Crescent Love

Chapter One

Nothing is what it seems.

            Literally, staring down at my math's revision workbook, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Numbers stared up at me, almost taunting me from the page, but nothing made sense. It was even titled "Maths for Dummies" and I still couldn't get it.

            'I'm doomed,' I groaned, slamming the book shut. 'Do you think I can get a refund for this book? If it really was for dummies I'd be well past the fifth page.' Or at least, that's what I had expected from the title and it really wasn't delivering.

            'Indeed, you'd probably be on the sixth,' Kate teased, not even looking up from her laptop as her blue eyes shimmered with humour. 'Just admit it, you need professional help.'

            'Never,' I growled, stubbornly shaking my head from side to side. See, this was the problem making deals with best friends – they were always rigged.

            Kate arched an eyebrow. 'You can't just pull out. We agreed it fair and square.'

            'Yes, but that was before I saw the questions,' I reasoned, flicking through the pages. 'There's no way someone could do these ten pages in forty minutes.'

            'I did mine in twenty,' she pointed out, smirking. 'Just accept it, Ginny. You need to come to the math's revision class with me.'

            She couldn't have looked smugger.

            A blush rose to my cheeks. 'But it's embarrassing,' I mumbled, glaring at the table. I could practically feel my pride taking a bashing, knocking me down a peg or two.

            Her eyes narrowed. 'If you don't go, I'll tell everyone that you were the person who left that huge number two in the girls' toilet yesterday.'

            'You wouldn't!'

            'I most definitely would,' she threatened.

            'But it wasn't even me!' Though whoever that number two belonged to seriously needed to go to the doctor, that was some nasty crap – pun intended. 'We're best friends, how could you do that to me?'

            She shrugged. 'Force my hand and I will. You need to get a C in maths to get into any of the universities you've applied to, right?' Kate sat back in her seat, knowing she had already won. 'It seems to me you don't have a choice.'

            Retaking my maths exam from nearly two years ago had sounded easy, but now... Well, I hadn't quite realised how much I could forget in the time in between. 'But everyone else in the group will be revising for their A Level maths exams, and there I'll be revising for the exam they all probably got A's in two years ago...' I trailed off, heat flooding my cheeks once more. 'I'll have no dignity left by the end.'    

            'Maybe you should have thought about that last year when the people in our year retook it,' she said defiantly. 'You're going to pass this exam, Ginny, even if it kills me.'

            'Easy for you to say,' I grumbled. Kate was top of her class, hoping to study mathematics at university; in that sense, it really was a mystery how we were friends at all. 'Fine,' I relented. 'I'll go, but only because I don't want to be known as the girl who blocked the toilet for the rest of the school term.'

            She grinned victoriously, flashing me a set of straight white teeth. 'My lips are sealed.'

            'It wasn't me!'