Jonah and I were having a stare down at the diner.
We'd just found out on Wednesday during Mr. Herberg's class that he actually had given another assignment last Friday. He basically gave each one of us two pages of lists of questions we had to ask each other. This was apparently what he had meant last week by the honeymoon phase being a phase to get to know each other.
Some questions were normal, some others were pretty meh, some others were just plain what the hell?âI seriously suspected that Mr. Herberg was just bored when he typed down all these questions, but since he was the teacher and we were his students, I guess we were stuck to do this.
I finally sighed, my eyes falling to the first question on the paper.
"Alright, first question," I started, snickering to myself. "Are you more of a social butterfly or a lone ranger?"
He snorted. "What do you think?"
I shrugged at him. "I don't know. You seem pretty gregarious to me."
He glared at me, although there was a flicker of light in his eyes, as if he was amused. "I'm sunshine and rainbows, alright. And what about you?"
"Eh. A mix between the two," I answered. "I'd like to think I'm approachable. I do have my don't-talk-to-me moments though."
"Right." We both wrote down each other's answers before moving onto the next question. He asked, "What is your dream job?"
"Not working here, no offense," I said, and he shrugged. "An actress. Don't laugh, it really is my dream job. You?"
"Well, not an actor, definitely," he muttered. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it."
I bit my lip before giving him a small encouraging smile. "You ever played pretend as kids? When I was like, five years old, I really wanted to be a vet. My mom had a real hard time keeping me away from scissors so that I wouldn't be able to perform open heart surgeries on my animal plushies. That was until I grew older and realized I don't do well around blood."
He hummed. So low, I almost couldn't hear it. "I like cooking. Don't know if I want to do that for a living, though."
"Hmm. Michelin star chef Jonah Gibbs." Sounds kinda hot, I added in my head. He rolled his eyes at me before I asked the next question, "Are you a cat or a dog person? I'm a cat person, obviously."
He frowned. "Dog, maybe? I don't mind cats either, though. Uh, hidden talents? You know mine."
I smirked at him. "Well, what's a hidden talent if people know?" He glowered at me, so I rolled my eyes and said, "I used to take ballet class, so I guess it's my hidden talent. I never dance anymore. What is the thing you miss about being a kid?"
"Peeing in my bed and getting away with it."
"Ew! Gross!"
"Yeah, whatever. You?"
"Um... probably believing that Santa was real. Yeah, I miss those moments in my life."
"Weird habit?"
"Alright, mine is probably bumping my fist onto my forehead several times when I'm really really really upset. Everyone always tell me that I do that. I never realize whenever I'm doing it, not until I start getting headaches couple minutes after a meltdown. You?"
His face was somewhat sheepish, his face red in embarrassment. "Singing myself to sleep every night?" he admitted in a quiet, hesitant voice, before glowering at himself. "No. Don't write that down. Just say I chew on my nails or something."
I tried to hold in my laughter, but it escaped anyway, and he had to sit there as I laughed at his face, his face getting redder each time my laughter got louder. "Oh, god. That's precious," I gasped mid-laughter, and then I forced myself to end the laughter. "What's usually your first thought when you wake up?"
"I'm going to shoot the alarm clock," he answered. "You?"
"I will never stay up late ever again," I said. "Then I sleep late again the following night and it goes on and on and never ends."
He looked mildly amused. "Your favorite 2014 movie so far?"
"A tie between The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent," I said without missing a beat.
He booed at me. I probably should be offended, but he looked so silly that I only laughed when he told me, "You're such a girl."
"Shut up. What's yours?"
"I don't watch movies."
"How would you know if my favorite movies are girly if you don't even watch movies?"
"Teenage sister," he reminded. "I've probably only been to the cinemas three times this year. I liked the latest Spider-Man movie. Pretty sad when his girlfriend died, though."
"No! Why would you remind me of that? Spent the rest of my night crying after seeing that movie. My fault for never reading the comics," I grumbled the last part to myself. "Next one. Coolest person you've ever met?"
"Not you," he quipped. I threw a fry at him. "I met this Michael Jackson impersonator sometime last year. I thought he was MJ himself, back from the dead or whatever. You?"
I grinned. "One of my sister's ex-boyfriends from last summer. She dated Brad Pitt's cousin or second cousin or something like that."
He made a face at me. "Would you... ever be naked in public?" he asked, but in the end he was scrunching his nose, murmuring, the hell, Herberg?âand then he scoffed. "I would. You?"
"Geez, no. Okay, uh, we've kinda moved onto the relationship related questions. Ready?"
He grimaced. "Bring it on."
I cleared my throat. "What was your first impression of me?"
"Annoying bitch." I gasped and glared at him. He raised his hands in surrender. "You dumped your drink on me and then bitched about it. What was I supposed to think?"
"It was an accident, buttface," I said, writing down "annoying brat" on the paper as his answer. I felt just a tiny bit disappointed that he really had no idea who I was before I started Operation Bite the Apple. Oh, well, I guess that's mission accomplished for me. "Well I thought you were just a stuck up asshole who needed to take anger management classes." I didn't tell him that my real first impression of him was somewhere along the lines of oh my god he's so hot I could fry a bacon on him. Yeah, he didn't really need to know that.
He smirk on his face was amused. He then looked down at the paper, and his face grew uncomfortable. "Describe your ideal relationship?"
Seriously. Which website did our teacher copy-paste these questions from? He was so lame. "Uh, um, I think an ideal relationship is where both persons can trust each other, and, uh, whatever. I don't know. You?"
He scratched his head. "Something like that. Uh, it would be good if they can be honest with each other."
I slowly nodded, and moved on. "Your biggest fear?"
He grew quiet as he pondered over the question. "Losing someone I really care about. You?"
"Hm," I tilted my head to the side. "Probably forgetting and being forgotten."
"Yeah." He was silent until he shifted in his chair and took a sip of his warm chocolate. "What happened in your last... relationship?"
I puckered my lips. "He got drunk and kissed a guy while I was in the room. He really seemed to enjoy it while I was literally just standing there. I don't care about his sexuality, but the way he forgot he had a girlfriend was so not cool. Whatever. I didn't really like him all that much anyway, though, so I wasn't so upset."
He snorted as a result to hold in his laughter. I gave him the stink eye.
"Oh, shush. What about you?"
He instantly sobered, another look of discomfort filling his face. "I, uh, never had a relationship with anyone?"
My eyebrows were up into my forehead. "No way."
"Shut up," he snapped.
I snickered at the look on his face. "Dating is overrated, anyway." I looked down on the paper. "Have you... ever had your heart broken?"
Something clouded over his eyes for a few seconds, until he nodded. "Yeah."
I played with my half-empty cup, twirling it around on the table. "Me too."
He cleared his throat. "Not romantically, obviously, since I've never been in a relationship before."
I looked down and saw that we'd finished all of the questions. "Alright, we're done," I announced. "Now let's just work in silence as we work on the last paper. No peeking, alright?"
He snorted. "Yeah, yeah. Let's just get this over with."
The last page was filled with a few questions about our partner. I quickly read through the questions and sighed, deciding to answer them as honest as possible.
What is best to describe your partner? Use up to three words.
So I wrote down: honest, blunt, hardworking.
What is best to describe your relationship with him/her?
Strange, hot & cold.
What is your partner's one best personality trait?
I wrote down: patience. Then I paused before adding: he doesn't have the best patience in the world, but he hasn't killed me for being annoying so far, so yeah.
Are you and your partner open with each other?
Not yet.
After a while, I finally got through the last question, pausing to let the question sink in.
Do you see yourself falling in love with someone like your partner?
My face warmed. I really hoped Mr. Herberg wasn't gonna read all of these in front of the class because that would be awkward as hell. I snuck a glance at Jonah, and the answer had never been more obvious.
So I answered: yes, yes I do.