I'm A Mess || l.c

3- Goodbye Sophomore Year!

Last day of school. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that today was going to mark the end of sophomore year for me. It had been a pretty nice school year for me, considering the fact that I was at the top of the class for almost every subject and received many academic awards. It was a refreshing thought to know that all of my hard work was finally going to be rewarded with a well-deserved holiday.

Today, the only class I had was gym, which I was thankful for since maths was not one of the ways I would have preferred to spend my last day of sophomore year in. I changed into my gym shorts and tied my hair back. Once I was happy with the way I looked, I went out of the change rooms and stood near my gym classmates.

"Okay, class, listen up! As you all know, today's your last day and everything so I'm not going to be hard on any one of you. Just do whatever you want but you must stay in the gym. If you want to go outside to play footy or soccer, ask me and I might let you," the coach advised.

"Want to shoot some hoops?" Troian asked as she grabbed a lonely basketball in the corner of the gym.

"Sure," I replied as we walked over to where the basketball court was. "You go first."

*

"Okay, can we stop now? My hair is literally sticking to my face and I don't like it one bit!" Troian complained after 10 continuous minutes of shooting hoops.

"Let's go sit on the sides then," I suggested as I took the ball and went to put it back where it belonged. I joined Troian a minute later and we sat down, trying to cool ourselves down from the heat that I was certain was showing up on my face.

"Look, your future boyfriend is here," Troian said as she looked at my, supposedly, "future" boyfriend. I followed her gaze and saw that she was looking at Ryan.

"Shut up!" I blushed as I smacked Troian lightly on her arm.

"You are so funny when you see Ryan. You should see the way your eyes pop up like a crazy woman who just found out she won the lottery." I gave Troian the evil eye which just made her burst into more laughter. I started laughing as well. It was hard not to laugh when Troian was laughing since she had one of those hilarious laughs which was enough to get everyone else laughing too.

With my blurry eyes with the tears from too much laughter, I hadn't realised that Ryan was standing right in front of us until he spoke.

"Hey girls! Um, I'm moving schools so I won't be coming here anymore." I immediately widened my eyes at how amazing Ryan looked up close and the fact that he said he won't be coming to this school anymore. "I know, I just found out two days ago. If you didn't hear about it already, my girlfriend and I had a massive fight over it. Well, anyways, would you ladies like to sign my shirt?"

Ladies. He called us ladies. How could I not say yes to signing his shirt?

"I'd love to!" I exclaimed as I took the marker. "Uh, how do I sign it?"

At that moment, Ryan freaking Hayes took his shirt off and handed it over to me. I froze in shock and tried to process everything that had just happened in the matter of one second. One second was all it took to kill me inside from all the hotness that radiated off of Ryan. I had never once seen his abs before but today, I finally did.

"I came for you to sign my shirt, not to glare at my abs," he stated sternly. I took my eyes away from his abs and took the lid off the marker to sign my name on his shirt. Would he look back over it one day in the future, see my name and think of me as the girl that he secretly liked? Pfft, no, he'd look over it and think of me as the freak who wouldn't stop admiring his abs. I was so stupid.

"Sorry, but I can't help it if you have such nice abs," I blurted out as I finished signing my name. What. On. Earth.

Damn it. Could someone just punch me in the face and tell me that I never said that?

I heard Ryan laugh as he took the shirt from my hands to give it to Troian to sign. I wanted this day to end already. Like, right now.

*

"Please tell me it never happened," I said for the thousandth time. I was still so embarrassed over what had happened before in gym and I couldn't believe that I could be so stupid. Shailene, Troian and I all walked on the bright green grass, over to where Jayde sat by herself in our spot.

"It happened. Just face the facts!" Troian exclaimed.

"It never happened, Laur," Shailene lied.

"What?" Jayde mumbled as we came closer to her.

There were three types of people.

Before I could drown in my own misery all over again, the PA speaker interrupted everyone's conversations.

"To all students of Crescent Heights High, congratulations on completing your studies for the year. All years have shown great achievement in areas of academics and sports excellence. Well done, Crescent Heights. You all deserve this break. So, instead of dragging this on for too long, I'm just going to say congratulations and have a happy and safe break. I wish to see you all back for the next school year. Bye!" the principal spoke. Everyone around us cheered as the last bell of the school year rang. Everyone was in a hurry to get out of school and then there were Jayde, Troian, Shai and I; we were still in our usual hang out spot. I wondered whether it would be the same next year. Would we still be friends or would I drift apart from them?

"Let's go!" Jayde cheered as she got up from the grass and fixed her skirt. "Who's ready for Florida, baby!?"

"ME!" Troian and Shai cheered together. I smiled and looked at my friends in envy. How come they got to go and spend their summer in Florida and I had to spend it with no friends to hang out with? Oh, that's right. My lovely, caring and supportive parents. Note the sarcasm.

We all walked out of the school together just as the crowd of students around the school gates slowly decreased in size. Just then, I heard a 'ping!' from my phone, signalling a new text message. It was most likely Dani.

Dani: where r u and r we taking the bus or what?

Knew it.

Me: near school gates, i'll ask troian if she can drive us

"Hey, Troian, can you drive me and Dani home?" I asked.

"Of course, hun!" she replied with a smile.

Me: troian's driving us

Dani: ok

"Well, I'll see you lovelies soon," Jayde said to Shai and Troian, "and Lauren, I'm really sorry that you can't come. Honestly, I wish you could but that's just life, right? Anyways, hope you have a good summer and hopefully we can still text each other and stuff, yeah? I'll miss you heaps, mwah!" she said as she gave me a tight hug.

"I'll miss you too, Jayde," I replied as I returned the hug. We all hugged each other and said our goodbyes. I wondered how much my friends were going to change over the summer. I really hoped none of them would change too much and possibly create dents in our friendship.

"When do you guys leave for Florida?" I asked.

"Six a.m. tomorrow," Jayde replied.

"Yeah. Hey Lauren, Dani, you guys wanna get going?" Troian asked.

"Sure, let's go. Bye guys!" I waved Shai and Jayde goodbye for the last time as I sat down in the passenger seat of Troian's car.

Once we were all seated and Troian started the engine, she said, "Hey, you won't be too lonely. You've got your whole family of 13 people so summer should be pretty interesting."

"Maybe pretty interesting in more ways than one," I mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Nothing," I said. I could already feel that this summer was going to be amazing. Summer, make way for Lauren Cimorelli!