Friday, February 22, 2008

"You lied to me!" Eve Rowland said, arising from her seat on a concrete block in the middle of the Crescenta Valley High School quad and throwing the box of chocolates she hadn't even eaten yet onto the ground in fury, in turn forcing it open and scattering pieces of candy all around. Though the comment was only directed at not one, but two liars, she nonetheless looked into the eyes of each of the four students surrounding her, not knowing who to trust and who not to. Clarifying her statement, she pointed to Skylar Hansen, a curly-haired boy she'd narrowly avoided dating, and Samara Pearse, a dirty blonde traitor who'd almost allowed it to happen, and said, "Both of you lied to me!" Realizing she'd have to confront one of them before the other, Eve looked to Samara and demanded answers. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Samara shrugged. "Technically I didn't lie, Eve, since I'd only known what was going on for the last couple of hours and we were both in classes for most of that time. Even if I'd had time in which to not tell you that Hard Drive here," she said, mockingly pulling Skylar in close to her, "was going to foolishly attempt to run two programs simultaneously, I was only going to do it to teach him a lesson, which unfortunately, has now been canceled."

"Unfortunately?" Eve scoffed. "He was going to try and juggle two girls at once!" She glanced at the other girl, a bustier, browner-haired junior, Stacey Milano, whose drunken antics routinely made her a top choice among those guys looking for an easy lay. "A contest I know I would've lost!"

"Thank you?" Stacey said. "Look, I'm not any happier about this, Eve. At the winter formal, Skylar got me drunk and almost had sex with me before leaving me alone and asleep on the field in the rain."

"Wait, almost?" Eve said.

"He bowed out because he was such a good guy," Stacey said sarcastically.

"I'm standing right here!" a desperate Skylar interrupted them.

"So explain yourself, then."

Skylar looked back and forth between the two pretty girls, one a younger, more innocent blonde, the other an older, far more experienced brunette, and shrugged. "I've had very little experience with the ladies," he said, which made all three girls either laugh or roll their eyes, as if that somehow justified such a stupid act. "I didn't mean to lead you both on, it just sort of…happened."

"And to think," Eve said, shaking her head, "I was going to go out with you tonight!"

"I'll go," Adam Vegerano, a freshman boy with black hair, remarked while raising his hand, only to receive equally disdainful looks from the girls. "Worth a shot," he shrugged.

"You're no better," John Gomez-Cavanaugh, a new transfer student from Colombia with long black hair and similar taste in clothing said, smacking his fellow Latino upside the head. "What woman would want to go out with you? You've said some hurtful things to my friend Stacey here, and anyone that hurts my friends is due for a hurting from me."

"You're too violent," Adam said. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"I'm only violent when the situation calls for it. And you, sir, are straddling that line."

"I'll stop bullying Stacey," Adam said. He looked at Stacey, and with seemingly genuine emotion told her, "I'm really, really sorry, okay?"

"Well, that makes it all better, doesn't it?" Stacey grumbled.

"Hey, I'm sorry, too!" Skylar said. "To both of you!" he told Eve and Stacey. "And to you, Samara!" Samara smiled and nodded in response. "I know I've already apologized for what I did, but I also know how much you like people to suck up to you!"

"What did you do?" Adam asked.

"He saw me naked. Long story."

Adam's eyes popped open. "Can I suck up to you, too?" John smacked Adam on the back of the head again. "Ow, man, that hurts!"

"If you knew how much I liked people to suck up to me, Hard Drive," Samara said, "then why didn't you listen when I told you to come forward about this earlier today?" Skylar bit his lip and paused, thinking of a reply. Before he could give one, she did so for him. "That's right, because you're a lying, cheating bastard just like your old friend Jimmy."

"We're not friends anymore," Skylar snapped at her. "I told you that."

"Hence, old friend. And even if you aren't friends with him anymore, he's definitely had an bad influence on you regardless."

"Jimmy who?" Adam said. "I know a Jimmy."

"James Allen," John said. "He's been suspended from school, so he's actually not here right now."

"Oh, crap." Adam turned to Stacey and sighed. "Stacey, there's something I've been hiding from you."

"Okay, now what?" a flabbergasted Eve said.

"Wonder what's going on over there?" Holly Snow said as she and her friends watched Samara, John, Stacey, and two other people they didn't know nearly as well verbally sparing further out into the quad, away from Holly and Claire Zielinski's usual spot at the north end near the school's main building. Her Australian accent made her stand out, but aside from that she was just like any other average high school sophomore girl, with chocolate brown hair and bright blue eyes, traits echoed in her fully American best friend, but with the blue in her eyes replaced by green in Claire. "Looks like someone got sprung."

"Looks like several people got sprung," Claire remarked. She quickly turned to look at Holly and asked, "Sprung means…?"

"Caught doing something wrong."

"Right." She returned her gaze to the other group and added, "Those bastards."

"We don't even know what they did, Claire."

"We know it was something bad, don't we?"

"Probably, but let's not judge them blind."

"Holly, Claire," Terra Verbinski, a skinny black-haired girl from Holly's dance class, said to get their attention. It worked. "Who cares? Let's just eat our lunch. Whatever it is, it doesn't concern us."

"I'm sure Samara will find some way to make it so it does," Claire said.

"And you're looking forward to this, are you?" Melanie Smith, a tall redhead from the same dance class, asked her.

"No," Claire shrugged. "I mean, who looks forward to a visit from Samara? I'm just saying, that girl needs to find a friend and stick with it, instead of just hovering around everybody else, giving them lazy nicknames and overlong speeches about how she's so much better than we'll ever hope to be."

"But she's not," Terra said.

"No shit. She's worse."

"While that's arguably the case, Claire," Melanie said, "what happened between her and Jimmy was—"

Claire sent Melanie a warning expression.

"Not her fault," Melanie finished.

"Sure, telling my boyfriend, who she knew had cheated on me, and would cheat again, that she was going to cut school and get drunk so he can come over and fuck her, is not her fault."

"It's not!" Melanie argued. "It's not like she was planning to become the other woman!"

"One of the other women," Terra said. "All three of them were manipulated by Jimmy, remember?"

"Can we please not talk about this?" Holly said. "Not only are we just repeating stuff we've already talked about, but we all know this isn't the solution!" She put her hand on Claire's shoulder. "You need to forgive Samara, Claire. It's been three weeks."

"Holly, it's been a week since you broke up with Kent," Claire replied. "Or he broke up with you. Or both. Whatever the hell happened, you don't see me pushing you to forgive him."

"That's different. He doesn't need forgiving. We parted on mutual terms."

"That is such bullshit!" Claire said. "Somebody had to make the first move!"

"Probably her," Terra said, casually pointing to Holly.

"Excuse me?" Holly said.

"Well, let's face it, Holly," Melanie said. "You're a beautiful, fairly popular girl with a lot of friends. Kent is…not."

"Who does he have, Tom?" Terra added. "And a bunch of Tom's friends that are still in middle school? Face it, that's kind of weird for a high school guy to have friends like that."

"So you're glad I'm rid of him," Holly said. "Because he's weird, which is why you assume I broke up with him." Claire, Terra, and Melanie exchanged glances between themselves and with Holly, and then nodded in agreement with a few utterances of affirmative phrases. "Let's change the subject, shall we?"

"Samara is a bitch," Claire said.

"Fine, we'll run with that."