"I don't think I'm still going to continue making him hate me," I told Gina as I bit into my green apple. Bey wasn't here to join us for lunch, so I was free to talk to Gina about the progress of OBA. "We're sorta kinda friends now, so I don't know, it seems counterproductive to try to make him hate me still."
Gina had a thoughtful look on her face. "Honestly, I'm really surprised that this whole thing worked out. I mean," she dropped her voice to a whisper, "you started out with pouring your drink on him! On Apple! And now he's okay with you? That's gotta be a damn good progress."
"I didn't pour my drink on him. It was a splash! Accidentallyâ"
"âon purpose," she finished, rolling her eyes at me. "It's a miracle that you kinda get along now."
"I think he's just slowly getting used to my presence," I said. "After all, we're in this stupid project together. So if we can't tolerate each other..." I shrugged, before biting my lip to hold back a smile. "I should thank Principal Collin and Mr. Herberg, though, because without the project, I wouldn't even know what to do to crack him."
"Yeah, you're pretty lucky," she said, shaking her head at me with a smile. "You really couldn't have predicted the outcome." Suddenly, her gaze lifted over my shoulder, and a small knowing smile appeared on her face. "Ooh. Prince not-so-Charming approaching in three... two..."
"Taylors."
I looked up to my right and saw Jonah. "Yeah, Gibbs?"
He puffed out his cheeks, and I suddenly had this urge to reach out and poke his cheeks repeatedly. Ugh. He was so adorable. "You got a camera?" he asked.
So, there was this new project that Mr. Herberg just gave us. It wasn't as time consuming as the other (cough, crying doll, cough) project. It was just that from now on, we were very greatly encouraged to film some of our activities togetherâlike, getting to know each other, hanging out, blah blah blahâincluding those dreadful days when we were finally taking care of our doll. By the end of the project, we were to give presentation about how this project has helped us with adulthood, et cetera et cetera, as well as showing a compilation of those videos we recorded as a short, sort of like a home movie.
"I can film it on my phone. You?" I asked him.
"I have a camcorder."
"Well, maybe we both should film it together? I mean, so it has two different points of views; yours and mine. Then we'll just mix the videos up together," I suggested.
"Hm," he said, slowly nodding. "Sounds good."
I nodded along. "So it's settled, then?"
"Yeah." He paused. "What are we gonna film anyway?"
I lifted my shoulder. "I don't really know... We'll get to it eventually."
"Okay."
He was still standing there, so I said, "Alright."
"Yeah." He cleared his throat, and then rubbed the back of his neck. "See you, I guess."
I cracked a smile. "See you."
He turned around and left, so I turned my attention back on Gina, who was smirking slyly at me.
"That's cute," she commented before slurping down her orange juice. "He's totes into you."
I clicked my tongue disapprovingly at my best friend. "Now you're just being ridiculous."
[]
Once I got home, I was instantly greeted by the smell apple pie baking in the kitchen.
"I'm home," I announced through the door. "Smells good."
"Mm-hm," she nodded, her back still turned to me as she washed her hands in the sink. "Your brother requested it this morning. I haven't baked in so long anyway." She finally turned around. "How's school?"
I kissed her on the cheek. "Eh, just the usual."
"And that Life Skills project you told me? How's that going?"
"Well, good news is that the baby is arriving next week! Yay!" I faked an enthusiastic face, and then immediately dropped it. Mom stared at me with an amused look on her face. "I'm sorry in advance for the trouble the fake kid is going to bring. Jonah and I agreed to switch duties every week."
She grabbed onto my hands, tapping on both rings with her fingers. "It's so weird seeing that you're married. And you didn't invite me to the wedding!"
"Don't worry mom, I'm not gonna fly to Vegas and elope with him for real any time soon."
She tsked at me, even though she was smiling. "You look so grown up with these."
"Yeah... please don't start crying. These are fake. I've had enough of dad bawling his eyes out."
"I know that," Mom said, dropping both of my hands. "The engagement ring is so pretty, though. Did he make it by himself?"
I held up my hand so I could look at it, and lightly brushed my thumb over the circles at the top of the ring. "I think so. It looks handmade."
"He put a lot of effort into it, didn't he?"
"Oh, mom," I fake-gushed, "you don't know how he proposed! A dream come true."
She smiled at me amusedly. "And how did he propose?"
I laughed. "He did it at the school garden. With the help of a cat, green tea latte, cactus, and a water fountain."
Her eyes narrowed at me, as if she was wondering if I was being serious or not. She finally sighed and shook her head at me. "Go change. The pie's almost done."
Just as I was about to go upstairs, the front door barged open, and my seven year-old baby brother yelled, "Mommy, I'm homey!"
"In the kitchen, sweetie. The pie is almost done!"
There was a yell of excitement and loud footsteps until a mop of blonde hair popped into the kitchen. I immediately grabbed Cole and hugged him from behind while messing up his hair, and he shrieked as he tried to break free, which only made my hold on him tightened.
"Ew, let go, Hannah, you stink!"
Just to spite him, I buried his face in my armpit, and my mom laughed until she broke us up. "Hannah, take a shower." I rolled my eyes at her. "Cole, go change and go back here in about ten minutes, alright?"
Cole stuck his tongue out at meâand I stuck my tongue out right backâbefore disappearing into his room. Once he was gone, I sniffed my armpits, and clicked my tongue in protest.
"I do not smell!"
[]
I decided to film Jonah while he was working at the diner on Saturday. I came around twelve, clad in my maroon sweater and knitted scarf as it was getting cold outside, with the rain falling nonstop since morning, and I immediately went straight to his counter, ordering a hot cappuccino.
I sat down at the closest table from the counter so I could easily take my order once it was done. I took off my scarf that I'd been using to cover my head from the light rain and slung it over the back of my chair.
Not wasting time, I pulled out my phone from my bag and turned on the video recording, aiming the camera at Jonah.
"Hi, so I'm at the diner where Jonah, myâ" I paused to snicker quietly, "âhusband, works at," I said to the phone softly, but from the way Jonah was rolling his eyes, I could tell that he could hear me. "His job is supposed to be an actor, from the background details Mr. Herberg gave him, but eh."
Then I turned the camera so I could face it, and whispered, "He makes the best caffeinated beverages."
I turned it back around to shoot Jonah, who was now smiling lightly as he finished my order. He slid the drink over and gestured for me to get it. I stood up with my phone in my hand and took the cup, making sure to take a shot of it.
"Huh, you gave me marshmallows," I said once I noticed the marshmallows swimming inside the cappuccino. "Thank you," I said, moving the camera to shoot his face.
He made a face and tried to block out the camera with his hand. "You're welcome."
I sat down, the camera still recording as I said, "I don't actually have to pay since my family owns the diner, so, ha."
Then I put the phone on the table, making sure that I was in the frame, and leaned it against a box of tissue so I wouldn't have to hold it as it recorded me.
I lifted the cup and took a sip of it, and then closed my eyes with a slight moan of delight. "See?" I told the camera. "Best drink ever."
Jonah was chuckling from where he was standing.
[]
Ever since the whole incident last week where Jonah found me almost passed out on the floor at school, he and I apparently had signed a mutual agreement that we would start to tolerate and try to act nice to each other. We were nowhere close to "friendly" just yet, but the permanent glare he seemingly had always had for me was gone. Or at least it was no longer permanent. It was as if a strange, magical bridge had been built between us.
Bless the menstrual cramps. I mean, you sucked big time, but you played a great part in drawing a soft spot inside his heart for me, so. I forgave you this time.
Sometimes I couldn't believe that in the span of just one month, we had escalated from strangers to enemies-ish to what was the closest thing to friends. Technically, I was the closest person in Jonah's social life at school, so I took great pride in it. Maybe another month, and we became lovers? I snickered at that thought.
Some people kind of asked me why and how I was sort of kind of friends with Jonahâbecause Jonah was Jonah and Jonah didn't do friends in the lonely world of Jonahâbut I just shrugged and said, "Maybe because I'm amazing?" They weren't really amused by my flippant remark, but it wasn't like I could care less.
It was after the end of Jonah's shift, and I had initiated that we should go out for late lunch somewhere other than Rochelle's because I was getting pretty bored of eating here. He shrugged and told me that he didn't have anything better to do anyway, so off we went exploring around the town for something to eat.
"What about the Eatmore's?" I suggested once we were inside his car.
"Isn't it supposed to be a rival restaurant to Rochelle's or something?"
"Yeah... but I've never been there. Besides, Rochelle's still the more popular one." He rolled his eyes at me. "C'mon, what do you say?"
"Alright. I've never been there either," he agreed, making a turn to the Eatmore's restaurant.
We chose an empty booth near the large window, sitting in front of each other. The waitress came with two menus in her hand, and we looked through the menu.
"Can I have a baked potato soup, chicken salad sandwich and cranberry juice?" I said after a few while, and the waitress nodded, writing down my order.
She turned to Jonah with a smile. "Anything else?"
"A bacon's lover sandwich and apple juice, please."
I almost smiled in amusement when he said apple juice. How funny was that? An apple drinking apple juice. Hah!
"Is that all?"
"Yeah, thank you."
I took my phone out of my bag once the waitress left, and Jonah rolled his eyes at me as he, too, reached into his small bag and took out his camcorder.
"So," I said to my own camera while he was also recording me. "Let's just say that this is our first lunch out together as a married couple. Maybe pretend like we're at some fancy elite restaurant in Paris, yeah?"
Jonah snorted, and he said to his camcorder, "Yeah, we're currently on our honeymoon right now."
My camera was pointed toward Jonah while his was to me, and so we began our small talk.
We didn't really talk all that muchâif you hadn't guessed yet, Jonah wasn't much of a talkerâbut we mostly just exchange information about ourselves. Date of birth, favorite color, favorite book, favorite food, favorite celeb; all the common questions when you wanted to get to know someone because at this point, we knew next to nothing about each other (well, I knew him better than he knew me, but he didn't know that).
The food came all at once a while later after he finished telling me the short story of why he hated wearing socks, and my mouth instantly watered at the sight of food in front of me.
Meanwhile, Jonah was eyeing me a little bit weirdly.
"What?" I asked snippily.
"For such a small girl, you sure eat a lot," he remarked, his eyes falling to the pile food I had ordered.
"I'm a growing girl," I huffed.
"How come you're so skinny? You almost eat more than I do," he asked in honest confusion. "That's not an insult, by the way. I'm just wondering."
I took a spoonful of my baked potato soup and slurped it down. It was pretty good, but to be honest, my guys could cook better. "Magic, perhaps?" I answered Jonah's question, and he rolled his eyes at me. "Just shut up and eat. I'm hungry."
So we spent the rest of the afternoon in Eatmore's restaurant, sharing the baked potato soup, talking about things I would have never imagined I would discuss with the Jonah Gibbs, and witnessing the first, full blown smile that appeared on his face when he talked about his annoying sister, even though it lasted for less than two seconds, all documented by both of our cameras.