It Started with a Bet... (Watty Awards 2011)

45: "Hey, Haley, I'd like to be full."

"Haley, would you be a dear and move?" The table is full now, since we've started forcing Janice to sit with us. Janice just kind of glares at her. I wonder what got between them...

"Where do you want me to move to?" I ask quietly.

"She was here first," Clarice says with a glare.

"You're right. I'm so sorry. I guess...I'll just have to sit on someone's lap." I see her eyes flick over to Trevor. Part of me wants to flip her off but the other part wants her to go for it. The more I see him with other girls the more it'll hurt. And hurt can become anger. And anger will never become love.

"Hey, Clarice." Spike pulls her onto his lap and pats the space beside him.

"Come here, Haley." The part of me that still wants Trevor gives Spike a grateful glance. "Three," he mouths at me.

"What?" I ask, sitting down.

"Three godchildren." I look at him.

"You never delivered on the first one!" Spike looks confused.

"I never told you? She was clingy."

"Who was clingy?" Christa asks.

"The Saran-wrap saleswoman I broke up with," Spike says evenly, taking a bite out of Clarice's sandwich.

"Really?" Christa asks, as though she doesn't get the joke. Way to play dumb, Christa. Janice raises an eyebrow in disgust.

"Yeah," Spike says, flipping his wrist gay-ly. "And so shallow. I could, like, totally see through her." We all chuckle, but Janice is still stoic.

"Just like we can all see through you," she says to Christa icily, taking a sip of her water.

"What are you talking about?" Christa asks, mid-giggle. But there's a steely showdown beginning in her eyes.

"Hey, Haley," Janice says, leaning over to take the subway sandwich I bought on my way to school. "I'd like to be full."

***

“Trevor, you never told us how Haley saved your ass,” says Clarice. She’s only taken one bite of her sandwich so far. Trevor slides in next to Janice, who’s eating a salad she brought from a deli or something.

“You’re not hungry?” I ask, unwrapping my hunk of a sandwich.

“I like to be fit,” Janice says. I nod and take a monster bite of my sandwich.

“Well, if you’d like to be full just ask and I’ll give you a bite.” Janice glares while the boy next to me holds his fist out for punching.

***

Being filled with testosterone, the guys at the table completely miss the subtlety of this new Female Alliance of Kickassness. Clarice looks from me to Janice and claps her hands excitedly.

"I knew you'd come around!"

Janice gives her a look and Clarice shuts up. Spike looks from me to Christa to Janice to Clarice. He lifts a hand to massage his temple and looks imploringly at the other guys.

"Okay, I'm lost. Is anyone else lost?"

Matt makes a 'duh' face.

"Janice has finally realized that full is better than flat."

Everyone turns to stare at him.

"Matt, I'm your friend and all," begins Corey, "but you're an idiot."

"Amen," Spike says with a laugh.

"Trevor, I don't understand. What's going on?" Christa asks, pouting and moving closer to him. Trevor hasn't said anything this entire time. He's been staring off into space. Not that I noticed, really.

"I don't know, Christa. I wasn't paying attention." He tries to scoot further down the bench, but she just follows him, her eyes on her food as though what she's doing is totally subtle.

"Hey, I love you too, man, but I try to save my lap for the ladies," Matt protests finally with a laugh. Trevor chuckles half-heartedly and turns to Christa.

"Could you move down?" She turns slowly, her eyes wide.

"Sorry? Oh, move! Of course!" She smiles prettily and scoots down a bit.

"You know you could have dragged up a chair like I did," says Corey from his chair at the end of the table. The rest of us are sitting on the benches attached to the sides.

"I would but there aren't any more," Christa says with a pout.

"That's because I didn't want you sitting here and moved it." Janice says coldly.

"Oh, Janice, you're so funny. It's amazing these people let you hang out with them."

Janice raises an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, do they even know what happened on the day of the field trip?" I wonder what Christa has up her sleeve now. I punched her in the face too, so it's not like she can pretend to be blameless.

"Who was the one to set up Clarice and Matt's little 3 hour imprisonment? Who set up the sticky-note escapade? Who came up with the idea of saying they saw Haley in Corey's car?" Christa shakes her head slowly and puts on an innocent look of remorse.

"And all those tortures by period? I don't know how you came up with them. I mean, I did tell you those were a little overboard. Especially that picture of Haley and Spike. But still..."

"Creative genius, right?" Janice says with a dangerous smile. She takes a leans forward slightly. "If that's what I did to her, imagine what I can do to you. After all, Haley didn't even make me legitimately angry." Christa's eyes go wide, but she doesn't say anything. The rest of us aren't really sure what to do.

We all knew, obviously, that Janice had been partially behind everything. But when Christa phrased it like that, it made us seem like real losers for pulling Janice into our circle. After all, Christa had been just as much of a bitch and we weren't forcing her to hang out with us. The bell rang, but no one moved.

"You know the difference between you and Janice, Christa?" Clarice asks finally, breaking the concentration between them.

"What?" Christa asks finally, that stickily sweet smile pasted back on her face. Clarice gets up and puts a hand on Janice's shoulder.

"Janice is our friend." And with that, she grabs Spike's hand and they leave.

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A long author's note today because I have a couple things to take care of:

1) Someone kindly noted that they would much prefer longer chapters (or at least double posted chapters), so this chapter and the next one (which will be posted in the next few minutes) is to sredbird10 <3

2) I have become aware in the past few days that this story somehow bears a great resemblence to the story "The Bet" that is already on wattpad. I really don't know what to say to that because

a) I haven't read "The Bet" and
b) I wrote this book about a year ago and posted it on another site already, so this book really was in no way based off of that story. 

I appreciate those of you who alerted the author of "The Bet" to this issue, but don't worry. When I first started posting this story I actually messaged that author because her story description sounded scarily similar to what I knew my story would become, so she is aware of this. If you're still a little skeptical, please message me and I can give youthe link to the version of this I have posted on a different site but I'd rather not post that link up here because I'd love you guys to 

a) finish the story here, and
b) I've been editing bits of the plot and some typos and would rather you all read the final-ish product.

I'm off to post the next chapter, so toodles!