I bring my calculator out and finish my homework. I would rather be done with it now before we head home. Then when we get home, I'll just head straight to my room and toss my spent body on the bed like a flopping fish.
I did that all the time when I was younger. Usually, when my mum would reprimand me over something, I would not want to let her see that her words got me teary-eyed. I would quickly run upstairs and bellyflop on my bed, sniffling. It has been a long, confusing day, my brain hurts and my body wants to shut down.
Christian left a while ago with a finally calm Riley. I don't know if they have made up or not. After Jodie got a text from Savannah about hanging out, she also had to leave. With half of our group members absent the rest decided to follow. Fleance offered to give me a ride home with his brother, but I declined and told him I would hitch a ride with my father. Then he too strolled out, leaving me alone with my chocolate shake.
We are almost done with the group project. The only thing left to do is to head over to Jodie's and build it.
Biting on the straw puncturing into my drink, I try to psyche myself into my homework. I honestly cannot get that kiss out of my head. Every time I pinch my eyes close I can still feel his lips pressing onto mine. The drunken kiss. I remember it being so cold around us, but with his lips on mine, my entire body warmed up pretty quickly. I get that he was drunk that night and wasn't of sound mind, but the whole thing just feels so surreal.
I can't wrap my mind around it. It is perplexing, a head-scratcher as my English teacher likes to say, always encouraging us to be more spontaneous when speaking. We never listen to her.
At the same time, I also find myself thinking of how damp with the flavours of liquor his lips were, how perfectly he moulded them against my initially unmoving ones at first. Another exhausted sigh leaves my lips and I pack up my books when I realise that I won't be able to concentrate on the work. The happy, parabolic function on the graph turns into Dominic's lips every once in a while.
Swinging my bag over my shoulder, I take the milkshake that my father forced onto me and slurp the remains into my mouth. When I shake the cup, I hear some liquid sloshing around against the walls. It has lost most of its frostiness, but I do not mind it much.
Heading over to my father who is behind the till counting the money and comparing it to the check counterfoil, I wonder how safe he is being by counting the money out here in the open. Then I think of how little to non-existent the crime rate is in this town and the thought is discarded as quickly as it had surfaced in my mind. No one is going to randomly pop in here and rob us. I hope.
Checking the time on my colourful wristwatch, I see that it is pretty late. Normally by now, I am at home cooking or just watching cartoons with the twins as we stuff our faces with all kinds of snacks. Ji Ho manages to remain sombre after we have eaten sweets, but Chu Hua gets hyperactive after eating them which sometimes causes her to run around silly.
Sometimes Franklin would call to tell us that he was bringing food home from the diner and I would be relieved to have the weight of cooking taken off my shoulders. That is one of the perks of having a father who is the owner of a food exchange shop. Amma would be on one of her graveyard shifts.
"Hey, Dad," I greet, hopping up to take a seat on the stool.
Gazing up, his eyebrows flick up in surprise and he muses in shock, "You're still here?"
"Yes," I answer with a grin of hilarity. "I don't have a ride home. It's already dark, the bus stop is too many streets away and could lead me down a path of getting kidnapped and human trafficked so I'll just wait for you."
"Well, I only knock off in an hour. The perks of being the boss," he informs me, distractedly scribbling something down on his notepad before closing the till. "Are you sure you can wait that long?"
I raise my index finger and pull my bag off of my shoulder. Ruffling through it, I pull out the book that I am almost done reading. Pride and Prejudice.
"I have my book and a half-filled chocolate shake." I raise both the paperback novel and my plastic cup to show him. "I think I'll be fine, Dad."
"Where's the boy you normally leave with?"
"Dominic?"
"Yes, him. I didn't see him at your table today. Is he sick?"
"Oh, no. He's fine," I reply with a wave of dismissal as if to tell him not to worry. "He apparently had tutorials today after school so he unfortunately could not make it."
"Then," he drawls out as a perplexed look covers his expression, "why is he here?"
"What?" I muse, furrowing my brows in confusion, but also I cannot help the way my heart skips a beat fearfully.
He points a finger behind me and slowly, painstakingly, I spin around to catch the man of the hour. "Looks like you have a ride after all."
The SpongeBob boxers have been discarded and are now replaced with the usual, familiar hoodie and denim jeans. And by familiar, I mean colour. The colour that I am so used to seeing on him nowadays. It's his new look. I cannot paint him as the emo kid anymore.
His hair is hidden by a woolly hat, a few strands escaping in front and at the nape. His hands are buried deep into the crevices of his jersey. When my eyes lock on his deep, dark, impassive, chocolate brown ones, my stomach coils and anxiety attacks me. What is he doing here?
When I have built up the courage to blink myself out of our stare down, I jump off the stool with my drink in hand so that I can busy myself while talking to him. The atmosphere between us is so thickly coated with discomfort and an apparent awkwardness that one would need something sharper than a pair of scissors to cut through it. But I guess this is what I get for crushing on my best friend's boyfriend, being trapped in inescapable awkwardness.
Once standing in front of him, I open my mouth to greet him, but he manages to beat me to it.
"Hey," he's first to give me the polite sign of recognition and acknowledgement, which stuns me for a second.
"Hi," I force out, over the lump stuck in my throat, preventing me from even breathing properly. "Um… wha-what are you doing here? It's almost seven o'clock."
"I know," he replies, licking his bottom lip nervously. "I just… came to get myself a strong coffee. The diner's ones are much better than the restaurant's and I just so happen to be suffering from a headache."
"Still?" I muse in confusion. "That was like Sunday. How are you still suffering from the hangover?"
"School," he answers as a matter of fact, making me open my mouth in an 'oh' and nod in understanding.
"Right."
Absolute quietness envelops us again and that is when I am thankful to have my milkshake so I can slurp some into my mouth. If I did not have it, I would probably be drilling my toes into the floor and fidgeting with my fingers. I honestly despise unfilled silence.
"That's not true, actually," he finally admits, chasing the stillness away.
"What? That the diner's coffee is better than the restaurant's one?"
"No, that… I didn't come here for the coffee. I… came here to see you."
"Okay…"
He licks his lips again and blinks a couple of times as if to get the courage he needs to carry on speaking. "We need to talk."
The four dreaded words: We need to talk.
"We're talking now," I point out.
"Can we actually sit down and talk?"
I keep quiet for a while, but then I put him out of his misery and say, "Okay."
He gestures for me to lead the way and I do, walking over to the normal booth we always sit in. My feet all of a sudden feel heavier than they did before and my face scrunches up in concern.
He wants to talk, he said. What does he want to talk about?
I slide into the booth and he follows, taking a seat opposite me. Underneath the table, my fingers intertwine nervously and I barely hold eye contact with him.
His beanie comes off, revealing his tousled hair, which he runs his hand through—a habit of his when he's anxious or tense. But tonight, his curls are a different style altogether. He looks like he just woke up and rolled out of bed, with a dishevelled appearance that is quite different from his usual self.
"I uh… I remember what happened in the restroom after I drank the wine."
My breath hitches, but I remain emotionless and motion for him to go on by nodding my head.
"I… the kiss… um… I just wanted to apologise," he stammers, his gaze firmly fixed on the table.
My eyes widen in surprise, not quite believing the words that left his mouth. The memory of that stolen kiss lingers, the warmth of his lips sears in my mind. I replayed that moment a thousand times, still shocked it wasn't a dream.
"Apologise?" The word feels foreign in my tongue, laced with a hint of incredulity.
"Yeah, it was uncalled for and inexcusable. I shouldn't have done that to you." Finally, he lifts his eyes to meet mine. "You worked really hard to get Jodie and me where we are right now and for me to throw that back in your face by doing something like that... that was wrong of me and I hope you can forgive me for it, but I can understand if you don't."
Is this his long way of saying he regrets kissing me?
"It's okay," I interrupt him with a bittersweet smile, a smile that does not quite reach my eyes. Obviously this, him apologising to me, is difficult for him to do. "You were drunk."
He nods his head stiffly. "I was, yes."
"You were clearly not thinking straight."
"Mm-hmm."
Understanding dawns on me and I slowly bob my head up and down in agreement with my next assertion, "It was a mistake."
He blinks up at me bluntly.
I quickly add to placate him, "I won't tell Jodie about this and I also accept your apology." He seems a little bit distracted. "You know, contrary to what you believe I'm not an uneducated donkey."
His face immediately falls and through his lashes, I notice his browns darkening with an indecipherable emotion. That was not the reaction I was hoping for. Did I say something to offend him in any way? Is it because I teased him?
"Right," he murmurs, his gaze not meeting mine and I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. "A mistake."
Why is he saying it like that? As if he does not truly believe it to be a mistake. With my heart in my throat, my mouth opens and shuts awkwardly like a fish in the water as I try to get a grasp on my thoughts before uttering them to him.
"It was a mistake," I scan his face curiously and he glances up at me while his eyes flickering around anxiously, "right?"
"Yeah," he responds quickly after blinking away the wistful expression which was previously on his face, nodding adamantly. Too quickly; too adamantly. "A stupid, drunken mistake."
"Well, I agree," I stammer out, now caught off guard by his weird demeanour.
With a whisper so incredibly quiet, he says, "Okay."
"Okay," I repeat.
"Great."
I pause and then echo after him, "Great."
"Cool."
I nod slowly, a stiff smile making its way onto my lips.
We sit there in tense silence, staring at each other with different emotions displayed on our faces. A deep huff leaves his lips, but it does not seem like the burden of this misunderstanding has been lifted off his shoulders. Now I'm confused.
Dominic obviously did not mean for what happened to happen, right? Maybe he was not expecting me to be so cool about it. I would not hold that against him though. He might be the kind of person who blackmails people with that sort of incriminating information, but I am not. I'm not the petty, take revenge-on-people type. That gene was sadly taken by my older brother who left next to nothing for the twins and me. Maybe Chu Hua has a little bit of the genotype.
"You, uh, you need a ride home?" he asks after raking a hand through his hair again, standing up from his seat.
"Yeah, sure. Why not?" I mimic his actions, finally finishing the last of my milkshake.
Hopefully, things will not be awkward anymore and we can go back to our Tom and Jerry relationship. The relationship where I annoy the living daylights out of him and he does everything possible in his power to refrain from murdering me. No more mix-ups. I am Jerry the mouse and he's Tom all the time. He is not allowed to get drunk and replace my role in the relationship.
"Okay, let's get out of here."
"Bye, Dad."
Franklin playfully winks at me and, for some peculiar reason, holds his hand up for a high five. I stare at him weirdly for a few seconds, but you know, cannot leave a brother hanging.
After we have done that, I awkwardly spin on my heels while pondering when my father started to engage in high fives. My parents are both reserved people. I have gone to award ceremonies where some parents scream for their children loudly and proudly. My parents simply smile at me softly and stay seated. Even afterwards, there aren't any congratulations passed around. Only playful banter.
"You made the top two? You know what they say…" and then I'll roll my eyes and murmur back, "Yes, yes. Second place is the first loser."
After dumping my plastic cup in a nearby bin, I walk beside Dominic with a bit of a pep in my step and add, "Just to let you know, the fish confirmed today that she would be willing to date you if you man the fucked up and ask her to."
"Really?" I nod to his musing with a bright grin. While pressing his lips into a thin line almost grimly, he mutters, "Well, that is awfully good news."
"It's great news. Our work has paid off."
"Yep," he murmurs and the unimpressed expression on his face makes me scowl in bemusement.
I mean, I get that he's always emotionless, but surely finding out that the girl he likes is willing to date him should get him a little bit excited, no?
"Seems like someone will be getting their stuff sooner than we expected. Maybe by tomorrow, you will have your stuff back," he says to me.
"Yes," I hiss excitedly, fist pumping the air. "I sure did miss my sketchbook. I need to catch up on my drawing."
"Your sketches are quite good."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
With a hopeful gleam in my eyes, I eagerly question, "You think I could make it big as a fashion designer someday?"
"Definitely not," he states adamantly, shaking his head at me while unlocking his car at the same time.
With a frown, I narrow my eyes at him. "Prick."
Once we have both settled into our seats, he clicks his seatbelt into place and releases a puff of breath. That sigh has to be of relief, right? Relief, because he's grateful that I did not make a big deal of the whole kissing in a cold restroom while his date and her parents were back in the restaurant waiting on him.
Now that he is physically in front of me, I take my time to study him, his rugged features. I cannot help but feel like that kiss changed something for me. I cannot help but feel like I might like him, just a little bit.
Except I know that I will get over it as time goes on, a very short time because I have learned my lesson. I will not be crushing on people's boyfriends anymore. Jodie and him are going to be dating soon and I will have my longed for items back and everything will go back to normal.
Silence pursues between us until he finally glances over at me and thins his gaze into the annoyance I knew would come back at some point. "Seatbelt."
"Of course," I input, clicking the seatbelt in place, smiling widely at being reminded of that. "Oh, and before I forget." I searchingly go through my bag, putting my books on my lap. Being the nosy person Dominic is, he picks them both up and the corner of his mouth twitches in amusement at the romantic novel.
"Of course, you'd read the book of some cheesy movie."
I indignantly grab the book in question from him and challengingly say, "To know the movie was cheesy, you would have had to watch it."
"Where did you get the book?"
"At the school library."
He releases a thoughtful noise behind his throat.
"I'm supposed to give it back in a month so I need to make sure that I finish reading it before the librarian starts pestering everyone about making sure to return the school's books. Then again, I should probably just buy the book myself."
"Why don't you just purchase the electronic version?"
"Paperback is always better."
"Paperback isn't always better. You, of all people, should know that."
"Oh, you think you're so funny?"
His lips twitch. "A little bit."
I pull out the nicely wrapped gift from my bag. I bought it for him the day after I met Dinah James and on the drive back home, they told me that his birthday was on the eighth of November.
Dominic's eyes enlarge when I present the gift to him and he tentatively takes the small, nicely wrapped present, after placing the other book down. It's a little late because my dad could only receive it the previous night. He watches me with an open softness, astonished by my actions. I know he's expecting me to be evil because he's blackmailing me, but I'm not.
"I meant to give it to you at school, but you weren't there in class today so… here you go."
"You didn't have to."
"I wanted to. Besides, it was your birthday and you deserve to at least get a present from your little Pinocchio."
He snorts, humoured by my words. "I don't know what to say, but um, thank you, Pinocchio. I'll open it when I get home."
His phone rings before he can say more words of appreciation and I silently curse it since this is most likely the last time he says anything nice to me. Maybe I should have recorded him the same way that Dinah James begged me to take a picture of them hugging Dominic. They told me that they are going to frame it somewhere in their house when they grow older with the word, bromance above it.
After pinching his eyebrows down, he pulls out the device from his back pocket and answers the call.
"Yes?" He pauses. "You're here?" Another pause. "Okay, I will be there as soon as possible; just need to drop off a friend." Pause again. "Yep." Lip twitch. "Yes, I heart you too, Mum." Small smile. "Okay, bye."
A grin of amusement makes its way onto my lips. "I heart you, huh?"
"Shut up."
I chuckle to myself under my breath.
And as we drive into the night, at some point I realise that he actually called me a friend.