She's a Bitch

1: This is Crazy Right?

I don't know where to start, I mean there is nearly eleven years worth of memories that I could start with, but I'll start with today, pretty much exactly four hours ago.

<<PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY 4 HOURS AGO>>

"You're such an asshole, you know that." My best friend, Abigail, says to the girl next to her, the teachers daughter and one of her older friends, I laugh, the girl, Laura, painted the whole front of her book with liquid paper. My other best friend, Pete, looks up from his nap to see what was happening before going back to sleep in his arms. Abi attempts to wipe it off with a piece of paper only to fail epically,
"You know, you're better off letting it dry and getting rid of it then." I say, she glares at me,
"Shut it, Eddie." She says, as she puts down the book,
"Just 'cause I'm right." I mumble mostly to myself. At the moment we're meant to be illustrating a children's story we wrote for a younger family member, but everyone in the class is pretty much treating the period like it's free time. They'll probably throw something together an hour before it's due, or in my case, three weeks after it's due, so much for Advanced Learning, what a shit show. A girl approaches our table and pulls up a chair. My brain feels like being a bitch (I have my reasons) and asking her if she's lost, because if she is I could call the pound, although I don't think they take bitches like her, but you know how it is, especially when the teachers kid is sitting right next to me, so I keep my mouth shut. Mostly.
"Can I help you?" I ask with a smile,
"Not really. Just seeing what everyone's up to." She says patting Pete's head. I have to force myself to stop my eyes from rolling. Eventually we fall back into an ordinary conversation, and by ordinary, I mean by my standards, which also means, yes, we are talking about boobs, well something along that line anyway.
"Let's start a game of truth or dare, shall we?" Laura says, "Rachel, truth or dare? Truth, great! Who do you like?" She continues all in one quick succession, before the girl I slightly, mildly dislike can answer one of the boys in the class starts playing a song, something shitty that's been on the radio forty nine times already today and it's only half past ten in the morning, anyway besides the point. The most gorgeous human being starts singing along, I watch for a few seconds before looking at everyone on the table to see if I got caught. I did, Laura makes a face of disgust at the girl and then laughs, once again my brain tells me to say something along the line of; 'Excuse me. Who the fuck are you again? That's right. No one. And her. Well, she's perfect. So don't you be pulling faces at me trying to get me to laugh, because once again, you're no one and she's a goddess. K bye.' But I'm interrupted.
"I only really like one person, and she's the one singing." My initial reaction was about three thousand blinks in the time if around 2.34 milliseconds, but once I was sure she said what she did, I cover it up.
"Oh, that's so cute, I ship it." I say, Abi looks at me,
"What?" She asks,
"Rachel said she only likes one person, and it was who was singing, Emily was the one singing." I tell Abi,
"Awe. That's so cute, that face your making so reminds me of Little Edwina. Eddie, you remember that, right?" She finishes with a smirk, that's a challenge.
"No. I would say it's more like the face you make when you look at me." I reply, Abi cracks up laughing. "Anyway, besides the point. When did this happen?" I ask the girl across from me,
"Probably when we started hanging out, it was like a little bit of admiration at first, but then it just escalated from then on out." She says looking over at Emily on the table across the room.
"Story of your life." Abi whispers in my ear, I scrunch up my eyebrows, she was right, it's kind of weird, but it happens, I guess.
"Yeah, we were super close, she knew all of my secrets, and somehow I never knew any of hers, I always learned them off someone else." Rachel continues,
"Story of your life." Abi whispers again, but louder, Pete was no longer interested in sleeping off his high, but in the scene unfolding in front of him, so was I, it was creepy.
"We've been growing apart recently, she's got so many friends, I guess she just gets bored easy." Rachel finishes with a sigh,
"Story of your life." Abi says dumbfounded,
"One is random, two is a coincidence, but three is a pattern." Pete says, Rachel seems oblivious to the conversation going on over her ranting about the girl across the room, who for some reason doesn't look that flawless anymore, she looks at me in the eye and smiles, it doesn't give me butterflies like it used to, I just find it unsettling.
"You would know about all of that though, wouldn't you, Eddie?" Rachel asks finally looking at us. This has everyone on our table interested, even Laura, who probably has no idea what's even happening.
"Oh, honey. I was the original. Don't feel so special. Six months is nothing compared to eight years." I say, but even when saying it, it feels like dirt in my mouth. Suddenly I find myself going through all of my memories with the girl, all I remember is puppy dog eyes and tailing her continuously for years. No wonder I was diagnosed with severe social anxiety when she left. It wasn't real. Something was off.
"Eddie, you okay?" Pete asks, worry evident in his eyes,
"This is trippy, man. It's literally the story of my life. It's like she was living my life, but shorter. Is this a mid life crisis? Oh God, I hope so. You know I don't want to get old. This is crazy, right? It's not just me?" I ask looking around the table for answers, Abi and Pete both nod, good, I'm not going insane.
"Trisha has replaced me." Rachel says looking at the dark haired girl sitting next to Emily, I see the look in her eyes, Trisha is falling, just like I did and just like Rachel did. "It was Brittany who replaced you, huh?" She asks after a second,
"No, she was the same time." I say, not wanting to say that she replaced me and that's the reason why I hadn't liked her for nearly a whole year,
"Me." She whispers in realisation, I nod, "Well, I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Me too."
The bell rings signalling the end of the period, it's recess now. I pack up my books and follow Rachel out the door,
"Are you gay, Rachel?" Abi asks,
"No!" She says quickly, I smirk at her, "I mean, no, I'm not a lesbian."
"Yep. Okay." Pete says, we continue down the path for a minute, before turning off to take the quicker route. "You know what? You and Eddie should get married?" He continues in thought, my eyes nearly fall out of my head,
"What?!" I spin around and slip on the hill, I groan as Abi gets excited,
"Yes! Go Pete! You fuckin' did it! I don't know whether to kiss you or to slap you." She yells,
"God dammit, Pete." I say standing and dusting off my ass. Never have I fallen on that hill, not once I my many years of attending this school.
"You good, Eddie?" Rachel asks actually concerned for me,
"I'm fine. Just fucking perfect." I say, pushing Pete's shoulder,
"She asked how you were, not how you looked." Pete says with a smile,
"Ooh. You smooth mother fucker. So smooth, buddy. That was nice." Abi says holding her hand up for a high five, I grab it before he can 'claim his prize.'
"No. Nope. He isn't smooth. I used that line yesterday. You can't reuse lines like that, dude. Especially if I used it." I say, Abi laughs at him,
"Ouch. That hurts, don't it, buddy." Abi says with a hand over her heart,

<<BACK TO NOW. BEFORE ALL OF THIS, BUT AFTER. AROUND 4 HOURS, JUST A GUESS>>

"Your place or mine?" I ask Pete, he shoves my shoulder in response,
"I'm coming too." Abi says, "And so are these two lovely ladies." She says gesturing to Rachel and Laura behind her,
"Come on, Abi." I whine, "I wanted to do Alphabety." She glares at me, challenging me to complain more, I glare back, accepting it.
"Laura has her licence." She says in response to my glare, my face instantly brightens,
"Why didn't you say so? Let's go." I say with a smile, scooping up my bag from the ground.
"Lazy bitch." She mumbles from beside me.
"Pit stop?" Pete asks holding up his credit card, I smile in response,
"Hell yeah." I turn around to look at Abi and Laura, walking slowly backward, "Can we? Please?" I say,
"Whatever, Loser." Laura replies,
"Oh, I feel the pain." I hold my hand over my chest, clutching my heart in faux pain, "Now Rachel, are your parents okay with it?" I say, looking to her behind Abi,
"What?" She says looking up in a panic,
"Are your parents okay with you? You know, coming to my place? You asked, right?" I reply with a smirk, Pete nudges my shoulder warningly, I raise my eyebrows with a smile in response,
"Uh, I didn't ask." She says looking anywhere but me. "Can I borrow your phone?" She asks nervously,
"Of course." I say throwing it to her with a smile, Pete wraps his arms around my waist and picks me up, spinning me around a few times before running off down the lawn of the school, I yell and laugh while he spins us around.
"We'll be right back!" He shouts behind his shoulder, he runs for a bit longer before dropping me down on the grass and lying next to me.
"And why was it you needed this privacy, my lovely friend?" I ask looking at the clouds,
"You think she's gay?" He asks,
"Without a doubt." I reply with a smile,
"You like her." He says poking me,
"What? No." He rolls on top of me, and begins tickling my sides,
"Admit it!" He laughs, I start begging him to stop between my laughter, my sides beginning to hurt. "Not until you admit it!" He stops to let me breathe for a second before starting up again, faster this time.
"Okay! Okay, I like her, okay!" I yell, he stops tickling me but stays sitting on my legs, "I think she's cute." I mumble,
"You're blushing!" He yells, he pokes my sides a few times,
"Am not!" I reply,
"That's okay. I won't tell anyone that my little Eddie blushes." I glare at him, "But you gotta lay off. She's not gonna date you if you scar her for life." He says,
"Who said anything about dating her?" I reply, he opens his mouth to reply, but he's interrupted.
"Do you think we should tell them we've caught up?" Abi's voice says,
"Nah, let them keep at it for a while. Pure entertainment." Laura replies. I look up to see all three of them standing above us, Laura and Abi smirking and Rachel staring down at her shoes, her cheeks pink.
"Uh. Hey guys." I say, Pete gets up off my legs and offers me his hand, I take it and he pulls me up off the ground. I dust off my knees as Pete gets my back. "All good with your parents?" I ask Rachel, looking at the phone in her hands and not at her.
"Yeah, I called home. Mum says I can stay, just to call her again to get picked up." She passes the phone back to me,
"Great!" Laura says sarcastically, "Now let's go, I'm bored." Everyone follows her to her car.
"Edwina's in the middle." Abi says,
"What? Why?" I ask annoyed,
"You're the smallest." I groan, "Dude, it's like a five minute drive. You'll live."
"I don't wanna live if I have to sit in the middle." I whine,
"Come on you whiney bitch. Get in the car." Pete pushes me with a smile. I frown as I climb in and do up the seatbelt,
"Easy for you to call me a whiney bitch when you've never had to sit in the middle before. Gigantor." I say as he climbs in next to me,
"Shut up." Abi says from the front, which leaves only one seat left. Fuck it. I sit further down in the seat and shift towards Pete.
"Yo, gay dude who's name I can't remember. You've got to buy me some ice cream. I've been craving it for like 3 years." Laura demands as she pulls out of the car park.
"Sure. It's Pete, by the way." He laughs,
"That's not a very gay name. Let's give it some homo. Let's brain storm some gay names for gay Pete. Add some spice." Laura says,
"You could call him Gay Pete." I laugh,
"You're right mini dyke. Gay Pete is a pretty gay name." She says with a nod, "I like the way you think. Gay Pete it is." Laura says before turning up the radio where some kids station is playing,
"What the fuck is happening?" Rachel whispers in my ear causing me to freeze.
"Hey, no lesbian activity in my car." Laura says eyeing us through the rear view mirror, "Now mini dyke, where do you live?"