A Rainy Day | ✓

❀ 25

"It's not much..." I started, sitting down and stretching my feet out in front of me. We were facing the pond and the view was spectacular and I expected no less. Cameron sat down beside me - well, not exactly, as the picnic basket I brought occupied the space between us.

Cameron turned to me and gave me a heartwarming smile, a wide one like the one he had given to me on his birthday. It was filled with joy and his dimples poked into his cheek, his glasses seemed to slip on the bridge of his nose but he didn't seem to mind, reaching up instinctively to just push them up.

"No, no, it's wonderful!" Cameron said, reaching and cupping one of the flowers that I arranged around the blanket we were seated on.

I felt the need to explain. "I, um, got them from the ground like you did last time." Then, my cheeks warmed when I realised that I had just exposed myself of thinking about that day, my cheeks further reddening when my mind drifted over to the day he gave the flower to me.

He nodded in understanding, with a small smile as he softly played with the overlapping petals of the bright yellow flower in his hands. "Can I ask a question?"

I gazed at him with curiosity but said, "yeah, sure," while tracing patterns on the blanket we sat on, absentmindedly turning my head to look at the grey fuzzes that I ran my fingers over.

"Why now?" He asked, making me look back up at him, more confused. He cleared his throat, sitting the flower back on the grass, turning his head to stare at the clear pond water ahead of us. "Um, you know, this friendship celebration thing. We've been friends for more than six weeks already... I'm just curious why you chose this specific time."

My heart pounded as I tried to find and excuse inside my head, filing through and piecing together sentences, avoiding the one that was the actual reason I had came here. "Uh, well, I-" I almost winced at my poor attempt at speaking the reason that was still slowly forming together in my head.

Maybe it was his stare that made me a little disoriented too.

"Ever since your birthday party," I said, starting off and hoping it sounded convincing. "I just, uh, thought that, you know, we had a good relationship and I just wanted to celebrate it... On a different day that's not, um, on your birthday." I knew my lie was a stretch, totally unconvincing, but Cameron didn't even seem to think much about it, nodding his head and pushing his glasses up.

My fingers fidgeted in my lap as I waited for him to say something, but it seemed that he'd ran out of words to say.

I pressed my lips together nervously, scared that whatever I was planning to do was going to be the wrong decision. Because even though I was lying about the celebration today, I was telling the truth about liking our friendship.

But of course I wanted more.

I wanted more to fuel the effects he gave me, I wanted to feel all the butterflies and know that he was feeling it in his stomach too. I wanted to hold his warm hand in mine, reliving the brief moment in the closet where he enclosed his hand around mine but forever instead.

I wanted us to be more but didn't want there to be no us.

I inhaled, telling myself to calm down and if anything went wrong, I could figure it out. Or at least I hoped I could. I distracted myself by reaching to the picnic basket between us and pulling out the containers of food. I was highly aware of Cameron's burning gaze of curiosity and interest as I moved the basket off the blanket and onto the grass.

I busied myself in arranging the tupperwares and cups between us.

Earlier, when I was about to leave, I quickly went to the kitchen and packed more things, panicking when the confession time was coming closer. Little did I know that it would take a while to navigate there even if it was close.