Simply Stories - Berry Bliss for Breakfast by Carmen Anderson

Berry Bliss for Breakfast

 by Carmen Anderson

     
      I scrub the kitchen top to bottom, just in case. And to be even safer, I pop the chopping board and utensils in a plastic bag I can dump in the outside bin.

      It’s still dark when I creep out of the door. I’ve told Mum and Dad that I was going to have breakfast with Kloë and Lauren. Except Lauren won’t be there; it will be Dylan. I have it all planned.

     Kloë wants me to help her with her Chemistry homework. As soon as she suggested we get together before school to study, what I needed to do simply unfolded inside my head, like having your route home highlighted by a GPS app. So I invited Dylan to join us at the park and I would bring breakfast. They both know I love cooking, and I told them I would make yoghurt granola cups sprinkled with fresh berries. Sort of thing Kloë loves – all that healthy stuff to feed her curves and flawless skin.

     I’m surprised I’m still so calm as I walk towards the park. The cold that washed over me since I read the WhatsApp messages he exchanged with Kloë clings to me like anaesthetic; no tears, nothing. Perhaps feelings will come later. I don’t suppose I can blame him liking Kloë. All the boys do. She’s Miss Perfect Teeth, Miss Popular Cleavage, Miss Bubble Butt, Miss Wide Open Purse that Daddy fills. Miss Wide Open Legs too, it seems. Meanwhile, I’m too dark for anyone’s taste, too skinny for snogging, too clever to kiss. But I am ice cold, calm and a chemist.

     

     At the park gate I pause, my lunchbox with each individually prepared, labeled breakfast feels heavy. The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves, just like the back of the garden where I potter about for plants which I take to identify, catalogue, label, press and file. A solitary hobby. Not for me glitter and glam and Princess diaries.

    I found the berries ripe and shining on the belladonna in the hedge, so beautiful with its darkly sinister flowers, each petal a premonition of doom. The berries shone with purple temptation when I picked them yesterday. I wonder if it will hurt, and for a second, I waver.

     Then I hear their voices waft towards me from the bench near the park entrance. They are already there, planning, I imagine, what Dylan will say to dump me and how long they will leave it to make their sordid fling official.

      “Hey,” I call out, smiling.

      “What did you bring? I’m starving,” says Dylan, moving his hand away from Kloë’s shoulder. Does he look guilty?

     It’s hard to trace, says my Chemistry textbook.

     “Berry Bliss – homemade,” I smile. In a while they’ll fall ill and go to hospital, but it will be too late. I’ll be in registration. I’ll wear berry black to their funerals. I’ll shed tears of triumph.