my sweet-awful life

Friendly cues

My eyes shuffled from my drink to my hands and back. I could not look at him as he stared at me with a smirk on his face.

I thought I could get away from him. I was wrong, though I could say it was worth a try.

Although i doubted he knew any one of my friends to perform a friendly gesture of buying us drinks, I earnestly hoped there was another explanation for his actions than me.

I glanced at him to see if there's any hint of knowing in his eyes. He winked and smiled like an innocent little kid. All I could read was "I got you now. And this time you won't escape"

Blast! How did I get into this? I was already enjoying varsity!

"do you have a sit for one?" he asked every one.

"oh yeah of course" Candice who seemed to be infatuated by him already, said.

There really was no seat left but since the table was huge enough to take one more person, Candice snatched a chair from and empty table behind her and placed it beside her.

How very thoughtful of her! If only I could just glare her to death.

"Here. Come and seat." She said with the sweetest smile I've ever seen her make and I got a sudden urge to gag. She was already in too deep.

Just by looking at him for one second? Could people be more ridiculous?

It's not like he is cute anyways...

I let the thought linger in my mind for a while

Is he?

I hadn't quite taken some time to look at him that way. I was too mad at him to take in his appearance when we first met. I took that moment to glance at him while others weren't looking.

I said glance because that was what I thought I'd be doing, just to glance. Or peep even. I never thought my eyes would be glued to his face like the way they did. I did not expect Dylan to be cute. Yet he was. No he was handsome. No beautiful and charming. No he was... I don't think I can ever put it right in words.

He had neat brown hair like Asian guys, thick eyebrows that made it hard to tear your gaze from his emerald green eyes.

Are those real?

That I might never find out, but real or not, they managed to make my throat dry and I couldn't understand why. But staring at him was intense. It rose the temperature, all of a sudden, of which the effects seemed to be after only my body fluids. That...yeah that could have been the reason why my throat went dry. I never expected him to be this handsome. Candice's actions are totally justified.

"Earth to Blare!!" someone waved their hand at me and I, so unwillingly, tore my eyes from Dylan's face.

Everyone at the table was looking at me, nothing less than confusion evident on their faces.

"Blare!! Now everyone's attention is on you. Way to go" I scolded myself.

"Blare? A-Are you talking to yourself?" Samantha asked and only then did I realise that I was whispering curses to myself with everyone's attention at me. I looked across the table to Dylan and he had one grateful smirk on. Then and there I knew he still remembered me. And I had a feeling he wasn't bringing me jolly good days with rainbows and ponies.

I mentally slapped my head and then said, "no. of course not. Did anyone say anything to me earlier?"

"I asked if you are always this quite" Dylan proudly announced.

"well. I ... uhm. Don't do well in crowds." I said "and this place just got crowded"

The latter earned me disapproving looks from all around the table which almost made me feel bad but not after he gave a satisfying "ouch. That hurts" and his face paled.

Yeah. You deserve it arse...

I decided he wasn't worth completing that thought and instead made a smirk of my own to him this time, however, my excitement and my poor smirk were wiped of when he dropped the bomb.

"Well you are not like this when we are together babe" my eyes narrowed at him. I had known nothing good was going to come out of his presence here. But I thought he was going to be gentle-man enough to not discuss our issues with my friends. It was our problem after all. Ours!!! I had wished he'd call me out so that we can talk things out. But then again, the world is not a wish granting factory so I guess it could be blamed on a particular person's inferior intellect.

"He is... you? When. How???" poor Candice stuttered in disbelief. She was disappointed that I felt sorry for her. I was about to tell everyone that I don't know anything and that I just discovered his name literally two seconds ago which was going to be a blatant lie or a huge mistake even, since the perpetrator is amongst us and unless he got a brain surgery somewhere days before, he would still very much remember introducing himself to me. Luckily someone beat me to it.

"She did not tell you" he feigned heart break "blare??"

...or not so luckily.

I was about to deny everything when someone else beat me to it again and that moment I gave up trying to say anything, "Don't be mad at her. We are only hanging out for the first time we haven't shared our stories yet. I'm sure she would have told us as soon as we gotten to know each other. Right blare"

And there it was, my chance to make things right. To deny everything and show everyone Dylan for the scum he really is. But when I looked around, the only one who was going to be happy if I denied everything was Candice only because she wanted her chances with him, but everyone else, who actually looked like they cared about friendship seemed like they couldn't care-less if he was my brother. They only wanted to know if I would tell them. Almost like they were asking me a silent question "can we be best friends and never hide anything from each other?"

I didn't know about being best friends but I couldn't let down any sincere feeling towards me so I nodded a yes and before anyone could question me any further or make any comment about how unsure I seemed which by the way happened, I got up abruptly and said, "I'll just step into the little girls room for a while"

Without waiting for a response I walked away.

After a few steps, I saw a door and believe me when I say I've never felt so free. I looked back to see if anyone was still looking and to my advantaged I was already out of sight of our table. I walked and inhaled the outside air taking deep breaths every once In a while. I did contemplate leaving but I suspected it wouldn't be great for "my friends" so instead I planned to take a considerable amount of time out here just in case a miracle happens and the ground opens up and swallow Dylan whole.

A miracle did happen by the way.

Dylan popped out of nowhere!!!

"hello darling" I checked just to make sure.

Yup. It's him.