𝐄𝐔𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀

𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

"Oh my god, Sabrina!" She heard the familiar, high-pitched voice of Jessica Stanley call out as the girl rushed up to her with concern, "Are you okay?"

Sabrina calmly wiped the flavoured ice out of her eyes and licked her lips, humming thoughtfully.

"I usually prefer raspberry," she quipped.

Jessica huffed and glared down the hall at the jocks' retreating figures before ushering Sabrina into the bathrooms — Benny cackling hysterically the entire time, finding the situation and his sister's reaction to be comedy gold.

With a fresh new pair of clothes — that she had thankfully packed for gym class — Sabrina had sat perched up on the counter beside the sinks as she and Jessica cleaned the slushy bits out of her hair.

Maybe she should've been offended. But Sabrina already had so many other things in her life that made her feel bad about herself, adding another to the list would do her no good. So, she chose to let this slide and dismiss it as a 'wrong place, wrong time' type of situation.

"Don't worry about those guys," Sabrina told Jessica as the girl furiously tried to rinse the slushy stain out of Sabrina's clothes, "They're just stupid, shallow jocks being stupid, shallow jocks. Nothing we can do about it."

"They're jerks," Jessica seethed, "Like they shouldn't be allowed to treat anyone like that but they get away with it anyway 'cause they're on like the football team so, automatically, that means they can like do no wrong, you know?"

Sabrina studied her carefully — taking in her tense body language, excessive hand gestures and face reddened with anger — noticing that the girl was displaying an unusual amount of frustration for something that happened to someone she only just recently befriended.

"What did they do to you?" Sabrina questioned curiously, crossing her legs.

Jessica paused and huffed, dropping her hands onto the edges of the sink she leaned over. She looked over to Sabrina. For a girl that tended to be quite oblivious to certain social cues, she was quite perceptive, Jessica thought.

"Nothing," she dismissed, squeezing out the water from Sabrina's shirt, "They didn't do anything."

"Are you sure?" Sabrina prompted, "Because whatever it was, I seriously doubt that it was more embarrassing than getting slushied in front of the whole school," she chuckled.

Jessica cracked a small smile, a beat of silence going by.

"Am I like... annoying to you?" Jessica asked nervously, her voice small.

Sabrina frowned, eyebrows knitting together.

"Of course not," she assured but Sabrina could tell she wasn't buying that so she continued, "Trust me, I know annoying. Annoying is a bunch of bossy ghosts with no sense of personal space that follow you around all day singing the song from Shrek on repeat."

Sabrina glanced to the side at her brother who stood against the wall by the bathroom door with his arms crossed over his chest, looking deeply uncomfortable. He glared back at her.

"Low blow, B," he grumbled, "And I was only doing that because that other dead lumberjack with the chainsaw got it stuck in my head."