The 8 o’clock Saturday sun peaked at my window, illuminating my bedroom with its sultry yet warm temperature. Summer is two or three months away, but I can already feel the California heat.
I’m supposed to be at Lotte’s YoArt by 9:30 for my shift. But Charlotte called me last night and told me the shop will be closed today because she will take her sister to the beach for her birthday.
That left me with nothing to do but to lie all day. With my head hanging from my bed , I held the flyer Mrs. Vaughn gave me about the outdoor camping, scanning the slogan jotted on the paper.
“This is the lamest slogan I’ve ever read my entire life,” I told myself.
The sun hit my face as I felt a rumbling sensation in my stomach.
I tumbled myself to get up and rushed downstairs to get some breakfast. To my surprise, my mom was in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, reading a newspaper.
My mom works from Monday to Saturday. That makes us barely see each other inside the house except for Friday nights when we view the show we always watch together.
Sunday is her rest day. So might as well leave her alone during those days or less, she’ll say I’m being inconsiderate for not letting her rest on her one day off from work.
The house had been quiet ever since dad died. Let alone, I don’t even consider this a house when most days it’s unoccupied. I either spend my time inside my room or biking around downtown.
“No work?” I asked her as I get the cereal box from the cupboard and poured myself a glass of milk.
“No, but-"
“That’s great. We can grab breakfast at this diner downtown. Swear it’s delicious, I’ve been there a few times. It’ll be my treat,” I said, cutting her off.
There’s this diner downtown I always go to when I bike around. The bacon and waffles there taste like heaven the first time I ate at that diner. And since mom is at home and no decent breakfast prepared at the table, I might as well use this as an opportunity for us to eat together outside because probably this would be the first and last chance for me to do that. Plus, it’s lonely to eat alone, even if the food you’re eating is appetizing.
“No, honey.” She peeked through the newspaper she was reading. “I have clients that will make headway to our house. Sorry,” she apologized.
“What? You said it’s your day off from work. I’m sure your client can wait. C’mon, mom, swear the food there is great.” I grumbled to her.
She put down the newspaper she was holding and gave me a stern look.
“Stop being annoying and needy, Ellie. You don’t know how much work I’ve missed going home early last night just to spend watching the TV show with you,” she said in a steady tone, still giving me that stern look of hers.
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I said in a high-pitched tone. “Mom, if you couldn’t give your ti--"
“Ellie, just go to your room and stop being a spoiled brat daughter. My client is on their way. I don’t want to argue early in the morning,” she cut me off as we heard a knock on the door.
“Could you please just open the door for me? Just do something decent for me this time by opening that door,” she said, with her hands massaging her forehead.
I want to answer back, but I don’t want to argue either. So, I just stood there with my mouth agape.
She shouldn’t have made time for me if she’s just going to rub it off my face and tell me I’m being inconsiderate for taking her time. When in fact I didn’t ask for it because I know it would be impossible for her to give me such a thing.
So much for little changes.
I groaned in frustration and grabbed the cereal box and my glass of milk. I walked my way out to open the door. A woman and a guy probably the same age or a little older than was standing in our front steps.
“Oh hi! You are that employee in the frozen yogurt shop, right?” asked the woman with a smile on her face.
I eyed the woman in front of me, recalling if I served her frozen yogurt in Lotte’s YoArt. I landed my gaze on her blue eyes and moments flashed in my mind. She was that beautiful woman with ebony hair and icy blue eyes I served yesterday.
“Oh, yeah, I remember you,” I told her, smiling.
“You must be Nora’s daughter, aren’t you?” I nod. “No wonder you look so familiar the first time I saw you. You two have the same eyes.” She giggled.
“Come in,” I said, widening the opening of the door. “She’s in the kitchen.” I pointed the direction of our kitchen.
“Thank you!” She gave me a beaming smile. “Come on, now,” she commanded to the guy whom I hardly noticed since the moment I had the small conversation with the blue-eyed lady. He followed her, uttering no words.
The breeze outside seemed cozy, so I had my cereal and a glass of milk on our front porch.
I sat with my legs folded at the porch swing, that was cushioned with a soft white comforter and several pillows.
I munched on my cereal quietly and stared out at our front lawn. The sprinkler just turned on, sending bits of water droplets to the grasses. Trees were swaying with the breeze and neighbors jogging and walking their dogs.
“That’s the lamest slogan I’ve ever read.” Someone blurted out of nowhere.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, continuously munching on my cereal. I squinted my eyes, confused. I looked beside me, and a guy was sitting next to me, also staring out our front lawn. He was the one who came here together with the blue-eyed woman.
“Uh, excuse me?” He looked in my direction and my eyes met the most mesmerizing hazel brown eyes I have ever seen my entire life.
Damn, genes got really beautiful eyes.
“I said that is the lamest slogan I have ever read.” He pointed at my hand that was lying on my lap. I looked at it and I hardly noticed that I was still holding the outdoor camping flyer the entire time.
“Oh. Yeah, I know. I just said that, didn’t I?” He chuckled beside me.
“You have any lighter?” he asked, setting a cigarette between his lips.
“Do I look like I have a lighter? And this is a smoke-free house, mister.” I leaned unto him and snatched the cigarette from his lips and threw it away somewhere on our lawn.
“You will pay for that.”
I scoffed at him. “Oh yeah? How?”
“By this.” He snatched the cereal away from my hand and instead of taking a handful of cereal, he put the edge of the cereal box opening to his lip and showered his mouth with all the remaining cereal.
“Hey!” I grabbed the cereal from him and peeked at it. Nothing was left even a tiniest powder of cereal. “You ate it all!”
“Told you, you’re going to have to pay for it.” He sneered at me.
One thing I knew the moment I got up from my bed this morning was that I was hungry and there was no decent food available aside from that cereal and I was pissed. And now, this who knows who’s this boy ate all my cereal.
“Well, you’re going to have to pay for that too,” I said to him.
My eyes landed on my untouched glass of milk by the table beside him.
I stood up and took it from the table, and before he could say anything back to me; I found my hand holding the glass of milk on top of his head, his head soaking with milk.
There was a moment of silence between the two of us, but the birds chirped and the dog’s barking
My gesture shocked me too, but fuck him.
He took all my cereal and so, unfortunately, of him I was both pissed and hungry when I got up this morning and there’s a glass of milk on the table beside him.
“Why would you do that?” He stood up and glared down at me.
I raised my head to look up at him and met his eyes. I didn’t expect that he would be so… tall.
I mean, I saw him a while ago, but I didn’t think I would be barely half-past his shoulders. I gulped because jeez, who wouldn’t? He is towering and I feel so small.
He slowly walked towards me while his eyes gave me that death glare of his. I stepped back every time he stepped forward until I felt a chair behind me. He stepped forward once more, leaving no proximity between us, and looked straight into my eyes with his death glare.
“This is my favorite shirt,” he said firmly.
I looked down at his shirt.
What the fuck?
Was he serious? It was just a boring plain black shirt. The fuck is wrong with this person whining about a fucking black shirt?
Feeling annoyed, I once again glanced up at his hazel brown eyes that were glinting of intense seriousness.
“That was my favorite cereal too!” I yelled at him and stomped at his foot vigorously.
He let out a painful groan that made the neighbors walking past our house looked in our direction. He bent in front of me to reach for his foot and I pushed him, making him fall onto his butt and I ran away to my bike.
“Hey, come back here!” He yelled through his painful voice. I laughed at his red face and stuck my tongue at him before I pedaled away with my bike.
Twenty minutes of biking around downtown, I passed by the diner I was talking about to my mom at the house.
I unmounted my bike to enter the diner to feed my starving stomach when I remembered I ran away from the house with nothing aside from my bike.
I let out a sigh of defeat and mounted my bike again when I heard someone calling my name.
I looked behind me, and my eyes caught a familiar sense of style. Luna was standing in front of a boutique store two blocks away from the diner with her sleeveless Guns n Roses tucked into her cutoff shorts together with her Dr. Martens boots waving at me smiling.
I unmounted my bike and waved back to her as I watched her run towards me with a bright, big, beaming smile plastered on her face.
I ended up Luna treating me to breakfast upon discovering I forgot my wallet right after William got his haircut done.
We sat in a booth where little sunlight hit the glass window while eating a delectable breakfast with William, who was sitting across from Luna and me with his mouth filled with food, like how people were packed inside the diner.
“Not going to, Ellie. This diner has the best bacon and eggs downtown.” I looked at William as he talked between swallowing the fifth bacon and eggs platter he had.
“Yeah, it is. I can see that. Gosh, wipe your face.” Luna handed William a tissue with a disgusting expression on her face.
I never presumed a kind of William I am seeing right now. He was really out of his character. I pulled out tissue on a tissue box and wiped my lips after I finished my last bacon.
“I say you like desserts, William? Frozen yogurts are the best. Try Lotte’s YoArt, you’ll never regret it. Plus, I work there and I can give you two free frozen yogurts. I owed the two of you for treating me a delicious breakfast today,” I told him as he choked a little from his filled bacon mouth. I handed him water.
“Frozen yogurts are good. Guess we’ll try sometime.” He gave me a thumbs up.
We spent maybe 5- or 10-minutes watching William finish his sixth plate of bacon and eggs. Man, William must have got a huge spacious stomach that it takes six plates of bacon and eggs to fill it up.
William finally had enough after seven plates and asked to rest for a while before getting out of the diner, so Luna ordered the two of us some milkshakes while William pondered by the window.
“So, Ellie, why, out of everything, you forgot your wallet and bike downtown without breakfast?” Luna asked whilst watching some fashion show on the television, sipping on her milkshake.
“I uh… sort of ran away??” I fiddled with my straw, unsure if ‘ran away’ was an appropriate word to say.
Both looked at me at the same time with a questioning look and in unison, they said “What?!”
“You’re so stupid, Ellie.” I looked at William with a surprised look. “Why would you run away with nothing except with your sweat shorts, flip-flops, and a bike?” he continued.
“No, I mean, not run away as in like I ran away. It’s like Uh… I ran away from someone.” I looked at them with their eyes so wide. I kind of said it in the right way this time, didn’t I?
“Oh my God! You’ve been robbed! That’s why you don’t have your wallet with you. Are you hurt?” Luna said, inspecting every ounce of my skin for any inflictions.
“We got to call the police,” William said, bringing out his phone.
Shocked by the assumptions of the two.
I looked at them in awe and came back to my senses when William’s phone was already in his ears.
“What?! No!” I snatched the phone from William. “Don’t call the police. I didn’t get robbed and I’m fine.” I assured, switching glances between the two of them.
The two were quiet with their eyes on me that was asking what happened.
“There’s this guy. He has beautiful hazel brown eyes, a black sort of curly hair,” I explained to them, pointing to my hair. “Little tan and about 6-foot-tall, I think, I barely pass his shoulders,” I said to them.
“Okay… he sounds dreamy. What happened?” Luna asked, sipping her milkshake.
“I threw milk at his face.” Luna stopped sipping on her milkshake and looked at me with disappointment.
“That was rude. Maybe you’re the one I should call the police to,” William said, gesturing to me to give back his phone.
“He was the rude one! He stole my cereal!” I exclaimed, putting William’s phone in his hand with force.
William dug back his phone in his pocket, and the two shrugged in unison again.
“I would have done the same thing,” William said.
Luna slurped on her milkshake until it was empty and looked at me.
“Say what? You want to go to Target with us?”