Zoey
The week went by very interestingly. I went to school regularly, but when I got to creative writing, Danny would be sitting at my table, waiting for me. And while we did our work, we’d talk about stuff. Not any deep stuff, but normal things that teenagers talk about.
Like movies that were coming out soon or video games or football games or parties. We talked about that kind of stuff and it was surprisingly easy to have conversations with Danny, but it still felt weird, though, to have normal conversations with people outside of Alice, Lance, and occasionally, Keegan.
But Danny just treated me like anybody else, and I can’t explain how nice that was. It was incredibly nice to be treated just like everybody else, even if it was only by one person, but he was nice. Danny was amazing. He was funny and a good listener and he was cute, so that adds some coolness. I’m really glad that I decided to be friends with him.
“So, I’ll see you Monday?” Danny asked on Friday as the bell rang, ending our creative writing class.
I nodded with a small, shy smile. It felt so weird to hear somebody say that to me. Just having a casual friend that you only saw during the week and not on the weekends at all was different for me, but it was a nice different, I suppose. A really nice different, actually.
“Yeah, I’ll see you Monday.” I replied before walking away, towards the exit of the room and the hallway where I always met Alice to walk to wherever we were going to spend our last period, which was free period.
“So how is the friendship going?” Alice asked me with an amused grin as we met in the hallway.
I rolled my eyes at her and we started walking down the crowded area. “It’s going just the same as it was every other day of the week, even though you ask me every day. The answer isn’t going to change on a daily basis, Ali.”
She giggled softly. “I’m just happy for you, Zoe. Anyway, today, I think we should go to the school gym for free period, I feel like I’m getting flabby.”
“Oh, shut up.” I chuckled softly. “You know you’re not flabby.”
“I know, but I still wanna work out. Can we, please?” She squeaked like a little kid, jutting her bottom lip out towards me.
“You know that bottom lip crap won’t work with me, but fine. Isn’t there a gym class right now, though?”
Alice shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. If there is, we’ll just join them.”
“Gym clothes?” I asked her as we headed towards the athletic wing of the school.
“Please.” She scoffed. “I always have gym clothes.”
I sighed, rolling my eyes once more at her random desire to work out and then we travelled to the gym, which was indeed occupied. Not only was it occupied, but it was a guy’s gym class.
“Are you sure we have to work out this period?” I whined. “It’s a boys’ gym class, Ali.”
“It’s our only free period, Zoe.” Alice sighed, dragging me by the elbow over to the phys-ed teacher who was standing by the side of the gym, which was a basketball court with bleachers on both sides of the court. There were currently about 25 sweaty teenage boys running around the boundary lines of the court at full speed.
“What can I do for you two?” The tall, youngish teacher asked us. His name was Mr. Frazier, we both had him for freshman and sophomore year gym classes. He’s mostly really cool, but he kicks your butt, that’s for sure.
“We have a free period.” I stated.
“Can we join this class for today?” Alice finished for me excitedly.
I was very unenthusiastic about this idea considering how lazy of a person I was and how much I hated gym the first and second time around, I didn’t want to do it again just for fun. Luckily for Alice, I was a good friend and didn’t want to leave her alone with a bunch of teenage guys. Even though she could just go to the gym that was in her house, or mine for that matter. We both have really nice gyms at our houses. Lance really likes to work out, he has ever since his Army training, so he spent a lot of time in there recently. And at Alice’s house, her brother, Patrick, is like, obsessed with his body. Like, he has a really nice body, but he’s just so obsessed with working out and all of that stuff, it’s almost worrying.
“Really?” Mr. Frazier asked in shock. Maybe that’s because Alice is the only person crazy enough to actually want to do gym, because normal people, like myself, hate the class and only take it because it is forced upon us. But not Alice, of course. “Um, I guess so.”
“Thanks!” Alice chirped, grabbing my elbow and yanking me towards the girl’s locker room. I noticed all of the strange looks people were sending us as they ran in their circle, probably wondering why we were even there. I was wondering the same thing as well, my best friend is so weird. And that’s why I love her so much.
“So why are we here again?” I asked once we were in the girl’s locker room.
“Because we haven’t done gym in a long time.” Alice chirped, throwing a workout outfit of a tank top and shorts at me, along with tennis shoes.
“There’s a reason for that.” I remind her as we both get dressed in a tank top and shorts with tennis shoes. I threw my dark hair into a pony tail as did Alice with her blonde waves. “And we both have home gyms, why are you insisted on working out with a bunch of sweaty teenage guys?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh, come on, Zoe. Be a little bit more spontaneous.”
I sighed heavily once again to let her know that I was not happy about this, and we made our way out to the basketball court again where Mr. Frazier was briefing the boys on what game they were going to play today; dodge ball.
“Yes!” I cheered, high fiving Alice with excitement and suddenly, I was totally okay with being in this gym class- I absolutely love dodge ball and we were both kick ass at it.
“We need team captains.” Mr. Frazier announced, looking around the sea of guys and then me and Alice who were standing in the back, behind everyone.
“Me, I wanna!” Alice squealed, raising her hand and jumping slightly, making me laugh.
“Okay, Alice.” Mr. Frazier said, also laughing slightly. When Alice spoke, the whole class spun their heads around to face us with either a small smirk or wide eyes. Multiple pairs of wondering eyes were caught traveling down mine and Alice’s legs, but I guess we had that coming when we dressed in shorts and a tank top with a guy’s gym class. Don’t look at me, though, it was all Alice’s fault. “We need another captain.”
“Zoey will do it!” Alice volunteered me before another person could volunteer for themselves.
“I’m sure somebody else can do it.” I muttered, not wanting to take the opportunity away from somebody who legit wanted to be a caption for the game.
“Nope, we got this.” Alice grinned.
“Okay.” Mr. Frazier laughed. “The girls are the captains then.”
“That’s not going to end in disaster or anything.” A brown haired guy in the front muttered sarcastically.
“We heard that.” Alice snapped, shooting the boy a short glare as we moved away from the crowd..
The boy’s friends started laughing hysterically and making “ooooh!” sounds at their now-embarrassed friend, which was pretty hilarious, I think.
Picking teams was easy once we all dispersed from the little group around Mr. Frazier. Me and Alice both took turns picking our people, even though we didn’t go off of abilities. At least, I didn’t. I claimed all the cute guys first and then the guys who looked like they were losers, because I didn’t want them to be picked last, and then the guys in the middle between really cute and loserville. The whole time we were choosing our teams, trash talk was flying between me and Alice just because of how competitive we could get between each other, it was all joking, of course, but it was still fun to mess with her and shoot comeback at her when she would say something to me.
When we had our teams, the coach instructed us to huddle together on opposite sides of the gym so that we could get a plan together.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” One of the guys asked me with raised eyebrows.
“Dude, shut up, you’re going to get yourself murdered!” One of his friends hissed, hitting him over the head as if it was the stupidest question on earth. The guy also whispered the statement, and I think that he didn’t think that I could hear it, but I did.
“I am not a murderer.” I defended, noticing the guy’s shocked face when he realized that I heard him. “But yes, as a matter of fact, I do know what I’m doing. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to play dodge ball, dufus.”
“Well, then what do you suggest we do?” The first guy asked with a rude eye roll. I didn’t like him very much, he was kind of mean.
I fed them my plan and they all nodded with impressed approval, apparently liking my genius plan, which was good.
“But don’t expect to win this game, Alice knows the game too, so she’s giving them a great plan too.” I warned them all just as the coach blew his whistle for us to get into formation against the walls of the gym.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“A tie?!” Both me and Alice shrieked incredulously.
Mr. Frazier nodded and laughed. He laughs at us a lot, but I don’t really mind. We are pretty hilarious people when we want to be, so I completely understood. “Oh no, come on, can’t we do sudden death or something?” Alice pleaded.
“Sorry, class is almost over and we don’t have time to play anymore.” He said apologetically.
“But somebody needs bragging rights here!” I defended with major disappointment.
He shrugged. “Sorry, girls. Hit the locker rooms!” He ordered the whole class of guys.
We both groaned like little kids before hurrying for the locker room. “This isn’t finished, Chase.” Alice informed me.
I rolled my eyes at her with a teasing smile. “Please, I can take you anytime, Bowman. And we both know it.”
“Excuse you!” Alice boasted. “We tied, so you obviously can’t take me at any time, because if you could, then you would have won. So, ha!”
“Zoey!” Somebody called my name before I could respond to her, causing both me and Alice to spin around to see one of the guys from the gym class jogging over to us. I didn’t recognize him, so I was curious as to why he had called my name.
“Yes?” I asked curiously.
“Okay, so don’t cut my nuts off for asking you this,” He began nervously. Well, that was a lovely way to start a conversation. At least, I think so. I always say hello to strangers with “don’t cut my nuts off” it’s actually general manners. “but you’re friends with that journalist, right?” He asked timidly, shaking some of his red hair out of his eyes. I really didn’t understand why he looked so nervous. I don’t think that I looked scary at all. I was sweaty and tired, but not scary.
“Um, journalist?” I asked in confusion. “No, I don’t know any journalist.”
“Yeah, um, what’s his name? Danny.. . Danny Banks?”
“I know Danny, I’m friends with him, he isn’t a journalist.” I informed the ginger boy.
“Uh, yeah he is.” The boy told me. “He’s friends with my brother, they work on the school paper together. Please don’t hurt me, I-I didn’t know that you didn’t know or I wouldn’t have brought it up, I was just-”
“We’re not going to hurt you.” Alice assured him and interrupting his rant about why we shouldn’t hurt him, but my head was spinning with confusion at what the boy had just told me. Danny wasn’t a journalist, he would have told me because we’re friends. That’s for sure. Don’t friends tell other friends that kind of stuff? Like, what they do after school and their hobbies, and if they are journalists.
“He never told me that.” I muttered softly.
“He probably didn’t tell you that he is supposed to be doing a story on you either then?” The boy asked with raised eyebrows. Oh my god. I seriously felt like I was going to throw up, I really was.
“No, he didn’t.” I mumbled.
The boy shrugged. “Looks like he lied. I was just going to ask you something, but I guess this isn’t the best time, so it was nice talking to you, I guess.” He said in a hurried tone, obviously wanting to get away from me before I exploded, and then he quickly disappeared into the boys locker room.
“Are you okay?” Alice asked me cautiously as I marched into the girls locker room, leaving her in the dust behind me, but she quickly caught up with my fast, angry strides..
I was not okay. I was furious. He used me, that’s what all of this was about. That’s why he was so persistent to be my friend, because he needed answers because he wanted a good fucking story. That’s why he always asked me questions, I thought he was genuinely curious about me, I really thought that he cared. But I guess that’s what I get for breaking the rules for him- I trusted him and that’s like, rule number one, not to trust people but I did. I really just wanted a friend, but he wasn’t a friend, not in the least. He was just using me the whole time. I really hated journalists, I’ve made that clear. But I’ve never met one that was okay with faking friendship with somebody so vulnerable just to get a fucking story.
With a slam of the rusty gym locker, I growled at my best friend like an angry wolf or something. “Danny Banks is dead to me.”