Maze

6

Tuesday.

"You asked him out?!"

Everyone at the table recoiled when Naomi legitimately flew from her seat, her elbow nearly toppling her orange juice over. Next, she burst into a series of high-pitched squeals, while Samantha and Mark smirked and joined in through their whistles. Thank God the cafeteria was boisterous enough to drown Naomi's screams, otherwise I would have melted from all the neighboring stares.

"That's the spirit, I love that confidence, Rena!" She cried out. A pair of hands gripped my shoulders, then pivoted my body towards the sparkling chocolate eyes of my fangirling friend. "So how did it go? What did you do and say? How did he respond?"

She was practically bombarding me at the speed of light that I could no longer generate coherent replies, so my speech ended up cluttered and gibberish. However, one of them made me bounce like a startled bunny: "Did you manage to kiss him?"

"Gosh you. Stop scaring her and asking weird stuff!" warned Aly as she pulled our ponytail friend away from my sight. She instantly puffed her cheeks up and pushed her bottom lip forward like a little kid who could not get what they wanted.

"I just wanna know what happened!" She objected, trying to squirm out of Aly's grasp.

Of course I wanted them to know. I have always sought to spill the beans, starting from Aly's words of encouragement, until Edward's answer that I still couldn't decipher even from all the pondering last night. That was supposed to be my intention, but... I wound up nibbling my cold french fries without giving details, although my appetite was already flowing down the drain.

"Um... that doesn't seem like good news." Naomi's grin shrank as fast as it appeared when I revealed about Edward. She slowly slumped back on her chair while Aly let go of her. "Did he... reject you?"

Reject. Even a simple word had me nearly choking and coughing on my meal. An acute pain shot out through my breast as if a butcher knife had stabbed through it. I latched into the french fry as if my life depended on it, but I ended up crushing it.

"Naomi!" Aly snapped.

"It's okay, Aly," I mumbled. "M-Maybe it sounds like rejection, but it's just that he..."

Said something about me deserving a better friend.

Of all the times, my voice decided to wander off at the moment I was about to tell the most accurate explanation to this matter. It was as if some unknown entity obstructed all of my actions and forced me to hold them back inside my throat. His nonchalant statement subsequently played in my head over and over again, taunting me for not figuring it out sooner.

A tornado of unanswered questions came swirling about, demanding to be appeased. Did he reject me? What does he mean I deserved better? Perhaps... is it something like I didn't deserve to be his friend?

"That he...?" Samantha tilted her head and hoped for me to finish, but that became the least of my concern when my peripheral vision captured the familiar glimpse of tousled blond hair on the other end of the cafeteria. The moment Edward made his presence known, my scattering thoughts scrambled together to combine into one.

I watched as Sebastian strolled alongside him as they entered the cafeteria. Meanwhile, their basketball group had already congregated in their accustomed table. One of them then waved their arms, signaling the two to join in.

I could have pretended he was not there and resumed the discussion, but I did nothing. My attention was inclined to him, blocking out my friends' calls for me. Needless to say, Edward was fast to catch me in the act, sending pins and needles pricking my skin. Now the last resort was to break out of this stupid awkwardness I had dug myself into, but... I just could not steer clear.