Bad Boy Gone Shy

T W E N T Y S I X - Daisy Fields

'Your dad...'

Jasmine released her lip from between her teeth. 'Huh?'

'He left for a business trip six years ago?'

So they had started talking about parents while Jasmine had been lost in her own thoughts.

She had had two very strange dreams two nights before. One of them she was still unsure whether it was actually a dream since it felt so real. It involved her brother and a girl called Penny. She climbed through his window and they shared a passionate moment with one another...leading to a suggestion of leaving the city... of running away. The other dream involved a very similar situation...except it involved herself...and Heath Parker singing to her window like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet - singing for them to run away together. Then suddenly, the school's janitor appeared behind her and she needed to jump from her window...into the arms of Heath. He whisked her away into an open meadow with daisies flooding the grass. And the two had danced under the strawberry clouds, with the meadow swaying with them.

However, Jasmine could not lose herself in another tangle of daydreams. She decided not to care about her strange and meaningless dreams any longer. '-And hasn't returned yet.' Jasmine finished Phoebe's sentence. She took a large bite of her hamburger, hoping she tied a knot on the conversation.

'He's extremely busy,' Aadya butt in. 'Remember, Jasmine? He took our science team out to get burgers when we were ten and during the meal, he left the table for about eight calls.'

'Why are we talking about families?' Patricia sounded bored. 'Who started this conversation?'

When all eyes were directed at Phoebe, the poor girl held up her hands defensively. 'We were all talking about this.'

Patricia gave her a long look. 'The hell is wrong with you? Move onto something less invasive.'

The girls fell silent as they awkwardly ducked their heads and watched Phoebe through their peripherals, pretending to pick at their foods. Phoebe flushed like beetroot, and her lower lip soundlessly moved up and down like the loose jaw of a broken nutcracker.

'I'm done.' Patricia said as she pushed her tray away. Swinging her handbag across her shoulders, she clopped off towards the exit of the cafeteria. On her way out, a group of jocks rampaged around the exiting door, bumping into her. They 'woahed' as Patricia shoved them aside and pushed the door open with a loud bang.

'It's THAT time of the month baby girl?' One of the boys hollered.
Patricia only threw a Botox smile at them and stuck her middle finger out in response.

'She's totally got issues.' Phoebe scoffed, lowering her voice to a mere whisper.
As if cooling herself from the disturbance, Phoebe picked at her purse and lifted a mirror up to her face. Jasmine watched in curiosity as she began applying a pinky shade of lip gloss.

'Lip gloss?' Aadya echoed Jasmine's thoughts. 'That's new.'

'Oh, my lips have been cracking recently.' She proceeded to apply the third layer. 'My lips are extremely sensitive to the cold. You didn't know?'

'Use my Burt's Bees lip balm. Here, this will work better on chapped lips.'

'No.' Phoebe pushed Aadya's lip balm to the side rather harshly. 'Honestly, Aadya. This lipgloss works perfectly well on me.'

It was as if Jasmine had been given new spectacles. She noticed the curls in Phoebe's hair were tweaked a little - they were styled into wavy locks that fell around her face. Phoebe had once despised makeup and ridiculed the idea of ordinary girls caking their faces to look like the next Kylie Jenner. However, Jasmine noticed Phoebe's skin now appeared unusually yellow. She noticed the curled eyelashes and the slick black wing coating both edges of her eyes. Jasmine glanced over at the table in the centre of the cafeteria, where every female she could identify reflected the same features - long hair styled straight or wavy, lipgloss, and black, winged eyeliner.