"Society's Little Screw Ups, and the Christian Girl"

Ch. 14-"Acknowledgement Is An Improvement Pt. 1."

Ch. 14-"Acknowledgement Is An Improvement Pt. 1."
    Ideas were currently being tossed around, both metaphorical and in paper ball form. "Benji, stop it!"

The boy asked innocently enough "What?" Grabbing one of the balls of paper he had written on he threw it at Natalie playfully. "This helps my thought process and you said you wanted my help... well this is my way of doing it." While he continued to smirk and assault her with paper, she only groaned and rubbed her temples in frustration. The two luckily had a substitute in their History class who merely told everyone to be quiet before plugging in earbuds into her phone, leaving all of the students to their own devices. An ideal time to plan discretely, or so she thought for the only thing the young boy seemed to be interested in was goofing around. She finally reached her limit; collected all of the ammo he had used and threw them directly at his face.

"You are completely immature! I might never be friends with Emma, Eddy, or Liss again and right now you're acting as though you don't even care!" She puffed out her cheeks in exasperation and pouted, she still had no idea what to do. Apologies hadn't worked, she didn't know what would work. She was considering some big grand gesture because she knew that actions spoke louder than words but that didn't seem right either. "Benji can I ask you something?"

He finally ceased his current activity and actually adopted a rather serious attitude, "Go on."

    She heaved her concerns "I just don't think anything will work at this point. Only you forgave me after seeing how miserable I am, but if they wanted to forgive and forget as well then they probably would've come forward by now."

    "Pft, fine if you wanna give up then that's on you not me." She pondered on that, he did make an excellent point.

    "I'm not trying to give up!" She couldn't help but whisper shout indignantly, "I just..." her eyes widened as she realized she made such a bold claim that was both a lie and unprepared, sighing as she realized she couldn't defend herself .

"Look," he got up from his seat and gave her a hug. She stiffened at the astonishing, completely unexpected comforting contact; he never gave hugs or any sort of physical affection to anybody but Liss. Granted it was a mere and slightly awkward side-hug, but it obviously still carried so much emotional support and reassurance. "Giving up is one of the easiest things someone can do, this coming from me, someone who's given up more times then he'd ever like to admit."

    Natalie could feel her eyes start to form little wet lakes and brim over the edge of her lids, but the last thing she wanted to do is cry at school... again. "I just wish there was an easy solution but there isn't. I feel nothing but anguish every time I see any of them; from the looks of it they're doing just fine without me. As bad as it sounds I was kind of hoping to maybe see them at least a little forlorn at losing my friendship- implying they missed me. I guess I do feel a little happy they aren't devastated and are doing fine, just as they had done before I stepped into the group."

Benji peered directly into her baby blue eye with his own dark chocolate eyes blazing with glee, yet they still conveyed dissatisfaction. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but they really do miss you. They want to forgive you... the problem is well..." he rubbed the back of his neck nervously and twiddled his pencil around. "They're not quite sure you're dependable or loyal anymore."

Biting her lip she nodded in agreement, "Well they have every right to believe that."

    "They do," he responded rather slowly, still holding on to his cool exterior. "On the plus side, at least you're willing to admit that fact. You've gotten to a new and improved point... hey! Maybe that might be the key to showing you can be more dependable," he confidently replied before one of his signature rational realizations settled onto his disposition. "Aw man wait..."