Love At Last

JAROD’S VISIT; THE FOURTH PHASE

I woke up that morning at my usual time to get started with the day’s preparation for the fourth phase of the cooking contest. While my workers attended to their duties, I focused on perfecting my skills in making tasty mind blowing dishes in short amounts of time. Placing the timer close to me, I monitored the time I spent in each step of the cooking process.

“Arghh… shoot!” I exclaimed when the timer went off and I wasn’t done with the chocolate shake. “This isn’t good for me at all.”

The door bell rang and as usual I raised my head to greet the customer, but this time it was Jarod who walked in. I felt relieved that finally there was going to be some serious help around me. Also, I’d miss him so much but I was careful enough not to let my facial expression give me away – I kept a straight face.

“You’re finally here, Jarod,” I said and returned to the task I gave myself. “Well you have a lot to do now,” I concluded. “I need you to mince these strawberries, coat these…,”

“I quit,” Jarod cut me off abruptly. He quit?

“You what?” I asked mildly.

“You heard me the first time. I said I quit,” he repeated laying emphasis on ‘I quit’.

“Why?” I asked meekly, resisting the urge to tear up. I thought my long lost team mate was back again.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“You take me for granted a lot and that’s not fair,”

“I ta…,”

“I’m going somewhere else to get the love and appreciation I deserve…,” he pointed himself, “since you’re not ready to give them to me,” he completed his sentence.

I was utterly flabbergasted. Where was all he was spewing coming from? My eyes welled up and I immediately wiped them off before they made their way down to my face. “Can you just…,” he cut me off again!

“There’s nothing left to talk about, Lily. My mind’s made up; I’m leaving. With me out of the picture, you can do whatever you want.”

“What do you mean by that, Jarod? You need to calm down and explain things to me properly so that I’d be able to understand,” I pleaded.

“There’s nothing left to be understood,” he blurted. “You can as well ditch the contest because I’m going to make sure you get nothing from it,” he said and stormed out without giving me the opportunity to explain myself to him.

I went over to a chair and sat down to rest my head properly and cry. I didn’t want to attract any attention from my staffs but I ended up attracting them anyway. “Madame,” Elsa – one of my staffs – tapped my shoulder gently. I raised my head up. “Are you okay?” she asked gently.

I feigned a smile. “I’m good, okay? Don’t let Jarod’s visit disturb you,” I assured.

“Are you sure?”

“I most definitely am,” I nodded repeatedly.

“If you say so ma.” She returned to what she was doing inside.

I went back to resting my head on the table. I felt so bad by what Jarod said earlier – that he would make sure I get nothing out of the competition. I wondered if actually my friend whom I’ve known for years will make sure I lose the competition we both prepared for at one time.

I could no longer concentrate on preparing for the competition. The timer went off repeatedly before I could achieve anything reasonable. I was worried that I’d screw myself over even before Jarod did, if I didn’t sit up and do the needful. ‘Why would Jarod say such a thing to me?’ I thought while preparing. I pondered hard on what I could have possibly done to make him feel unappreciated and seek it from elsewhere. Jarod’s visit completely demoralized me.

Around 12:00 pm that day, we – contestants, judges, spectators, etc – were already gathered at the venue for the fourth phase of the competition. This time wasn’t different; I still thought of Jarod all the time. Like I said earlier, this phase was all about speed but with a little twitch to last time. This time, the judges were checking how much we could make in selected amount of time and not necessarily how well we made one dish; of course there was going to be a ‘tasting’, I could not ignore that and focus on timing alone.

In no time, the contest took off and was to last for one hour, fifteen minutes. Hearing the sound of the clock ticking threw me completely off balance. I could not stop myself from thinking about Jarod and his surprise visit this morning. Everyone – including myself – noticed how slow my pace was.

“Is this beautiful lady here trying to make just one dish that would outweigh the rest of her competitors?” The MC was obviously referring to me – with the slowest pace.

Repeatedly, I got flour on my face as I tried to wipe the tears that would not stop welling.

The timer went off – our time was up. I only managed to make one dish and was in the middle of the second one when the MC announced ‘Time up!’ I knew I was completely screwed over seeing how some made four different dishes, others made five. They must have chosen easy and eloquent dishes to present to the judges.

After the tasting, I ended up with a total of thirty-six points from six judges! This phase was worse than the third phase. I knew I was completely done for. In no time the competition ended and we were left to pack up and leave.

I was too frozen as to what just happened to even pack my things. I stood in front of my table, but instead of packing I just stared, lost in my thoughts. “Lily?” a familiar voice called. Of course I didn’t turn around to look at who it was even though I recognized the voice was Cayden’s.

“What happened back there Lily?” he asked compassionately.

“I flopped, right?” I asked him with a shaky voice as I turned around to look at him with my teary face.

“You’re crying?” he was shocked to see the condition was I was in.

“I…I…,” I held out both shaky hands to my face, “I…I,” I kept up with the ‘I’s’ without saying anything meaningful.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked with concern as he held on to my shaky hands in a bid to stop them from shaking. “Calm down okay?” he kept urging but I was deeply in shock to make anything reasonable from what he was saying.

“Calm down, okay?” he urged further.

“I flopped, right?” the tears kept flowing. He held my face and wiped my face with his thumbs. “Relax, let me take you home, okay?”

“No,” I turned him down abruptly. “Just leave me alone.”