Life through a string of kisses

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The buzz of talk around them feels alive and yet pointless. Rebecca and her friends are sitting in the corner of the library and it's break time while at school. There's no thought to their movements anymore. Long gone is the day where they escaped to these four walls for an academic break for the first time. They gather here, now, every break time. Every day for the past five years almost repeated.

Rebecca sits in the corner of their group. Her focus wondering independently through her thoughts and the conversations around her. Charlotte is explaining the drama from the weekend's party while simultaneously finishing her homework for that day. While multitasking, she remained energetic throughout her retelling of 'Who kissed who', 'How much Martha drank that left her throwing up in a plant pot outside' and 'Why Radiah was no longer talking to Annabelle'.

As usual, this bored Rebecca. She didn't care for these people in the gossip who always seemed to be doing more living than her currently.

Contrastingly, Ellie had stopped her debate over political parties to engage in the crude discussion. These seemingly opposite factors of Ellie's personality always confused Rebecca. How could someone be so admirably opinionated about the real world yet so fascinated by Sixth Form gossip? Rebecca sometimes wished that she herself had an opinion on everything. And she did for the most part, as she was considerably more worldly aware than most her age. However, concepts she had never really considered before such as the morality of abortion, she hadn't sorted her feelings out on yet.

Rebecca zoned back into the conversation and simply sat and observed her friends. They were sat in a wonky circle, bags packing them into the tight space.
Most of the time she was unconsciously content. Simply going through the motions of what was expected of her. However, it was times like this, the quiet moments, when she would question her satisfaction with life. The pointlessness of it all. Or why she was friends with these girls in the first place. What had drawn them together or was it just that they lived in the same town?
But then the bell would ring and the cycle of yet unanswered questions would be forgotten and the structure of the day would take over once more.

This was the worst part. To be stood at the double doors that led into the Sixth Form cafe. To be stood alone.

Rebecca didn't mind having her Music class alone as she could just sit, listen, pretend she was invisible and get on with the work. She sat next to Paul, who was a nice enough guy who seemed as if his passion for the Labor party made up his entire personality. Rebecca and Paul had had a couple of debates about it, as she was interested in his opinion, however, it seemed to her that he didn't know what he was talking about: but afraid of seeming ignorant she would just smile and nod. Paul was intelligent and that attracted her so much that at one point last year she thought she had a crush on him, but she soon realised she didn't like his face.

So after walking from class straight to the lunch room Rebecca found herself alone in front of people from her year doing her best not to look out of place. Spotting two circular tables free she pulled them together and started gathering chairs. She didn't know how many they might need as her friendship group seemed to be constantly warping.
Shannon used to sit with them but had become increasingly distant last year until she just stopped coming to the library altogether. Bobby and Frankie were relatively new, having only come to Sixth Form, and not gone through the rest of the Secondary school like the rest of the girls. Both, Bobby and Frankie, were extremely nice and came from the same Secondary school, but that is where the similarities ended. Bobby was an introvert interested in Folk music whose words could easily be lost in a group. Whereas, Frankie was an extrovert whose unique fashion style and loud personality, easily contrasted the conservative town. Whether Charlotte came depended on the amount of Graphics coursework due in at the time.
Qaswa would come for five minutes to eat lunch then disappear to revise for the rest of lunch. Rebecca often admired this while simultaneously despised the girl's ability to revise. There was Ellie and Lily, both with the same romantic experience, however, Ellie was able to put up the facade of knowledge. Finally, there would be Jenny, Rebecca's best friend. Jenny, the once considered 'shy' type, constantly appeared to Rebecca as the embodiment of perfection. She was smart, kind, liked photography, reading and was well liked. It had surprised Rebecca when they had become friends. On occasion she wondered if she fancied the girl, or if she just wanted to be more like her. For now though, she just settled on being her friend.

The cafe started filling up with people who seem content with life and know it's direction. Usually, this consisted of their friends already waiting for them. With the misconception that everyone was starring, when in reality no one noticed, Rebecca pretended to look busy by looking at her diary till her friends came.
Eventually, they started filing up the chairs, already mid-discussion. The Cards Against Humanity were passed out and Rebecca laughed with her friends while time silently passed.