[We Are Legion]

Julie, my sweet, Where art thou?

Honk!

My eyes snapped open, the bus stop was a few meters behind me, a few other girls my age snickering behind my back.
"Good one Joey", thoughts ran through my head,
"First impressions are everything, I forgot who said that",
It was sort of relaxing riding on the bus, I would always used to get driven to school, but my dad's conked out car never really gave us much hope. I distracted myself from the thought how I always would, watching the leaves go by and seeing which branches smacked into the tinted bus windows.
"Hey, you don't mind me sitting here, right?",
I took a brief glance over and kind of wished I hadn't, Julie stood by the chair leaning against a pole in her regular grey and beige casual wear. We sort of knew each other, but that was last semester before her massive glow up, she was pretty out of my league after that.
I just nodded and her bashful smile lit up her face, I never said I didn't like her.
"Sorry I haven't been keeping up with you, I feel like I haven't spoken to you in months",
"Probably because you haven't", we laughed,
"I've been pretty swamped lately with other friends who I probably don't deserve", she looked at her feet, clearly tired. But it was amusing sometimes to see how oblivious she really was.
"Look, I don't mind, I've had my own share of hangouts", I said, reassuringly,
"You know Susie right?",
Julie scratched her head in thought,
"The tiktok e girl?", I was afraid she'd say that, if Susie was here there would be some angry cat fighting right about now,
"Sure..., but yeah she basically has me hostage", any opportunity I could take to make Julie laugh was worth my time.

The bus hissed loudly, Julie and I saying our goodbyes and separated, I would marry that girl in a heartbeat,
"Hey Weirdo", a lock of pink hair came into my vision. Susie, dammit. She put 2 fingers in front of my eyes, tracing my vision to Julie at her locker,
"Uh oh, somebody's got a wittle crush", she teased.
I'm pretty sure my face went blood red like every anime girl ever, I just hoped Susie didn't notice,
"Pretty sure you knew about it already", I spoke as normally as I could,
"Yeah duh, but it's fun to rub these things in your face sometimes", I rolled my eyes and walked to my locker, the rhythmic noise of metal clanging echoing around the halls. Susie skipped beside me looking at her phone, if I've learned anything from being around her she cannot LIVE without tiktok, its essentially her life blood and I'm often the first person to hear about that,
"You seen my newest post Joey?", she questioned, giving me the puppy eyes. I'm prepared for this. I wrote a bunch of responses down and I just pull one out whenever I get a tiktok question, something in the world explodes on the day I install and damn app,
"Was, it the one with that other tiktok star?",
"Yeah!", Told you,
"His name is Frank, I think, he's actually kinda cute", she pressed the phone in my face showing some odd dance between Susie and this easily 6 foot chiseled guy that looked around our age,
"Eh, he's alright, he probably saw you and thought it was an easy catch", I half joked,
Susie gave me a playful punch and giggled along to my joke. I still think tiktok is weird.

A paper plane landed cleanly on my desk, history class, the one time Julie, Susie and I are all together in Canada's flawed education system. Unfolding the plane showed me Susie's surprisingly neat writing with 3 words.
Ask her out.
I frowned at her but I was met with a smile and a nodding head, I guess we have known each other for a while, but I barely knew where to start.
"Ow!", I yelled, half by accident, I turned back to Susie and got a plane straight to the eye.
"Goddammit Joey, I'm trying to teach the class here",
"Sorry Mr Quinn", I apologized.
The next paper plain simply said, Movies, I could feel myself breathing heavily already as the bell rang and Susie quickly ran out of the classroom, Julie texting in her seat.
"Hey Julie", I cracked
Her blonde hair waved at me as she turned her head,
"Oh, hey Joey, What's up?"
"I - I was wondering if you wanted to see a movie with me this weekend", I rushed the last few words, her face changed to a sort of pity sadness.
"Joey, I'm sorry, I've got something on", she flashed her phone at me revealing a text conversation with a name that seemed to just keep coming up today,
Frank.

Outside, Susie was practically jumping for joy,
"Come on! Give me the scoop! How'd it go?",
I sighed and her bright green eyes became visibly darker,
"I struck out, she had something on already, with. Frank."
Susie showed a mixture of anger and disappointment I hadn't really seen before, it was pretty funny to be honest.
"OK", she started, "You can save us both here, just go to her house and say uh, Julie, my sweet, Where art thou?",
I snickered as she dramatically reenacted something from Romeo and Juliet,
"I am Not, doing that",
Susie may be a klutzy tiktoker but she really can make someone's day a lot better.