Pedestrian |✓

|26| c h e e t o s

"It's my life," I blasted out the last lyrics louder than necessary. It probably came with the fact that I am such a mess or maybe I just wanna beat Austin in this silly game, Lily started. I don't know what's pushing me over the edge. Maybe because I know that I am hoping for the impossible - for him to like me or maybe the fact that he confuses me - big time.

One moment he makes me feel like. . . Like he can like me the same way I do like him. That maybe he sees me as someone who he could call 'his' , but then all of a sudden, without warning or pause, he would send my brain into an overdrive of reality, where he would show me how much of a hopeless romantic I am and it's making me feel so stupid. 

So darn stupid.

But the way his hazel eyes, look a little bit smaller when he smiles, the way his lips form into his silly boyish-grin and the way he makes me breathless are just. . . Just makes me wanna believe again. It makes me believe that he can like me too. 

It's tiring. It's frustrating.

"Looks like Anna won!" Lily cheered, pumping her fists in the air as she made silly faces at the boys who hollered their boo's.

"Stop being sore losers, guys. It's obvious that Anna was hella rad."

Stephen stood up from his seat to pat Austin's back. "Man, I know you let the chick beat you. But hey, it's cool. I get it. We get it. Right guys?" He waved his hands eagerly, motioning for the other guys to agree and the way, the boys utter their approval unwillingly, made me somehow smile.

It seems that Stephen has some convincing powers that radiates off of him eh?

I placed the mic onto the table, just beside the huge square-plate of onion rings. Seeing the plate, my eyes immediately  snapped up to look at Austin and I bowed my head back again when I saw him, staring intently at me. His eyes that burned on my skin, made me uncomfortable and fidgety. It made me wonder if he knew that I wanted to kiss him too, if it weren't for these onion rings.

Does he know? Or maybe he just thought that I looked so stupid, thinking that he would've actually kissed me.

"Who's next?" Lily asked cheerily, raising Austin's mic up in the air.

Everyone muttered their reluctance to go next, but of course, Lily wouldn't want to end her game. She's Lily after all.

"Lily, no one wants to play this game," Vincent shouted from the corner as he continued to dig his hand in a bag of Cheetos. 

"Says who? It's just you assuming!" And of course, Lily would go on all defense-mode. Just a millisecond before Lily pounced on Vincent—in the most threatening way possible and not on any other way, Mr. Ford arrived, carrying a huge platter of barbecues, freshly grilled by him.

"Kids, who wants some barbecue?"

Everyone hooted, including Lily who stopped dead in her tracks and was in rage moments ago. Oh well, who says no to barbecue? 

****

". . . And that's how we came up with BJ. I know some of you kids must be thinking that 'BJ' means something. . . something quite hmm interesting, but no, it's Baby Jeremiah. Right BJ?" Mr. Ford ended his story with a huge grin and wiggling eyebrows, directed to Austin, who's frowning deeply beside me. 

Austin's dad is really cool. He knows how to crack jokes and to make deliciously, drool-pouring barbecues. In short, he's great and somehow I wonder why Austin never absorbed even just a small amount of his cheeriness.