The Beautiful Ones

15- Looks Like He Lied

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.