candy lovers | aspir | ✓

13 | gummy worms

For the loners,

"Perennial loners - they're like the stray stars in the night sky."

- Antoni Lange
__________

CH 13

"Urgh, that stinks," cries Leanna as Layla's painting her nails with a purple nail varnish.

"It's nail polish. Surely you've worn this before haven't you?" asks Layla.

"No," says Leanna. "It just chips off within a week, so its just a downright waste of time..."

Layla stares at Leanna incredulously, as though Layla's just said the most absurd thing ever, but before she can reply her phone rings, forcing her to go to her balcony.

We're all having a sleep-over, as a sort of celebration regarding the fact that I've got a job. We've brought over Phoebe as well, seeing as she only works the day shifts at Wacky Jacky's. Leanna scoots over to where me and Phoebe are sitting, and stretches her hand out.

"On a scale of one to ten, how bad does this look?"

"Its super pretty actually! Not bad at all!" Phoebe says excitedly and stuffs a doughnut into her mouth.

"You know what?" I ask Leanna, looking at her a little suspiciously. "You seem to be talking a lot more nowadays. Does this have anything to do with a particular someone?"

"Uhm, no, why would it?" she replies, looking a little unsure. She tucks a strand of her long blonde hair between her ear. I stare at her with my eyebrows raised, and within seconds she breaks under my gaze.

"Okay fine, it's Brian. I've been helping him with his project," she admits. "Chase was really rude to him you know? He's completely ditched Brian-"

"So he can help me," I finish. "Sure he was probably rude to Brian, but yeah he is helping me a lot."

"No one's even following the pairing that Ms. Golde gave us, so I decided to do the project with him. I mean Lennox was more than enthusiastic to help Layla, so..."

"True," I say and stuff a handful of popcorn into my mouth. "That's actually pretty nice... Do you like him?" I ask suddenly.

She blushes to a deep beet red. "Uh, like yeah as a friend... I mean, he calls me cute a couple of times, and he himself is pretty cute-"

"AWWWWWW!" I squeal excitedly. I pounce onto her giving her a big hug, which results in the popcorn bowl getting pushed up such that it rains all over us. "You like him, you like him, you like him!"

"So what?" she mutters, sounding embarrassed.

"Its so cute!" I say and bop her bright red nose.

"Look," Phoebe says and thrusts a paper that she's been drawing on. She's sketched a few people on it. I immediately spot myself as the short girl with brown wavy hair. Then there's Lennox, Chase, Layla, Leanna, and Ian. She's titled the drawing as, 'My friends'.

"This is so sweet, Phoebe," I tell her, truthfully.

"Thanks Fae-Bae!" she says smiling a great big wide smile. Oh my god, this girl is adorable. I don't get how some people can ever hate her.

"Guys, guys, guys, guess what?" Layla squeals as she toddles into the room weirdly. She has nailpolish on her toenails, that's yet to dry, which is forcing her to walk like a penguin. "Mikaela, just told me that I got in to the cheer team!"

"Woah, girl!" I say excitedly and bound across the bed, to give her a huge bear hug. "Congratulations, I'm so proud of you.."

"I never knew you could dance," says Leanna, with a small amused smile tugging at the corner of her lips. [gif]