"Have you given it to her, yet?" I could hear my aunt question in a failed whisper from in the kitchen. Her voice sounded fairly happy, like she was experiencing such a genuine type of joy that she almost couldn't contain her ever-increasingly vast excitement.
"No, but I've been trying to plan out the perfect way to... And, I think I've finally settled on an idea." There was also an undeniable sound of excitement within his voice, but not nearly as vivid as in my aunt's. "I actually can't wait to see the look on her face..."
"Kaitlyn?" Hazel tapped me on the shoulder, disturbing my eavesdropping in on the conversation going on in the kitchen.
"Yes?" I turned to face her, a wide and fake smile stuck on my face as I tried to calm myself down and attentively listen to whatever she was trying to tell me.
She sat there impatiently tapping her feet on the ground, her hands folded and placed neatly on her lap, as she wore an increasingly, both, mischievous and anxious smile. "I know what the surprise is," she whispered as quietly as she could, her smile growing even wider as she fought back a few giggles. "I could tell you, if you'd like."
"As much as I hate surprises, I don't..." I came to a sudden stop as my mind suddenly got a growing urge to just let her tell me (although it was probably part of some conniving scheme of hers). I pondered on the thought for a moment, the possibilities of what it could be, everything, until Riley walked back out and reclaimed his seat beside me and I, ultimately, figured that it would probably be much more worth it to wait in the long run. "No, thanks," I whispered to Hazel, my nose scrunched as I spoke.
She shrugged, walking back to the other side of the table. "Well, that's your loss."
"So..." I turned to face Riley, my head kind of hanging toward the ground.
"So..." He mimicked me, causing myself to fight back a giggle (I'm a very giggly person, if you couldn't already tell).
I breathed in deeply, giving a dramatic feel to the moment as I nearly always did because it just always felt needed and like it gave the moment a slightly more significant reason for happening, as I prepared to speak. "The surprise: what is it, and why does everyone else already know about it?"
"I'll tell you later," he whined mockingly in reference to my quite sad, yet very impulsive need (and odd love) to act like a child at different random times. "You hate surprises which is just making me love dragging this on even longer." He smiled at me.
"That's just cruel." I tried to glare at him, but a smile kept finding its way onto my face, so I just gave in and smiled my lovely and increasingly awkward looking smile.
"Well, in all fairness, life is cruel."
"Oh, I know this quite well..." I found my voice trailing off. "Speaking from a vast experience within my seventeen years of having lived life, it's a lot crueler than one, such as yourself, could ever even fathom." I looked up at him kind of warily, the few tears stuck in my eyes causing my vision to go a bit blurred. "But, it's also one of the best things imaginable," I managed, my voice breathy, and a small, but forced smiled glued to my face in an attempt to hide my thoughts.
"I'll be right back," he said before disappearing into the kitchen momentarily. "You know what?" He questioned, repressing a smile, reappearing less than a minute later.
Figuring it was a rhetorical question, I just sat there ever-so silently growing increasingly impatient at the anticipation. It was only when the vague and awkward silence had finally set in that I realized that the question, in fact, was not rhetorical whatsoever. "Oh," I began hesitantly, almost hoping my aunt would suddenly walk herself into the room (of course she didn't, though). "You're a complete figment of my imagination, and I'm actually on the verge of insanity?" I kept a straight look on my face as I spoke, only smiling after a look of genuine confusion filled his.
"Y-no," he managed, shaking his head as the look slowly faded away and a slight smile appeared in its place. "But, I'm not going to argue the part about your insanity."
"Could you not insult me once in a while, and just tell me what?"
"But, but, but... Insulting you is so much fun!" he whined like a small overly-defiant child in refusal of their mother's every command.
"And, I'm the crazy one?" I scoffed, rolling my eyes.
"Well, I believe the word was insane." He smiled smugly.
"Oh, you're becoming much too predictable, my good sir." I tried acting prideful, but I couldn't help but smile at his childish, yet kind of adorable ways. "Just tell me, already."
"Well," he hesitantly managed, clearly trying to figure a way to drag the wait on even longer.
"If you don't tell me right now, we can no longer be friends nor will I ever speak to you again," I said as calmly as I possibly could, my eyes closed for the entire time. When I opened my eyes, he'd apparently decided it would be fun to do nothing more than disappear and drive me into a further emerging insanity. "Riley!" I whined, letting out a loud sigh of pure frustration.
"Kaitlyn!" He whined in response, making a sudden appearance behind myself. "Will you calm down?" He rolled his eyes after a minute of me keeping my promise and ignoring him.
"Riley, don't even waste your time. Because, calm is, neither, part of her vocabulary nor possible to be even simply expressed by her." My aunt shrugged, finally exiting the kitchen holding bits and pieces of our long awaited dinner in each hand. "Overreacting is her one and only talent... The only thing she's actually good at."
"You're rude," I said, flatly, my facial expressions staying unchanged as I just looked at her.
"Laugh, already! Come on, Kaitlyn... You can do it." She began to pester me after two more minutes of vivid silence. "Kaitlyn... Kaitlyn, are you still alive? Hello? Come on, child!"
"Child? Really? I'm 17, Aunt Brooke, 17." I let the blank look conquer my face once again as the silence grew on.
"Fine, she's pretty good at sassing everyone, too!" She threw her hands up in the air with mock-excitement with an added bonus of a smug smile at the end.
"Well, I suppose that's a start," I muttered, rolling my eyes. "So, Riley... Surprise time, yet?" What I'm guessing was a severely doofy grin found its way onto my face as I was now, suddenly, finding myself in transformation from pestered to pest.
"Oh... Fine," he responded, quickly, elongating the sound of the 'i.' "So, what I'm about to show you was ultimately the result of your aunt and I brainstorming, planning, plotting, and scrapping incessantly for the past two weeks." He paused, breathing in deeply as he prepared to speak his final words on the matter. "And... I don't actually have your surprise, here!"
"What?" I spoke calmly coming to a brief pause, my arms folded, firmly. "Why would you do this to me?!" I rose to my feet, my fists clenched and eyebrows furrowed, trying to contain my frustration.
Well, we can all say that, that didn't exactly go too well...
I wound up running out of the dining room, into the living room, into a wall once or twice (or maybe three times...), while flailing my arms aimlessly all about, screaming (more like yelling random letter combinations out... Like, "Asjfkl ufhas garh."), and letting everyone find the humor in, what I like to call, my darkest three minutes of life.
"I'm sorry you all had to see that little display of emotion, before." I sat down, my hands gently placed one on top of the other on my lap. "Really, I'm not usually so... Weird."
A chorus of laughter had broken out as I finally reached my seat, so I braced myself for the up and coming jokes.
Yes, of course I'm aware that weird wasn't exactly the most appropriate word in that instance, especially since I'm almost always at least a little weird, but I was lacking the mental maturity at that moment to think of a better suited word. Immaturity was, after all, one of my strongest traits.
"I would argue that, but that thing in which you just did speaks for itself," my aunt barely managed in between her laughter. "I'm sorry, I can't, right now." She turned away, covering her mouth with both hands as her laughs grew even louder and crazier.
