White Heart | S.W

F I V E

"It's our new bestie!" Quinni said happily, all of us pulling Amerie into a quick hug before making our way into the gates. We all glanced over to Dusty and his group of misfit friends across the gates leading up to the school, they were all messing around, jumping onto each other's backs and cracking jokes.

"One of my favourite pornos starts the exact same way." Darren stated, making me giggle.

"How is the new guy so popular already? I want to bump chests with Dusty. I need one of those slap bands." Amerie said, determined to nab one those bands.

"Amerie, no one's going to sell you that landfill. You're the reason we're all in SLTs, remember?" I didn't mean to be blunt, but I didn't want Amerie to get her hopes up. There was no way she was getting a hold of one of those slap bands after what she had done, especially if Ant and Spider were selling them. Spider clearly hated Amerie and Ant had been outed for what he'd done with Darren before he was ready, in general, it kind of feels like he'd just been outed.

We made our way to 5D for the SLTs lesson to commence. Taking a seat next to Quinni, I sat directly across from Spider who was sat on the table next to ours. I could already feel his eyes burning into the side of my head as I turned my attention toward the video on the projector.

I had no idea what was going on, there was just many... many noodles, and the lady was throwing the noodles? I think the concept of the video was the dangers of sharing explicit images, maybe? The whole thing was a bit of a mess. Quinni had asked me for a pencil, though I declined with a little lie. "I don't, sorry Q. But I'm sure Sasha does." I said politely, pretending to look through my bag where I had five, maybe six spare pencils.

I had noticed Quinni staring at Sasha, a longing gaze in her eyes. The pair had spent some time together at the cemetery, and I'm sure Quinni was aching to speak to Sasha again, she seemed to really enjoy her company. Quinni deserved somebody as self-assured as Sasha to bring her out of her shell a little bit more.

I shot a quick glimpse toward the door, where Woodsy was stood listening to JoJo speak to the class. Spider was directly in front of her, and I'd found myself now shifting my eyes between the two. I couldn't help but notice the leaf detailing on his earring, and I started to think of where i'd seen it before.

Darren and I were having the time of our lives at the festival. Dancing, singing and talking shit between the bumps of Darren's ketamine. We stood at the back of the house music tent, wanting to get a bit of air before we joined the crowd. I was feeling good, though I think I might of done a little bit too much of the ket, as my legs started to feel a little bit wobbly.

"Yuck, This whole festival and we still have the displeasure of seeing those faces." Darren sighed, bringing their sunglasses onto their eyes. I followed their eyes, spotting Dusty, Spider and Ant making their way into the tent. As they walked past, Ant had spotted us and proceeded to say hello. I could tell he felt excruciatingly awkward, the 'wristy' situation was still pretty recent, and it was obvious Ant didn't know how to act around Darren.

"Daisie, hey." Dusty said. He was always kind and acknowledged my presence because we'd sat next to eachother in English since I could remember. I'd always let him copy my answers, I'd had a little crush on him back then, as did every girl in our school year. I was grateful, his friends could be arseholes, but Dusty did have a good heart. He never made me feel any less than anyone else. I could tell by the boys faces that they'd dropped, I may not be someone who does drugs, or didn't before tonight, but I'm not stupid. I know an ug-dray jaw when I see one.

"Didn't know the bong water brigade was gonna be here." Spider joked with a cheeky smile. Okay, that was actually pretty funny. "Want one?" He offered me a can from a stack, holding it out to me.

I looked into his eyes, his pupils wide. He had a small dangling earring in his left ear, resembling a leaf, and a black and white button up shirt paired with a pair of black trousers and converses. Spider always had a nice sense of style, his style was a little bit old money, but it suited him faultlessly.

I brushed his fingers as I took the tinny from his hand, surprised he was acting like an actual decent human being. It's crazy what MDMA does to people. "Thanks" I said with a smile, opening the can.

"Uh uh uh, he's probably roofied it." Darren said, leaving his uncomfortable pleasantries with Ant and coming to my side. "You probably shouldn't be mixing alcohol with the drugs, baby." Darren suggested, brushing their fingers through my hair. I mean, I was feeling it.. maybe a bit too much. But it's just a beer, and I was having such a good time.

"I'm okay Darren, I promise." I reassured them, before turning back to face Spider, a sweet smile still on his face as he encouraged me to dance to the music.

Wait. Did that happen? Is my brain playing a joke on me?

I hadn't noticed I was still staring between the door and Spiders head, daydreaming. When I'd snapped out of my thoughts, the first thing my eyes landed on were his, and as if he'd noticed me snap back into reality from my own head, he hurried to look away.

I hadn't even noticed that in the time I'd been in my thoughts, the class had a whole discussion about the appropriate way to send nudes, the negatives and positives of intimate images and how nudes are the love language of this generation.

"God, Amerie was right. He practically bends you over the table with his eyes." Darren scoffed, though I took no notice of their joke and turned to face them. With a serious tone I asked them. "Darren, that night... at the festival. Did we bump into those guys?" I questioned, nodding my head in the direction of the trio to indicate who I was actually referring to. Darren thought about it for a moment, before they replied. "Uh yeah, I mean, briefly. It was pretty awkward between me and Ant."

A piece of screwed up paper hit my hand and fell onto the lap, causing me to switch my attention from Darren to the paper. Puzzled, I picked it up and looked toward the direction from which it came. Ant smiled and pointed to the paper. Old school.

I have your ticket for the gig
Don't worry, it's on me x
- Ant

I read over the note and looked over at Ant, nodding a thank you to him. "Are you eye-fucking every boy in this school or just the ones with no brain?" Darren questioned, making me look at them with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't ask him to do that." I defended myself, scrunching up the note into a ball once again and tossing it at Darren's head.

The bell rings, and we all gather our stuff to leave. Everyone makes their way out, but Quinni keeps Darren and i behind. "Uh, I need to show you guys something." Quinni lifted up the table and me and Darren gasped.

"Oh shit!" I was shocked, I felt awful for Amerie. She was so excited that she'd kissed Dusty at the cemetery, it's all she had spoken about when we met at the diner the next day.

"Do we tell Amerie?" Quinni asked, unsure of what to do. "No way."