*Crash*
The cookie box fell out of Jennifer's hands as she watched him step on it, crashing it on the concrete floor. Her throat became dry and she couldn't process any words at that moment. "What do you think you are doing?" Adrian said, putting his hands in his pocket.
"Huh? Well it was… for you.. I thought…" He cut her off with a soft chuckle walking towards her pinching his nose bridge. He lowered himself to her level and said, "Just because I am nice to you, doesn't mean I like you." He looked down at the cookies that's were crushed. He picked up a few crumbs and threw them at her face.
"Are you trying to ruin my high school days or WHAT?" Jennifer flinched at his sudden raise of voice. Debbie and her minions noticed them and ran over quickly pulling out their phones. "What's going on here?" she asked folding her arms. "See.." Adrian pointed towards Debbie and her friends approaching them.
"You're just embarrassing yourself, so don't you ever do something like that that ever again." With that he left purposely bumping his shoulder into hers causing her to fall hard. Tears started to form in Jennifer's eyes making her vision blurry, the only thing she could make out was the crushed cookies all over the floor.
"I'm so stupid." She thought as she thought about last night.
*LAST NIGHT*
"Perfect" Jennifer licked the remaining pink frosting on her fingers. "Are they ready yet?"
Jennifer walked in excitement to the oven to see the rest of her cookies rising. "Ahh, I'm so happy we had those heart and star shaped cut outs."
"He'll love it." She thought. After the cookies were ready she carefully got them out of the oven and placed them on a cooling tray. Next she started to drop different food coloring in the frosting batter. "Pink, blue, purple and cream frosting." She clapped her hands as she checked the cookies, they were cool so she placed them on a plate and began decorating them.
"Done!" she carefully placed the cookies into a cookie box decorated by her. "To Adrian, from Jennifer!!" She wrote on a heart shaped card and placed it inside the box. "Perfect." She lifted the box in the air examining her hand work.
When born in a super rich family, the standard of touching gift change a lot. What is there on earth that Adrian couldn't afford himself that Jennifer could gift it to him? Nothing. So, the only thing she could give was her love and pure emotions which she expressed through her own hand made cookies. She could hire world's best cook to bake them, but she choose to toil in the kitchen only because she wanted Adrian to feel her true feelings.
"He'll love this." She was satisfied with the outcome of her hard work.
*End of flashback*
"He hated it." She said in a low whisper wiping her tears and getting back on her feet. Debbie and her friends walked over to the box, "What's this?" she picked up the note. "To Adrian… from.." She burst out laughing using the card to cover her smile. At this point, Jennifer was fully crying wiping her tears every now and then unable to move because of the humiliation.
"You're really something if you thought he would accept something so childish." She and her friends giggled, throwing the box around along with her ripping Jennifer's note and sprinkling it on the floor. Before leaving she taped her shoulder and said, "Don't be so naïve next time."
"My hard work is gone…"
Jennifer walked to the crumpled box and used the tissue she had in her pocket to pick up the cookies and put them in the trash bin. When she was done, she headed back to the class. Adrian saw Jennifer enter the classroom and turned his head away, unable to bear the guilt. He noticed that Jennifer's eyes were red with tears and it hurt to know that he was the reason for those tears.
Jennifer made an eye contact with him and then turned her head away. "I hate him.." He heard that, oh god that was the last thing he wanted to hear from her. He could hear faint sobs coming from her direction, all through the class. Jennifer never sat on the last bench until today… he noticed that. His heart clenched listening to her cries.
Out of all people around her, he was the only one who hadn't made her cry till now. Now he also joined the long list of people who hurt this pure soul and it was killing him. Never had she cried because of him. She was always a cute and happy soul. Today, she was crying because of him, Adrian just wanted to bury himself, he wanted to rush up to her and tell he that he loved her with his whole heart, that she was his life, his light and the reason he smiled but he couldn't bring himself to talk to her, not after what he had done to her.
"Jennifer, please stop crying. It breaks my heart to see you like this." He said in his mind and sobbed in between knowing that it was his fault he couldn't receive a response. If he had accepted her today, right now, she would be sitting next to her, hand in hand. How beautiful would that be! "Please baby, I know you are angry with me. Hit me. Scold me. Slap me. Please don't ignore me. If you don't want that, but please don't cry I can't stand seeing you cry." He said but didn't bear any response again.
Faint sobs turned into sniffs but his heart was still paining. He wanted to see her. Take care of her. He observed that she was shivering, he wanted to keep her warm. Adrian slid against his seat. James turned his head to look at him, raising his eyebrows. "Let's talk after class." He mouthed.