nothing lasts - b.e

|6|

TW - links to SH

The next morning, I got to Billie's house at seven twenty-three to prove a point but to my annoyance she was already stood outside her house as if she already expected this to happen.

Of course.

"How long were you waiting?", I ask once she opens the door, she takes her time a responding, putting her bags all over my backseats and her drink in my cupholder.

"A few minutes", She speaks casually, I knew she was trying to piss me off so the second she put her seatbelt on I jerked the car back wards causing her drink to spill all over my cupholder.

"Dude!", she glares at me.

"Whoops", I laugh, with an innocent look on my face, "There are wipes in the glove compartment".

She lets out a huff before wiping down the cupholder a lot more carefully than I had expected.

"Can you turn the music down?", she grumbles, sinking lower into her seat, "It's too early for this shit"

"It's The Smiths"

"I know who it is"

"Sure you do"

"Oh I forgot you're the only girl our age who's really into eighties music, how quirky of you", she speaks sarcastically but I give her no response.

Instead I turn up the music until its blasting out my car to which she scoffs and turns away from me, we don't speak for the rest of the drive, but still that afternoon the cheerleaders show up near the end of practise.

•

By Thursday, homecoming is all that anyones talking about, the principal had announced that final voting for homecoming king and queen would be on Friday during homeroom and now no one could shut up about it.

I'd heard Billie's name more than I'd ever heard in my life, and as I'm still carpooling with her, the attention on me only intensifies and it's beginning to take a toll, I could barely walked down the corridor without hearing murmurs about me and I hated it.

"Homecoming is so overrated", Asteria mumbled before taking a bite out of her sandwich, to which I nodded in agreement.

It was lunchtime and we were sat in the courtyard which was populated with students gossiping about who the king and queen will be.

"I mean it's 2023 and we're still doing a 'who's the most popular, pretty girl in the school?' or 'who's the most popular, good-looking boy?' vote", she complains, "and they wonder why there's a mental health crisis, the beauty standards are fucked!"

"Exactly", I agree, "It's so stupid—"

We're suddenly interrupted by Elodie Chandra, the captain of the girl's basketball team at this school. The basketball girls are notoriously hot, all toned in all the right places and nearly all of them are taken. They're also our schools pride and joy when it comes to winning championships. It's well known at this school, if you want any chance of popularity, you either play basketball or are cheerleader.

Which is now why I'm incredibly confused to why Elodie has come up to us considering I've never spoken a word to her in my life.

"Uhm.. hi?", I say awkwardly, glancing over at Asteria who looks equally confused.

Elodie holds a tray of home baked brownies, a large but not so genuine smile on her face.

"Happy homecoming", She says, her pearly white teeth almost blinding me as she smiled, "I hope you'll consider voting me for homecoming queen!"