𝐆𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 || #𝟏

Chapter 17

Alexis scoffs, and leaves the hall. Jolene finally returns, and tearfully goes back to singing while Shawn and I dance. It was definitely an eventful rehearsal. I would imagine that I'd no longer be able to sit with Alexis and her friends for lunch.

And for some reason, I'm okay with that.

-- ------ --

So here I am, not sitting with Alexis and her posse. Instead, I'm sitting with Jolene, Emily, Lorelei and Luke over by the edge of the cafeteria. I must say, the atmosphere is much better over here. I can speak freely without being judged every second, and instead of gossiping, we talk; we talk about a subject we all love. Minecraft.

Jolene, Emily and Lorelei are all on their laptops, building a small town called Oakley while Luke and I talk about our favourite buildings we've built, or our best.

His favourite was when he built a mansion, and my favourite was when I built a castle (hogwarts to be precise. My friend Florence downloaded a minecraft map of Hogwarts and tricked me into thinking she built it herself. Obviously, me being very competitive decided to rebuild it. You can imagine how upset i got when I found out it wasn't built by her).

"Okay so, you built Hogwarts in three days?" Luke repeats again.

"Well to be fair, I didn't build the complete thing. Just part of it before I gave up." I added, taking a sip of apple juice from the juicebox.

"But still, that's like talent."

"It's not talent, it's just called being competitive." I corrected.

"Sure sure." he dismissed, "do you play any other games?"

"Other than minecraft? Definitely, maybe some Pubg or Fortnite-"

"You play fortnite?" He says, making a fake disgusted look on his face.

"At least I killed a TTV streamer the other day!" I said, "it's not that bad."

"I never thought you'd be a girl who played shooting games."

"There's a lot of stuff you don't know about me." I mysteriously smile, backing away.

"Guys, stop flirting." Emily calls out, just loud enough for everyone on our table to hear.

Luke and I make eye contact, and we both burst out laughing, milk splattering out of his nose. Soon, our whole table starts laughing like Donkeys, and the tables around us look at us weird. Especially Alexis' table. I might mention, Shawn's table is also staring at us with disgust, but Shawn isn't. He's looking at us with amusement instead.

At me.

That warm and fuzzy feeling takes place in my heart again, and as much as I try to, those calm waters can't burn it out. In fact, it actually just makes it worse, like when there's pollen in your eye and you keep on spreading it by scratching it. It's exactly like that, and I'm not totally against it, but the fact that I can't make it go away bothers me.

His eye catches mine, and it lingers on for a moment until Alexis sees and walks over to him, demanding his attention. I shrug it off and decide to start up a conversation to cover up what had just happened.

"Okay, Lorelei," I say, stifling a laugh. "What are you building?"

"I'm building a hotel," Lorelei says, a silly grin wide on her face.

"I've been building a school, kids in our town need an education." Emily smartly says. She looks serious, and for some reason, it cracks me up again.

Suddenly, two girls sit down at our table. One, with very fair skin and round glasses, her hair tied back in a low ponytail while the other is asian. Darker skinned, and long dark brown hair streaming down her shoulders. They both wore denim jeans, denim jackets and the fair skinned girl was wearing a white lacey shirt while the asian one wore a plain yellow oversized one, ending at upper thighs.

"Hey," they both say in unison. They both sit down at our table, sitting as if they belonged there.

"I'm Alice," the asian girl says. "And we thought what you did at rehearsal was really cool."

"I'm Aubrey," the girl with round glasses says after. She doesn't smile, but she looks glad to be here at the same time.

"Hi?" I awkwardly say, "I'm Jasmine."

"We know," they both chirp.

"Are you playing minecraft?" Alice asks Jolene, Jolene nods her head. "Can I play with you guys too?"

Aubrey starts looking over her phone at pictures of korean boy bands while Alice helps Lorelei, Jolene and Emily build Oakley. Emily seems so focused, she doesn't realise when the bell goes off and we have to go back to class, and Lorelei accidentally leaves her all alone at the able; furiously building her new school. As Luke and I leave, the mean buff cafeteria lady waddles over to Emily, a bible in hand as she strikes her pose by pushing her hands on her hips.

Emily doesn't notice at first; continuing to play and click keys on her laptop, and when she finally realises the huge woman standing over her, she gets scared and runs away. The cafeteria lady triumphantly smirks, and returns to her station in the kitchen, and Emily scampers all the way to us.

"That was scary," she finally said. Her breaths uneven, "next time tell me when you all leave. I don't want to deal with that lady anymore."

"You mean Mrs Child?" Luke grins, "she seems like a sweetheart."

"She does not seem like a sweetheart. Has anyone realised that she always brings a bible around with her for some reason?"

"Alright, it's not that strange. I mean, she could always just be-" luke starts, but Emily and I start snorting. She and I lock eyes with each other, and we both know that we have the same image in our heads.

"Let's just get to class," I finally say. "We don't want to upset Ms Smith, last time she brutally yelled at Abigail for being late."

"I swear, it's like she hates Abigail for some reason," Emily pipes in. "I hope science class will be interesting today, who knows? But with Ms Smith as our teacher, I really highly doubt that."

"She is a bore, isn't she?" Luke agrees, "she always files her nails in class for some reason. At first I thought it was a girl problem, but now I think there's some weird thing going on in her mind now."

"Agreed," Emily and I both say in unison as we start walking down the hall for science class.