My Cup of Tea Ch. 02

Sara Biea Affen bit her bottom lip and watched as baby arteries deliver blood across her face as she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

"Hurry up brat!" screamed Gina, Sara's gorgeous sister with hair down to the butt and eyes bluer than the skies. "Jerry's going to be here any minute and I need to shave my legs!"

Uh oh. Why did Gina need to shave her legs? Was it because she wanted to spend a night... no, no way. Sara shook the naughty thoughts away from her head. She just could not picture her sister, her role model, doing anything beyond holding Jerry the Jock's hand and kissing his prickly lips—he looked like a cactus sometimes when he didn't shave and Sara didn't know what Gina saw in Jerry. Gina was spending her last summer at home. Come September, she would be traveling to New York City to go to NYU. Jerry, on the other hand, had as many ambitions as a rock and decided to work for a while at a local gas station before learning to become a car mechanic.

" Give me a minute." Sara stared at herself one last time before leaving the bathroom. The mirror in their bathroom was the only one that made her look pretty. But having heard Ian's words, Sara had a feeling from now on, even her reflection in a puddle of pee would look pretty. Her heart soared and she sighed. She was the luckiest girl in the world.

Gina nearly knocked down the door.

"I said I'll be out in a minute!" Sara pouted. She had to crane her neck to meet Gina's impossibly large and beautiful eyes—even Lisa was jealous of Gina and one could only imagine how many times Sara turned into a piece of broccoli in Gina's presence.

"Have fun." Sara shook her head. Well at least even perfect girls needed to shave. And crap. Sara grinned and ran into her room, or rather flew because her head was in the clouds and the rapid beatings of her heart could easily defy gravity.

The next morning, Sara woke up and turned into a zombie—every morning, even if she slept her full eight hours, she still looked like a puke-face. Her eyes were puffy and her hair was a total mess, but that really didn't matter, now did it, when a girl was in love? Pit pat went her heart and never had she felt more excited in going to work in the creamery for minimal wage, just to smell fruity at the end of the day.

Gina, to Sara's semi-surprise, was not sleeping like a pig like every other day in the bed next to Sara's. She really didn't come home last night? For a split-second, Sara felt as if a bee had stung her heart but the mere thought of seeing Ian in just a few hours dispelled all other thoughts from her mind. Gina was turning nineteen in a few months—she could drive, buy cigarettes, and definitely rule her own life. She was smart, ambitious, and beautiful—a goddess on earth. Or rather an angel. When angels fell, Sara knew they fell hard but she shook her head and ran downstairs for breakfast.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sara stood in front of the creamery and adjusted her frilly skirt. She looked like a cupcake princess from a cartoon about fairies. Her legs looked like they belonged to an elephant and her lips felt dry and cracked—she had forgotten her favorite strawberry lip-gloss that made her lips look pouty like those of kissing fishes. Sara scratched her head. What if Ian was joking yesterday? What if he only wanted to play with her heart, just like how Lisa did to all the dorky boys who tried to date her? What if he would come into work, point a finger at her, and laugh at her for falling for a trick or a mean joke? She'd explode. She'd stand right there and explode into a million chunks of gore-bits in his face. And then become a ghost and strange him, only to near death because she wouldn't want him to turn into a ghost too and break her heart after death.

"No. No! I'm thinking too much about this!"

"Do you usually talk to yourself?" Ian stood behind Sara with his arms crossed and his lips curved into a handsome smirk. Sara wondered if her heart would pop out of her chest any time soon and a bead of sweat traveled from the side of her head down her face.

"You're... earrrly toooday."

"I missed someone."

If words could melt a person, Sara was now a puddle of nothing.

"Good morning Sara." He smiled and walked into the creamery.

Sara stood with her feet frozen and her eyes plastered to the perfectly sculpted back of Ian—he could audition for any hottie role and win, or save a million drowning girls at a beach if he were a lifeguard because all the girls would fake-drown just to be saved by him. He could have all the Ginas and Lisas of the world lined up at his door waiting for him to say yes to a date. This was life in a superficial world, but Sara couldn't complain. She was superficial too. And yet she couldn't help but feel a little saddened by the fact how everything worked.

Good-looking people could have a million choices like at a super-buffet or a garden of free flowers. Plain looking people like herself waited light-years to be chosen and stood in endless lines at buffets—even if they were to choose, they'd hardly get what they what, or who they want. But for some reason, beyond Sara's comprehension, Ian decided to leave the buffet and go to a fatty-fast-food restaurant. Or fail to pick all the flowers available to him just so that he could have a handful of weed. Hey! Sara poked herself in the ribs. Stop comparing me to weed and a fatty-fast-food restaurant!

With her heart beating at rates faster than the neuron conduction rates of a genius's brain, Sara entered the creamery and her eyes fell to her feet. What was she supposed to say to Ian? What was she supposed to do? Was she now his girlfriend? How was she supposed to act? Maybe she could sneak a few holds of his hand behind the counter. Feed him some ice cream with her finger? Sara blushed at her semi-naughty thoughts.

"Hey Sara." Ian looked at her with nothing but lust in his eyes—or so she thought.

"Yesssh?"

"It's your turn to clean the bathroom today." Ian all but snickered. He covered his built torso with a pink apron—a pink apron that did nothing to detract from his gorgeousness or suggest to others of latent-homosexuality. If Sara had a bazooka in her hands, she'd blast him to pieces for making her feel stupid.

Sara wondered if her jaw dropped to the floor.