Pedestrian |✓

|42| f r o s t i n g

Icing, skittle. Icing, skittle. Icing, skittle.

That was how most of my morning was spent at Patrick's home.

Last night, right after we wrapped up our plan for today, which would take place some time in the afternoon, we decided to go grocery shopping in the morning and to bake the cake after as well. With the supervision and the professional equipment of Henry, of course.

Baking a cake wasn't as easy as I thought. In cook shows, even in computer games, baking came as easy as breathing. You just had to buy the right ingredients, measure this and that, mix and then pop a pan in a pre-heated oven. Then, voila! A cake.

In reality, it took a lot of effort, efficiency, knowledge, skill and patience. It wasn't simply about mixing two ingredients together - it was about making sure that the product would be worth all the effort and money you spent on each layer.

The cake I opted to bake was a basic one. It's a vanilla cake with chocolate drizzle and blue Skittles (upon Kayla's insistence). I was acting a little casual about all of this, pretending not to notice Kayla's not so subtle hushed whispers to Patrick about her worries, but in truth, I was freaking out. My nerves were eating me whole along all the pessimistic vibes that were now bouncing in my blood streams.

A lot could go wrong with this plans. Well, for starters, this was my third cake. The first two ones were, for a lack of better word - a disaster. The first one I baked came out burnt. The sides and buttom were all black, making the middle part of the cake the only edible one, which happened to be dry too. Now, the second came out better. But tradgedy happened while adding frosting to the cake. I really didn't want to elaborate how on earth I managed to have lumps in my frosting.

This time, for the third cake, I finally did it right. The cake wasn't burnt, the icing had no lumps and I was able to decorate it with blue Skittles and melted chocolate on top.

"And there," I said, placing the last Skittle onto the chocolate drizzled cake. I smiled at my work and wiped my hands on my Supah Cook! apron that Henry lent me earlier.

Both Kayla and Patrick stopped intense battle of beating each other's score on Piano Tiles 2 and leaned over the kitchen counter to check my work.

"Wow," Kayla breathed out, her phone still cluctched in one hand, "you finally did it."

"Yep. Finally," I chuckled.

Patrick circled around the kitchen counter, humming a tune to himself as he made his way towards me. "Looking good. I like blue on white."

"Thanks, you guys. You don't know how much this means to me," I told them, tears starting to form at the corner of my eyes.

This was something I hated about myself. I always cried over petty things. When I was frustrated, mad, annoyed, offended, happy, touched and just anything else that heightened my emotions. In other words, I was an ultimate cry baby.

"Aw, don't cry! You make me feel like crying, too!" Kayla said. There was this small pout on her face as she watched me struggle to wipe the tears off my cheeks.

I tried to laugh it off when Patrick playfully bumped his shoulder with mine. He was smiling down at me with that small, cute grin of his. It was a sweet gesture that needed no words and I was grateful for it. Because when I lifted my gaze to look at the two people in front of me who watched me struggle to bake a cake, I then knew, that no matter what could happen later this afternoon, I wouldn't be alone.

And that thought was enough for mw to smile and go on.

-

"Are you sure I can do this?" I asked Kayla for the hundreth time already since we were dropped by Patrick at Austin's house.