A Gift and a Curse

5 - Last Bell

Leon has been sticking to his promise with Evie. He's been visiting her at the Bittersweet Café twice each week since then. Sometimes he would be with Paul after their basketball practices and sometimes by himself. He wasn't sure if Evie was warming up to him or not, he thought she was hard to read sometimes. But Leon was happy regardless to check up on her.

A couple of other students apparently saw him there chatting with Evie during those times. Which could only mean one thing, rumors. Some of these rumors ended up reaching Haley's friends as they started to tell Haley about it one Friday morning.

"I'm telling you Haley; we've been hearing some stuff that Leon's been hanging out at that Café a lot lately." Haley's friend explained. "Apparently, he asks for the same server every time. I forgot her name, but she has medium brown hair. I think her name started with an E maybe, hmmm, what was it again?"

Haley knew exactly who they were talking about it. "Ohhhh stop it you two!" She slammed her locker shut with a normal smile on her face. "Ya know, they're called rumors for a reason silly!"

One of her friends thought to herself, "Uh oh, Haley's upset. Probably shouldn't have said anything..."

"But you knowww," Haley started to say, "I'm still glad you guys told me. Thanks for looking out for me!"

Her two friends began to smile and let out a sigh of relief.

"But here's a little tip for you girlies," She turned around with a sadistic look, "if you're not sure to what to believe, it's better to go straight to the source."

Her friends looked at each other. "Oh no. Yep, this is totally bad..."

Haley got excited. "I know! We should go watch the boys' basketball practice after school! It'd be fun! C'monnnnnn pleaseeeee you two! It is Friday after all!"

The two friends felt a bit guilty about telling her in the first place, so they agreed. Haley hugged them both. "Yippie! Awe you two are suchhh good friends!"

Her two friends looked like they could read each other's minds. "She's totally gonna kill someone. We just condemned someone to death. Fantastic..."

All the students were heading to their lockers. The noise that was abuzz throughout the school started to finally die down after 5 minutes or so. Leon was on his way to the gym to get changed for practice. He was walking down the hallway by himself when he saw some people from the corner of his eye.

"Huh? Wait, is that Evie? Who is she talking with? Oh no this isn't good..."

Evie exclaimed, "Hey Jackie c'mon give me a break! What's the big deal? All the other students decorate their lockers so why are you bashing on mine?"

Jackie had her arms crossed. "And I tell them all the same thing I'm telling you Evie. It's fine if students want to express themselves if they keep it clean. But that being said, let's take another look at yours.

The camera pans over to Evie's locker loaded with junk. It looked like a crane game at an arcade.

Jackie continued , "What's with your locker door covered in these drawings, what are all of these?"

Jackie's hand began to move towards one of the sketches. Evie raced to stop her before she touched one of them.

"Okay, Okay! Fine, you win," Evie told her. "I'll clean it up. But the drawings stay. I'm allowed to express myself, right? Miss student council president?"

Jackie was indeed the student council president. She was a senior this year at the school while Evie was a sophomore. This little interaction caught Leon's attention as he started to walk towards the two.