𝐆𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 || #𝟏

Chapter 48

Abigail, unaffected shrugs. "Well, to be honest I don't really know them. Stop making this more depressing than it has to be, I have my reasons."

Abigail must be a serial killer in the making. And I fear that I am her next victim.

-- ------ --

"I can't believe that it's almost the end of the year," Emily breathes. "It's also going to be summer soon, I can't wait for that. What about you?"

"I hate summer," Lorelei awkwardly shrugs.

The two had actually gotten together after camp. It has made sitting at lunch with them a lot harder, since they're a lot more smoochie and it's actually gotten to the point Jolene has to excuse herself every once in a while because she isn't comfortable. Abigail follows Jolene, because she remarks that she's going to puke every time. I think she's only saying that though, because she wants to spend more time with Jolene.

"Prom is coming around soon," Alice awkwardly says. "Do you guys want to shop around for prom dresses together? Like, when it rolls around of course. Not right now, it's a bit early."

"Emily, will you be my date?" Lorelei asks. Emily smiles, frantically nods her head. Aubrey scoffs, and mimics a wallaby vomiting into a bush. "Well then, who are you taking?"

"My three hundred and sixty nine cardboard cutouts of my anime boyfriends, obviously."

I snigger, imagining rows upon rows of anime characters lined up while Aubrey tends to each and every one of them. I wonder how she'd even get them into the gym, especially since there would be quite a lot of students with their dates.

"Is anybody going to try and run from prom queen?" Jolene asked, "I heard Alexis and a couple of her friends were."

"Yeah, no," Lorelei objects. "But I do know somebody that I think should nominate themselves..." Her eyes scan around our group, and then points her finger at me. "YOU!"

Me, who was texting on my phone to Tina - who still refused to reply to my texts - looked at Lorelei in horror. Me? Prom queen, absolutely not. I am not doing that, that would be too embarrassing. Especially meaning that I'd have to dance with some random boy, even if I won - which wasn't likely.

"No," I immediately said. Trying to shut down the idea, "I am not doing that. Absolutely not, I am not dealing with Alexis and her posse, they'd literally kill me to win. I'd rather just go and have a fun time, not obsess over whether or not I'd win."

"I think you'd be good at doing it, though," Abigail interjected. That may have been the one, and only positive thing that she has said about me so far.

"Yeah! You should do it, I'd totally vote for you. We'll be your team, and we'll round up all of the votes for you," Alice encouraged. She slams her hand on my back, which makes me bend over and toppole onto the ground. For the next couple of minutes, I wheeze, trying to regain my breath as everybody starts bombarding me with reasons why I should run.

"Man! We don't want Alexis to win, you should do it!" Emily cheered on.

"You would definitely fit the role!"

"And I'm sure it'll be easier for you to do it because of the musical! You should do it!" Lorelei added on, "I'll be your campaign manager. Emily, let's get started on designing posters. Alice, you and Aubrey will distribute all of the posters over the school. Abigail and Jolene will hand out-"

"I am not running for prom queen," I cut in. Lorelei ignores this, pulls out her laptop, and starts to design posters. I groan, taking out my phone again to see whether or not Tina had replied.

It had been five weeks since we last talked. I know she's receiving all of my messages, and I know that she's reading them. She's left me on read, and I'm not exactly sure why she won't talk to me. It's not like I had done anything bad to her, have I? If anything, it's her fault for ghosting me. But she may just be extremely busy with her new school, which is something that I really want to believe.

"Hey, have any of you talked with Tina lately? She's not replying to my texts," I suddenly say, holding out my phone. Emily reminds me that she doesn't actually have Tina's number, and Lorelei shrugs.

"She hasn't replied to my texts recently either, the last time I talked to her was like three weeks ago. It was really vague, but basically she asked me how you and I were doing, and when I told her we were really good friends she just ghosted me."

"That's really strange," I think. My hand on my chin, as I try to think about what had provoked her strange behaviour. "Well, other than you two, nobody else has her number from this school... Unless, you count Lilliana and Lilac..."

"Maybe she just forgot about us," Emily suggested. "I mean, Maddy did the same. She's probably off being insanely popular with her new friends at her fancy new school. I don't think that she even liked us in the first place. She just wanted to be friends with us so she could hang out with Tina."

"To be fair, Lilac only hung out with us because of Tina as well," I realised. "Tina was always the happy, smiley, and likeable person that everybody wanted to be around. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but she really made me feel insecure sometimes. And the amount of times that my parents compare me with her, on academics, was daunting."

"Didn't you two share the same tutor back in primary school?"

I laugh, relieving the horrible memories of our tutor. She is still my tutor, but a lot more tolerable now. She was cruel, vindictive, and also especially rude. She gave us tests that were definitely too hard for sixth graders, and clobbered us into pieces when we asked her a question. And even if she did feel nice enough to explain it to us, her explanations were too vague for the smartest person to decipher.

"Yeah, now that you mention it... She hasn't been to our weekly tutoring sessions either, she just changed days. I'm not really sure why, but being around our tutor without her makes it even worse. At least I still have Kaya to give me company, though."

Kaya is basically the smartest girl that I've ever met. The only reason why I know her is because of our fateful tutoring sessions, but other than that, we have almost no contact. I have her number, but we don't contact each other unless it's for a mathematics question.

Me - Hey, have you heard from Tina recently?

Kaya - No, sorry... Also, do you know how to do question five from that practise test? The trigonometry sine/cosine whatever rule?

Me - Oh yeah, I'll send you a picture of my working out later. Don't worry.

Kaya - Thanks :)