Player || gxb

Chapter eight: Dyed

"And I'm talking to myself at night, because I can't forget. Back and forth through my mind, behind a cigarette"
~Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes

Buzz, buzz, buzz. I woke to my phone buzzing on my bedside table. I moved my hand over and patted the table looking for my phone, and I grabbed it.
Autumn Easley I read. I answered, "hello?"
"Meet me on Fringe Drive," Autumn said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Can't talk now. I'll explain when you get here. Okay?" She asked me.
"Fine, okay," I said. Autumn hung up on me.

I snuck out through the window, because of course, I didn't want to wake my Mum.
I slid off the roof onto my car, and I started walking down the road towards Fringe Drive. Fringe is the road that is connected to the school's road, and the one that leads down to Alexia's road.
I walked down the street, trying to make as little noise as possible. I turned right onto Fringe, and I saw Autumn standing at the corner waiting for me.
"I'm here," I said and stopped. She turned around, "finally. I need to tell you something."
"Couldn't you have told me on the phone? It's literally one in the morning," I asked.
"I thought it'd be better to show you," Autumn explained, she gestured for me to follow her to another alleyway (I've had too much of those lately I thought) and stopped.
"So I saw a couple Copper Wolves hanging around here. Most of them were wearing hoods, but three of them weren't. They were looking away for most of the time but I'll describe what I saw. Okay?" Autumn asked me. I was listening. "One of them was an Asian girl with dark hair, another was a tanned girl with brown hair, the last one was a girl with brown hair dyed dark red. Ring a bell?"
"So you're saying you think you saw Holly and two of her old friends," I asked. "I can understand the red dye. But the other two, we haven't seen Alexis and Sophia since grade eight."
"Yeah, but we've seen them on Instagram since then."
"So? How would you recognize them when they're looking away? They go to Silverkeep High anyways," I explained.
"I recognized them, Ruby," Autumn said.
"I swear it's not them. Don't even say that the girl with dyed hair was Holly. Please, I really doubt it. Now, I have to go back to my house," I said.
Autumn face palmed herself, "fine, but Ruby, your friends are not all innocent. Believe me."
I ignored her and kept walking home.

I walked into the gym as I saw my gym teacher, Mr. Hayes, standing in the centre of the gym.
"Alright, kids," Mr. Hayes said. "We will be practicing for volleyball today." I heard a couple people groan (Autumn, Holly, Julia, and Maya), but I didn't mind.
"Get into pairs. And bump the ball to each other," Mr. Hayes told us.
I watched as people went into pairs: Angelina and Bronwyn, Autumn and Julia, Maya and Rayna, Leah and Victoria, and Ruth and Nina. I saw that Holly was left. I walked over to her. She stared at me.
"We're the only people left," I said.
"Yeah, I'll grab a ball," she said and walked off to grab one.
I stayed where I was and caught a coup people staring at me, I ignored them.
When Holly came back with the ball, she tossed it to me, "You first."
I served it to her and she bumped it back. It went like this for a while, until one of us missed it and we had to go get it.
"What were you doing yesterday?" I asked her curiously.
She looked at me with a confused face, "why do you want to know?"
"I'm just curious."
"I was home for most of the time. The rest I was hanging out with Sophia and Alexis," Holly explained.
"You still see them?"
"Yeah," Holly said, "a lot."
I thought better than to ask anymore questions. Otherwise she'd think I was on to her.

After school, I walked outside. And the first thing that happened was Magnus walking up to me. "Hey Ruby. Can we talk?" He added.
"Maybe," I said, "depends on what."
He took me to the side of the school, "I need to ask you a question."
"Okay, what is it?" I asked Magnus.
"You know how we got into that argument? I want to stop arguing, and just go back to being friends?" Magnus asked.
"Okay, that's fine with me. Friends is fine with me. For now," I added.
"Okay, for now, is also good for me," he put his arm out for a hug. And I did.

We walked a bit out to the other side of the school, and we were going to walk home together. We got stopped by Autumn.
"Hey, Ruby," Autumn said when she saw me. "Can we talk?"
"Yeah, sure," I turned to Magnus, "I'll catch up, okay?" He nodded.
Autumn pulled me to the fence near us, "I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't think, I should've told you just today. Rather than at one in the morning," Autumn apologized.
"It's fine, don't be sorry," I said to her.
"We okay then?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, I don't want us hating on each other anymore, ok?" Autumn said.
"Me either," I said. She smiled.
"Wait," She said, "look over there." Autumn pointed to a corner beside the school where we could just see Maya and Holly standing. They looked deep in discussion. Then, all of a sudden Maya pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and hands it to Holly. Then they walk away from each other.
"That was strange," I observed.
"Yeah," Autumn said, "I really must be going now."
"Yep, me too. Talk tomorrow?" I asked.
"Yes," She said and then she left.
I turned to head down the street again, and at the end of it I saw Magnus walking with Julia.