Somebody Else ✔

Did I see that coming? No. No I didnt.

Cole.

Edited.

With all her principals and academic excellence awards, Aggie Buchanan was a girl who worked hard to maintain an imagine.

Along with peroxide blonde hair she forged a medical certificate to keep, Aggie had a tongue piercing -- which the whole year at Mum's had to conspire to hide. She lulled me over with promises of help on the Politics exam -- and then at the last minute requested I bring something extra.

As soon as I arrived study was discarded -- her friends already a few bottles deep on a Wednesday night. Aggie didn't drink -- her father did enough for the both of them -- her friends though, drank Vodka Cruises and complained of an aftertaste.

I watched the girls roll haphazard joints made from the skeletons of hollowed out cigarettes with an eyebrow raised. I had papers with me -- I left them in my car -- but whenever I went to say, either Macey, Dani or Lana yelled over the top. So I relaxed back into the chair in Aggie's rose gold bedroom, with my feet kicked up on her vanity table and watched them tediously scrape the tobacco out of the smoke -- laughing to myself.

Aggie sauntered over to me -- in a silk pink dressing robe -- and sat on my lap. Macey flicked her black hair and glared, before lapsing back into a conversation about our final exams, and how their student advisor had basically said they were nothing if they didn't get into uni -- I wanted to agree and say ours had said that too, but their glares kept me at bay.

Aggie led me out to the balcony with three joints -- two joints behind her ears and one between her teeth. I followed the sweet mix of orange, jasmine and rose, my hands resting on her hips as she walked. Aggie and I started acting like best friends hours after we had first met. The whole story was rather long and convoluted -- but it ended with us in the bathroom, leaning over the sink while I cut her hair.

Macey, Dani and Lana partied inside while we sat out on the balcony -- their music rattled in my ears and settled in my brain. The lights from houses across the canal glimmered off the black water, every once in awhile a boat passing us by. I kicked my feet up on the table in front of us and sighed.

I held the orange flame of my lighter under her joint and as she lit up, the flame drew shadow across her face. She appreciatively murmured at her first pull and I gazed on adoringly -- at the joint mind you. "To the Fontaine boys," I proposed, "They're like a chemist on wheels."  Aggie sunk into me, and mumbled something about how the Fontaine boys were good at everything. I scoffed, Sean sure, but Drew definitely not -- and Aggie tried to press the joint against my lips. I brushed it away, before the smell could pull me in. I wasn't smoking -- I had to drive back home, and after all the shit I gave Alex for loosing his license for drunk driving, I couldn't risk it.

"How's your mums wedding coming?" She asked, covering her mouth to blow out the smoke -- making sure it couldn't float toward me.

"Fucking wonderful." I growled, throwing my head up toward the sky and glaring at the stars.

"He's a nice guy." Aggie tried to protest, but kept quiet when she caught my jaw locking into place. Aggie rested her forehead against mine, her cobalt blue eyes soft and warm. She whispered, "He's not Brett." She swiveled around on my lap before I could respond, and wrapped my arms around her waist. University brochures littered the Masonic table, and she handed me a few, saying, "I've decided on Melbourne. Oh no actually -- maybe London." My heart tightened at the thought of her leaving -- but her smile was so large as she told me, I had to keep my mouth shut.

"Still for Chemical Engineering?"

"Maybe Astro Physics." I didn't even know what that was, but I nodded along and pretended to be in deep thought. "You could do something like that, Cole. You're smart." She said, shoving a brochure in my hand.