Breakfast

“Morning.” Ann walked into the kitchen in her pajamas, her short blond hair was in a mess and she was clearly half asleep. She sat down, crossed her arms over the table and put her head down.

“Good morning to you too,” Maria responded with a beaming smile on her face. She was in a good mood this morning, like every morning. She was an early bird, the fact that there was only one bathroom in their three-bedroom apartment, was also a motivation. She always woke up early to be the first one to use it. She stood from the table and poured Ann some coffee in her favorite mug.

“Where is Lee? She’s going to be late for school…and why are you always so damn cheerful?” Ann grunted back at her. Maria placed the mug in front of her and went back to her bowl of cereal.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, again. She must be getting dressed.”

Ann’s headshot up, she had one of her evil grins on. “Actually, I had the best dream ever!”

Maria put her spoon down, leaned back in the chair and looked at Ann. She knew whatever was coming next would be very interesting.

 Ann always had an over active imagination, but her dreams were way funnier, graphic and sadistic sometimes but funny. When someone got on her nerves, she would imagine all kinds of ways of revenge, and she would settle the score with the person in her dreams. She always woke up happier when she’d annihilated the person.

“Who did you kill now?”

“Steve…” Ann said with so much glee.

Steve was their roommate’s boyfriend and Ann hated him with a passion. He was certainly attractive, tall, wide shoulders, a toned body and a face to kill for, but he was repulsive when it came to everything else. He dropped out of high school, didn’t have a job, he was sloppy and ungrateful, he treated Lee like a mindless drone, rather than the woman he claimed to love, and worst of all, he believed he was God’s gift to women and acted like it.

 Ann saw through his façade of a loving boyfriend. She saw him for who he was an opportunist. He claimed to love Lee but the only thing he loved about her was her money. The part that annoyed her most was that Lee was like his puppet, he pulled the strings.

Maria on the other hand, tried her best not to have any opinion of Steve. The only thing she did was to try and keep Steve and Ann as far away from each other as possible. She knew Lee was attached to him, and all she wanted was her friend to be happy. But they both stepped in to stop Lee when his demands were outrageous.

“Of course, who else would it be?” Maria had that heard-it-all-before voice, but that didn’t stop Ann. She looked even more excited. She stood up to dramatize her dream, almost knocking over her coffee.

“He was on set, on a beach. He was acting as this hot surfer—he wishes he could act, he wishes he was hot, but anyway, he was on his surfboard, waiting for this huge wave. When it got closer, he started paddling, and then he jumped on his board, with one of his stupid smiles pasted on his face, ready to ride the wave, all of a sudden…”

She paused, her eyes grew bigger and so did her smile. Maria waited, she was giggling, very amused by Ann’s efforts to add suspense to the story.

“Out of nowhere, a white shark came out of the wave and caught him between its teeth. He was screaming, crying for Lee to help him, ‘Lee, help me, help me!’” She poorly mimicked Steve’s hoarse voice as she threw her hands around. She tried to crease her face to look scared but her smile was stubbornly stuck on her face.

Maria almost fell off her chair. She had her arms around her stomach, laughing hard.

“And this is the best part, Lee stood at the shore waving at him with a big smile on her face, ‘bye Steve! I hope that shark doesn’t bring him back’ then the director turned to her and said ‘I wish it would, we need another shot.’” Ann was waving out the window, acting the part of Lee in her dream.

Maria was in stitches, she was laughing so hard tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks.

“What’s so funny?” Steve walked into the kitchen, shirtless. His presence irritated Ann; she wasn’t smiling anymore. Maria stopped laughing. She had her hand over her mouth, hiding her wide smile.

“If only…” with that Ann sunk into her chair, back to her former mood.

Maria bust out laughing again, she stood up and ran to her room to get dressed. She also didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire, she was in too good of a mood to have it destroyed by their fights. Ann and Steve couldn’t last five seconds in a room before they were at each other’s throats.

“So are you going to tell me what the joke is about?”

“You! Did your clothes run away from you? There is a garbage bag in the top drawer, I know for a fact that will stay faithful to you.”

“What, is my chest turning you on?” the corner of his mouth rose in half a smile, ignoring her last statement.

Ann covered her mouth with her hand and made a gagging sound. “I just puked in my mouth.”

Steve was pleased to have irritated her. He reached over the table to grab the box of cereal. Ann jumped for it first and placed it on the floor beside her.

“Hey what’s your problem?”