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i. first interaction

Friday, 3rd last day of the school year. Bianca had dragged me to the mall with her to pick out her wedding dress - well, not her wedding dress, the dress she was going to wear to her aunt's wedding. She was my best friend and she knew I had nothing else to do on a Friday afternoon, and deep down I loved trying on expensive fancy dresses for absolutely no reason, and she knew it. Bianca was a full 5 months older than me, meaning she already had her red 'P' plates, which also meant that she could drive us to the dress shops after school. 3:00 rolled around as I sat on the edge of my stool in bio-chem, just waiting for the bell to ring. The very second the shrill sound rang out across the campus I raced down the hallway to her general maths room where my best friend was waiting for me.

The drive from our highschool to the mall was relatively short, no longer than 10 minutes. I connected my phone via her bluetooth anyways, even if we'd only get in 3 or 4 songs on our journey. We screamed along to a couple of fall out boy songs and then arrived at our destination. Taking our school bags from the back seat of Bianca's matchbox car, we made our way inside the shopping outlet.

'What about this one, this one's cute,' I said, stepping out from the changing room, wearing a lavender purple dress that fishtailed at my knees. It had intricate silver beading at the seams where the skirt joined the top, which then cascaded down about a foot before trailing out into silver strands.
'Why are you even looking at dresses for yourself, we're here for my wedding dress remember,' Bianca laughed, stepping out of her own change room. She looked flawless. Her baby pink dress ended just above her knees, with capped sleeves and floral lace lining the bodice. 'Now THAT is perfect for you!' I said enthusiastically.
She span in a circle before turning to the floor length mirror, 'I should buy white pumps to go with this, shouldn't i?' she asked, looking at her faded blue Nikes.
'Oh my god yes!' I replied before stepping back into my change room.

Bianca bought the dress and a pair of white vans with light pink laces, which matched the colour of the dress almost exactly, and we made our way to the food court. We both went to line up for the same food, thai, and then sat down at a two person table. As we ate, we talked about her boyfriend who was going to the wedding with her.

'We need to buy Luke a pink tie before we leave,' she said, her mouth half full of food, 'he hasn't bought a damn tie yet and it's only two days to the wedding.'
'Yeah well, you only just bought your dress, at least he got a suit before now,' I said matter-of-factly.
'He didn't get a suit for the wedding though, it's his dad's and he's just borrowing it.' Bianca said, rolling her eyes.
'Ohhh that makes more sense then,' I said, sipping my water.
'Don't look now, cute guy staring at you, 3 0'clock,' Bianca muttered, putting a fork full of food in her mouth. I immediately looked, slowly turning my head as not to draw attention to myself, and sure enough.

Dark brown, maybe black hair, a black lip ring, blue eyes, leather jacket. Aviators hung on the blue shirt he wore. Two words. Bad boy. We made eye contact for a split second before his gaze was averted to his phone buzzing uncontrollably on the table. Too bad this would be the only time I ever saw him. I watched under hooded lashes as he stood from the table, taking his food tray and dumping it into the rubbish, placing the tray back on top, all while talking into his phone. He turned back momentarily, looking me right in the eyes, and smiled.
'Amethyst! Amethyst!' Bianca near-shouted, right in front of my face, snapping her fingers. 'I've been calling your name for five minutes!' she said when I finally looked at her.
'What'd I miss?' I asked, absolutely clueless.
'Who was that, and why was he making out with you with his eyes?!' she asked. Bianca knew every detail of my personal life, the guys I was talking to, how I liked my tea, which pair of socks is my favourite, she knew it all.
'I have no idea....' I said, wonderstruck.
'Guess he's just gonna be another mall-cutie you'll never see again anyways, sorry Ame,' she said, looking genuinely apologetic. By extension to her knowing which guys I was talking to, she also knew that I had no interest in any of them, and that I was 110% painfully single.

I had already arranged to sleep at Bianca's that night, since I practically lived there part time anyway. After we bought Luke a matching tie to Bianca's outfit, we headed back to her house to gossip about the week's events and to make school holiday plans. We sat cuddled up in tons of blankets on her bed and talked for hours about who we knew had asked out or hooked up with who. That was just our way. The topic of my single-ness was brought up again, Bianca asked me for the 5000th time if I had any interest in anyone at school. My answer, as always, was no. No one piqued my interest at Redfern High, and that was that. My type was the bad boy partial goth guys, the ones with piercings and the faint scent of danger enveloping them like a tight t-shirt. All the boys at Redfern looked like nerds or those popular sports guys who always wore footy shorts. Not that there was nothing wrong with that, it just wasn't my type. The guy from the food court however, well that was another story.

It was getting late, 2:56 a.m. when we looked at her alarm clock, and decided to sleep.

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Word Count: 1030