Untitled Chocolate Project
Chapter 1
Terrence was talking to me, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy studying him. We were walking home from Shady Heights High School, named after our city. (We had both missed the bus–again.)
He was sort of pretty. He had light skin, bright eyes, and an overall nice face. No matter what expression he took, he was always handsome.
His eyes actually freaked me out a little. My best friend Kayce always got dizzy when she tried to look him straight in the eyes. I couldn’t look at him straight on for very long either.
Analyzing people was my hobby. I loved trying to figure out about a person just by looking at them. Terrence was a hard one, so I particularly enjoyed analyzing him. I noticed that he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” I asked, feeling self conscious.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?” I said.
“We kind of passed your house a half hour ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, how far is your house?”
He smiled sheepishly. “We sort of passed my house twenty minutes ago…”
We walked silently for a minute.
“Hey, Chocolate?” That’s what he always called me. I don’t know why.
“Yeah?”
“Why are we still walking this way?”
I laughed as we turned around. Then my phone vibrated. It was a text from Kayce.
Kayce: Hello.
Me: Hi…
Kayce: Where r u?
I started to tell her none of her business, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea.
Me: Walking home
Kayce: WHAT?! Ur house is 15 minutes away from school!
Me: What’s ur point?
I didn’t get a reply. I was about to say something to Terrence when it vibrated again.
Kayce: OMG! Ur with him aren’t you?
“Who’s she talking about?” Terrence scared the crap out of me. His head was about an inch away from my shoulder.
“You are so nosy.” I laughed nervously.
“What’s your point?” he grinned as he moved back.
My phone vibrated again.
Kayce: What r u doing, ho?
Me: Nothing. Don’t call me a ho.
Kayce: Riiiiight…
Me: Where r u?
Kayce: Ur house.
Me: I’ll b there n a minute.
Kayce: U owe me details.
Me: No details to give.
Kayce: Whatevs. TTYL.
I turned my phone off and looked at Terrence. He was smiling at me.
“What?” I ran my hand over my hair.
He shook his head. “I think I should walk you home.”
“It’s okay.” I said.
“Too late, anyway,” he informed me. “We’re at your house.”
I stepped on the porch and turned around. “You’re full of surprises.”
“It’s not like it’s a bad thing.” He came up with me and tripped on the last step, causing our lips to meet for a millisecond.
“My bad.” He laughed and scratched the back of his head. I was too busy trying not to faint to say anything. He started to look a little worried.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s cool.” I assured him.
“Well, see you later Chocolate!” he turned to walk back home.
I was just about to unlock the door when someone opened it and literally dragged me inside.
Kayce pulled me into the living room and threw me on the couch.
She put her hands on her hips. “Details, now.”
“I already told you nothing happened.”
“Okay,” Kayce began. “Let me get this straight. We get out of school at three. It takes fifteen minutes to walk here from school. You just got here at four forty-five.”
“Wow, really?”
“Uh, yeah. Now you are going to tell me what happened between you two.”
“Nothing. Sorry.”
She slumped down on the couch beside me. Kayce lived for drama.
We sat there silently.
“So…” I said. “How’s it going?”
She got up. “Let’s go.”
When my two siblings, Teedra and Kyle, and I moved into our new house, we had a room left over, so Kayce and I turned it into a recording studio. We recorded some songs, some of them featuring Terrence.
We had just wrapped up the vocals and were just sitting around when the doorbell rang. Kayce got up to answer it.
“Sit down. This is my house.” I said.
I opened the door. It was Terrence.
“Hey,” I said, surprised to see him.
“Hey, I was just wondering if you wanted to go out for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Sure.” I answered before the question even reached my brain.
Terrence smiled. “I’ll pick you up at ten, okay?”
“Yeah.” Again, the question didn’t reach my brain. Kayce was going to kill me.
“Well, see you.”
I went back in the house and looked out the curtains. Terrence was running home.
“Who was that?” Kayce was trying to look over my shoulder. I shut the curtains.
“Nobody.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Right. Do you need me to spend the night?”
“Uh, no, I can do the editing myself.”
“Okay.” She hesitated.
“It’s supposed to rain tonight. Are you going to call your mom?” I said.
“No, I’ll walk.” She was looking at me like something was wrong.
“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“See you.” She left.
The entire day had been draining. I went to bed.
I woke up at 9:15. I threw some clothes together and took a quick shower. Afterwards I made breakfast and left a note to Teedra and Kyle and was out of the house at 9:40.
It was a nice day. The sun was out and the breeze was comfortably warm. I sat on the porch and watched the kids next door play tag while I waited for Terrence.
He drove up at 9:50. He got out and asked if I was ready to go. I was definitely ready. I had a wad of cash from Kyle’s stash in my pocket. He sure had a lot of money to be unemployed.
He drove to this pizza place, Bryce, Terrence’s brother, and his friend Rick had told us about. It was in Mitchellville, the city directly north of Shady Heights.
We sat in a booth in the back and waited. After about three minutes, our waitress came. Her name tag read “Lindsay.”
“Like, hi!” she said. “What would you like to drink?”
“Can I get a root beer float?” I asked.
“Sure!” She looked at Terrence. “And what will you, like, be drinking?”
“Just a Coke.”
“Okay, I’ll be, like, right back!” Lindsay said as she walked away.
Terrence and I talked for a few minutes until Lindsay came back.
“Can I, like, take your order?”
Terrence looked confused. “What about our drinks?”
Lindsay looked confused. “Huh?”
I looked confused. “The root beer float and Coke?”
“Oh, I knew I forgot something.” She turned to leave.
“Wait. Never mind. Do you know if the pizza sauce contains garlic? I’m allergic to garlic.” I said.
“I don’t know…”
“But you work here…” Terrence protested.
“It’s, like, my first day,” she said.
“Well, can you get someone who might know?” I asked.
“Like the manager?” Terrence suggested.
Lindsay smiled apologetically. “I’m, like, so sorry. The manager is dead.”
My eyes went wide. “Well, what about the cook?” Terrence asked.
“Okay, I’ll get him, like, right now.” She walked away.
“The manager’s dead?” I felt pale.
Terrence held up both hands. “I don’t even want to know.”
The cook walked up. “Thank you for calling me personally to your table,” he said with a heavy French accent. “The pizza is probably ruined.”
“Yeah, I was just asking Lindsay–”
“That was a mistake. Never ask Lindsay anything. Everyday is her first day. She is not very bright, which means she is stupid,” he said.
“We were just trying to find out if the pizza sauce contains garlic,” Terrence said.
“I’m allergic,” I informed him.
“Our old sauce doesn’t have any garlic. Our new sauce has a whole bucketful of garlic in it. It has so much garlic you’ll say, ‘Forget the sauce! I just want a big bowl of garlic!’ You’ll say ‘Sacre bleu! This is so full of garlic I just want to swim in it!’ Unless you are allergic and your friend will have to explain why he’s bringing you home swollen and dead.” The cool looked at Terrence.
“Um… thank you?” I said.
He left. We were right after him.
As we were walking to the car, Terrence asked me jokingly, “You picked this place, right?”
“You drove here,” I said. “By the way, isn’t pizza Italian?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Then why did the cook have a French accent?”
He laughed. “I have no idea. Do you want to get a burger or something that doesn’t involve waitresses?”
I laughed. “Sure.”
We drove along. I had him stop at a convenience store so I could get some chocolate truffles.
Terrence laughed as I walked back out. “Oh, I see. You like chocolate.”
“I love chocolate,” I corrected him.
We eventually decided to go to McDonald’s. All of the truffles had been eaten. Mostly by me.
I ordered a medium fry and a chocolate shake. Terrence ordered a strawberry shake and an apple pie. We sat in the parking lot a while, watching the cars go by. I looked at the clock.
“Terrence?”
“Yeah?”
“You know we’ve been hanging out all day? It’s 4 o’ clock.”
“Seriously?” He looked at the clock and laughed. “How long have we been sitting here?” He asked as he took one of my fries.
“I don’t know.” I broke off a piece of his apple pie and stuck my tongue out at him.
“A fry for a fry, right?”
“You got it.” We laughed.
He looked at me. “So what do you want to do now?”
“I don’t know. You?”
“Anything’s cool.”
“Okay. Surprise me.”
He grinned and pulled out of the parking lot.
View User's Journal
READ ON!
 |
