Spell Me Love

Friendship

"BBBBRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGG" The sound of the school bell nearly shook the brains out of my skull.

Almost automatically, zombified even, students pushed their chairs back making the screeching sound that all teachers hate. As usual, Mr Woods' monotonous calls of us going out in an orderly manner was completely ignored.

Clutching my gigantic book of 'Calculus: Made Easy', I made my way to the cafeteria, being careful not to bump into anybody's shoulders which might earn me a glare or worse, a middle finger.

I reached the cafeteria huffing and puffing like an old lady running a marathon. Damn, I am seriously out of shape. I should really start my exercise plan I made 2 years ago. Which...we all know that i'm lying. I'm never going to start that plan for another 5 years or more.

After very much shoving and pushing and MANY 'Get your ass behind me or I'll shove my finger through your nose', i finally made it to the front of the line and gave my order to the cafeteria lady. I can be really aggressive when provoked and people really do not want to aggravate me, especially on one of my bad days. But mostly, I just avoid direct confrontation with people. Thats probably one of the many reasons why i practically do not have any friends. Theres an exception though, Joey. Theres always an exception for him, my longest and only best friend. I do not get angry at him. Well, most of the time. Except for those times when he is acting really stupid when i just wish to give him a high five. In the face. With a chair. On other days, he could make me laugh even when I feel like hitting everyone that is smiling.

You guys might wonder how he looks like, this amazing best friend of mine. Well, he has a shaggy blond hair which wasn't the usual yellow shade of blond. Its in a shade of dirty blond. It always gets into his eyes unless he pushes them aside. He's well muscled as he's on the swim team. Which is kind of ironic since i am deathly scared of water. He is pretty tall considering how tall i am and he still towers over me. He has those defined square jaws that most guys would die for and most girls drool over. But the most attractive feature of him is probably his eyes, his bright grey eyes. Its not those dull shades of grey. Its a shade of grey like an after storm grey. Which makes you conclude that Joey Sparks is probably the most popular guy in school, right? Correct. He literally knows everybody in school. Which sometimes makes me wonder if by some divine fate that Joey and me were the best of friends. He, as you may have guessed, is a straight-A student and is a teacher's pet. He has so many obligations and societies but he still makes time to hang with me. Despite having so many friends, Joey Sparks was a guy which was loyal to the word best friend. Which means only one. Me, which i am honored with by the friendship bracelet adorned on my left wrist. A gift, from Joey on my eighth birthday. Which made me obligated to do one for him in return, but mine looked more like a string of lopsided beads in contrast to his, which was perfectly designed and made by him. This made me wonder what kind of guy made friendship bracelets and is actually good at it.

I looked into the greasy cafeteria table and absent-mindedly toyed with my spaghetti using my fork. I looked average for a girl my age. I had electric blue eyes which i had inherited from my father, and i had flaming red hair which ended with black ends. The hair color was not dyed. It was natural color as i was a witch. Though it was not really a natural occurrence for witches either, but it happens. "You're special," Joey used to say. In a way which he did not know, he was right.

How did such a peculiar friendship came to happen, many people asked. I still remember vividly that it was on the first day of pre-school. My mother had just put me in to the building when i saw a bunch of bulky guys taunting a little boy. His hair was sticking out all over the place filled with dirt. His left hand was nursing an apparent injury on his knee, while his right hand was clutching what seems to be a small bag of money. His eyes was like a dam threatening to burst but i can see that he refused to let a tear drop. Being brought up learning that bullying was very bad, i was infuriated at what those boys were doing.

Storming up to them, I shouted "Hey losers!" to get their attention. Mind, I was very gifted at the vocabulary of insults at a very tender age.

"Get away from that boy before I kick you guys in the balls and then I tell my mum," I pointed at my mother's retreating figure, "and ask her to tell the teachers that you guys were bullying him." Yeah, probably not a great threat, but the fact that I was still a pre-school kid kind of excuses me.

The boys' faces looked doubtful but they looked at one another as if having a telepathic conversation, and soon the middle guy made a gesture to signal his friends and they retreated. Though till this day, I still wonder if they were scared of me kicking their balls or my mother telling the teachers.

So you see, that was the day our friendship plant budded. And speaking of the devil, Joey slammed his tray in front of me and spoke in an excited manner ,"Guess who is the new captain of the swim team? Guess, guess, guess, Leslie."

His smile was so wide I thought it would've split his mouth from ear to ear. Judging from his smile, the answer was as obvious as a naked rabbit wearing a magician hat street dancing in front of me. And so just to irritate him, I dramatically put a finger on my chin and acted like I was seriously pondering, "Hmm, thats a tough one, Jordan Winchester? He makes a great captain."

"Seriously Les? Me." He deadpanned, adding, "I'm so much better than Jordan anyway," he looked over his shoulder before saying, "But don't tell him that, it'll hurt his ego."

I chuckled, shaking my head at Joey. Then a thought hit me. "Hey Joey, mind coming over and tutor me on the new chapter of calculus? I have absolutely no idea what Mr Woods was talking about in class. I'm pretty sure he said something about waffles or pie or something like that. Besides, I totally beat your high score in Call of Duty."

"Sure thing", Joey said, his voice muffled by the forkful of spaghetti that he was shoving into his mouth.

"Meet you after school by the fountain?"

"Sure, yeah. Look, I gotta run to Mr Stevenson's and pass him the homework, but I'll see you after school. Bye!" He gave me a smile which revealed the mouthful of spaghetti that he was still chewing and patted my head.

"Ew, gross!", i smiled as I gestured to his mouth and flattened my hair down.

-

The rest of the day passed by fairly quickly, mostly of me doodling on my sketchbook and I made my way to the fountain as promised. There, I saw Joey already sitting at the side of the fountain playing with his phone. I made my way over to him and stood in front of him, my shadow covering the sun. He furrowed his brows, looked up and started,"Hey what are you- Oh hi Leslie, you're here. Lets go then."

I nodded and we started walking towards my house which was 5 blocks away. My parents were usually busy at this time of day so I had to walk home by myself which I did for most of my schooling days. Two blocks down, and after chatting about random stuff, I heard a stumble and a faint "Oof" behind us.

Thats weird. Nobody usually comes this way and the last I checked, no body was behind us. "Hey where are you-" Joey started.

"Shh," I shushed him, then I sprinted across the pathway, through some shortcuts and ended up in an alleyway. I was determined in finding out who was following us home. There, crouching in a corner, was a figure. The alleyway was dark enough to obscure it from us. It stood up, and I felt Joey's hand gripped my elbow, urging me to run. The figure started approaching us with a limp. 20 feet. I asked Joey to man up. 15 feet. I was starting to doubt myself. 10 feet. Joey was ready to run and pull me with him. I desperately deliberated whether staying to find out who was it or running away and probably saving both mine and Joey's lives.

Then I came to a decision.

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A/N

HAI BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE READING THIS! As you may already know, me and my friend Alethea are writing this book in intervals. I have no idea what she writes and after that, I continue her story from there, as she continues mine. So buckle up people, sit back and enjoy the ride of an EPIC tale.

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•Angelina

Personal acc: CookieAngels

Twitter: Ms_IAmAwesome