really okay?”
Though I’m always the first one who wakes up
in the morning but today it’s different. She’s seeing our little
table prepared with I could say not the usual breakfast we have
everyday. We have a real deal that whosever wakes up first should
make the meal and we normally serve sandwich with milk or coffee or
juice or tea whichever is available. But for this morning, she’s
seeing the table with real complete delicious breakfast. And I woke
up an hour earlier than the usual just to make everything ready.
“Good morning Elle,” I greeted to her. “Have a seat please,”
Honestly, just like her, I didn’t expect all of these. I just saw
them delivered in our apartment. I was about to ask her too but I
suddenly remembered something. And I wasn’t wrong with it, all
right, Walter sent them here. Glad I saw them first before she does
or else, she’ll flood me with questions I am not yet ready to tell
the answers. I looked at her and she’s still waiting for my answer,
“What?” I bothered.
“What’s with this?” she asked.
“What’s with this?” I repeated in a tone of
‘what’s the matter?’
She paused and thinks a little deeper. Then
she began smiling with me, “Are you…”
And I knew what she’s about to say, oh she’s
just clever, so, “You have to stop it there now and don’t keep the
food waiting for us,” I interrupted as I turned around to the
kitchen sink to clean my hands.
She stood up quickly and reached me there,
“You are such a little secret keeper!” she expressed.
I turned to her and I can see how her eyes
look at me. I can see her facial reaction too as well as her
interest, and they’re so into my answer. “What are you talking
about?” I tried to avoid her.
“Who is he? What is his name?”
I dried my hands with the towel and sat back
to the chair, but she didn’t stop and just followed me there.
“What?” I gave her my innocent-trying-to-hide-something-look
again.
“What?” she repeated.
She’s obsessed so I think I cannot keep it
any longer that’s why it is here when I finally gave in. “All
right, fine!” I paused for a while and made myself a little silent,
just to make the revelation more heartfelt. “I’m going out with
someone. We are kind of this… I don’t know what we’re doing exactly
but we’re doing it, we go out,” As I’ve said, I don’t want to think
it that way, that we are dating or what because I don’t want to be
one step ahead of it because I don’t want to get hurt at the end.
“I mean, we’ve already done that, many times now. So that’s it.
That’s just it,” Truth is, I still want to keep it to her but I
guess it wouldn’t be fair if one day, she will know it because
somebody else caught us doing it. What kind of friend am I if I
don’t trust her, right? And one more thing, I don’t know but I feel
different about Walter, I mean it in a way that he’s a kind of
boyfriend material, a real serious one. So I don’t want her to
think that I’m just playing around though I know she wouldn’t, but
still I want to introduce him in a formal kind of meeting, most
likely in an unexpected chance. But since she figured it out now, I
guess I have no other choice.
She gave me a happy kind of smile. The one
that is more concerned. “And his name?” she followed.
I’m thinking how am I going to tell it, come
on, I won’t tell his name just like that, I need some introduction
first, so “Do you remember when I left you at the nightclub, that
when I met a guy and drove me back there again?” I started to dig
her memory back.
“Oh, the Lizard? Yeah of course,”
“What about when you asked me to audition at
Eight TNT?”
“Yeah,”
“The guy I met that night and the guy I met
at Eight TNT happened to be just one guy. And that’s the guy I am
seeing now,”
“Uh-hmm,” I gave her a gesture asking if
she’s having the idea now. She dropped her eyes down and made some
thought about it. A moment
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain