social anxiety//phan au (discontinued)

14

dan

Marie has been distant from me today. She didn't even pick me up this morning, which I didn't really mind as I had my own car, and it really was no trouble, but it was peculiar. I wondered if it had anything to do with whatever happened yesterday, but who knows. With Marie, you never really know what's swirling around in her mind, but I wish I did.

She wouldn't even look at me, and she hasn't even spoken to me today. It was so weird that she was avoiding me. This has never happened between us before. Did I do or say something wrong? I don't think I did, but I knew that when Marie avoided someone, it was for a reason only she would know. I tried not to let Marie's silent treatment bother me, but it was difficult. As I've mentioned many times before, she was my best friend, someone I talked to every single day. It was heartbreaking, but I had no choice but to deal with it.

PJ was sort of distracting me from it. He was sort of the life of our group of friends. There was never a dull or silent moment around him. He always knew exactly what to talk about in any given situation, and whatever would spew out his mouth would put a smile on our faces. Lunch time was sort of like PJ's star moment. He was always the center of attention at our usual lunch table, with the occasional comment of input from the rest of us.

Today, PJ was, once again, talking about his film project and what progress he's made on it. It was the topic of the last couple of weeks. It was pretty entertaining to hear him reminisce about what was happening, everything he needs to work on or film, and the overall plot of the story, which no one understood completely. I think he knew this, but he really didn't care.

"...Nanew is now on this planet filled with house plants called—"

"Let me guess, Planet Plant?" Emma chimed in, a smug grin on her face. PJ smiled at her and shook his head.

"Unfortunately, that is incorrect." He began to explain. "You see, that name would be too obvious." Dodie, another one of our friends, raised her hand. Noticing this, he smiled and pointed to her. "Yes, Dodie? I'm assuming you have some input for this conversation."

Dodie is an aspiring musician with long brown hair with a fringe and big hazel eyes. She always had her ukulele with her, always ready to sing at any given time. She was basically the sunshine of our group, even when she felt down. She began to speak. "I mean, aren't all your planets' names obvious?" she asked. PJ's face flushed red of embarrassment of hearing the untold truth. Emma began to laugh in his face.

"Okay, you have a point there." A bit of laughter erupted from our group. "BUT," he exclaimed, cutting off the silence, "the difference between this tiny planet and all the other ones is that it's owned by one of Nanew's people and they decided to simply call it Calming."

That's when another friend, Jack, began to bring a little input into the conversation. "Calming? Really? It sort of sounds like you're running out of creative ideas." He was one to be a bit harsh, but in all honestly, he was probably a little bit envious of PJ. Jack and his friend, Dean, were two very creative minds who had also made short films. With PJ always stilling the spotlight and talking away about is magnificent ideas, Jack and Dean seemed to feel neglected with their own creative ideas. PJ was very aware of this so he never really let it bother him too much.

PJ smiled at him and began speaking once again. "I'm sorry, but that couldn't be further from the truth. See, it won't be called Calming forever. This new character is actually going to become Nanew's love interest and together they—"

"I BET THEIR NAME IS CHRIS," Louise shouted. Laughter once again erupted from the group, PJ's face flushing red with slight embarrassment again. Our group always made jokes about shipping Chris and PJ. During school hours, they'd always be texting each other in class, not really coming in contact face to face that often. During the weekends, however, they'd always be at each other's houses. They even seemed to have alternating schedules as in one weekend they'll be at PJ's house and the next they'll be at Chris's. It was quite cute.