You Know

Chapter Two

"Everybody's waiting for you to breakdown. Everybody's watching to see the fallout. Even when you're sleeping, sleeping, keep your ey-eyes open." 

- from Taylor Swift's Eyes Open

        Nerves made Mika eat little. Finally, she packed up her lunchbox and started for the gym. Her heart was fluttering.

        It's okay, Mika, she thought, it's just a game. It's just a game.

        In the gym, a circle had formed around the school logo. Mika tried to look for the cameras. Did the people watching the cameras even care that they were stepping on their precious gym floor? In leather shoes? 

From afar, she could see one of the basketball players, Jake, running around the court, his shoes sitting peacefully on the ground. The students were cheering him on, laughing and shouting when he tripped.

        Tyler was near Tayla, talking to her. Mika looked around for anyone else she'd be comfortable sitting next to, and found no one.

        "Mika!" Kasey spotted her and waved her over, catching the attention of Tyler and Tayla. "Sit next to me."

        "No, thank you," Mika said. "I'll just...sit here." She walked over to where Sonia was and sat next to her. Sonia was busy chatting with some other girls, but she spared Mika a glance and did not complain.

        From where she was, Mika could see Tayla and half of Tyler's face. She felt a sinking feeling in her chest. Stop it, she thought, it's not like he ever treated me as anything other than a friend. A very, very close friend he told all his secrets to and asked for advice about Tayla, but a friend nonetheless.

        "Mika..." he had said to her when classes had ended for that day.

        "Hm?" she had looked up from her book, not knowing who had spoken. Mika hadn't started liking Tyler yet. But it had been brewing.

        "What..." Tyler had paused. "why do girls ignore you, for no reason at all?"

        "What." What.

        "I mean...you were just chatting with them the night before and it was cool and stuff, but then in school, they don't look at you and avoid you. Why do girls do that?"

Mika had closed her book and stared at Tyler for a long while before realizing he had meant him  'you', and not her  'you'.

        "Maybe she's mad at you," she had finally said.

        "Why would she be mad at me? What did I do?"

        "What did you say?"

        "Can I show it to you, later?"

        Mika had raised her eyebrows. "Later?"

        "On Facebook. Don't tell her."

        "Who is her, exactly?"

        "Tayla."

        "Oh." She remembered the rise of her 'oh'. She remembered that she would be online later that night.

        And that had been the start of their friendship.

        That had been at the start of the schoolyear. Last year. Now it was in the middle of the second quarter of  this year and Tyler and her now talked almost daily (Over Facebook, of course. In person, Mika was a shy wimp.) about things.

        She saw Kasey looking around when Jake finished with his dare. Kasey spotted her and gave her a once over which, from the look on her face, wasn't flattering and worth her time, and she looked back to the middle of a circle, where someone in the middle was sitting. Ashley.

        "Ashley," Kasey said, twirling one of her fingers in a circle. "Spin."

        Ashley nodded and stood up and started spinning around, one arm out, pointing.

        Mika'd watched Kasey-Truth-or-Dares before. The spinner normally spun until he or she was dizzy, or if she fell on someone, then that person was chosen. Right now, she stopped at Dan.

        Dan.

        Mika felt her cheeks warm. Dan...was an interesting character. Last year, around the time where she and Tyler had become friends, Dan seemed to have singled her out of everyone and make it his life goal to annoy her. He'd shouted insults at her across the room, and when Mrs. Jay, for some weird reason, moved his seat right beside hers, would take her things and poke her. Literally, poke. And Mika would jump or laugh every time.

        The whole class shipped them. Probably even the teachers too, because when she'd complained every new start of the quarter, Mrs. Jay would just turn her head.

        So Mika was only a little shocked when one of Dan's friends shouted that Dan loved her and Dan had gone red in the face. The annoyances had been little after that, but Mika could feel his gaze on her like a toaster.

        Dan jumped when he realized Ashley's finger was pointing at him. He looked around, and when he found Mika, he quickly looked back at Ashley. He cursed.

        "Dan. Dan. Dan," was the cheer of the boys as Dan stood up, scratching the back of his neck and trying to look calm.

        "Truth or dare, Dan?" Kasey asked.

        "Truth."

        "Are you sure?"

        "Dare."

        "Which is it?"

        Dan scanned the people once more, like he was looking for someone to back him up. "Uh, let's go with dare."

        "Alright." Kasey didn't even stop to think of a dare. "I dare you to hug Mika."

        Mika froze, hoping Kasey had meant another Mika. But no, people were looking at her with glints in their eyes, and Kasey was looking at her with a look so pleased that Mika wanted to run away. She could run away. And leave her dignity behind. Tyler was now looking up, looking for her, because she was about to be hugged by the boy that liked her? Because she was about to be hugged by the boy that liked her.

        "Kasey." Mika heard her voice waver. "Kasey, you love me, right?"

        Kasey nodded, like a little kid. "I do, but so does Dan."