Anyone Else But You

Chapter 8 - The Moaning of Life

The Lumineers - Stubborn Love

After the revelation that she liked Jasper and the resultant sleepless nights, Maddie was not in the mood for Alicia's moaning on Monday morning. It began as soon as she entered the tutor room and sat down next to Maddie.

"Have you heard what Jasper did this weekend? He went to a bloody Arsenal match with some girl." Maddie's eyes widened as she kept them glued to her artwork, she knew if she looked up they or the blush on her cheeks would give her away. "Apparently they couldn't stop looking at each other or touching each other. Can you believe he's moved on to some other girl already?"

Maddie's mouth dropped open in shock as she listened to her friend, she couldn't believe someone had seen her at the match, luckily they hadn't seemed to have recognised her. "Kim said she looked like some skank!" Anger burst into Maddie's chest as her head shot up to see Ali smiling playfully into the distance.

"How dare she?" Maddie whispered to herself, pissed as hell.

"What was that?" Ali stopped staring into space and turned towards Maddie.

"Um . . . How do they know he was with some girl? Did they recognise who it was?" Maddie's pulse kicked up nervously, waiting for the moment when Ali revealed she knew it was her who had been with Jasper on Saturday.

"Kim was at the game with her dad and brother, she said she saw Jasper and some girl going through the turnstiles. Then she said that they were sat about ten rows in front of them in the stadium, but she didn't get much of a view of the girl. She had long brown hair and wasn't as hot as me." Ali chuckled to herself as she pulled a compact mirror out of her bag to check her hair and make-up were still in perfect condition.

Maddie on the other hand was completely unrelaxed, she was having to bite back all the comments about why Jasper had wanted to split up with her and the fact that sometimes she could be totally conceited. Her knuckles grew white as she strangled the pencil she was now grinding into her sketchbook. She had to fight to keep the growl out of her throat, making sure Ali couldn't hear her.

"I still can't believe you have to work with him for this English project while I get stuck with Carl Sweetman. You'll have to find out who this girl is for me, you can be my undercover spy in 'Camp Jasper'. You trash talk him and find out if he still likes me and wants to get back together." Ali clapped her hands together and giggled with glee as her eyes lit up at the plan forming in her head.

All Maddie could do was raise her eyebrows and keep her mouth shut tight, she knew if she opened it she'd say something she'd regret later. There was no chance in hell she was playing spook for Ali, however she could easily feed some lies to make sure the suspicion didn't fall on herself.

What the hell was she think? She couldn't lie to her friend even to save her own back, she wasn't exactly the world's best liar and that would be what it took to fool Ali. She was an excellent liar herself and knew exactly when everybody else was lying. "I think that's such a great idea, don't you Mads?"

Before Maddie could answer, the bell rang for first lesson, she packed her sketchbook and pencil in her bag and hurried off to double history. When she got to Miss Davies classroom she found most of the class waiting outside. She stood next to Holly, one of the girls off the team that she sat with in History lessons.

"What's going on?" Maddie looked up at Holly who was about three inches taller than her, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. In the room behind them they could here Miss Davies really shouting at somebody and she wasn't a teacher that generally blew her top. Maddie looked at Holly with her eyebrows raised, surprised at the volume of the shouting coming from behind them.