Fontaine Five

ZERO

          I SMACK MY lips together, appraising my reflection. The girl that looks back is always the same, but it's never me. She's someone else whose only purpose is to stare back through mirrors.

A car horn blares outside for five seconds straight. I roll my eyes, pocket my lip balm and head outside, mentally preparing myself for another brain-numbing day.

"You really kept me waiting for ten fucking minutes, Rory?" Blair curses through the open passenger window. I flip her the finger before turning my back to shut the front door. "You can make your own way to school starting tomorrow," she mutters, as I get in the car. The tires squeal as we take off.

I shoot her a smile, warm and icy in equal parts. "You don't mean that. You'd find the journeys boring without me."

"Hmm. You're right. I do rely on you for mediocre entertainment." She takes a sip from an opaque cup, and I don't need to ask her to know what it is. Blair Flores can't go without her black coffee in the mornings. It's because she's a sucker for routine more than anything else. And giving me lifts to school is part of the routine.

"Wow. Thanks a lot, B."

"Pleasure's all mine."

"B as in bitch, by the way."

"Hilarious. You're really outdoing yourself with these shitty jokes, babe."

We eventually arrive at the school parking lot, barely getting out of the car before we we're met with the others.

"Flores! Clarksen!"

Orlando saunters towards us, bearing the same shit-eating, cocky grin that he always carries around with him. Ellis and Jude are right behind him. I watch as Ellis beelines towards me without so much as a glance towards Blair, and bends down slightly to kiss me.

"Hey, you," he says, pulling back with a smile, hand warm on my back. The edges of my lips tug upwards in reply.

"Get a room," Orlando sighs, draping his arms around Jude and Blair's shoulders. Jude appears as though he agrees. Blair, on the other hand, looks like she couldn't care less.

"Go fuck yourself, Lan," replies Ellis coolly.

The boy doesn't skip a beat. He simply smirks and says, "Already did that this morning."

The five of us begin to walk towards the school, attracting the usual glances from other students. We'd learned to ignore them during the past couple of years, but I could never not feel their stares on our backs. We were that group, and we knew it. We'd always hear the gossip that was spread about us, and we swam in it, drank it in, all of it; the truths and the lies, the good and the bad. Orlando and Blair loved it the most. The words that snaked around, from mouths into ears behind cupped palms, was something akin to a drug for them.

"Has anyone seen Ken?" Blair asks, to no one in particular.

"No," responds Jude. "So, what, it's serious between you two now?"

"I guess it is. Thought I'd give her a chance; I know she's had the hots for me since sophomore year."

Lan groans. "Jesus, what's with all this coupling up? I miss the days we'd all get drunk and make out with each other."

"You're sick," I tell him. "And jealous that you haven't gotten any all summer."

He lets out a laugh, head tilted back. Inhibitions were non-existent to him. "Oh, don't you worry, Rory. I get around, no problem. I just don't brag about it. Unlike Nathaniel here." Jude stiffens at the sound of his first name as Lan cheerily slaps him on the back.