Confessions of a Matchmaker

f i v e

h a l l e
v a l e n t i n e

Walking into school the next morning was an interesting process. As much as I had hoped that no one would care, nearly everyone did and everyone was doing the stare -- you know the one where you furtively pretend you're looking at someone behind or checking out that cute outfit but really, you're sizing her up. By the time that I reached my lockers, Candace was standing and waiting for me. I was surprised since Lindsay had been more excited about the whole thing.

"Look, Miss Popular has decided to grace us with her presence," she rolled her eyes, "You told us everyone would be too drunk to notice. Halle, everyone noticed and now everybody knows you. Apparently, the entire football team thinks you're hot."

I glanced down at my jeans and sweatshirt, my hair was in a ponytail and my makeup was nonexistent. Well, if they wanted to turn a blind eye on my current state, they could do so by all means. I wouldn't stop them.

Candace was still rambling on, "-and the swim team as well. Jason, the captain, I heard, is thinking of asking you out and you have not lived until you have seen Jason take off his shirt and dive into the water. Mother of all things holy, I only attend the swim shows for his body and that's a fact. "

I rolled my eyes at her, both her and Lindsay could be identified as the boy crazed sisters. Now that I think of it, where is Lindsay anyways? Then Candace shrugged as though erasing my mind, "Do you know what's up with Lindsay? Usually, she's being all bubbly and annoying but since last night, she's been acting all funny and weird which is strange since she was the biggest shipper of Carlan so I kind of expected her to be here already."

My mind frenzied with possibilities as to why she was upset. Lindsay was always preppy and happy.

Her eyes trailed over to a dark corner in the school walls before rolling her eyes and only then did I realise that a slim female body was hidden there. Lindsay! Candace still watched, her eyes frozen on Lindsay, before scoffing, "Whatever. I'm just going to ignore her because I don't know why she's sulking and honestly, I'm still pissed at the fact that she lost my new iPod, so I don't even care."

Any one else might have found their sisterly relationship strange but after five years of friendship with them I didn't-not anymore at least. They pretended not to care about each other; most times prioritising their new iPods or something before each other but we I knew that Candace was worried about Lindsay but just didn't know how to approach her properly. I glanced at Lindsay again before the bell rang and reluctantly, I moved away from her because god knows that if I'm late for Spanish again, Señora Vasquez will feed me to her dogs for lunch.

° ° ° ° °

It was during the start of break that Lindsay crossed my mind again and I found myself racing around the school trying to find her. Finally, after a lot of searching because damn I had never realised how big this school was, I found her. She was putting stuff into her locker haphazardly and I smiled. Oh, Lindsay, you need to arrange your books instead of stuffing them in. Almost as who though she sensed my presence, she spun around.

"Linds, what's wrong?" I tried the nice approach.

She set her cold gaze on me, "Nothing, Halle. Absolutely nothing."

"Something is wrong and you know it too."

"I just said nothing is wrong, goddamn," she shoved her books in her locker, "I need my own space, my own identity and oh god I need my brains back. All that you and Candace do is copy off my Maths homework."

I frowned, "You said you didn't mind us mooching off your homework."

"That isn't the point!"

She stormed off and as I attempted to chase after her, another body came in front of me and I came face to face with icy blue eyes and as I tried to weasel my way past him, he caught me by the shoulder pleadingly, "I get it, you don't want to talk to me after what happened on Friday night."