The second most surprising thing that happened to me was that I realised Number 17 actively attended my high school. This perhaps wasn’t that surprising because it was a school basketball game that I had been watching. So, we had attended the same high school for five years and I had not noticed that he had even existed. This could be for many reasons; his average height, the fact that Caroline wouldn’t let me talk to the ‘freaks’ of the corridors, or how for two months I had an eye infection and had to wear a pirate-like eye-patch over my right eye, thus effectively preventing me from noticing half of the school’s population. He had probably been in the right sphere of my vision for those two months, always just evading my sightlines, dammit. We could have had so much more time together.
Once I knew he existed, he popped up everywhere like a newly-learned word. There he was, cramming physics notes in the computer nook before classes, buying a sausage roll and barbecue sauce in the canteen, chucking a basketball across the year 12 common room, making two minute noodles at the zip heater when I was trying to make Chai tea.
“Chai tea,” Number 17 said, as though tasting the syllables on his tongue. “That’s pretty indie of you.”
“Um,” I replied. He picked up the packet and looked at it curiously.
“What the fuck is star anise?”
I was going to answer but it sounded a bit like a rhetorical question. So instead I silently held up my mug and gestured toward the zip heater. He set down his bowl of Mi Goreng and took my mug from me. Our fingers touched as he looped his index finger through the handle. There was an awkward but romantic moment as I withdrew my index finger from the handle, passing on the tea cup legacy. He held the mug under the tap and pulled down on the lever, elegantly releasing a stream of boiling hot water. I heard it splash and hiss at the bottom of the mug, and I saw a single drop splatter over Number 17’s hand.
“Shit!” He screeched, dropping the mug in the sink and leaping back from the zip heater. I heard a cracking noise as I realised the handle had broken off my beautiful, romantic mug. “Fucking alternative Chai piece of shit!”
“Oh God, are you okay?” I gulped, a tiny evil voice in my mind crying accusatorily, you inadvertently burnt your first love! He’ll hate you forever. You just bloody had to want a mug of tea, didn’t you?
“I – yeah.” Number 17 picked up his Mi Goreng and gritted his teeth masculinely. “Be careful with that zip heater though. Wouldn’t want you to burn your pretty hand.” He backed away, still gritting his teeth whilst he lifted his chin in a ‘check ya later’ movement. When he had turned around and left the common room, I sighed heavily and slid down the fridge, momentarily getting my collar stuck on the handle.
“What a patronising little prick.” Caroline interrupted my textbook romcom moment, fishing my mug out of the sink and filling it herself. “Pretty hand? That’s just fucking depressing. Good work on burning him, though. Pretty hand … what a dickhead.” She shoved the Chai tea toward me and I gratefully took it, wrapping my hands around its body. I savoured the taste of the star anise with fond memories of his comment and resolved I would share my next mug of Chai with Number 17 himself. The conversation formed itself in my head.
“Taste that?” I asked Number 17 breathily, taking back my mug and sipping it again seductively. “That’s star anise.”
“It’s sweet and spicy …” He murmured, staring deep into my eyes. “Just like you.”
“Oi!” Caroline shouted. “Snap out of it Cinderella. This prince of yours is a fucking capitalist, remember, he’s never going to get with a poor indie slave-girl.”
“Slave-girl?” I asked, peering up at Caroline’s defensive grimace over the rim of my mug.
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
But I didn’t. I wasn’t a slave-girl and I wasn’t about to let Number 17 think I was, either. I bobbled the teabag round in my mug and tried to think objectively.
xx
Isn't it ironic that you actually broke Caroline's mug hehe?
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