Y/N …
"Chres, what are you doing?" I giggled, my eyes trailing my best friend as he navigated himself around the kitchen. He sighed. "I’m bored, Y/N!" he moaned. "When you asked me to come over I thought you meant to play video games," he frowned.
I served him a look. “I told you that my mom wanted me to help make lunch for my little cousins, and I called you over here to you could help me!” I poked his broad chest with my finger. “But I don’t want to,” he groaned, settling himself into a stool and eyed the preparation of several sandwiches. I saw him reach for one of the triangular cut pieces , and I swatted his hand away.
"You don’t get any," I sneered as I went to the fridge to retrieve the jug of lemonade. When I came back to the counter, Chresanto was busying himself with the bowl of grapes, picking each one of their stem individually and setting them on the counter to create some type of pattern.
"What are you doing?" I repeated for the millionth time that day. I swear he could be such a young child at times, so easily entertained by the world’s object-wise minorities.
"You can’t read?" he asked, gesturing over his creation of green grapes. I leaned in closer, and realized he’d actually been spelling out a word: Love.
"What’s all that about?" I wondered, busying myself with pouring seven small cups of the sunny liquid as he rolled the small fruit between his palm. He shrugged, eyeing the word as he explained casually, "Just something I’ve been thinking about lately."
"Something or someone?” I teased, shooting him a knowing look as I continued pouring the glasses.
His shoulder bounded up and down a second time. “Both, I guess.”
Suddenly interested in the boy who never had a crush in his life, I eagerly pulled up a stool beside him and settled myself on top of it, momentarily forgetting my duties of preparing lunch.
"Don’t be all hush-hush now! Who is it!" I interrogated anxiously. He displayed a crazed look. "Why do you need to know who it is?" he wondered with a small chuckle.
“‘Cause!” was the best answer I could muster at the moment. He should have known I’ve been waiting for the day he had hots for a girl. He’d dubbed girls “icky” since we were young, and his perspective hadn’t changed until now. Of course I was interested.
"I don’t want you to know …" he answered carefully. I huffed at his unwillingness. "Fine, then tell me what she’s like, punk!" I punched him in the arm and waited for him to spill through her characteristics.
"Well …" he started off slowly, still fingering the same grape slowly. "Love is the nickname I gave her."
I studied him carefully. “Why?” I questioned the unfamiliarity of the appellation.
"Well …" he began
"Like love, people like to use her in vain; taking advantage of her niceness. But whenever she catches on to the trick, she likes to turn her back, and the people who tried to win her over start to leave, like how people pretend to love someone but really they’re just after something else,” he clarified his reasoning.
I nodded in understanding, then encouraged him to continue.
"Even through the pains of life, I’d always go to her first for anything."
Hmm, this girl must be pretty special if he’d rather go to her than hisbest friend, I thought jealously as he went on.
"Okay, if I say what I say next, you have to promise not to tell anybody else or laugh about it. It’s kinda corny, especially coming from a guy like me," he made me sware, sticking his pinky out towards me to grab with mine. I snickered and indulged in the childish ritual before he tentatively forged ahead.
"This girl … Love … I long for her all day. I just wish I could hold and kiss her and just … drown in her essence-," he paused to gauge my reaction, but I was only leaning forward in interest, engaged in his meaningful words. If anything, his words were sweet.
"Some days. I just feel like going crazy because she isn’t mine yet, or that I’d lose her, even though I don’t even have her yet. I know that she’s a really cool and really real girl. I know she wouldn’t have any doubts or fears about being with me, well … at least I hope she wouldn’t," he looked at me hopefully.
"Well, I don’t know who the girl is, but if she’s making you feel this way, then the feeling must be mutual. Keep on talkin’ Chres … I never knew you were that deep,” I complimented his depth. A peek of scarlet lined the tips of his ears as he told me more of this “Love” girl.
"At first, Love didn’t mean much to me. I could live without her if I wanted … but that was before I realized I was just lying to myself. Honestly, if I had to choose one person to spend the rest of eternity with, it’d be Love."
"What?! Not even little ‘ol me?" I joked, pretending to be hurt. He just sniggered, disregarding my question as he continued.
"Knowing her for a while, she was able to make the world look brighter. I used to see it as just a place where either you made it or you didn’t, but she helped me look past that. Just the thought of her gets me around during the day, and every decision I make, I wonder how it’ll affect her, even if it has nothing to do with her," he shrugged passively.
"It’s just the matter if I told her all of this, would she believe me," he accumulated quietly to himself.
"I think she’d believe you, Chres," I answered truthfully. "Shoot, I even believed it!” I giggled. “And trust me, that’s saying a lot! So now, I have to guess who it is …”
I tapped on my chin playfully as my mind racked through a countless barrage of girls. As I rattled off names, he kept denying every single one. This was a tough one. Who could it be? It was even more difficult do tot the fact that Chresanto seemed to ignore the flirting factor, so there were no obvious clues of who’d caught his eye.
But then, my own grew wide as saucers at the sudden realization. I felt my heart pound roughly in my chest I turned sharply toward him.
”Roc, oh my gosh, I know you are not talking about Ashley!” I shouted. He swiveled around and looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. Then, he just burst out laughing. And not just any old snicker, but like the gut-busting laughs as if I’d just told the funniest joke in the world.
"What’s so funny?" I wondered, my own laughter seeping through my words. "You!" he exclaimed between spurts of laughter. "Hell no I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout no Ashley, girl!" he emphasized. "Why would I want her? She sleeps with the football team and you can’t stand her. Why would I date someone my own best friend doesn’t even like?"
I pressed my hand to my chest in relief. Oh thank GOD, I gave gratitude before facing him again. “Then who is it?” I inquired.
"How ‘bout you look down at the counter."
Unbeknownst me, he’d created another word with his grapes, and the idiom that was displayed surprised me even more than when I thought he’d liked Ashley.
In the small, light lime colored fruits, the word “YOU” was spelled out in clear sight. Not even the hungry calls from my relatives could fetch me from my pleasantly surprised thoughts.
