Pinky promise? (gxg)

Chapter 1

6 months later

Jo

It was lunchtime on a particularly warm day in early September. I was sitting at a picnic table in the school yard finishing a packet of crisps. The sun was shining brightly, warming the wooden surface of the table.

I watched Anna across the school yard. Her copper hair was shining in the sun. A light breeze passed the yard, making her hair flow gently. She was laughing about something with Samantha Jackson, Amy Mills and Olivia Hyung, the school's infamous popular girls. Samantha was the leader of the group, the queen bee. She was gorgeous with her tight curly hair and piercing brown eyes, I had to admit. But I didn't like any of them much. They were all shallow and too full of themselves. 

Soon Anna's new boyfriend Chase Robins came up to them. He was in the swim team and just as popular. They had started dating over the summer. He put his arm around Anna's shoulders and gave her a kiss. I narrowed my eyes. Stupid Chase Robins. What did she even see in him?

"You have to stop pining over her, it's been 6 months Jo", Miguel expressed sitting down beside me at the picnic table. He reached into his backbag and grabbed his lunch sandwich, which he began munching on contently.

"Yeah I know, I just miss her", I sighed while glancing over at Anna again. I caught her eyes for a moment, but she looked away quickly. 

I really missed her. We had been best friends from when we were 6 years old. I remembered the day we first met with a smile.

I was standing at the top of the slide at the playground. It looked long and steep and scary.

A little girl's voice called to me from the ground.

"What are you doing?"

I looked down at the girl who was looking at me inquisitively. She had on a yellow sundress and pink gumboots. Two long plats of ginger hair were framing her face.

"Are you going to slide?", the girl asked.

"Yes", I said, trying to sound brave.

"Are you scared?"

"No"

"I'm coming up", she announced.

The girl climbed up and stood beside me at the top. Upclose I noticed she had big baby blue eyes and freckles on her nose.

"It's not as scary when you're sliding down"

When I didn't respond she added:

"I know you can do it"

I thought about it for a bit.

"Pinky promise?" I asked, holding out my pinky to the girl.

"Pinky promise", she stated and wrapped her pinky around mine.

I set down the slide. The girl was right, it wasn't that scary.

The girl slid down the slide after me and giggled as she reached the end. I giggled too.

"Come on, let's slide again!" she said and we ran back up the stairs.

And then just like that, we weren't anymore. Anna stopped responding to my texts and started hanging out with Samantha and her crew. I tried to talk to her, but every time she saw me approaching she went the other direction. Eventually, I stopped trying.

"Yeah I miss her too", Miguel sighed. "But we're not friends anymore, she has made that very clear. She's one of them now, too good for us". There was resentment and maybe a hint of jealousy evident in his voice. 

I knew Miguel secretly wanted to be popular too. He had been bullied pretty badly at school, especially when we were younger. The popular kids didn't take too well to people as eccentric as Miguel. But he didn't let that stop him from dying his hair a different colour every few months. That's what I admired about Miguel, he didn't let anyone stop him from being himself. But that didn't mean it didn't sometimes get to him.

"Come on let's go", Miguel said stuffing the last bit of his sandwich in his mouth. "Jooo, are you there or have you been abducted by aliens, come on we have to get to class".

"Coming", I muttered standing up from the table and following Miguel towards the school doors, throwing the empty crisp packet in the bin.

"Are you coming to watch theatre practice after school?" Miguel asked when I caught up to him.

"Yeah of course, I gotta go get a book from the library first, but I'll come after", I replied. 

Miguel was in the theatre club. That's how we met, Anna had been in the club too. One day she had come out of practice talking excitedly about something with a skinny blue haired boy. Anna had introduced him as Miguel and he had come get ice cream with us, a Friday tradition we had had. Miguel had ordered coffee ice cream and Anna and I had looked at each other in horror. Out of all the flavours he had chosen coffee!

Once we reached the history classroom Miguel gave a short wave and headed to his own class.

Ugh history. Was there anything more boring than history. Learning about dusty old people and boring war contracts, who in their right mind would find that interesting... well, Anna did. But she was maybe the only exception. I still remembered how her eyes shined when she told me about things she had read in her textbooks over the weekend. Anna even liked Mrs. O'Neill, the history teacher who was just as old and dusty as the people she taught about.

I slumped down at my desk and took out my supplies. Anna was there too, sitting by the window with her friends. She was picking at the fraying desk looking glum. Chase said something and she looked up plastering a smile on her face.

"Alright class, settle down. Today we are starting at chapter 7...", Mrs. O'Neill started talking in her monotone voice.

I zoned out after a while, my eyes traveling back to the redhead across the room. Anna had her full attention on the teacher. Meanwhile Chase was nudging her and whispering something in her ear every few moments, trying to get her attention. She looked quite annoyed.

"Ms. Fields", Mrs. O'Neill called shaking me out of my thoughts.

"Sorry Mrs. O'Neill, what was the question?", I asked praying it was something I knew how to answer.

"I asked when did the French revolution begin?", the teacher replied sternly.

"Uh", I was trying to peak at the textbook hoping to find the answer. "1789?", I said, the answer coming out more of an unsure question.

"Correct, now if you would stop staring at Ms. Bryant and pay attention to the lesson", Mrs. O'Neill said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

I felt a blush rising to my cheeks and quickly looked down at the desk.

AN:

So that was the first real chapter of this story! This is my first ever story on Wattpad. I have been reading on Wattpad forever and have wanted to write one myself for a while now. And I finally plucked enough courage to publish the first chapter so here it is. I can't promise this story will be any good, but I hope you like it. Alright bye now!

- Veera