Together Forever

Chapter 3

Natalie's POV

We were walking to the gym for Lion King practice, and Keyarie and Rameena kept poking me in the ribs, going Oooo. I swatted their hands away.

"Ok, seriously guys, it didn't mean anything, he was just joking," I told them. Keyarie raised her eyebrows.

"Ok, so if it was a joke, are you saying he'd respond that way if anyone else did that?" I bit my lip nervously.

"Well, yeah...probably." Keyarie nodded and walked back into class.

"Keyarie, what in the hell are you doing?" Rameena asked.

"Science experiment!" She called back. Rameena looked at me and sighed.

"Let's go make sure she doesn't hurt herself," she muttered.

We followed Keyarie back to the room and watched her as she did her "science experiment". She walked over to where Ramiz was sitting and pretended to trip, falling right on top of him. I covered my face with my hands. He stared at her for a few seconds in disbelief, then finally said, "Keyarie?"

"Yeah?"

"What...the fuck are you doing?" She shrugged.

"I dunno, you tell me." He stared at her for a few more seconds.

"Keyarie?"

"Yeah?"

"Get...get the hell off of me." She smiled, patted his cheek, said, "Sure thing" hopped off of him and skipped toward us.

"Well," she said looking at me, "Looks like you're special." And she skipped off to the gym.

"What took ya guys so long?" Our director, Ms. Couture asked us. I pointed at Keyarie and said, "Ask her." Keyarie shrugged modestly and said, "Hey, I like science experiments." Ms. Couture rubbed her temple, and mumbled something like, Don't ask, because it'll just lead to more questions. Keyarie hopped on staged while me and Rameena waited for our part in the scene.

We sat down on the bench quietly until Rameena finally asked,"Why won't you date him?" I decided to be a smartass.

"Date who?"

"Don't play smart with me. You know who I'm talking about." I shrugged.

"He probably doesn't like me," I told her. She nodded, and then a few minutes later looked at me and smiled.

"You look like an idiot," I told her. She was still smiling.

"What?"

"You said he probably doesn't like YOU." I nodded.

"Yeah, what's the big—"

"You never said YOU didn't like HIM." My cheeks started to burn slightly, and I tried to stop blushing.

"I...I don't like him." Rameena lifted an eyebrow.

"Uh, sure you don't. Natalie, you know that I know when you're lying." I glared at her.

"Well, I'm not lying." Rameena nodded and didn't argue with me. She just told me that it was our turn on stage. I knew that she wouldn't just let me win in an argument, especially one that involved Ramiz. I knew she was planning something.

When we got back to class, Rameena started talking to Ramiz. This couldn't be good. She started laughing at something he said and then Milad yelled in front of the whole class, "Yo, Rameena. Do you like Ramiz?" She looked me dead in the face, then looked at Milad, shrugged, and said "Maybe." Everyone started going "Oooooooo" and a kid named Ugo called out "Best friend drama!" in his Nigerian accent. Ramiz looked like he wanted to crawl under his desk and disappear, and I felt so angry, even though I didn't know why.

But he looked at me, and managed a weak smile. I couldn't help myself. I smiled back.

-Written by GrammarQueen