Bad Blood

9.

Since he'd been hanging around with Martin and James, he hadn't been talking to me as much. Over the weeks he slowly stopped coming to my house or meeting me at the tree too. I couldn't deny that I felt sad about it. I missed him. We still spent time together but something had changed. It didn't feel the same anymore.

Whenever I asked him what he was doing later, he'd brush me off with the excuse of doing homework or that his Mum wanted him to do something for her. And on more than one occasion I had found out the next day that he'd been at the bus station with his new friends. I didn't begrudge him his friends at all. I was glad he had finally fit in and the bullying had stopped. He certainly seemed happier. I was just sad that I was no longer the most important person in his life.

'How come we don't hang out anymore?' I asked him on a rare occasion that he'd come round to have tea.

'Yeah, sorry... I wanna hang out with you, but it's the boys...they sort of made fun of me for being friends with a girl...I don't know.'

'You shouldn't care what people think about you.'

'I know.' He shrugged. He did care too much about people's perception of him.

It was good in a way because I'd finally began making friends with some of the girls too. For so long it had just been Dan and I. And now I had other girls to talk to. These girls my own age who had been in my class the whole time but I had never made an effort to connect with, had taken me in. It just didn't fill the space that Dan had once filled.

I found it harder than losing just my friend, but since I couldn't talk to him as much anymore, I'd found myself feeling things I'd never felt. I had gone through the last eleven years acting as though we were siblings and now suddenly I had all these...feelings. The precious time we did spend together, I found my cheeks flushing and my heart beating a little faster. Most nights when I was trying to sleep I would find my head filling up with thoughts of him. And I hated it. I think I had fallen in love with him.

'So what like, are you guys?' Macie had questioned me during the first sleepover I'd ever been invited to. I had been insanely excited. I had run home from school, grabbed my nightclothes and pillow and run all the way to Vicky's house. It had been everything I'd always imagined. We watched music videos and wore face masks and spoke about boys we liked. Then the subject of Dan had cropped up.

'Friends.' I shrugged.

'But don't you spent like all your time together? That's what boyfriends and girlfriends do.'

'No..like...he's my friend, I don't really think of him as more than that...' I lied. As long as I didn't admit it, it wasn't true.

'But you'd like to?'

'I don't know. I've never-'

'But you've slept with him?'

'No. Gosh. No. He's. Were. Both still...' My face turned crimson and I hid behind my pillow. With everyone's sixteenth birthdays coming up, the hot topic was virginity and prom night. If you hadn't done it already or weren't planning to on prom night then you were weird. The pressure to find a date was building. Dan and I had always spoken about going together but that had been before the idea of sex had even crossed our minds. Would he even want to go with me now?

'No way!' The group of girls all giggled, me included. The feeling of finally fitting in with my fellow peers was amazing. I'd never had this kind of relationship withy anyone but Dan and I felt like I was thriving on it now. I looked forward to the weekends where we'd all go shopping for clothes and eat Happy a Meals in MacDonalds. And asking girly questions, things I'd never dare ask Gran.