7. O how I hate ice cream (no offence)

Abigail led me to a café where she said she always got ice cream with her friends. I wasn't much of an ice cream person. Yes, we exist. It always hurt my throat after I ate it. That and my teeth were super sensitive to cold things. But I wasn't about to tell her that. We walked into the café and were met by an odd blend of country and jazz music. We went over to the counter and ordered our ice creams. I decided it would be best to get mine in a cup since I'd most likely not even finish it anyway. Abigail obviously ordered a cone with a ton of sprinkles and syrup on her ice cream. We decided to sit down for a while as we ate. My progress was very slow. Abigail seemed to watch me with deep intent on seeing my reaction.

"So what do you think?" she asked.

"Well," I said, trying hard to think of an appropriate response." It's really...creamy?"

"Yeah. I love this place. I always come here, in most cases with my girl friends."

"Well, you have good taste."

Her face lit up like a red bulb. She covered her mouth and attempted a fake cough as she stared out the window. She finally cooled down and cleared her throat before continuing on her ice cream. Well that was an accomplishment. Making a girl blush....check. She quietly licked her ice cream as I thought of what to say next.

"So, do you live near the school?" I asked her awkwardly.

"Yeah it's not too far," she replied. "I wouldn't say it's in walking distance but it is pretty close."

"Definitely not too far from here then, right?."

"Yeah. But I'm still going ask my brother to pick my up."

"You have an older brother?"

"Two actually. The one I'm talking about, Billy, is the second born."

"Huh..interesting."

"What about you? Do you have any siblings."

"Actually no. I'm an only child."

"Ohh."

"Yeah."

"Siblings are the worst. Don't be upset about what you have...rather what you don't have."

I laughed. She smiled at me. As my ice cream continued to melt away, we talked about our different hobbies and so on. I found out that Abigail came from a family of overachievers. Her dad was a lawyer and her mom was surgeon. For each of their children, they expected high achievement jobs, likely in their fields as well. Abigail was not keen to become anything like her parents. Her brothers had basically followed in her mother's footsteps so there was a lot of pressure on her to do the follow suit.

"My parents are always telling me I should become something like a surgeon or study law. At the very least, they want me to be a business woman."

"What do you wanna be?"

"I wanna be an architect."

"Oh that's cool."

"Yeah I'm so interested in designing bridges and skyscrapers, but I don't think I know how to draw."

"Seriously. Well most this stuff is done digitally now. I'm sure you'll be fine."

It was only after I said it did I realise that I could have just offered to teach her how to draw but the moment passed. I gave myself a mental facepalm.

"Yeah true," she acknowledged.

She finished her ice cream while I continued to struggle with mine, which slowly turned into a milkshake in the cup. It didn't taste bad at all. It was just really cold. Emphasis on was. It became just right at a point but that took the fun out of ice cream. Abigail saw that I wasn't keen on eating my ice cream.

"You want me to feed you?" she teased.

"I'm not much of an ice cream person," I said.

"I noticed. You're probably the first person I've ever heard say that."

"I'm special."

"No kidding. What if you had like a girlfriend who loved ice cream and she wanted you to share some with her?"

"Uhm... I don't know what I'd do then. I guess I'd just....end the relationship."

She laughed. "You're insane."

I laughed with her. This day felt like a dream. In fact, the whole week felt like a dream. If I had made a new year resolution to become hang out with the cool kids, it would have been the first new year's resolution to ever be crossed off my list. Never in a million years did I think I would be seated across a cheerleader in a café eating ice cream and laughing with them. Well frankly speaking, I never would have thought I would be sitting in a café eating ice cream, but that's beside the point. I was ready at any moment to be shocked back to reality or wake up in bed and find out all this was an elaborate plot by my brain to mess with me. In that reality, I would not have even been passed day one of the new semester of school. I would have been waking up to prepare for school after being tricked into thinking I was hanging out with the people I feared and, in a way, idolised. I clenched my body in readiness to wake up to that reality. Nothing came of it. I must have made visibly concerning expressions because Abigail looked at me like I was plagued with measles.

"You okay?" Abigail wondered.

"Uh...yeah," I stuttered. "Just, you know, the ice cream."

"Is it really that bad? I thought you liked it."

"Don't get me wrong. The taste is good. I'm just not an ice cream person."

"I wish you would have told me earlier."

"I honestly didn't know how."

Abigail, already done with her cone, shifted her seat closer to mine so that she was by my side. She leaned over her arm and rested on the table, looking up at me. An awkward moment passed by of me and her looking at each. Other. I wondered to myself what was meant to become of this moment. She probably expected me to say something about it from the looks of things.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I'm waiting for you to finish your ice cream," Abigail responded. "You can just drink it since it's just milk now."

"Are you being serious."

Abigail nodded. I still maintained eye contact for a while hoping she would show any signs that this was a joke but she seemed very set on watching me finish the ice cream. I looked down at the pathetic puddle of milk and chocolate syrup. I sloshed it around with my spoon which made it look even more pathetic than before. As I picked up the cup, I hoped I was not going to regret chugging down the creamy dessert. It took a while but finally, everything was down my gullet. I could still feel the cold serpent slither down my throat when I put the cup down. Abigail was visibly pleased. That was partly because I had a creamy moustache, as I learned shortly. I was glad that she was glad but I knew that when I got home, I was going to her to drink up a nice cup of tea for the sake of damage control to my tonsils.