Their Masks

The Blonde Cheerleader's Mask (Part 2)

Lexi was astonished by the sight in front of her.

Gwen looked worse than anyone she had seen, and she had been to see her father in the hospital several times the past few years. She was the very first friend that she had had in this life. At least the real one.

But right now, she was in the arms of Justin Mani.

Lexi didn't know what to feel. Fear for her friend's wellbeing should have been front and center in her brain. But she just couldn't help the well of jealously that bubbled up.

It was so sickening that she couldn't believe it herself. Her friend was almost dying and all she could think about is how Justin was holding her? It was appalling. She needed to follow them to know more.

The principal was in the parking lot and arguing with Justin about his boarding the ambulance. Lexi had never seen Justin passionate about anything. The boy cared for very little in this life. That was what he had shared with her when they were enjoying their summer vacation together.

But the way he almost chewed off the Principal's head just to get into that ambulance left little to doubt in Lexi's mind.

Justin loved Gwen.

Not the small-time love teenagers had for each other over summer breaks. She had seen this love only once in her life. The moment her mother would light up at their father's return from the army. Her mother would almost gravitate around him, trying her best to merge with the very space that her father occupied.

That was the kind of love Lexi had known to be true. The kind that would leave one immobilized with its loss like her mother's.

Or the kind that made one unable to comprehend its absence from their lives like Justin's.

The principal finally won the battle by threatening everyone with detention as a way to clear the parking lot. For Justin, she didn't need to do much but make sure the ambulance had left him in the institution. Lexi heard people whispering gossip about the scene they had just witnessed.

Gwen was unknown to many people, but the fact that Justin Mani went head to head with the Principal to be beside her, it was decided that the two must have been having a nice cozy relationship under the wraps.

Lexi was not too sure what she was going to believe. Justin was not a boy who was unfamiliar with girls wanting him. Lexi knew he had dated at least half the girls in the cheerleaders' squad alone.

But something about Justin and Gwen together did not sit well with her. Was it the fact that she knew Gwen personally? Or maybe it was because she knew there was no way that she could ever compete in beauty with the girl?

It didn't matter to Lexi anymore. The girl had just betrayed any and all trust the two had built over the few weeks they had worked together. She had been holding Justin in the dark while egging Lexi on during the daylight.

She couldn't help the smile that crept on her face because the departed ambulance had Gwen in it now.

"Lexi! I need a favor!"

The voice that spoke to her very soul roused her from her thought process. She would know Justin's voice even if she was roused from sleep at 3 am. But for the first time since Lexi knew this beautiful specimen of the male species, he did two things she had been dreaming of both in and out of sleep.

He had spoken her name and asked her for something.

If only the boy knew how much hold he had on her. If only he knew that she would have done anything for him if only he had asked her. Lexi knew this wasn't healthy. This mask she was so devoted to her did not pay any attention to her unless it was beneficial to him.

But Lexi didn't care about any of that. Which girl in her position would when she finally realized that man of their dreams actually knew they existed?