Confessions Of A Teenage Party Animal (Editing.)

8- dystopia is a real worry

Camille's POV

Ever since the school year started, things have been going downhill for me. Lana, yes, the Lana, I liked, had been acting weirdly nice to me, which was kind of surprising and scary at the same time. When I asked him about it, he replied that he liked me and he was nice to people he liked. I felt my face turning red as he chuckled and went back to shelving books. It had been a week since I saw them. Two weeks since I told him about Lukas.

But that was the least of my worries. My football team, who I thought were my friends, were acting...Hostile towards me ever since the practice started up again. One of my teammates had made a stupid remark about me being best friends with our rival team's captain. I laughed, thinking it was a joke, but nobody else did. It hit me then that they were mad at me. I couldn't understand why they were so upset with me. Sure, it was a rivalry between our schools, but was it that big of a deal for me to be friends with Lana? It wasn't just my football team, but the entire school was giving me icy stares, except for Mei. I felt like an outsider in my school.

"They hate me," I told Mei, feeling the weight of everyone's glares on my back as we walked down the hallway. "It's the start of the season, of course, the assholes are going to be on edge," Mei replied, offering me half of her Kit Kat bar, I took it and thanked her before we said our goodbyes as we went off to our separate classes.

In my chemistry class, I felt the same icy stares from everyone as I walked to the back of the room. The teacher, who was discussing a project we had worked on over the summer, didn't pay attention for long. I had a 4.1 GPA, so I didn't need to listen, I knew that my real problem wasn't school or maths or English. But my stupidness in real-life situations.

As the teacher instructed us to group up and compare projects, he reminded us that it would be a part of our final grade, I sighed knowing nobody would want to group with me, how did I go from being friends with everyone to being an outcast?

I ended up being grouped with a few new kids who probably didn't know about the god-awful rivalry yet and hopefully never would.

˚˖𓍢ִ໋✧˚.༘⋆
As I entered the break room, Lana greeted me with a friendly smile. I had told him about the stupid shit at school, and he had listened before starting. "At least for you, they blame you," he said as I settled my duffel bag on the coat hanger.

I looked at him, confused, but he quickly explained, "The girls at school think you seduced me because someone saw us kissing at the party. And my teammates keep pressuring me to 'break your heart.' It's just stupid shit," he added with a roll of his eyes.

While Lana was busy resetting the till, I noticed a new song playing on the store's Bluetooth speakers. Curious, I asked him what it was. "Oh, it's 'Birds Don't Sing' by TV Girl," he said with a smile, Lana had recently taken over the responsibility of controlling the store's music. Every shift, he made a point to play a new album or song, and it had become somewhat of a ritual for him. Last time, it was 'Invisible String' by Taylor Swift. His music made our shifts more nice.

As we continued to work, we talked quietly. "Do you add gel to your hair to get it like that?" Lana asked me, noticing me running my hand through my hair for the hundredth time. "It's naturally curly," I replied, "I just can't be bothered to take care of it every morning, so I gel it up and slick it back." Lana looked surprised like he had always thought my hair was straight. "You have curly hair?" he asked, surprised. I nodded, feeling a little self-conscious.

The physical differences between me and my family members were always apparent. I stood out with my shorter stature, more vivid eyes, and curly hair, while everyone else had inherited their traits from my mother.

who was taller and had straight hair. Everyone else towered over me, with most of them standing at 5'8 or taller. As I glanced at Lana, I couldn't help but wonder how tall he was. Breaking the silence, I asked him about his height, to which he almost automatically responded with "5'10". It seemed like he had been asked about his height countless times before, and his answer had become an automatic response. "You?" He asked me finally finished with the till, "I'm umm, 5'6 and a half," I mumbled, grabbing more books from the ground to put on shelves.

"You're like a sunflower." He said, I laughed. Lana stared at me with an intense gaze, something he always did whenever I laughed or smiled. After finishing stacking up the books, I walked over to the counter.

"You still piss me off," he said, but I could see a hint of playfulness in his tone. I replied, "I know," and my laughter resumed. I liked him, and maybe just maybe he liked me too. He kept staring into my eyes, and then he asked something that caught me off guard, "Can I kiss you?" Lana had developed a habit of asking before kissing me, even though we were just friends, that kissed, occasionally.

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Lana's POV

I genuinely liked Camille. He was pretty, nice, and funny, and he knew when to shut up. Like now. As I kissed him in front of the cash register, we pulled apart, and he smiled up at me, and the feeling that hit me whenever he smiled it hit me again.

"Thank you." He whispered, and I smiled, "No, problem, sunflower." His eyes suddenly widened like he remembered something, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"What?" I asked him, "I did some research-" my eyebrow raised, and he stared at me, "What?" He asked his slightly tanned skin, wrinkling in confusion, "Research." I said simply, he blushed but didn't comment on my remark, "Yes, I did some research, and from the questions you answered, I think you'd love this book." He scurried off into the fiction section and came back a second later, holding a book with a beige cover, and it had the words 'Animal Farm' and numbers '1984.' On them, "There are two books in this." He said, handing me the slightly heavy book, "It's Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell, I haven't read them, but Mei did, and you and Mei are kind of similar." He rambled.

I snorted and went to go pay for the book, 20% off for all employees, I remembered. "Thanks, I hope I like it." His face turned bright from happiness and he smiled, that fucking smile that he smiled, I paid for the book as Camille watched me, "Cami." He looked up at me, "Can I take you out?" He laughed, "Yeah, where do you want to go?"

"No like a date." He stared at, "Yeah, that sounds fun so where?" Sensing he still didn't get it I sighed, "Like romantically?" His eyes widened and he made an 'oh' sound, "Why didn't you say so?" I opened my mouth to counter but just decided to leave it.

"Of course, you can," Camille said smiling at me.

His smile was like the fucking sun or something.