Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 23:25:15 -0400 (EDT) From: One Shy Rugrat <one_shy_rugrat@yahoo.ca> Subject: 'Sleepless Night' Chapter 2 Warning: This is a story about two boys falling in love. If it offends you, please don't continue reading. Copyrights@ 2001. One Shy Rugrat. All Rights Reserved. It has taken me awhile to finally get my act together and write this. The story will develop slowly to make it as realistic as possible. Hope you enjoy it! Sleepless Nights Chapter 2 As summer holiday beings, my crew and I gets ready for the big night of partying. Everyone goes off shopping picking the gift for Kenneth whose birthday was coming up . Kerry, Ada, Lily, Leo, and I goes off on our gift expedition downtown where all the funky stuff are located. After 2 hours of window-shopping, we decided to buy a pyramid- shaped prism lamp and told the clerk to wrap it up. We put the box into my huge HMV bag with my new Lady Marmalade single and Christina poster as disguise. We knew Kenneth wasn't that into the whole music scene so decided to piss him off by saying we got him a stack of CDs. "Jo, the slowpoke, hurry up, we still gotta catch a glimpse at Destiny's Child at Much", cries Ada while I was almost a whole block behind admiring my singles. "Yeah, yeah, your majesty!", I bark. "So, what did you get, Jojo?", asks Lily. "What makes you think I'm telling you?", I jokingly snared. "Because I'm Beautiful! What other reason would there be? I bet its something to do with Christina anyways." Everyone laughed. "Of course!" I replied enthusiastically after hearing the word, " Christina". "Yo, did you guys watch Alanis's special yesterday?", asks Leo. "Of course not, its been on 100 times already. Only you would watch it.", cries Lily "Yeah, we're not depressed like you. We don't like Ironic and all those other depressing songs.", says Kerry. "Yeah, whatever!" Leo snaps. We all gathered to head to our usually hangout, Mr. Green Jeans, known for their huge servings off food and fabulous buffalo chips. After we ordered our food, a conversation about school started. "Hey, did you guys know Anthony is dating Edith?", asked Leo stupidly. He's always the last one to know anything, despite his being Anthony's best friend. "Leo, get with the program. Anthony's news is old news.", Lily snickered. "Oh, damn. He never even told me.", complains Leo. "Yeah, everyone noticed. They're like the oddest couple. Its like the roles are switched. Edith, being the dominator in the relationship is like the man. Anthony, haha, the woman of course.", adds Ada. Kerry looks over at me and starts laughing. I must have blushed by that little glare. Everyone started asking Kerry what was so funny. But she refuses to spill her secret, my secret. Our conversation revolved around Anthony's new found love and I felt kind of odd feeling totally at ease joining in their conversation about my so-called 'first crush'. Two years ago when I just saw Anthony, I was attracted to his shy puppy face immediately. It was the cutest. Though he looked kind of nerdy, his body was quite built for a bookworm, and had a really sophisticated look. I used to always look over at him during class and go into a trance for the rest of the period. I noticed his every move. When he went to school. What his phone number was. Where he lived. I even found out where his brother went to University. Obsessed? Yeah, I think so too. We got to be friends after working together in a chemistry project and started hanging out. He referred to me as one of his best friends, thought personally I thought I didn't know him that well at all. I just liked sneaking a peak at his brief-covered buns while we changed for gym. I thought after discovering his relationship with Edith that I would hate Edith for taking him away from me and hating him to have not noticed my effort in always trying to help him in everything, but it didn't happen. Actually, I felt happy for him. I didn't hate him at all, though I still feel uncomfortable around him at times, but we were still able to maintain a really good friendship. I guess I didn't really 'love' him as much as I thought. I wonder when I'm going to experience the love that people describe as 'falling head over heels' for a person. Am I really gay? How can I feel nothing when someone I supposedly had a crush on got engaged in a heterosexual relationship? Maybe I felt relieved that I haven't told him about my puppy love. I was finally brought back to reality when Kerry started to poke me with her fork. Our dinner continued smoothly filled with stupid jokes for the rest of the evening. After a good night sleep, I had to prepare for Kenneth's birthday party. Being the fashion fanatic, I always want to look good during any occasion. Kenneth, one of the smartest and hottest guys in school, are known as the most ambitious and witty people in our grade. I got to know him in a quite early stage in highschool. He would always strangle me, which always pissed me off to the point that I wanted to punch him out from time to time. He can be such a pest, but nonetheless we were still friends. Only during this year, we didn't have classes together since he was in the Art stream while I was in the Science. We didn't get to see each other as much as before. After choosing all my clothes for the night and felt that listening to 'Bootylicious' suits my look, I drove off to pick up Kerry, Ada, Leo, and Lily. We arrived at Maxis, a really cool restaurant with excellent white chocolate brownies, at 7pm. Everyone arrived by 7:30 pm. We all wished Kenneth a happy birthday and ordered our food. We took a lot of pictures and dinner went on with me sitting beside Eddy, Kenneth's best friend. "Ed, what did you get Kenneth?", I asked Eddy. "I got him a really cool badminton racket. He loves badminton", replied Eddy. "Cool. Hope he likes our gift." "What did you guys get him?" asked Eddy. "A prism light from The Museum" I told him worrying that I might get a negative response. "Oh. He's always wanted that. The pyramid shaped light, right?" I nodded. " Cool, de'll love the gift. It was too expensive for me to get it for him. Don't worry." I smiled with relief. After dinner, we decided to tell Kenneth to open his gifts. Yvonne, Jean, and Fanny gave him a cool black pencil case. Albert and Nicole gave him badminton gear that matched Eddy's racket. Gary, Lawrence, Laura, and Kyle gave him a new backpack. Ronda, Eva, and Amy gave him some accessories for his new cell phone his parents bought him. The last present he opened was our prism lamp. After unwrapping the gift, he says, "Oh my god! Guys, I've always wanted this!" "Don't thank us. Jojo chose the gift. He said anybody would like that lamp. It took us 2 hours to persuade him to cross out the other 20 choices he was considering and pick this one" says Ada. Kenneth replies, 'Joe. I love it. Thank you soooooo much!" He gives me a big hug, As his hands wrap around my shoulders, a shock went down my spine and I blushed. My heart suddenly started pounding like crazy for some reason. The hug was longer than I expected. He went off to thank everyone else while I was left standing there still thinking about that spark that went down my spine wondering what it was. "Hey guys! Let's take a group picture!" says Yvonne. Everyone gathers and Kenneth yanks my arm and pulls me to the middle. Everyone else stood beside us, a waiter gets ready to help us take a few snap shots. Kenneth puts his hand over my shoulders, which he has never done before, and, oddly, another shock went down my spine and this time my heart pounds even harder. I look over at Anthony, and then back at Kenneth. What's happening? I can't believe this. Kenneth's grip on my shoulders became even harder and a third, more intense, shock travels through my whole body and I tremble. Kenneth looks over at me with a funny look and I forced a faint smile. I tried to focus my mind in taking a good picture and smiled at the camera. I felt my whole face became tense and my heart was pounding like crazy. *Snap* The waiter takes the picture, leaving me in a daze. This is the end of chapter 2. Hope you guys find the development interesting. Comments are always welcome. Yes, even the bad ones. Not too harsh though. Until next time, One Shy Rugrat =) <one_shy_rugrat@yahoo.ca> Copyrights@ 2001. One Shy Rugrat. All Rights Reserved.