Himari's Secret.

Chapter 5: Holding Back.

Picture day at Edenburgh High was cursed to have at least one kid in the yearbook looking like they were having a stroke.

Because of this, my friends tended to go overboard. Craziness was the norm of my small group but this was beyond crazy it was tethering on the brink of insanity. I leaned against my shut locker as I observed them. They were completely lost with themselves.

Jade stared at her reflection like a mesmerized parakeet, Akari ran her fingers through her hair and parted it in different angles, Ivy fixed Spencer's collar.

I remained silent and kept my pessimism to myself until... until Ivy licked the pad of her thumb and began wiping the corner of Spencer's mouth. "Okay cut it out all of you," I blurted. "You acting crazy. Crazier than you normally do. It's just one picture." They all looked up at me with aghast expressions on their face like a magical hand appeared at the top of my head and flipped them off.

"Just one picture," Spence gasped clutching the hem of his shirt causing Ivy to smack his hand away and glare at him.

"You'll crease your shirt," she said and smoothed over his shirt.

"Pay no attention to the mean lady Spence," Jade chuckled.

"Insanity," I mumbled.

Ivy sighed and looked over at me. "Himari sweetheart it's our senior year. This yearbook will be the one we most likely keep. Now imagine when we all have kids and then they somehow find our yearbooks buried deep in the basement. Do you want them to see a bad picture of you when you were a teenager? Do you want them to think of you as a basic bitch or a bad bitch?"

"You know something Himi," Sakura started. "I've never seen mom and dad's school pictures."

"Huh now that you mention it neither have I," I said and looked at Akari.

"Attention all students," came Mr. Hyneman's voice from the speakers on the walls. "Will the freshman's and sophomores please report to the library and the juniors and seniors to the gymnasium, thank you."

"Oh my god my first ever high school picture," Akari grabbed onto Sakura's hand. "Let's go," she said and dragged a reluctant Sakura down the hallways.

As Mr. Hyneman instructed the rest of us went to the library where our form teacher Mrs. Waverly was creating a small line on the bleachers of all the kids I shared a homeroom with.

In the center of the gym in a white taped square on the floor were two poles that had a backdrop of the school's name in our colors black, red and white as well as our school mascot the jaguar on it. There was a barstool set up in front of the backdrop and a camera on a tripod in front of the barstool.

Jade and I took a seat at the bottom of the bleachers and I caught Chance's eye and he smiled. He was dressed in a blue shirt and brown cargo pants and he moved like he was about to come over until Zach stopped him.

"You can deny your attraction to him," Jade whispered and I turned to face her. "But can you deny that you're not even a bit curious as to why he changed high school's in his senior year?"

"Why should I be curious?" I said with a shrug.

"How about I cut you a deal," Jade smiled deviously. "If you could find out for me why he left his previous highschool. I'll never talk about him again."

I laughed. It will snow in the desert before that ever happened. "As tempting as that offer sounds, I don't make deals with the devil."

He was all I could ever hear from her these days. She even called me last night to ask how the study session went and what we talked about. She was sad to know it was about biology.