Do You Know the Baking Girl? {Pascal}

[PICKLE ABREY]

As much as she cared about RJ, how RJ thought of her, the time RJ spent with her—everything always seemed to boil down to Freddie. Right when she could focus on RJ or baking—Freddie would come out of nowhere and completely ruin it for her. It wasn’t just that he came and took things from her; he seemed to get actual amusement from upsetting her. When she cornered him about it, he always denied or gave lame, half-assed excuses. In the end, Pickle knew that he was lying as did most people. But it didn’t help that they sniggered with his comments, or even joined in with the teasing behind her back. She was trying to be liked, trying to enjoy her first experience in high school, and so far thanks to one boy—it sucked.

One good thing did come out of Pickle being infuriated at Freddie. It meant that she was on a baking spree yet again. However, this time, she wanted to do things differently. Kenny had shoved a few nicer clothing items into Pickle’s closet, things that Pickle would probably never wear. At least until now. A short, lacey strapless rose colored dress hung on Pickle’s thin body, with a delicate beige belt around her wiast. Beige heels made her long legs seem that much longer, and she swept her light blonde hair into a messy bun at the back of her head with a fringe falling down around her face. She baked in this outfit, of course with an apron over it—but she baked her little heart out. Sourdough cookies with jam in the middle, berry cobbler snack bars, and a vanilla cookie topped with chocolate stripes and shreds of coconut.

Of course, as she did, Pickle baked far too much. Once she had put the shreds of coconut on top of the chocolate, she looked at the various plates of sweet treats that littered the counter of her kitchen. She backed up a few steps, and leaned against the wall and leaned against the fridge with a sigh. She felt better in the way that someone who had just had a decent cry felt. Numb, tired, but relieved. She rubbed at her eyes which had been leaking tears over an hour ago, while she let the relieved high run through her system. Now, here was her problem. Pickle had baked far too much, and didn’t have nearly enough friends. Sure, there was Addison and Andie—even Tyler. However, running all over campus with a tray of sweets could be an issue, and she didn’t want to alert her friends. They knew her well enough that for Pickle to bake like this without a special occasion meant that she was upset. So, next best thing.

Pushing off the fridge, the girl reached above the freezer and pulled out an ornate, silver tray and started to place the plates of goods on the tray. Best to do as she always did, and leave them in the common rooms. Thanks to Freddie, strangers, and people outside of her sweet ring of friends didn’t dare try her baked goods. Freddie managed to make everyone think she was some sort of leper, that transferred diseases just by touching things. It made her sad, especially when those that did buck up and try the things she baked, thought highly of them. Even Freddie himself! She watched him cram sweet treat after sweet treat down his gullet when he thought they were Addison’s, complimenting her on the flavor when in reality it was all Pickle. So, instead, Pickle had taken to leaving the treats anonymously in the common room when no one was around. The next day she’d go back and collect the empty plates and trays. At least some people were enjoying them, even if they didn’t know the strange, wide-eyed girl down the hall was making them.

With a careful maneuver that involved balancing the edge of the tray against the wall and her hip, Pickle managed to swing her dorm door open, and use her foot to hold it open, before quickly swinging out the door with the tray in her hands. Contrary to popular belief, Pickle had grace. Sure, when she was excited she tended to trip, and crash into things, but when she was focused—he long legs carried her in even, smooth, rolling strides. Even if there were heels attached to her feet. And that was exactly the way she walked to the commons. Her lacey dress swinging about her thighs, her neck looking long, yet elegant. Pickle was a girl of strange proportions. She reached 5’6” in flats, but the heels pushed her up to a nice 5’9”. She was wafty, and thin, almost looking as though the wind would easily carry her away. But she was build almost like a cartoon, with large eyes that would make a doe feel inferior, a full, downturned mouth which she had painted red before her baking spree. Her shoulders dipped down just where they met the neck, then flowed upwards at her shoulders; though this gently curve was usually hidden by her shirts or sweaters.

Beneath it all, Pickle was a very pretty girl. Maybe, it being a Saturday afternoon, should anyone see her—they might openly try the sweet baked treats. It was possibly a false hope, but maybe not looking so rag-tag might actually change people’s opinions on her. She used her hip to nudge the door to the commons open, and walked over to the table in the back of the room near the little sink, and rested the tray on it while she started to lay out the plates across the counter. With delicate long fingers, she straightened the stacks of cookies and cobbler bars, making sure they were perfectly on display. After all—presentation was just as important as the taste itself.

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Outfit! Apparently Pickle's going along with the whole, 'The best revenge is to look good' motto.

[PASCAL FISCHER]

Pascal knew Pickle Abrey. Or, at the very least, he knew of her. She was one of those people that you couldn't help but know, for better or worse. Even if you had never spoken to them, even if you had only even seen their face once or twice, you felt more than acquainted with them. Through rumor and otherwise, Pickle Abrey's name felt familiar on Pascal's tongue, like the chocolate chip cookies that his mother had been keen on baking before Abel died and she became depressed. Pickle Abrey was the girl with the big eyes and the stringy hair, the friendless baking girl whispered to shoulder various exotic diseases that few had ever heard of but most believed existed. She was the girl that most sensible students avoided, the girl who all those mindlessly "sensible" students had insisted was really some sort of nauseating monster, scarcely veiled to look halfway human.

She certainly did not look like a monster, not to Pascal, not that afternoon when the sun sat high in the sky, washing the winter away as spring prepared to plague the city. In fact, Pickle Abrey looked anything but. He couldn't say that he knew her, but in that moment Pascal knew that if he knew anything at all in the world, it was that Pickle Abrey looked... pretty. Beautiful, sexy, alluring as she stood with her comparably alluring stacks and stacks of cookies and cobbler and cookies. He inhaled through his nose, breathing their sweet smells and wildly fighting the urge to breathe out from fear that in the single breath, they would all be gone, the ravishing smells and the ravishing treats and, with them, the ravishing girl called Pickle Abrey.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. Much to his relief, it was all still there; the girl, the treats, everything. It was all still there. He breathed in again, and drawing upon stockpiled courage, Pascal stepped up to meet the monster, with bright eyes and a waving hand.

"Um, excuse me? You're... Pickle, right?" It felt inane, to literally speak such a name as "Pickle". Or, maybe, he felt silly actually saying her name, to her face, after only ever having thought of it, after only ever having thought of her and never actually spoken to her. Perhaps the truly inane thing was that after having developed such a complicated idea of her, based so injudiciously on rumor and rumor alone, he now actually dared to speak to her.

It was almost scary. Scary, as it would seem, to potentially allow Pickle Abrey to introduce to Pascal the real girl, and not the monster. Scary, to allow her to destroy his intricate fantasy of her and the pitiful life she lived. He almost didn't want to know the real her. It was nice, to think that he knew her, to think that he knew this disease-ridden girl when really he knew neither about her nor her nonexistent diseases. As he waved at her, he could feel reality pressing against him, threatening to tear apart the beautiful life he had made for Pickle Abrey in his mind.

It was too late, though. Pascal was not so rude that he would simply go up to her and walk away, especially not because he didn't want her to disprove the desperately childish speculations about her that had wandered throughout the school. He put on a brave face, and got ready to meet the real Pickle Abrey, hoping against hope that she would not be normal, that she would indeed be a monster and that she would indeed have many, many diseases that he had never heard about but that he knew must have existed. "I'm Pascal Fischer." He wondered if, like he had known her, she somehow knew him. He wondered if she, too, had developed some unrealistic fantasy about his life, convinced herself that she was so familiar with him when really she didn't know the first thing about him.

He wondered if perhaps she thought he wasn't as awesome as he was, if perhaps she thought he was gay as that asshole Freddie Foster had been eagerly spreading about. Maybe she thought both? That would be a horror to best all horrors. "And, uh," he didn't look her in the eyes, as if he would find a living and breathing human– not a monster– hiding in them. "I'd like to buy one of your cookies. How much?" He tried to force one of his trademark, charming smiles, but for once it was not very convincing. It was funny, because Pascal was not so much scared that he would catch one of Pickle Abrey's exotic ailments, as he was scared that he would discover that Pickle Abrey had not a single exotic ailment to begin with.

☆ COUNT 841
☆ NOTES lol what is quality...

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[PICKLE ABREY]

To be utterly fair, Pickle hadn't noticed she wasn't alone in the common room. In her mind, all the sudents save for her had wonderfully social lives, and didn't need to bother with the commons. That was why when she felt the presence of another person and the voice to go with it, she intially jumped and turned fast enough that she wobbled slightly. Her obscenely large eyes blinked a few times, flickering as though she wasn't sure that the voice had come from the boy in front of her. Yet, it had. Someone that wasn't Tyler, or RJ, or Addison, or Andie, or Kenny, or Freddie was speaking to her. Actually, she didn't have the vaguest idea of who this boy was. However, she nodded to his question and continued to stare at him.

As he went on to introduce himself, she recognized the name. Pascal. She had heard Freddie mention the name quite a few times, usually paired with words that would make a prostitute blush. After Freddie's angry ramblings, she had often felt dirty just for those words to reach her small ears. She had concoted a mental image to go along with Freddie's words, although she shouldn't have. Freddie was a liar, and a jerk. He often said things about her that weren't true, so why should she believe anything she had said about Pascal. Her hands raised slightly, and she wrung her long fingers almost nervously. In her head, Pascal was some wonton Fabio of a man. One with a leer that never left his face, one who's hands tended to wander and tended to throw himself upon women.

But the young man before her seemed to be none of those things. In fact, his hesitation of speaking made him seem completely opposite, and immediately she felt bad for the things she had thought. Perhaps he was just like her; a victim of Freddie's angry words. Maybe he was just eccentric, and Freddie misconstrued that. And yet she fell for it, much like the other students of Baum had fallen for Freddie's horrible ramblings about herself. Her worried, nervous expression cracked and she curled her red lips into a bright smile. "Hi Pascal, it's nice to meet you." Her voice was gentle, not soft. A regular speaking volume, but there was something unique about her voice. Southern, no doubt. But hardly country. Something much older than that, her voice had no twang, but had a swing instead. Melodical in its inflictions. Deep south, Louisiana. Her voice should have accompanied petticoats, corsets and parasols. There should have been iced tea in her hand, and her hair should have been done in intricate ringlets piled atop her head. Pickle Abrey had a very thick Louisiana accent.

Her round eyes glanced at the cookies she had just placed on the table like she had never seen them before, before staring up at Pascal--the former look of surprise back on her pale face. "Oh! Oh, no. They're not for sale." She shook her head, and dropped her hands to the side. A split second after the words fell out of her mouth, she realized how wrong they sounded. "What I mean is, they're free." She took a slight step aside to let Pascal at the organized display. "Help yourself, take as many as you like. I enjoy baking, and a lot of the times I make a bit too much. It's sort of like a therapy, when I'm upset. I bake. And it's just me and one or two other people that eat them. I leave them out sometimes, other times they end up having to go to the trash." She shrugged her slender shoulders, before a flush of color blossomed on her cheeks. "I'm sorry, you probably don't care about that, do you?" She sucked in a small breath, and took another step from the table.

"I promise they're really good." Her brows raised up, and her voice seemed almost nudging, hopeful maybe. After all, maybe he had heard the rumors that the delicious treats on the table were crawling in germs, disease and things that were all wrong. Actually, the only exotic disease that Pickle suffered from was a chronic kindness. Even when she was teased directly to her face, she always responded wiht kindness. Okay--not always. Freddie was the only person that managed to make the gentle girl lose her cool--but she was always helpful. Southern hospitality, she called it. Warm, inviting, and always willing to help. This unfortunately lead people to take advantage of her kindness. "Freddie's talked about you before, I think."

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Outfit! Apparently Pickle's going along with the whole, 'The best revenge is to look good' motto.

notes; Sorry it took so long! Also, maybe I should type without a spell check more often. I didn't misspell a damn word. o.O