Microwaved Love

1 |

Jodie is texting. 

This is something I almost never see her doing. I hardly ever even see her with her phone out. She is the kind of person who always replies to my messages a week late, who always has her phone either switched off, or on silent. It is even more unusual to see her texting with such a dopey smile on her face, when we are supposed to be watching a movie together at our local movie cinema.

I lean towards her as casually as I can. The first thing I see is the name Brian, right at the top of the screen. There is a little smiley face emoticon next to it. How interesting. I begin to look further down her messages, but I only catch a glimpse of a few more smiley face emoticons, before Jodie realises what I am doing. She brings her phone up quickly towards her chest. 

"So," I say, as I push at her shoulder playfully. "Who is he?"

"Sage, what do you mean?" she asks. 

She glances back down at her phone for a second. Her adorable little smile widens. A new message must have popped up.

"Who's Brian?"

At this, her eyes dart away. Back up to me. Then down again.

"A boy I met." she mumbles.

She grabs a fistful of butter popcorn, and stuffs it into her mouth before I can keep questioning her. Jodie's eyes have a faraway kind of look in them as she stares at her phone, and I know that my friend is crushing on someone. Big time.

"Go on." I urge.

She starts to say something, but a short boy sitting in the row in front turns around to shush us both loudly, even though we are only half way through the advertisements.

"Tell me about him." I say, stubbornly not lowering my voice.

Jodie being the overly nice person that she is, leans in closer towards me so that she can whisper into my ear.

"I met him at the hotel we were staying at in the holidays."

She pulls back. She really is blushing full on now. I wonder what kind of memories she is recalling, because she has that dopey smile on her face again and it is just so cute.

"Why am I just hearing about him now?" 

She shakes her head. Fiddles with her fingers a little.

"I don't think of him that way."

"You like him." I say. 

I nod at my brilliant observation. Jodie shakes her head again, but she looks a little uncertain. 

"I don't. We're just friends."

I thinks she's in denial.

Jodie looks back down at her phone, and continues texting. She immediately smiles at something and sheepishly looks back at me.

"So does he go to our school?" I ask, as I reach for more popcorn.

"Yep." she replies, ending with a little happy sigh.

"Call him." I suggest.

She pauses mid tap. Stops to look at me curiously with those wide eyes of hers.

"What? Why?"

"So you can ask him out."

Jodie's face is hilariously frozen for one second. Then she start to furiously shake her tomato red face.

"I can't do that! We're just friends!" she protests. Her voice raises up above her previous whisper. The boy in front turns around, his mouth opening, obviously about to tell us off again.