A Wonderful Surprise

Mary didn’t say anything. She didn’t hug her best friend back either. She just stood there in Kayla’s big embrace, trying to make sure if what just Kayla had said was true.

“Come on, Mary, didn’t you get what I just told you?” Kayla finally looked at Mary who was showing a confused expression. She slowly shook her head to Kayla. “Don’t lie to me, Baby, I could see your face is slowly getting reddish-”

Mary released herself from Kayla’s arms and put her hands on her cheeks. Even if she showed a confused face to Kayla, she couldn’t deny the warmth she felt on her face. She looked up to see Kayla who was smiling to her. She hugged Mary for one more time and whispered to her that she just have to be easy on this before going to eat some pizza with John.

Mary then made her move to get her own slice of pizza as she tried to get into the boys' conversation about the current baseball champion. Since she didn’t understand what they were talking about, she made her way to the living room, planning to watch a TV show she might like.

Garrett on the other side just lost his appetite. He sat alone on the couch, holding his bottle of beer and seemed like he was thinking hard about something. He didn’t want to join his friends—he was afraid they’d somehow started to tease him again. Garrett hated to be teased if he didn’t have any words to tease them back.

Garrett was mumbling alone about how stupid he was for agreeing to play truth or dare. He regretted his choice to answer the truth question. Well, he didn’t expect Kayla to ask about his personal love life so when he realized what Kayla just asked him, he couldn’t help but showing an ashamed face to all of his friends there. That’s absolutely making Kayla and the boys curious—no one knew about Garrett’s feeling to Mary but Jared—so she asked another question.

”Alright, Lover boy, who is she?” Kayla grinned to Garrett.

“Who is who?!” He asked back trying to avoid answering Kayla’s question.

“Come on, you know what we’re talking about!”

“No, I don’t.” He pouted making all his friends laughed at him. Garrett hopelessly glanced to Jared who was just grinning at him. Jared made a look to tell Garrett that he wouldn’t spill anything, making Garrett relieved a bit.

“He won’t talk guys. Just leave him and continue the game,” Jared finally said. He moved to take the bottle and ready to spin it.

“No! Stop there Jared!” Kayla shouted. “It’s Garrett’s turn to spin the bottle but I won’t let him do that before I know his secret!”

“I’m not going to say anything,” Garrett said and covered his mouth with a hat he was wearing.

“Well, okay then,” Kayla said with a teasing tone. “I though already know you’re in love with my best friend-”

“What?! How could you know about Mary?!” Garrett suddenly exclaimed making everyone looking at him in surprise. He realized he just spilled out his own secret and now his face was as red as a tomato. “I quit this game!” He exclaimed again making everyone there burst out into laughs.

“Dammit, why are you so stupid, you idiot!” Garrett mumbled again as he smacked his own face.

“Who’s stupid?” Someone suddenly asked. Garrett quickly turned around to see who’s just speaking. Mary was there standing with a plate of pizza slices and a bottle of orange water. She walked to the couch as Garrett gave her a space to sit. She offered Garrett a slice of pizza but Garrett only shook his head no.

“I’m not hungry,” he excused.

“Wow, this happens rarely,” Mary sarcastically said. She then ate her pizza alone as she kept glancing to the boy beside her. “I can hear your stomach growling, craving for pizzas.”

“No, you can’t,” Garrett pouted as he put his hand on his stomach. He actually could feel his stomach growling but he wouldn’t let Mary know about that.

“That’s why I bring these for you, Dumbass.” She once again offered her pizzas to Garrett. He finally took a slice and ate it slowly.

Garrett and Mary were busy eating on their own. Mary gave up searching for good TV program and ended up turning the TV off, letting herself and Garrett eating in silence. Garrett himself didn’t try to make a conversation with Mary, he was too busy eating and thinking.

Mary glanced at him weirdly—Garrett used to blab about everything when the room’s filled in silence. She looked at her best friend’s pissed face and felt bad about that. Deep in her heart Mary wanted to ask him about things that happened today but she was afraid that it’d make things going more awkward than before.

“Garrett,” she finally called him. “Garrett Daniel Nickelsen, hey,” called her again as Garrett finally turned to see her.

“What?”

“What happened to you?”

“What did Kayla tell you?”

Mary didn’t immediately answer Garrett’s question. There’s an obvious blush showed on her cheeks—she tried to cover her blushing cheeks with her hand as she looked down to the plate on her lap. Garrett called her for several times before she finally could control herself and looked up to the boy beside her.

“No way, she must’ve told you everything!” Garrett exclaimed and sighed loudly.

As Mary saw Garrett seemed so desperate, she decided to play dumb to him. She showed a very confused face to Garrett as she asked, “What’s everything?”

“About what we played earlier at Pat’s house,” Garrett answered.

“You guys played truth and dare, right?” Mary asked again to make sure. Garrett slowly nodded as he looked at her for something more. “And then—what?”

“Why’d you asked me back?!” Garrett exclaimed again annoyingly.

“I wasn’t there, Gare! I didn’t know anything happened there!” Mary couldn’t help but laughing at her best friend. Depressed and confused Garrett was fun to be teased sometimes. “Okay, okay. Kayla told me that you chose truth so she asked you if you were in love-” Mary could feel her cheeks started to get reddish again so she stopped talking.

“I heard that,” Garrett now pouted as he crossed his hands in front of his chest. “Did she—did she tell you something more?” Garrett asked but his voice was so low like a whisper.

“Yes,” Mary answered shortly, almost in whisper too.

Garrett looked at Mary, waiting if she’s going to tell him something more. But Mary there didn’t say anything anymore. Her red and warm cheeks showed that she was too shy to continue this talk. The Nickelsen boy then sighed lightly and decided to not continue their talks as he took the plate from Mary’s lap and stood up.

“Look, you don’t have to keep that in your mind. Just—just forget it, okay?”

“Why?” Mary asked.

“Because what they did tell you not necessarily true.”

“So it was just a lie?”

Garrett closed his eyes as he thought for several seconds before he opened them again and forced himself to smile. “I didn’t say that. But I just don’t want it to bother your mind, okay?”

“Wait,” Mary said, “why would it bother my mind? I’m glad that you finally found someone, you know, after the last time you broke up with Rachael.”

“Really? Are you really really glad, really really happy if I’m in love again?”

Garrett’s mood suddenly changed. He looked at Mary deeply in her eyes and Mary confusedly nodded at him. “Yeah, why not?” She responded, still in confuse.

Garrett now showed his best friend a very big grin as he pulled her to his embrace. “Mwah!” He happily kissed Mary’s cheek and waltzed to the kitchen, leaving Mary in her living room.

“I was playing dumb to him, but why I feel literally dumb now?!”