"Why let the chemistry go to waste?"
***
When Camila met Sally the day her exchange semester in England began, her first impression of the Brit was that she was beautiful, confident, tough and honest, certainly unreachable for her.
But as a friends...
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I hope I managed to catch the angsty, overdramatic, self-hating, starved for recognition, sad teenager vibe. Enjoy!
London, 2010
"Sally... and Jake. Role of women and families in Nazi Germany."
Sally barely looked up. She scribbled down the name of her partner and the topic of their presentation in her history book and then returned to pretending she was listening to Rebecca's ramblings. Sally nodded every now and then and hummed to keep the illusion alive.
The teacher called out the rest of the names and topics. Everyone who had already been called started packing their things.
"What do you think?"
Sally froze as she realized she had zoned out a little too much. "You should totally go for it," she advised.
Rebecca looked at her for a couple of seconds. Sally tensed. Then, a grin spread on her face. "Right? I think so too."
Sally released a breath of relief and put her pens back into her pencil case. Her guess was that her best friend had been talking about her crush on this guy from the year above as she had failed to talk about literally anything else for the last month.
The bell rang and the students stood up, collectively ignoring the teacher who called out a reminder of their homework. Sally and Rebecca walked out together. "What's with you? You seem bummed out today."
It only took half a school day for Rebecca to say words that weren't about herself. She was making progress. Still, Sally didn't feel like getting into it. "Sorry, had a bad morning," she replied simply as they walked towards their usual spot in the cafeteria.
"Did you fight with your parents again?"
"Yeah."
"Ugh, just get over it already."
Sally's expression remained indifferent but annoyance and anger bubbled up in her even though she remained quiet. She listened - or pretended to listen - to Rebecca's ramblings all day. Couldn't they talk about her problems for a minute?
They settled down at their usual spot in the cafeteria. Sally excused herself to buy a snack and by the time she returned, Rebecca was in the company of her crush Ryan and a friend of his, Nathan.
Sally had no choice but to sit down next to the latter. Casually, Nathan flung his arm around her shoulder. Just as casually and by now ritualized, Sally pushed his arm away. She didn't care about Ryan and Rebecca, but she very much minded that she would have to spend more time with Nathan if they were to become an item.
She ignored Rebecca's eye roll, Nathan's dramatic sigh, and Ryan's snickers at her reaction.
Ryan... What was so great about him anyway? Sure, he was good at sports, bad at school, cool, and rude to most; the typical two years older dude Rebecca liked. So unoriginal and cliché...
