Little Secrets

Chapter 1

 After five years, after spending those seven last weeks of high school together, there he was again. He was staring straight at me with the same dumbstruck expression on his face as I wore on mine. Nothing stopped; nothing went in slow motion like I thought it would when I ever met him again. It seemed as thought everything was moving too fast for me to catch up. He didn’t look much different from when I last saw him. His auburn hair still looked the same, short and unkempt. He got taller and his face thinned out a little, nothing unusual for a man of his age. The body that was once a couple yards away from me was now moving towards me. Panic started blinking into my brain. I didn’t know what to do, I awkwardly moved around, trying to find something for my hands to work with. My bag bumped against the bin of pears making a couple fall onto the floor.

“You’re a lot clumsier than I remember,”

“You don’t like it? Do you want me to walk away then?”

He sniggered and bent down to help gather some of the fallen pears.

“Now why would I want that? I just found you again.”

Quickly, I scurried up every last pear. I softly placed the fruit back in the bin. Out of what almost seemed like thin air, a little crinkled old woman waddled up to the bin and scrunched her face.

“What’s wrong with you? Putting those dirty smashed pears back, who do you think is going to buy those? You should pay for those…”

She trailed off; pushing her cart angrier swearing at me as she passed us. I hadn’t even notice the crushed fruit until now. Looking up at François, he was biting his bottom lip to keep from laughing. He was hiding it terribly. This was my chance to leave. I thought the day I saw him again, I’d be ready. But I’m everything but.

“I think I should pay for this stuff before they make me pay for that.”

My legs headed in the direction to the check-out. Just as feared, he followed. I could feel the small talk coming up.

“So… How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thanks.”

Ending the conversion there, I took my spot in the shortest line I could find. He stood behind me. His green eyes focused on me.

“You know it’s not polite to stare.”

“You never minded before.”

I rolled my eyes. He had the nerve to snarkily bring up old times between up and use it against me.

“That was five years ago.”

Not another word was spoken after that, our things were rung up in silence. The hope of getting out of the door before him was slim to none. He has only one thing in his basket while I had 15 items to pack. Furiously and speedily, I crammed everything into 2 bags, grabbed them off the bag rack and nearly ran for the door. That thought I had that told me I was free of him went out the window when I heard he yell out me name. The subway was a few yards away. I speed up and was almost going down the stairs leading to the underground train when he gently took a hold on my arm, stopping me.

“Mano?”

So close. I sharply turned him. Confusion was written in bright red on his head.

“Look, I just really don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Why not? What did I do?”

“Nothing, I just really don’t know what to say to you.”

“Did I say something in the market or something? I’m sorry then.”

I huffed. What did he want me to do? Act like he didn’t break my heart? That wasn’t going to work.

“Do you still hate me after all this time?”

I laughed.

“Of course I do. It may have been a fling for you but I had really fallen for you those couple of weeks.”

He opened his mouth to talk but the words vanished. He just looked at me with a bizarre expression, like I was speaking in another language.

“You should know that it was just another fling for me.”

Mentally putting this on fast-forward, I swung the back seat door of my car open. Throwing my bags into the seat, they fell to the floor.

“Wait a minute.”

He grabbed my arm once again. This time he was closer. I pulled away from his touch.

“Can we at least talk?”

“I thought that was what we were doing.”

“You know what I mean.”

I scanned the area around us to make sure we didn’t draw any attention. Luckily, no one was around. I looked back to him. Worry. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I was going to have to talk to him whether I liked it or not.

“Fine, where do you know to go?”

He sighed in relief.

“There’s a coffee shop a block away or we could go back to my apartment so you’re ice cream doesn’t melt.”

François nodded towards one of my bags. I searched the plastic bag on my left and indeed, there sat a carton of cookie dough ice cream. Cursing under my breathe, I chuckled.

“Leave it up to you to find some kind of a way to make me go to your apartment.”

He returned the laugh, rubbing his hand on his stubbly chin.

“Well I had to find something, you seemed like you wouldn’t talk to me even if I was on my death bed.”

“Give me more credit, I’d send you flowers.”