A/N:I finally got to update! Yay! This is a really rough, unedited version that is still SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Hope you enjoy it anyway!

It all started with a dare…

"Seriously," Candice complained, "These French fries are gross."

"Is it even possible for French fries to taste bad?" I asked.

"If they're so gross than why do you get them every time we come here?" Izzy laughed. Candice shrugged.

"It's food."

This time we all laughed. This was typical of Candice who ate everything but it was easy to be fooled by her small figure. That little body weighed about a ton, though. I knew this because once, she hadn't been looking and actually sat on me. I hadn't been able to walk properly for the rest of the week.

Emily suddenly whined, "I'm boooooored," still staring down at her cell phone, her thumbs moving a mile a minute on the buttons, "Can we, like – I don't know – play or something?"

"This isn't a freakin' playground," Candice snapped, "We can't just pull fun out of our asses."

I slapped a hand over my mouth and Izzy choked on a sip of soda. When Candice got irritated – which was about every 30 seconds – she said the funniest things. It was usually to Emily when she got bored – which happened about every 29 seconds.

"I know," she grumbled, "It's just that nothing interesting ever happens."

She was right. Not here, anyways. But we got kicked out of the burger place with the really bad burgers we used to go to a month ago. Emily had tried to throw her burger at Andrea Moore from across the room – just for the hell of it. Of course, she missed and hit the new waitress in the face.

Even though we were now forced to go to the only other place with decent food for lunch– the food court at the bottom floor of the mall – we haven't stopped our antics. Still, Emily wouldn't be totally satisfied with anything short of a random zombie apocalypse.

"Fine, then," Izzy said, "Let's play 21 questions."

I grinned. "Twenty-one questions or 'what's in the bottle, Avery?'"

Every eye at the table flashed to my black sports bottle. Taking this as a yes, I picked it up and stood at the head of the table.

"Okay," I said, "Go."

Izzy flipped her blonde hair. "Is it something alcoholic?" she smiled. I shook my head.

"Nope."

Emily's already huge blue eyes widened and she stood up and leaned closed to my face. "It's blood, isn't it?" she asked in a mysterious voice. I planted my hand on her face and pushed her back into her chair.

"No, weird ass, it's not blood."

Candice looked at me flatly. "What's in the bottle, Avery?"

"Nice try."

She slammed her hands on the table. "Argh!"

"What are you, some sort of pirate?"

"No!" she yelled, "I should've never gotten you that stupid bottle!"

"Dude, we tried to tell you," Izzy shrugged, "Somehow, I just knew she'd take something as simple as a bottle and find some way to annoy the crap out of us with it."

"I told you to get her a rock," Emily added.

"Yeah, and then we agreed not to because she'd probably just name it Bob and start talking to it like it was a real person."

Emily took a rock out of her pocket. "So? If we would have gotten it then maybe Roy wouldn't always be so lonely."

An awkward silence followed. That's what usually happened when Emily finished talking.

Anyhow, the bottle has been the cause of a long-standing argument between the 4 of us. You see, I had a knack for annoying my friends to the point of insanity. I honestly didn't know what they all kept complaining about because I found it quite entertaining.

As I was saying, we've been fighting about the bottle since Candice got it for me on my sixteenth birthday. The year before that, they'd gotten me a guitar. They'd gotten annoyed with it because I insisted on playing it every time someone said a word that was a lyric in a song.

And I knew a lot of songs.

The year before that they'd gotten me this puppy but I'd trained it to bite and bark on command. That was the year I started to wonder why they kept getting me these things after 5 long years when they knew it was just going to come back and bite them in the ass – literally.

So, finally, last year they'd gotten a clue and gotten me the sport's bottle. I'd looked at the bottle with a kind of puzzled look because I'd thought they finally got me. I didn't know what to do with it. But then one summer my little cousins had this lemonade stand but the lemonade was really watered down. Everyone thought it was gross but I loved it and started to fill the bottle with it every day.

One day, Izzy made the mistake of asking an innocent enough question.

She'd looked at me as I took a sip from the bottle and said, "You're actually using that thing? What's in it?"

I'd been about to tell her the truth when a brilliant idea popped into the load of genius that was my brain and I smiled evilly, "It's a secret."

And so the Bottle was born.

"Right," I said in response to Emily's weird – but not at all unexpected – revelation. I tucked the bottle into my bag. "Anyways, don't worry, you guys. You'll get to find out what's in the bottle someday."

"But you won't be the one to tell us," Candace mumbled.

I grinned. "You know me too well."

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Emily stopped snapping her fingers under a practically drooling Izzy's nose and gave us a helpless look.

"Iz?" I tried

"Izzy." Candace said.

"ISABELLE!" We yelled in unison.

"Huh?" she blinked but didn't look at any of us. She lifted a finger and pointed. "Look."

I followed her gaze to a nearby pillow and wasn't surprised to see a group of boys standing around it. They were – like us – in full uniform. I squinted.

"Eastwood boys?" I asked, recognizing the emblem. Emily shrugged.

"The blonde one is mine." Candace said.

Izzy snapped to attention. "Are you kidding? I saw him first! He's mine!"

"He was mine before he was yours."

"Puh-lease. He was mine before he walked through that door!"

I laughed but the sound was swallowed up by the sound of laughter from the boys' table a few feet away. I struggled not to turn back to look as Izzy jumped to her feet and continued their heated debate about who got to claim the blonde kid.

Suddenly, Emily, who'd been being uncharacteristically quiet, began to swat at Izzy frantically.

"Look, look! That boy is coming over here!" she whisper-yelled.

Izzy looked up and plopped heavily into the chair beside her, eyes wide. Candace blinked. I rolled my eyes.

"You guys are so full of –"

I froze when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Crap," I mouthed.

I turned around and found myself looking into the greenest eyes I've ever seen, thickly framed with dark eyelashes. The boy raked a hand through his black hair and flashed a heart-stopping smile.

"Hi," I managed.

"Um, hi," he returned, "I just wanted to tell you; I'm really sorry for this."

"Sorry for wha –"

Before I could react, the boy pulled me close and suddenly I was being kissed. Really kissed and I couldn't help but react. My friends all let out identical cries of surprise and I could hear the boy's friends hooting and whistling from where they stood.

He pulled away first and I figured I should have been angry at the very public violation of my personal space but all I did was sort of – stare. We looked at each other for a long time, stunned.

And he began to slip away.

His friends began to call to him as he whispered to me, "It was just a dare," and walked straight past his friends, through the door and out of my life.

The remaining Eastwood boys watched him go before turning to look at me appraisingly. My friends stared at me in shocked silence until Emily spoke.

"Well. That was…random."

And coming from Emily, that was saying a lot.

A/N: Alrighty, then. This is a truly strange lot so bare with me, okay? xD I'd really appreciate a review; it would REALLY brighten up my crappy month. Kisses!

Forever and Always,

I Heart You :*