Freefall ✓

17 | midnight

"Minnie?" I read the name of the recipient aloud, slightly amused. "Who's Minnie? And why does Minnie have a green heart emoji next to his name?"

"Shh!" she snatched her phone away from my view, shoving it into her bag.

"I thought heart emojis were reserved for the important people. Like, for instance, best friends," I feigned a dramatic cough.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I've got you with a red heart emoji."

"Yeah but green's cuter. I want green too. I'm envious of Minnie now—who the heck's Minnie anyway—" mid-sentence, the puzzle in my brain clicked. Minnie. Do-minni. . .

"Wait wait wait wait—Is that who I think it is?" A smirk crawled onto my lips.

"Shhhh! He's gonna hear," she pointed at the totally absent-minded and oblivious Mr. Barnard, and I almost guffawed out loud. He was definitely not gonna hear. The level of noise in the classroom was very gradually building up, most of the students realizing the teacher had flown off to his own distant world. "Better tell me what happened yesterday."

"What was yesterday?" It was my turn to act slow-witted now.

"Did you find Cameron? Did you talk to him?"

"Ohhh. Yeah. Yeah, I have." I pretended to be more interested in the pencil in my hand. 

She shook her head expectantly, "And? What happened?"

I didn't say anything. My cheeks were warming up and I could bet they were already suffused with color. I took a deep breath and trained all my attention to the striped pencil spinning between my fingers. I'd almost mastered this skill.

"Aud, what are you so smiley about? Spill the tea." 

Was I really smiling? Was it so apparent? Was I really such an open book? Dang. What I knew for a fact though, was that Syd wasn't gonna leave me alone until I told her.

Should I just plainly drop the bomb?

"I'll tell you if you won't freak out and gush about it." 

"Yes, yes yes yes. I won't." I wanted to snort. She would. She totally would.

"Okay, whatever, here it comes. I may or may not have had my first kiss."

 Her eyes turned into two humongous round moons.

"You whaat?!" 

"Shhhh!"I almost clasped her mouth. "Tone it down! Are you trying to be heard from Mexico?!" I whisper-shrieked at her.

"Sorry sorry sorry. But wait, I'm confused—"

"So am I. It's not what you think at all, though. It didn't mean anything."

"Yeah, sure, so you're just friends, I guess."

"Not even that, you see! It's totally weird between us. That's why I didn't wanna tell you, cause you wouldn't understand. I don't even understand myself. And you told me you weren't gonna gush."

"Okay, got it. No gushing. And I wasn't gushing! But wait, didn't you already have your first kiss with that guy from dance. . .—what was his name. . .Calum?"