It's Not You. It's Me. And No! He is Not My Boyfriend!

“OH. MAH. GAWD!” the sound barrier broke as Melissa propelled herself towards my locker. “This is crazy!”

“I know. You really are a scientific anomaly. Most people can’t compete with the sound of a Mach Five Jet taking off as the loudest thing on the planet.”

“That’s not what I was talking about!” Melissa hit me in the arm playfully, giving me a dead arm for several minutes. “I was talking about your locker.”

“Oh Carter did it.”

“WHAT? YOU DID THIS?” she screamed across the locker room as Carter shuffled in with impeccable timing.

“It’s too early for this,” he muttered, turning from the locker room and heading back where he came from.

“Aw. He’s just embarrassed. Why did he do this?”

“You know...” I had to think on my feet. There was no way Melissa could get any inkling that Carter screwed up. It would be in the New York Times the next day once that happened. “My Birthday is coming up.”

“Your birthday is in January. It’s the first week of October.”

“Well um...” my feet weren’t their sharpest at seven in the morning. “He’s getting an early start...for an early surprise. I never would’ve guessed this birthday present was coming! It’s three months before my birthday!”

Melissa seemed to take the bait for the moment as she reacted much like everyone else by saying,

“I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Well, he had to buy the flowers. He didn’t poop them out or anything.”

“NOT what I meant!” I received my second dead arm of the morning. “I meant that I didn’t think he could be so sweet.”

“I like to keep the mystery,” Carter joined in the conversation, finally feeling ready to handle Melissa.

“AWWW!” Melissa pushed the two of us together. “YOU TWO!” tears formed in her eyes as she looked at us standing casually next to each other. “You guys are so sweet! I’ll leave you too alone!” she stared at us like she was my mother giving me away to Carter before she sauntered off to loudly talk to someone else.

“She really needs to get laid,” Carter stated once she was talking too loudly to hear anyone else within a five mile radius.

“No! NO! You think she’s emotional now? The guy she had sex with would have to enter the witness protection program.”

“Imagine how loud her orgasm would be!” Carter’s face scrunched up like he had just seen an overweight man pooping on splattered road kill. “OH GOD! Why would I let that happen? Why would I let my mind go that way? I need to be committed. It’s serious!”

“Let’s stop talking about it before I imagine it!”

***
“Ready for day two?” Carter placed a wrapped rectangular object on the table before taking a seat across from me at the lunch table.

“AWWWWWW! This is too sweet!” Melissa crooned clasping her arms over her face, and clutching them to her cheek.

“You know,” Carter stared at her with a vibrant disgust. If it had a texture it would be the equivalent of five million of the sharpest knives in the universe. “It’s really annoying that you have to step on any kind of meaningful moment.”

“WELL!” Melissa huffed clearly vexed. “You could’ve just asked me to leave!” with that, she grabbed her lunch and stomped off to another table that looked like they had all just been sentenced to death row when they saw her coming.

I gaped for a few moments before regaining the ability to speak. Many have thought of telling Melissa off, but all were too afraid of the power she held.

“CARTER!” I gasped. “That was mean!”

“HEY! It was mean that she filled my thoughts with horrible horrible images!”

“That was your own doing and you know it!”

“Yeah...but...who cares? Everyone else feels the same way. It’s about time someone made a stand.”

“Fine whatever,” I focused my attention on the mysterious package that laid on the table before me. “What’s day two?”

“Brace yourself! You might want to have sex with me right now!” Carter tore off the plastic bag that hid the contents.

What was revealed under it was something I had never seen before. It was something that resembled a cake. A cake that had somehow suffered a fate worse than death...if cakes had the ability to die. However, if they did have the ability to die, this cake had been dead for several years. It was dead before it was made. Burned to a crisp, the cake was crumbled to little bits. The frosting, although trying to cover up the horrible fate of the yellow mix that laid below it, formed clumps due to the horrible unevenness of the cake. Furthermore, a heart (or what appeared to be a heart) was drawn in the red cake gel. However it looked more like a depiction of the flu virus bacteria.

“HA!” came out of my mouth before I could stop it. I threw my hands over my mouth, and flitted my eyes around quickly. I hoped that Carter might have thought that the jab at his cooking skills came from someone near by.

“I know! I know!” Carter narrowed his eyes at me. “It’s a little rough around the edges.”

“Around the edges? Try around the whole thing!” I laughed heartily at his failed attempt at baking. Mean? Maybe. But when it comes down to it, the harsh jabs and biting insults is what our relationship was based on.

“HEY! It was my first time baking, okay!”

“Clearly,” sensing that Carter was truly hurt by my less than ideal reaction at his home cooking I added, “But the gesture is quite sweet. You know my love for food so you made me food. It’s adorable that you would go to such great lengths to show how much you care.”

“Really?” Carter’s eyes lit up like a little kid who had really gotten a pony from Santa.

“Yeah of course! And it’s really the thought that counts. Who cares if the cake looks like you let a litter of cats roll around in it? Who cares that it looks like a mud cracked beach? Who cares th-”

“I GET IT!”

“Okay, sorry, I got a little carried away. Seriously though, it’s really sweet!” I placed my hand on top of the hand Carter casually laid on the table. I gave it a light stroke to show him that he was sincere.

“It means a lot to me that you think that,” Carter lifted his free hand up to my cheek to stroke it lightly.

“...Just don’t make me try a piece.”