AWKWARD HONESTY (TGD BOOK ONE)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Stab the body and it heals but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.

- Mineko Iwasaki

Friday, January 4th

I've made the trek up to the library cafe again to get a chocolate frappe. This is the second trip I've made to The Book Nook this week. The first attempt I made yesterday was a disaster because Kate and Ella were sitting together inside.

I noticed them only after I'd already ordered and paid. I made the decision to leave rather than risk being seen by my ex-best mates. I didn't want to deal with a pity greeting accompanied by an insincere offer to join them, or worse, they might have not acknowledged me at all. That's normally what they do anyways. I've rarely seen either of them around outside of school since we stopped hanging out. Their choice, not mine. And I rarely see them at school because all my spare time is spent in the tech lab; reading; drawing or feigning interest in whatever online games Alistair or Stavros are in there playing.

The staff member behind the counter smiles. "Morning, the usual?"

How nice, someone remembers me. "Yes, thanks." I hand over my rewards card and note before stepping aside to let her serve the next in line.

I can still remember the last time that we were all here together. We sat in the corner booth next to the fish tank drinking milkshakes. Ella arrived late because she'd picked up a congratulations card and a block of chocolate to give me to celebrate my acceptance into the advanced program alongside half a dozen other students in our district.

I remember admitting how nervous I was to start an intensive summer program alongside a heap of kids from other schools I'd never met. Ella promised me that if the other nerds were mean to me, she'd bash them. We'd laughed and then discussed movies for the slumber party we were having that weekend for my twelfth birthday.

That sleepover was our last one, by the time the summer holidays were over I realised that proximity was the only basis for my relationship with Ella and Kate. Having had no contact for two months with either of them and skipping my first year of high school entirely I suddenly found myself an outcast from my own clique.

It wasn't even a gradual loss of friendship between us either, almost from day one last year I was a total pariah, all because I didn't have any classes with them as they were in the seventh grade and I was in eighth grade.

"Is that all, hun?" the dimpled and busty cashier asked me brightly as she hands me my purchase.

I consider asking her if she had any younger sisters that I could be friends with, before realising she was just trying to upsell me on a muffin. "Yes, thanks," I said tucking my battered copy of Northanger Abbey I'd just hired from the library under my arm and retreated to the farthest corner booth to settle in. I'm not that desperate. Yet.

Besides, I have Jade to talk to. I also have the kids in my string's ensemble, and there's Alistair of course, who I've known forever. He and I have been in every class together since I moved here. We bonded over being the only students with single-parent families, though his mum has remarried recently and mine, it seems, is still trying to.

Unfortunately, despite the rare moments of company he provides, he is a boy and that just isn't the same as spending time with other girls. Hanging with him in the tech lab every other lunch period last year, when he didn't have a better offer that is, wasn't exactly the close relationship I was craving. I now know far too much about skins and loot boxes. It definitely wasn't the sort of friendship I'd once had with the two girls I used to spend hours with sitting in the very booth I was trying my hardest not to stare at right now.