SUNNYVALE

(3) INTRUDER IN HOSTILE TERRITORY

The early lights were showing inside the room when Christen Press opened her eyes, still sound asleep. She frowns, as her green clear eyes were not ready for the light to blind her just yet. She then instinctively puts her hands on her face, before a very odd realisation occurs to her: her body was naked under the covers. 

Her eyes going wide, Christen quickly sits on the bed, hiding her body as best as she could, before closing her eyes again: what did she do?

When the courage to finally look next to her takes over her apprehension, she opens her eyes again and turns her head. No, this can't be, she thinks to herself, blushing already. Next to her, still asleep and also naked, is a familiar face softly grunting. Panic takes over Christen's mind, as she quickly gets up without a noise, getting dressed and on her way all at once.

She closes the door behind her and, making sure nobody would see her coming out of this particular house, she hurries and gets to Westside High School, just in time for class.

***

"You look like hell" 

A few laughs resonate around them, before silence kicks in again. 

If Christen, Crystal, Tobin and Kelley have been friends since kindergarten - or, if you take into consideration the fact that they were born days away in the same hospital room and that their parents are childhood best friends too, since birth - the four girls have never had any secrets for the others. To them, it seemed as if they had lived it all together: Crystal's father tragic passing in a shooting between gangs ; Kelley's struggle with addiction and her overdose a few months ago ; Tobin's troubled relationship with her father as well as her mother's disappearance ; and, last but not least, Christen's secret mental illness, that has been kept secret - only the four friends knew about it.

When Christen sits down next to Crystal, Kelley smirks and declares:

"No offence, Tobs, but we all look like shit" 

"She not wrong tho" Crystal lets out, before bursting into laughter.

But this agreeable moment is soon cut short by the sound of latent disputes not far from where the girls were seated. Quite curious, the four friends take their stuff and move to where the action seems to be happening. 

Christen couldn't shake this weird feeling off - how could she have fallen so low? If her friends ever found out, she would get kicked out of their group, if not of the West entirely. As they are rushing to where a verbal fight seems to have kicked in, the dark-haired feels her anxiety kicking in again. 

For now, however, there were more pressing matters: Julie Johnston, notorious Eastside High cheerleader, had just entered the school's perimeter.

Quite immediately, the four friends - that many call 'The Fantastic Four' around here - immediately get to the closest of the action as possible. Hostility would be a weak word to describe the overall atmosphere in the school yard, as professors and some students were getting around the intruder, protecting her from other students, who were not pleased about her presence here.

Above the screams and the insults, a voice raises, impressive as always:

"You have thirty seconds to explain your presence here"

Becky Sauerbrunn had found her way through the crowd of respectful students, and soon a heavy silence fall on the yard. Julie Johnston, who now was finally left alone and with some space, did not seem as an hostile enemy to people like Tierna who hadn't been there from the very beginning - but to the others, she is the personification of the East, which, in another life, could've been considered as Heaven while the West was Hell, but there again, Hell if a place of outcasts who will have fun together until the end of times, so there is a worse place to spend the rest of existence. 

Either way, Becky had stepped in front of the Eastsider, crossing her arms against her chest. Soon, Crystal and Tobin get on each side of her, openly menacing her with insistent looks.

After a few seconds, Julie Johnston clears her throat awkwardly, before saying in a low voice:

"I-I, uh..."

"Speak louder, please - the kids in the back can't hear you" Becky insists, amused.

The blonde looks away for a second, before clearing her throat again and having another go at it, boldly standing up for herself:

"My father lost his job, so we moved to the Eastside yesterday. I have every right and literally no choice to be there, so just-"

"Every right?" Becky repeats, smirking. After looking around her, searching for her friends' support (which she gets), she takes a step closer and hisses right at Julie's face: "No matter where you live, Johnston, you will always be one of them."

Julie Johnston looks down at the ground, visibly terrified - nevertheless, she looks up again and manages to say: 

"Whatever: I wasn't one of them in the first place either."

With that said, she walks past the girls in front of them - or at least she tried to - but Tobin and Crystal grab her by the arms, aggressively putting her down on the ground. If that wasn't enough, Tobin blurts out:

"You better watch your mouth, Princess: you're not in the East anymore."

Julie gets away from her embrace, before saying with sass:

"Duly noted."

As Julie walks away accompanied by teachers, Tierna, who was in the crowd of students only now moving, turns to Sonnett, confused.

The blonde immediately catches that and smirks.

"Oh, Baby T, you think we're savages right?" Emily asks, amused. As Tierna shakes her head, the blonde explains : "Julie Johnston's boyfriend - or ex-boyfriend, if you believe the rumors - beat a Westsider to death, and got away with it as if nothing happened. Her mom is a lawyer for the rich, so..."

"Yeah, but what's wrong with her?" Tierna insists, confused.

Behind them, a girl named Rose - who was hanging out quite often with Emily - answers instead :

"She was the head cheerleader at Eastside High, aka the girl who had influence, and she never once defended us."

"I see."

Although the brunette wasn't really convinced that those were good enough reasons to hate someone like that, she also knows that there is much more for her to learn about that deadly rivalry.

Emily gives a pat on her new friend's back, before saying :

"They're all rotten to the bones, Davidson : ask your sister, the girl Julie's boyfriend beat to death was your sister's best friend. And from there, there was no return point..."

Tierna nods : she definitely has to ask Tobin all about the deeply rooted hatred between the two parts of town...