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Chapter 3: Trouble in Geography

I walked down the hallway, my English binder tucked under my arm. My mind was a thousand miles away, planning out ideas for my latest short story project. I knew how I wanted the story to end, but figuring out the in-between bit was causing me trouble.

"Hello, Kennedy?"

I glanced up sharply, not realizing that Sacha had been trying to get my attention. "Sorry, Sach, what's up?"

She rolled her brown eyes in my direction. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy over her thick, dark hair. Honestly, it was so hard to be taken seriously as a blonde.

"I was trying to tell you that Stacey told me that you were dating Jack now! Why didn't you tell me?" Sacha stopped and leaned against the locker next to mine while I fiddled with my lock.

"What?" I snorted. "Jack is nothing more than an ignorant asshole. Why would I ever--wait... who is Stacey anyway?"

That was one thing about being 'popular' that I would never get used to: everyone knowing my business. Seriously, who is this girl, and why is she spreading lies behind my back?

"What do you mean? I think Jack is absolutely flawless," Sacha sighed dramatically and clasped her hands together.

I laughed. Sacha was so ridiculous, getting all excited over a simple boy, especially one as idiotic as Jack.

"Well, he's all yours," I promised, slamming my locker closed after I grabbed my geography textbook.

"Good. Maybe you could talk to him about me?" Sacha looked at me, widening her eyes, silently pleading with me.

I sighed. Oh, the responsibilities of being a good friend. "Sure, Sacha, I'll see what I can do."

Sacha and I walked down the hall, making our way to our next class. Sacha and I had geo together, which was both a blessing and a curse. She could be really funny at times, but most of her brainpower was spent thinking about boys, and that wasn't very exciting conversation.

"Oh my god," Sacha gasped suddenly, causing me to stop in my tracks.

"What?!"

Sacha pointed down the hallway. "Look at Hailee. What does she think she is doing?"

I followed Sacha's finger to Hailee. Hailee's white-blonde hair was pulled back into a mega-high ponytail, and the eyelashes shielding her baby blue eyes were batting a mile a minute. She seemed engrossed in a conversation with Sean Desmound.

"What do you mean? She's just talking with Sean." I shrugged, not sure why Sacha was making such a big deal about this.

Sacha balled her hands into fists. "She's so stupid! Can't she see that Sean doesn't like her? Look at her, twirling her blonde hair. What a stereotypical dumb blonde!"

I suddenly remembered that Sacha had gone out with Sean for a whole two days last year. Maybe she still had feelings for him? "Sacha, you can't say that about Hailee. She's one of our best friends!"

"I don't care, she's still annoying," Sacha huffed.

True. Everything Sacha said was true. Hailee definitely wasn't the brightest bulb of the bunch, and sometimes her dim-witted comments did get annoying, but at the end of the day I knew she would always have my back.

I followed Sacha into class, yawning just thinking about sitting through another one of Mr. Robinson's boring lessons.

"Don't you think it's kinda mean to make fun of Hailee when she's not here to defend herself?" I questioned, curious to see if Sacha would admit to being mean. I slammed my books onto my desk at the back of the class.

Sacha rolled her eyes at me and flipped her hair. "Since when do you care?"

"I don't know," I shrugged and sat down. "I guess I just wouldn't want to hurt her feelings."

"Whatever, if she didn't want us to make fun of her, then she shouldn't be so stupid," Sacha retorted and slid into her chair next to me.

"If you ladies at the back are done your conversation, maybe we could start our lesson now?" Mr Robinson tapped his ruler against the board threateningly.

"Oh yeah, go ahead," I sighed, annoyed that yet another teacher was going to have a bad impression of me because of my stupid friends.

Bzz. Bzz.

I reached for my phone in my bag and scrolled through the recent messages. The top message was from Sacha, of course. As usual, I had over 50 unread messages in my group chat with Sacha, Hailee and Aubrey. I guess I was gonna have to spend the first few minutes of geo class struggling to understand all the drama I had missed.

Honestly, I didn't know how my group stayed together. We spent most of our time fighting, making fun of each other and gossiping about other people. Those were not exactly the best bonding activities.

Aubrey: Guys, honestly shut up and get over yourselves. I don't give a fuck who made out with who.

Leave it to Aubrey to try and fix stuff by making it worse.

Now came the big question. Do I enter the conversation now, when I'm already like an hour late, or do I just leave them be and let them figure it out?

Sacha: Kennedy, you were there. You saw the way Hailee was all over Sean.

I looked up from my phone to shoot Sacha an over-exaggerated annoyed face. Why did she have to drag me into this? Sacha just returned my look and mimed texting.

I glanced back down at my phone. I had already recieved another three texts. Geez, these girls must have thumbs as strong as steel. Hailee had started freaking out at Sacha and threatening me, and then Aubrey was back in saying she wasn't going to pick anyone up for school tomorrow if we kept arguing.

This was not the best way to spend geo class. Finally, I gave in and began to type out my response. One thing I had learned while being popular was that your words meant everything. Anything you said could be twisted and used against you.

Whatever. Screw the rules and lessons I've learned. I'm just going to say what I think.

Me: Sacha, you're overreacting. You and Sean broke up ages ago, and you barely dated anyways. What's the big deal? But Hailee, you must have known that would bother her. Why do you always go looking for trouble?

It was satisfying to press send on that message. I knew I was probably going to end up with two very pissed friends, and who knows what Aubrey would think, but in that moment, I didn't care. I felt like I had done the right thing. I was sick of picking sides.

My phone was silent for a few minutes, and even though I heard Sacha gasp as she read my message, I refused to look at her. For a good ten minutes I was able to actually focus on what Mr. Robinson was saying, not that it was very interesting. Who cares about rocks anyway?

Those ten minutes came to an end when my phone buzzed with a text from Aubrey.

Aubrey: Kennedy, call me after school.

I wasn't really sure what to think about that. If Aubrey wanted me to call her, she either had to tell me something important or she was pissed. Or the important thing she had to tell me was that she was pissed.

Either way, I was going to have to wait until the end of school to find out.

Picture in media is Hailee :)