Coffee-Flavored Flower

UNO: This Is Stupid (And So Are You)

UNO: This Is Stupid (And So Are You)

"Give me your hand, little boy." 

He smiled - his teeth were the color of mucus - and his eyes bore nothing but lies and secrets and mischief. All things that I had chosen to distance myself from. 

The thought of telling him my actual age arose, but I pushed it back with little effort. The last thing I needed was this monster getting a hold of more information than he needed. Begrudgingly, I let him take a hold of my hand. I shivered as his bony fingers enveloped mine in an almost careful and caring manner.

Most parents would shriek and drag their children away from this man, this creature, but my parents were not most parents. My parents had their phones in their hands, with the camera application open, ready to take pictures when the time deemed it appropriate. They, too, were smiling, giddy with a certain child-like excitement. 

He pulled me closer to him and stared at my parents. I felt the color drain from my face as he wrapped his other arm around my waist. 

My mother squealed in excitement and snapped a picture. My dad followed suit, although his features were more relaxed - masked - but not disapproving.

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I stared at the picture in my hands with disgust. Only my parents thought that snapping that picture was a good idea. They begged and nagged for "Just one photo!" despite my well-thought-out protests. I had attempted to formulate the best excuses - ones that I had never even used before - to no avail. Now I was stuck with that dreadful image. It was forever engraved into my mind and my scrapbook (my parents had insisted that it was a moment worth remembering and that I should add it in). 

I twirled the phone cable around my finger and absentmindedly listened to my friend talk about how horrible her date had gone.

"He tried to grab my ass, Lucy! My. Ass. He had asked before trying. I said no. He did it anyway! I'm not calling that guy back," The crackling sound of a bag of chips opening. "Afterward he looked at me with this look. A look that said 'Oh, I bet you liked that ish, mami.' I wanted to slap the smirk off his stupid face!" A mouthful of chips. Probably Doritos. That girl drowned those down like water. "I hate him."

"Oh."

An exasperated sigh followed by high pitched squealing. I winced and hastily pulled the phone away from my now permanently damaged ear. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Are you even listening?"

"I have no other choice!" Before she stared arguing I quickly added: "This is stupid."

"Was that supposed to save your sorry ass?"

I shrugged, though I knew that she couldn't see me. "Words didn't save yours."

She gasped loudly. "Why you little-"

Before she could have any chance of killing me in the slightest way, I hung up. I exhaled in relief. 

Cindy had been going out with that ass-grabbing boy, Brad, for approximately five and a half days now (he had asked her out during lunch time.) The way he asked her out wasn't particularly romantic, for that manner. I would describe it more as distressing. Then again, I hadn't been interested in the whole ordeal to begin with.

I had given them a week. Clearly, I was being generous.

As a matter of fact, he had not even asked her - not really, anyway. It had been on of his backups who had done it for him. The boy had been struggling to spit out the six worded question. Pathetic, if you were to have asked me.