BENEATH THE SMILE

Chapter 2-The Texts

On seeing the text, my eyes bulged and my lips widened in a smile as my eyes danced over the words on my screen.

Hey there Jenny.

Hi

I texted back, and guess what, he was online. This must have been my lucky day. Paul typing. My heart leaped when I saw the words on the top of my screen.

Do you remember me? We went to high school together.

Of course, I do. You were the lead dancer in the Stomp kings,  the hottest dance crew at school.  Who would forget that ?

Haha! I was hoping that we could have a little chat.  Get to know each other better... I see you've grown into a pretty girl.

Huh, so I wasn't pretty back then.
I frowned at my own thought, and ignored it, I was way too excited to care too much. I stared at the last message for minutes. I didn't even know what to say but my hands were typing a reply already.  "Yes, yes, sure...." After looking at the screen again, I decided against such a desperate reply. I wasn't sure whether I was saying too much. Neither did I know exactly what I wanted to reply.

Oh!  That's okay.

I'm glad you still remember me. How have you been beautiful? It's been a quite a long time.

Beautiful? I grinned.
I'm fine. Yeah it's been a while.  But why do you speak as though you even knew me. I last saw you at the closing day of school.

Wow, girl. Just because we don't open up doesn't mean we don't to notice.

Hah, I don't believe you. Anyway, I see you're now famous! Tell me about that.

Well, my group was performing at a certain function and a promoter picked interest in what we had. He must have fallen for our sick moves. So one day he called us to his office and signed us up. I stood out because I did the solo acts.

Wow! That's amazing. I am happy for you. You're such a talented guy. I'm sure you deserve it, because you really work hard.

I hoped to sound as supportive as I could, so that maybe, he could see that I was worth his time. Since it was a weekend, I didn't have much to do so I texted Paul the entire time. It was his day off from work, so he had a lot of time for me too. Talking to him was a fantasy I had when I was still in high school.  I never imagined that it would ever happen. "Not in this lifetime," I'd think to myself.

So here I was, talking to my long time crush. I was very excited. I wanted to send a text to Caroline and tell her about this guy who was making me blush uncontrollably.

***********

That evening I had a chat with Rose, my sister.  She noticed something unusual about me. What's with all big sisters and discovering things they shouldn't be knowing about
I sat at the kitchen slab, sipping on a glass of sweet red wine, looking at my phone.  She stood across chopping vegetables for dinner.

"What's up with you tonight?," she said.

"Me?" Nothing. Why?" I gave her an ironic smile.

"Hmm.  You've been blushing while swiping up and down that screen. Now I know that's unlike you, so... anything you want to share with me?" She was now staring straight at my face, like she was so sure I was hiding something.

"It's nothing." I chuckled. My reply came off as flimsy, alerting her that something was going on.

"You're a terrible liar, you know," she scoffed.

"Alright, alright. There's this guy called..."

Rose cut my sentence short when she interjected. " I knew it," she said.  A smirk rested on her thin lips, painted ruby red. A mischievous glint covered her eyes.

"Let me finish please," I snapped. "His name is Paul. We went to the high school together, and I kinda liked him since then."

The crease that had formed on Rose's face when I had snapped at her, was replaced with a bright smile.

"Oh! Girl finally meets long time crush. How cute!"

"Lol. Is that a book title? It's terrible." I tried to make fun of her. "Nothing has actually happened yet," I said, looking into my glass, avoiding her eyes. 

I finished the liquid in my glass with one twist of my wrist. I pressed my hands on the slab and dropped my legs to the floor to get off the stool. A screeching sound followed as I dragged the stool over the floor.

"Rose we really need to get this stool fixed! This noise... we're gonna get embarrassed soon." The rubber from one of the legs of the stool had come off weeks back, it's repair was long overdue. "I'll go take a shower and get ready for dinner. See you in ten," I said, walking to the bedroom.

After dinner, we went to bed, but I failed to sleep. So I sat on the bed and reread the messages Paul and I had exchanged. I couldn't get him out of my head. His beautiful face kept appearing in my mind.  I smiled at the thought of having him as my boyfriend.

Get serious Jenny. He's not even said that he likes you but you're here imagining a bunch of things. What a fool!  I shrugged at the thoughts.

Thinking about him filled me with immense joy. I was quite sure that my life was about to take an interesting turn. 
I stretched my hand and turned off the lamp besides my bed.

I snuggled inside the bed and covered up my whole body in the purpled and white checkered duvet. I hugged the pillow tight and closed my eyes. "Goodnight world," I said, and smiled. My eyes closed and I entered the magical world where anything can happen.