I shamble into my next class and take my seat behind Jace. He doesn't look at me while I'm walking past.
"What's up?" I ask casually, putting my bag next to my desk chair and pulling my maroon math binder out.
"I'll tell you later." he says, still not turning around to face me.
"Just tell me now. Class hasn't started and we're in the back of the room. No one will hear or care."
I still can't see his face, but I know he's rolling his eyes. "Cam said you said that you said that I never had a chance with Eliza so I shouldn't have dated her in the first place."
"What the hell?" I slam my binder on my desk, making him instinctively turn to me. "Why would I say that?"
"'Cus you ship Cam and Eliza more than me and Eliza."
"Um, no. I couldn't care less about either ships. No offense." I add.
"He said you've shipped them since seventh grade."
"You know I went to Yokesville right? Not Sphereside."
"Oh." he looks at the ground awkwardly.
"Yeah, so don't pull that bs on me again."
"Alright, class! Today we're having a pop quiz!" Ms. Flunkit says in her usual monotone voice.
All of us groan and complain.
"This is our third test this week!" some boy calls out, with his voice cracking on 'third', which everyone laughs at.
"I know you guys are sick of tests, but the grades you, as a class, have gotten are not acceptable to show to the administrators, so I have to keep testing you guys until you all have at least average scores." she says, barely audible over the complaining.
She hands out new tests to everyone but me and Jace.
"Alliah and Jace don't need to take a new test today, because they passed both the test yesterday and on Monday." she says.
I feel everyone's eyes glaring at me and Jace. Jace waves at all of them. Eventually everyone starts their test and Jace starts napping at his desk.
I pull out a piece of loose leaf paper from my binder as quiet as possible, and start to doodle with my pencil. I get lost in my thoughts.
Who should I bring to Maddy's party? I was thinking I could bring one of the three boys, but now Cam is dating Erica and Jace is bummed out, so I wouldn't want to be his rebound. So Kita is the only other option. How would I ask him?
"Alright class! Time is over!" Ms. Flunkit calls out, interrupting my thoughts. "Hand me your papers on your way out!"
Quickly, I shove my binder and doodle paper into my backpack. I walk out of the room alone and stealthily weave between through the stream of traffic to try to get to the cafeteria first. The group has agreed that whoever gets to our seats first gets a piece of each person's lunch, whether it be a piece of a cookie or a chip.
As I'm rushing through the crowd I see Kita in the distance, also pushing through people to get to lunch first.
"Kita!" I call out. He looks my way and waves me over.
"I gotta ask you something before I lose the chance." Kita looks at me, puzzled. "Are you available tonight? My friend is having a party and I was wondering if you could come with me."
He's a few inches taller than me, so I can't see his face in my peripheral, but his face is almost radiant with heat. "Um, yeah. Yeah, I can go." he chokes.
"Great, I'll text you about it later." I say, and speed ahead.
"Hey, that's not fair!" he call after me, but I'm already in the cafeteria.
Ten minutes later we're all sitting down with our school lunches. I'm sitting next to Jace again today, with Kita sitting across from Jace and Cam sitting across from him. There's a tension between Jace and Cam so thick you could cut it with scissors.
"Look man, I'm-" Cam tries to speak first.
"No, shut up, Cam. I don't want to talk to you." Jace says.
"Then why are you sitting with me? You got here last. You could've sat anywhere else."
"Because my friends are here. My real friends."
"Oh, real hurtful."
Erica sits down next to Cam.
"Of course she chooses now to come here." Jace mumbles under his breath.
Cam and Eliza start talking about stuff I couldn't care enough about if I tried, so I turn to Kita and Jace.
"Are you guys available to GroupTime tonight?" Jace asks, taking a bite of his frozen fruit juice.
"No, sorry, Kita and I are going to my friend's party tonight." I say, looking to Kita for approval, but we barely make eye contact before his face flushes and he looks away.
Jace raises an eyebrow and looks straight at Kita. "Really now?"
I look at Jace, puzzled. I can see vaguely in my peripheral that Kita is shaking his hand in front his neck, as it to say, cut it out or stop. When he notices me looking, Kita smiles at me innocently and stabs his spoon into his frozen fruit juice.
"Well, you kids have fun." Jace says.
More time goes by and we are all almost done with our lunches. Then I remember who got to the table first.
"Pay up, you guys. One chip each." I stick my hand out and get two chips.
I look over to Cam for my missing chip, but he's not there anymore. Neither is his stuff.
As I crunch in my first chip, Jace, out of all people, asks, "Where the hell did Cam go?"
YOU ARE READING
Little Talks
Teen Fiction{ENDED; NOT FINISHED ❌} Alliah was never one to be popular. Actually, she never really had a lot of friends in general. Her grades were always high, but that didn't matter to her. All she wanted was a group of friends who she could talk to, but she...
