Innocence

III

I sat down at the front of my form class, playing drums softly on the table. I'd agreed to meet Calum at the bench where we'd been talking earlier this morning once Break 1 started.

Mr. Goldsmith was sitting in his roll-chair, fiddling with his computer as a cat-and-dog vine played on the smart-board.

One of the popular boys in my year, Harry Whim was at Mr. Goldsmith's desk, asking him something.

I dismissed their conversation, thinking about the dreams. I imagined in my head what would happen if I could talk to the girl in my dreams.

I wondered what she would say. Perhaps she would tell me about herself, maybe the mystery was deeper than that. Maybe the scream was just a figment of my imagination and the girl wasn't even real.

I suddenly heard a familiar piano riff and I found myself smiling. Out of every silly song about sex and drugs on the radio, I found myself actually enjoying this one.

I recognised the electronic feminine voice as Alan Walker's song Faded, played at a reasonable volume.

I assumed Harry would've suggested the song, hence Mr. Goldsmith playing it.

I watched Harry sit down with his mates, high-fiving then and laughing. I didn't know Harry very well.

I knew he was cocky and flirty, and he enjoyed playing with his shoulder length brown hair in class. I knew he was basically obsessed with his hair, considering he paid a high sum to get specific blonde streaks in it.

Harry was also one of Josie's victims. They'd dated about three times, none of those times lasting more than a month and a half.

Now, they seemed to think they had claims on each other but could date other people because whenever a girl got close to Harry, Josie gets onto her and vice versa.

It was fairly irritating.

I felt Faded become a faint background noise as I turned to look out the window. A seagull was strutting across the grassy area just outside, pecking at unseen things on the ground.

I watched it for a while longer, before it approached a plastic bag on the ground.

No! I silently cried. Don't eat that!

The bird poked it, not trying to eat it, thank god. Perhaps it was trying to decipher what it was.

A kid from a younger year threw a basketball in it's direction and it flew off.

I sighed to myself, wondering why I was distracted by such minor things

"Crystal?" I turned around to see Josie sitting behind me with her best friend, Courtney Lewis.

Courtney had platinum blonde hair fish tailed into two plaits, and her pale blue eyes were dull as if she were bored.

Courtney wasn't half as bad as Josie, she was nicer and definitely more sympathetic, but she never stood up for me when Josie made her claims.

But why would she? Josie was her best friend after all.

"Yes?" I half expected Josie to ditch an egg at my head and for the whole class to burst into laughter but surprisingly Josie just stared at me as if I was a puzzle she was trying to decipher.