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I clapped my hands together and helped
myself
to a tiny cupcake. “These look delicious, Hudson,” I said, tossing it into my mouth. “Did you make these?”

Hudson smiled at me. “I did!” she said graciously. “It took forever to ice them. They were just so small!” When she laughed, Armando, Anjolie, and I joined into the laughter, grinning at the miniscule cupcakes.

“They're so cute, though, Hudson,” Anjolie commented, helping herself to another cupcake. “I don't even want to eat them!”

We all laughed out again, praising the small cupcakes. But it was Olive who silenced us. “They're just cupcakes, Anjolie. Not small puppies,” she said, scooping up a handful of them and popping the treats into her mouth. “Stop being so
dramatic
.” Her snappy words caused Anjolie to frown.

Noticing this, Armando chimed in, reaching for the drinks. “Sparkling cider, anyone?” he asked, grabbing up the large wine-bottle-shaped container.

“I'd gladly take some,” I said, catching onto his efforts of soothing the mood. Hudson and Anjolie agreed, nodding their heads simultaneously.

As Armando began pouring glasses of cider, Olive asked, “What about
booze
? Got any of that?”

It was as if she had just asked if anyone wanted to hold one of her eyeballs, it was that blasphemous.

Hudson cocked her head to the side as she stared, narrow-eyed, at her friend. “Are you serious? You don't drink.” She seemed surprised at Olive's question.

Olive just shrugged again, playing innocent. She placed her head down on my shoulder and twiddled with the skin on my palm. “I was just asking,” she snapped.

Armando cleared his throat. “Well, sorry, we don't have that,” he said as he handed us our drinks.

I tried once again to break the tension. “So, I heard you guys all went shopping yesterday,” I said, opting for a topic that at least three-fifths of us could join in on.

Hudson smiled. “We did, and it was so much fun,” she responded, talking through smiling lips. She looked at Anjolie. “I hope you like everything we bought you, because I sure did.” Her brown hand clasped onto Anjolie's warmly.

Anjolie smiled. “Yeah, I do,” she answered. “Thanks for that, really.” She seemed genuinely thankful to the two of them.

Armando shrugged, smiling as well. “Hey, it was our treat,” he said kindly. “If you like the clothes, then we've done our job soundly.”

The three of them smiled nicely at one another.

“Why do you always have to be everyone's charity case, Anjolie?” Olive asked, splintering the happy moment. “You grab rides from Cameron, you take money from those two lovebirds, and you can never do a stupid mission without Cam's help.” Olive narrowed her eyes at Anjolie. “You are
such
a charity case.” Olive's eyes lit fiercely as she spoke.

“Hey now, Olive, that's not true,” Armando intercepted, frowning at her. “Anjolie doesn't take anything from us.”

He motioned between himself and Hudson, who crossed her arms, and added, “Yeah, Olive. It was
Armando and I
who offered her the money in the first place. She had nothing to do with it.”

When everyone peered at me, I reluctantly felt the need to defend myself as well. “Uh, yeah, and I was the one who offered her a ride, not her.” It felt awkward talking about Anjolie like she wasn't even there. And I didn't really like confrontation — like, at all. Especially with my girlfriend.

We all then took in Anjolie's expression, anticipating either a huge cat-fight or some major waterworks. Either way, it wouldn't be pretty.

But Anjolie just rolled her eyes, sighing beneath her breath. “Whatever, Olive,” she said, her voice eerie with calmness. “You know that's not true, so don't even go there.”

But Olive had other plans in mind. Crossing her legs beneath her, Olive leaned forward, her eyes narrowed at Anjolie. “I'm speaking the truth,
honey
,” Olive spat, cocking her head to the side at the sound of the slimy pet-name. “All you do is run around, acting all ‘woe is me!' like, and making people feel sorry for you!” She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, even though
everybody else
buys it, I don't. I see through your whole charade, Anjolie. And frankly, you suck at pretending.”

Olive's words hung in the air as we all stared at Anjolie in silence.

Anjolie's eyes narrowed as well, her eyes forming dangerous slits in her head. “Wow, Olive, where's all this coming from?” she asked. “I never did anything to you.” Even though Anjolie was handling all this with such a calm and easy demeanor, her red cheeks and pout indicated that she was not just angry, but maybe a little sad. I felt my heart grow heavy as I watched her face fall. I wanted nothing more but to reach over and embrace her, to soothe her misery.

But Olive was my girlfriend.

Olive snuggled into me, resting her head on my shoulder again. “Just admit it, Anjolie. You want Cam just as much as you want Cameron and all of my friends. You can't make your own friends and Cam thinks you're trash.” Olive smirked at her. “Face it. Nobody likes you for you. You're just a stupid little leech.” Her eyebrows perked up, satisfied with her jab.

That was way too far. I decided to end the feud before anything started. “Whoa, now, let's not go there—” I started but was strictly silenced by one of Olive's death glares.

It was silent as we again anticipated Anjolie's next action. Surprisingly, she still retained her tranquil behavior, shrugging as she said, “I cannot believe you are doing this right now.” She chuckled a little. “Point out all of my ‘flaws' in front of everyone? Really Olive? Are you that insecure about your relationship with your friends that you have to put down me, an innocent bystander to your guys' own problems?” Anjolie just shook her head, smiling as she helped herself to a chocolate-chip cookie. “Personally, I think you're just desperate.”

Gasping, Olive huffed noisily, opening her mouth to spit out another rude comment. But Hudson cut in before she could utter any other words. “Could you guys just cut the crap?” she asked, severely blunt. “It's a picnic! Not a mud-brawl!”

The two girls silenced themselves, glancing down at their hands in embarrassment.

Hudson sighed angrily and grabbed up some apple pie. “Now who wants pie?” she asked, already slicing it into pieces. She glared at Olive. “And no, we don't have
booze
pie, either,” she snapped, ushering slices onto our plates. Olive rolled her eyes, shrugging nonchalantly.

When we all had our own slice, Armando grinned and asked, “Did any of you guys hear about that new amusement park they're creating?” He took a few bites of his dessert and eyed me, notifying me that he was changing the subject in order to distract Anjolie and Hudson while I talked to Olive.

I immediately took the hint, gently nudging Olive, who was still resting her head on my shoulder. “Hey, babe, are you okay?” I asked, my voice low as I whispered into her ear. I knew I had to take the babying route in confronting Olive's extremely rude behavior because if I attacked Olive in any way, I knew she would explode. “You seem a little cranky. Is everything alright?”

She looked up at me slowly, her eyes still flaring with a hint of anger. “Anjolie's just annoying me now-a-days,” she informed me.

Her eyes revealed nothing else, so I continued to soothe her. “I understand. She's just not your cup of tea.” When Olive smiled softly at my joke, I kissed her forehead. “Just know that even if someone isn't rubbing you the right way, doesn't mean that you should put her down. She's going through a rough time right now and we should all respect that. Do you hear me?” I gently smoothed down the hair that fluttered in her face, smiling a kind I'm-not-on-her-side-or-anything-but-just-hear-me-out smile.

Olive nodded obediently, sighing, but offering nothing else. I could tell that she wasn't taking my smile seriously. I knew she thought I was on Anjolie's side.

Noticing her defeated expression, I grabbed up her chin and kissed her softly on the lips, lingering there until I felt her give in to my efforts, pulling me close and kissing me back. After a moment, I pulled away and said, “Just play nice for now. For Hudson at least.” I smiled sheepishly. “Because nobody wants to see
her
angry.”

Olive rolled her eyes and smiled, knowing exactly what I was hinting at. Hudson angry was bad news for all of us — to put it nicely. Olive grabbed up my hand and held it between both of hers. Smiling up at me, her eyes mischievous, she said, “Don't worry, Cameron. I'll play
nice
.” And with that, she ceased the conversation and shoved a mouthful of pie into her mouth, no other words escaping her lips.

Turning, I looked at Armando, who widened his eyes in concern. I nodded my head at him, motioning that Olive was alright and that she was going to play nice from now on. Armando gave me a relieved smile. He continued with his aimless conversational efforts and Olive joined in this time, offering her own two cents about the topic. Soon enough, she and Hudson and Armando were all laughing at a joke together, the bitter tension immediately dissolved from the air.

I smiled, knowing that my work paid off. I made sure to glance surreptitiously at Anjolie to see how she was holding up. But when our eyes met, she quickly looked away, her eyes sad, her mouth frowning.

When all attention was off of her, she let her guard down — this being apparent at the moment. I felt helpless, not knowing what to do, what to say, how to console her hurt feelings. But I couldn't do anything to stop her pain.

Olive
was my girlfriend.

****

As the picnic drew to a close, we all began to clean up our trash. “This was fun, guys,” I said, my mood cheery, my stomach full of delicious desserts. “We should really do it again.”

Armando laughed and clapped me on the back. “Let's take a rain check on that, shall we?” he said, eyeing Olive and Anjolie. He was regarding their previous brawl earlier, indicating that he did not want to go through that again.

Neither did I.

Hudson packed up the remaining desserts in little baskets, handing each of us one. “Leftovers rock,” she commented, licking the icing off of a cupcake. “I always pig out on them at night when I can't sleep. But, now, instead of moldy meatloaf, you can each have your own basket of freshly made desserts to pig out on.” She laughed momentarily. “You can thank me later.” She tossed her chestnut hair over her shoulder before grabbing up the picnic blanket and rolling it into a ball. Armando grabbed up the large baskets, leaving the grass spic-and-span.

Olive slowly stood up, joining me next to Anjolie. She was holding a fresh pan of oozing cherry pie, grinning at Hudson. “The apple and cherry pies were delicious, Hudson,” she said, turning on her heels and facing her purse, which lay directly behind where Anjolie was standing. “I'll just keep this in my—
whoops
!” Stepping forward, she tripped on my shoe and plummeted into Anjolie, cherry pie and all.

Anjolie gasped as she caught Olive, stopping her before they both fell to the ground. In the process, Olive's cherry pie slammed into Anjolie's chest, smearing oozing red goop down the front of Anjolie's new shirt and sliding to the ground.

Anjolie gasped, looking down at her cherry drenched body. Covered in dripping, red goop, Anjolie looked as if she had been severely wounded — her entire shirt, shorts, legs, and shoes covered in the blood-like substance. “Oh, my,” she said, staring at her ruined clothes in shock. Her cheeks flared up, her face turning an intense shade of red as she gazed down at her body.

Olive held up a hand to her gaping mouth, her eyes wide with innocence. “Oh! I'm so sorry!” she cried, looking Anjolie up and down. “I didn't mean to ruin your new clothes!” She quickly grabbed up a paper towel and hurried to help Anjolie clean the cherry off her clothes.

But Anjolie just stepped away, glaring at Olive one last time before taking off down the lawn, running off into the far distance until she was a speck in the horizon.

Hudson shoved Olive's shoulder. “What was that?” she yelled, glaring at Olive. “You did that on purpose, didn't you?” Though Hudson was small, when she was angry, her roaring attitude could frighten the devil himself.

Olive shrunk away from Hudson, her eyes wide in terror. But she soon regained her composure. “I did not, Hudson!” she retorted, balling her hands into fists at her side. She looked up at me. “I accidentally tripped on Cameron's shoe! That's
all
,” she yelled forcefully. But her anger was no match to Hudson's.

Hudson scoffed and frowned. “Yeah, right, you
witch
!” she spat, ready to claw at her. Olive took up the same stance, lunging for Hudson at the same time she did.

But Armando held Hudson back, standing in front of her and standing in between the two of them. I was thankful for his large stature; if it weren't for him, someone would have died. “Settle down, ladies,” he said in a semi-bored manner. I couldn't blame his annoyed attitude — he'd been playing referee for the entire picnic. I could tell he needed a break. “Go home, Olive. I'll take Hudson.” He glanced at me. “We'll see you later, Cameron,” he said, and with that, he grabbed Hudson and the picnic supplies and trudged back toward the parking lot.

I shockingly gazed at Olive, who was still fuming. “Why did you—”

“Save it, Cameron!” Olive snapped at me, interrupting my inquiry. “I'm sick of all of you!” She grabbed up her purse and also trudged away, never looking back. I stared after her, trying to discern where all of her hatred was coming from. I knew I didn't do anything to her. So why was she mad at me?

Soon, I was left standing there, the only one still occupying our vicinity.

Weren't picnics supposed to be fun?