We were at the toy store." I answered. "Sorry." I rushed to give him a hug as Harry looked on, his face carrying a look of slight dissatisfaction.
Daniel let out a deep sigh. "You were at the toy store for one whole hour?"
I looked up at him and nodded. "I wanted to get something for Lindsey's sister."
___________________________________________________________
I was in denial about the fact that the only thing I was looking forward to at Daniel's birthday party was seeing Harry. But it was Daniel's day. I'm his girlfriend. All of my focus needed to be on him tonight no matter what happens. I needed to stop following my own selfish desires.
I tried to look as excited as I could as I helped mix the juice Daniel was making. Inside, I felt like a zombie. My emotions and thoughts were all over the place. Pretending to be happy, I was being drained emotionally. I didn't know what to feel about Polly. I didn't know what to feel about Harry. I just didn't know what to feel.
It was just the two of us at his home. The party would be starting in an hour and a half and almost everything was ready. The decorations were set up perfectly, the music had been picked out, the food was ready to be indulged in. We just needed the right consistency for the soda-juice.
Daniel's hand was tightly grasped onto mine as we held the large spoon together and twirled it around in the soda-juice. He held up the spoon to my mouth. "Taste it." He smiled.
I quickly sipped it and licked my lips. "Perfect." I told him. "See? You don't need alcohol in it."
We set the soda-juice container in place and everything was ready. "Oh. I almost forgot." I said and looked around for my car keys. "Be right back." I snatched the keys off the couch and quickly headed outside. I strolled over to my car and unlocked the doors with a beep.
There were two presents for Daniel sitting on the passenger seat. I still hadn't decided which one I wanted to give. One was a special pendant given to me by my grandfather before he passed and the other was a leather wallet I bought the day before when I suddenly didn't want to give the pendant to Daniel. The pendant meant a lot to me and I always told myself I would one day give it to my significant other but something in me didn't want to give it away yet.
I'd yearned for Daniel to have it when we were really infatuated with each other and made up my mind to give it to him on his birthday but now... I was hesitating.
I looked at the two gifts carefully. My fingers hovered over them, going to the right then to the left.
"Helena? Are you okay out there?" I heard Daniel call.
"Yeah, I'm coming!" I yelled back before coming to a decision. I quickly grabbed the wallet and locked the car door shut.
I entered the house and used my back to close the door. "What were you doing out there?" Daniel asked, walking over to me.
"Happy birthday, Danny." I smiled and handed him the present which was wrapped in colourful sugar paper.
"Oh, Hel." He kissed me on the forehead and pulled the ends of the ribbon on the gift. He carefully unwrapped it, revealing the leather wallet.
"This looks expensive. You didn't have to-"
"Just say thank you." I put a finger over his lips.
He grinned. "Thank you, baby."
Daniel went in for a kiss. Our lips interlaced, his tongue slowly nudging at the opening. He was very passionate this time. My hands slid across his chest and up to his neck, deepening the kiss. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him.
Soon, we were making our way to the guest room nearby. I knew exactly where this was going.
