baby steps | ✓

seven

  Athena had tensed up under his stare which was filled with surprise, Alejandro had looked at her as if it was the first time seeing her. Her feet bounced lightly as he blinked several times before regaining his posture and looking back at his menu. Feeling rejected, Athena had left the table in haste and hid behind the counter where she placed their orders on the clips for the chefs.

   Her hand was placed on her frantically beating heart as she wondered why he didn't say hello. 

  'I mean, we are friends, right? He should've said hello. Maybe he's embarrassed by me in front of his parents.' she had thought to herself, and a disappointing feeling had appeared in her heart at the thought of Alejandro embarrassed by her.

   She breathed heavily in and out, but she couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment or even rejection and she found herself making her way into the bathroom where she hid in one of the stalls trying to catch her breath and slow her beating heart.

  Meanwhile, Alejandro had instantly regretted not saying hello, or even acknowledging her and knew he had done something wrong by the way she rushed to the bathroom. His parents had looked at him weirdly at his sudden change of mood and didn't know what had happened to him. He looked tense in the eyes of his parents, almost confused by the lack of talking they were doing at their family dinner.

  "Alejandro, are you okay dear?" his mother had asked him, looking across at him with worried eyes. 

   "No, nothing's wrong. Just tired," he replied curtly, before glancing at the menu again, re-reading the menu he knew quite well as a distraction. He hoped that they both did not get the hint of him knowing the waitress, they were quite picky with the people he was friends with, but his father knew quite well what had happened in an instant.

  "It's the girl Gwendolyn, he knows her," he said, looking up from his menu and towards his son who blushed furiously as his shoulders tensed at his father's true words.

   Gwendolyn's eyes had opened wide and the thought of her son having a lady friend she did not know about, quite hurt that her son had bluntly lied to her. 

   "What about the girl Alejandro?" she had asked him, praying slightly that he didn't knock her up or even do the 'deed' with the waitress, it'd be a scandal. 

   However, her son did not answer her and he stayed quiet. He did not want to converse about Athena in front of his parents, they may not like the fact that she had a child at such a young age. But, his mother wanted answers as well as his father.

   "Alejandro John Popiel, you tell me this instant who that girl is to you or so help me," Gwendolyn had ordered him, making a few people stare their way in confusion. Alejandro looked up at the menu and saw that his mother's expression and felt guilty of hiding things from his parents.

   "She's a friend," he said, sighing heavily as his father had given him an incredulous expression.

  "A friend? What kind of friend? Girlfriend? Close friend?" his father blurted out, trying to understand what made his son become friends with a waitress. 

  "She's a good friend of mine, she's nice, kind and loyal. You'd like her," he told his parents and they replied with a stunned expression. Both his parents had the same thought in mind and Gwendolyn found herself smiling a little bit at her son's admiration towards the girl.

   "Son, she's a waitress," his father had said, knowing well that his son had felt something towards Athena and had a strong disliking to it, it had left a sour taste in his mouth. Alejandro, feeling frustrated at his father for judging her had given him a stern eye.