List’s & Fries & Suns

I’m not one of those girls who are gorgeous but don’t know it.

I mean, I won’t lie - I’m cute, but not in the sense that five different guys crush on me at the same time. Which, if I think about it, is actually a relief considering that that scenario is just screaming ‘drama!’.

Plus, I’ve got Kurt, who else do I need?

Still, I do have quite high self-esteem, which is why I am not surprised nor slightly hurt by the fact that my name is not on the ‘5 HOT!test Girls!’ list our student newspaper feels obliged to print annually.

No offence to the girls who feel disgruntled by this list (the feminists can’t say much though, printed below that list is the ‘5 HOT!test Boys!’ list), there’s a reason all the girls in that list are offered modelling stints every once in a while.

I tell this to Kurt during study period.

“Yeah,” he says with a sly grin, “they are quite ravishing.”

I don’t do ‘jealous’ or ‘angry’. I guess that’s why most people feel as though I’m ‘cold’ and ‘unfeeling’ – I rarely get affected by anything – well, anything I apparently should be affected by.

But really, I know that Kurt likes me, and not those other girls, so why do I need to get jealous? That sort of stuff tends to put a strain on the relationship and can end up in rather embarrassing situations.

Like mistaking your crushes hot sister as a hot date and making a scene, like Melissa did just a few weeks back (not that she’ll admit she’s crushing on him). But then again, she is Melissa, fiery little red head to the boot.

Before I know what’s happening Kurt quickly takes my copy of the paper away and crosses out the girls list with a messy line. Next to the original heading he writes ‘Top 5 Most Beautiful, Gorgeous Female Specimens On Earth’.

“‘On’ should have a small o, not a capital o,” I inform him.

He maturely sticks his tongue out at me.

Nevertheless, he corrects it.

“Hmm…Number five?” he muses, “None other than my pulchritudinous girlfriend, Eloisa.”

“Someone’s been hitting the thesaurus,” I quip, knowing he probably spent the whole week looking for a reason to use such a word.

He grins widely. “It’s a fun read.”

“Now,” he dramatically drums his fingers on his chin, “who to put on number four?”

Melissa punches him cheerfully on the arm, “Why isn’t your girlfriend number one?”

“Hey!” Kurt cries out indignantly, “I’m thinking here.”

“Oh yeah,” Melissa immediately puts on a serious face, “I forgot that takes a lot of effort on your part.”

Kurt decides to ignore her and pulls my paper closer to him. He covers his list with his hands from our view; sort of how Naomi Jameson does when we have tests, not that one can blame her seeing as people actually do try to copy her answers.

He makes a lot of ‘hmm’ and ‘ooh’ noises as he fills in the list.

Both Melissa and I roll our eyes.

“I pity you,” she tells me in a mock-confidential way, “You’ve got a nut job for a boyfriend.”

“He might be a basket case,” I admit, smiling cunningly, “but our relationship is a whole lot healthier than your and Luke’s.”

Her smile immediately drops.

“Luke and I have no relationship,” she growls, “we never did and we never will.”

“Ah,” I smile knowingly, “the cliché words of clichéd doom.”

“Doom?” Kurt looks up excitedly, “Did you guys mention Doom? What doom? Who’s doomed? I wanna know too!”

Both Melissa and I stare at him, stupefied.

Then Melissa starts her snorting (she calls it laughing).

“I (snort) honestly don’t know (snort) how you put up (choke) with him!” she ‘laughs’, “He’s a five (snort) year old high (snort) on sugar!”

“Are you saying I’m a paedophile?” I drawl as I wrinkle my nose at her.

“Yup,” she sings as she clasps her hands together cheerfully.

“Take that back,” I narrow my eyes at her, putting on my best menacing face.

“Nope,” she replies in the same sing-song voice.

“Take that ba-”

“You guys are so immature,” Kurt cuts in.

We both simultaneously raised our eyebrows at him.

“Anyway,” he continues, ignoring our looks, “I’m done with my list. Want to read it?”

“Are you insane?” Melissa cries, “You made a list of girls you find gorgeous and you’re offering it to your girlfriend?”

At the same time, I shrug and say “Sure.”

Melissa turns to face me so fast I’m almost afraid she’ll get a whiplash. Her jaw hangs open in surprise.

Kurt hands me the list, almost timidly.

I feel bad for him seeing as I’m never really the type of girl who gets all possessive and claims that her guy can only look at her, but Melissa is so she gets mad (for me) at him. I, on the other hand, think it’s the most obvious thing in the world that he’ll sometimes look at other girls, and might even think they’re prettier than me, but at the end of the day, it’s me he likes, not them. So why get all bothered for no reason?

“Eloi-” Melissa starts; no doubt ready to persuade me to beat up Kurt for all I’m worth.

As I read the list a small “oh” emits from me and I can feel myself blush.

It’s enough to cause Kurt to light up as well as arouse Melissa’s curiosity.

She peers at the list in my hand and squeals.

“Oh my God Kurt! That’s so cute,” she can’t stop squealing and reaches over to ‘fondly’ pinch his cheeks.

I feel both embarrassed and touched. In all five spots, he’s written (in his boyish scrawl) my name, accompanied by something he finds beautiful about me:

Top 5 Most Beautiful, Gorgeous Female Specimens on Earth

5. Eloisa (has the most breathtaking smile in the whole world, which is why it lights up mine. It’s what made me fall for her.)
4. Eloisa (has the cutest and most pinch-able nose. It’s also my good luck charm.)
3. Eloisa (has shoulders that look like they can take on the weight of the world. It’s what made me fall harder.)
2. Eloisa (has the kindest and absolutely striking brown eyes which have the ability to make everything seem better.)
1. Eloisa (is the smartest and sauciest girl I’ve ever met. It defines her beauty and it’s what made me fall the hardest.)

It’s cheesy and sort of predictable, but that doesn’t stop my heart from beating any faster.

Underneath the table I can feel Kurt gently tug at my hand and that just makes me blush harder.

---

I’m sitting on the porch of my house, waiting for Kurt to come and entertain me. We were meant to go watch a movie with Luke and Melissa but that idea died when Luke messed up and kissed his ex-girlfriend.

Although, from what I’ve been hearing, she practically forced the kiss on him.

I believe that, because Luke isn’t the type to cheat. Besides, my offer to rip out his manhood with my bare hands if he hurts Melissa made him swear his loyalty to her a thousand times. You can’t back out of something like that.

But Melissa’s not one to listen when she’s hurt. She needs her space to clear her head and come to a logical decision. This is why I’m not over at her place, comforting her. It would just make her more confused and angry.

I start to get bored from waiting so I start to sing to myself.

“Feels like I’m falling, I’ve been falling for a mile,” I sing softly, “Took time to realize I’ve been falling for your smile. Love’s a cliché. Love’s a cliché. Well hey…”

“I didn’t know you wanted to serenade me,” Kurt laughs as he walks up to me.

“Maybe it wasn’t you I was serenading,” I tease him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

He sits down beside me and pretends to frown, “there seems to be a lot of infidelity going around.”

“It must be a bug,” I play along.

“Maybe it spreads through infidelity,” he snickers, amused at his own joke.

I roll my eyes and lightly punch him, “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

He stops and stares at me, “Gosh that sounded so scripted. I swear I’ve read that in my sisters’ Mills and Boon about a thousand times.”

“Right,” I grin, “your sisters’ Mills and Boon.”

“One or two of them might be mine,” he mutters, “but I needed them to know how to get the ladies.”

“And have you gotten any ladies using Mills and Boon advice?” I chuckle.

“I’ve got you, haven’t I?” He grins, slightly blushing.

“Now that’s completely scripted!” I exclaim, “You had planned to lead to that, hadn’t you?”

“Maybe,” he smiles, his eyes waltzing with amusement.

I just laugh and lean into him.

“Hey,” his voice is low and he actually sounds serious, “we’ll never actually cheat on each other, right?”

Who knows? I want to answer. I can’t tell if you’ll ever find that girl in the flirty red frock much more enticing than me and go home with her, if only for one night. I can’t promise I won’t, in a moment of weakness, allow my would-be-dream-man take me completely. I don’t know what situations will present themselves to us, forcing us to forsake our loyalty to each other, so I don’t know.

I read too much, so I don’t know.

Instead, I pull a face and tell him, “Who would want to do anything with you?”

“Jessica Sanders,” he answers easily. He wraps his arms around me, “In Steve’s party she followed me around and wouldn’t stop hitting on me.”

“Well then,” I grin, “I must go see her and give her a piece of my mind about abusing my boyfriend.”

Jessica Sanders was number two on the ‘5 HOT!test Girls!’. I would be jealous, except I don’t do ‘jealous’. Plus, he’s here with me, not with her. That counts for something, I’m sure of it.

“El?” He whispers, lifting my chin gently and staring intensely into my eyes, “Don’t you mind?”

“You didn’t do anything, right?” I whisper back, “So what’s there to mind?”

He almost looks frustrated, but then again it must be something in my eyes, because Kurt doesn’t do ‘frustrated’.

“Some other girl hit on me and you could care less,” his voice shakes a bit, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”

“Happy?” I reply, “Happy that I trust you implicitly to know you wouldn’t do that to me?”

He looks surprised.

“Sometimes…” his voice is slightly rough. He pauses and then continues, barely audible, “Sometimes I wonder whether it’s lack of care rather than trust.”

I feel a pang, somewhere inside of me. But it can’t be hurt, because I don’t do ‘hurt’, I don’t do ‘tears’ and I definitely don’t start fights, not with my boyfriend, not with Kurt. Maybe it’s the fries that I ate for lunch? They say that fast food leads to heart attacks don’t they? I could be getting an early start.

“All right then,” I grin at him, choking back the anger that’s threatening to rise, “I’ll just go and beat this Jessica person and come back. Wait here, ok?”

“El,” he begins, but I’ve already gotten up. I might not actually go beat up Jessica, but I sure need to go for a run. I need to do something to prevent this heart attack.

“El,” he repeats, tugging my hand.

“I’m going to beat her up and you can’t convince me otherwise,” I warn him, forcing myself to smile.

“That’s slightly disturbing,” he admits, “and you’re forgetting your wallet.”

I reach for the back pocket of my jeans and realise that my wallet is indeed missing.

“Hand it over Kurt,” I say in mock seriousness, “I might need to pay a few people to be my fellow hit men – or is it hit women?”

It’s so weird how easily I can play along with a scene, as if nothings happening. As if my heart isn’t about to be choked to death by the excess oil that had resided in my fries.

I should be an actress.

“That’s not cute,” he chuckles nervously, “Come on, sit back down.”

If Melissa was here, she’d scream ‘You can’t control me! I’ll do whatever I fucking want to do!’ and then she’d snatch the wallet and run.

But I’m not Melissa. I don’t do that.

But I also don’t sit back down.

“My wallet,” I put my hand out, giving him the cutest pout I can manage. I would say it in my ‘dead serious, I’m not playing so hand it over now’ voice, but it’s Kurt, I don’t want to do that to him.

“What if I only give it back to you if you sit back down?” he tries to bargain with me.

“Hand it over first, and then I’ll sit down again,” I lie.

I’m good at that, lying I mean. I can lie to anyone, even myself, but usually it’s hard to lie to Kurt. He can always see through it.

“No,” he grins knowingly, “first you sit down and then I’ll give it back.”

I try to reach for it but he quickly stands up and pecks me on the lips. He starts waving the wallet above my head.

“Why should I sit down if you’re standing up?” I ask, a bit annoyed.

“Because I’m not off to beat someone up,” he continues holding my wallet high above me. I would try to jump and grab it from him, but last time we did something like this he wrapped his arm around me and then something that would force my Papi to whip out a gun occurred.

After all, I am my Papi’s ‘precioso’.

I’m about to retort but two pieces of paper fall from my wallet and my eyes widen. I dive to grab them but he manages to catch them first.

“What’s this?” he frowns, as if the notion of stuffing your wallet with anything other than money confuses him.

“Nothing!” I reply, a bit panicked, trying to snatch it back from him.

That just makes his frown deepen.

Holding the paper high above me, he opens it. As he reads it, he blushes.

“I didn’t know you still kept this,” he smiles softly, looking so intensely at me that I can’t look back at him. He looks down at the list he had given me months ago once more and smiles shyly.

“I like it, it means a lot to me,” I mumble defensively, staring heatedly at my porch. He tugs me closer to him and envelopes me into a hug.

“You mean a lot to me,” he mutters into my hair.

“Another Mills and Boon quote?” I can’t help but laugh.

He just smirks and pulls me to sit down on his lap. I don’t resist this time.

“So what’s this other piece of paper? A sample of my handwriting?” he teases.

I have a feeling the colour of my face is something that would cause tomatoes to become envious.

“No,” I smile nervously, trying to snatch it away from him, “it’s just a shopping list.”

He looks at me and then shakes his head, muttering, “I know her too well.”

What’s that meant to mean?

“If it’s a shopping list, why don’t you want me to see it?” he inquires, trying to look innocent.

“Because it’s got embarrassing stuff in it. Girls stuff,” I put a huge emphasis on ‘girls’.

“Nothing I haven’t seen or heard about before,” he shrugs carelessly, “I’ve got three sisters after all.”

I wish he didn’t, then he wouldn’t feel so comfortable about girl stuff and hand me back the paper immediately, like most guys would. I just had to have a boyfriend who was completely comfortable about menstruation.

It's sort of scary.

He manages to twist away from me and opens the sheet of paper.

I feel my heart drop. The fries must have finally immobilised all my veins and arteries. I was going to die an early death, on Kurts lap. My Papi wouldn’t be very happy about that.

“Oh,” Kurt mumbles, but it isn’t a disappointed ‘oh’.

I think if he smiles any brighter the sun could go into an early retirement.

“How come you never gave this to me?” he asks me.

I shrug, even though I know why. I didn’t want to disappoint him. What if he didn’t like it? What if he thought it was unoriginal, and that I only did it to please him? All the fries in the world would not be able to compete with what that could have done to my heart.

He seems to understand my silence.

“So why’d you write it?” he can’t stop smiling. It’s as if his whole world has brightened up.

I never knew I could do that.

“I just wanted to write out what’s been inscribed in my heart,” I blurt out, sincere. Then I blush, “That was too cheesy. Even more cheesy than Mills and Boon.”

He gently lifts my face to face his.

“Te amo,” he whispers, and even though he thinks he sucks at Spanish it makes my heart swoon. No other person could have said it in the way he did.

He tucks the paper on his front chest pocket, but I don’t mind. I don’t need the paper to know what I’ve written on it. I know it by heart. It’s my list of why I would willingly become a cliché for Kurt.

“Wo ai ni,” I reply, glad that his sisters taught me some Mandarin, “more than you could imagine.”

His face brightens even more, if possible, and he smiles radiantly at me.

I think the sun just lost this competition.

---

A/N: I was feeling fluffy! I won’t deny that this is complete and utter fluff, because it is. I know this is extremely cheesy and quite possibly strange, but I really wanted to write from the point of view of the best friend of the Feisty Girl. I mean, don’t you ever imagine what’s going on with the ‘cold’ best friend? And also, I wanted to write something cute. I haven’t really since The Comic Relief Guy.

Also, if you spot any mistakes please do inform me. I was feeling sleepy while I edited it!

Anyway, some translations:
Papi - Dad (in spanish)
Precioso - precious (in spanish)
Te amo - I love you (in spanish)
Wo ai ni - I love you (in mandarin)

& the song used in ‘love’s a cliché’ by The Karelia. Hope you enjoyed this little snippet.