Ceasefire {girlxgirl}

Trois

By the time I made it to lunch the next day – having spent the morning doing "extra credit work" with Mr Ross, ie, getting high in his office, until he was called away to see Mrs Hastings – the whole class, if not the school, was buzzing with gossip about Twitch. Having been the new girl last year, I could relate on some levels, but something still felt a little off.

                'Did people talk about me this much when I first arrived?' I asked in an aside to Sidney while Lacey was getting her lunch. If Lacey found out I might have cared what people thought, I'd never hear the end of it.

                'Not really,' Sidney started, and I was too busy looking around at the crouched-over, hushed conversations to notice her expression right away. 'You didn't exactly make the same splash.'

                I made a face. 'But I was always getting in trouble and stuff,' I argued, my gaze falling on an absent Molly Townsend's table, where a handful of her friends were tucking into their negligible salads. One of them picked up a piece of cubed carrot, examined it, and put it back down. I'll never get girls like that.

                'Yeah, but you didn't care about anyone else's business,' Sidney muttered, and her tone forced me to tear my expression away from the rest of the cafeteria and back to her. She looked upset.

                'What's going on?' I asked slowly, as Lacey rejoined us.

                'Are you talking about Twitch?' she asked interestedly, shaking some salt onto her soup. 'That girl certainly knows how to put herself centre of attention.'

                'What happened?'

                'She stuck her claws into Molly Townsend this morning,' Lacey informed me, then nodded to Sidney to continue.

                'It was in my Econ class first thing,' Sidney murmured. 'Molly must have been talking to her friends about Mr Ross, because Twitch stopped right by them and blatantly eavesdropped until they noticed her and shut up. Then later I was coming out of my third period English class and the whole second floor hallway was filled with posters of Molly's face and a print-off of Mr Ross' teacher profile on the Allexton site, and "Daddy Issues" printed across the top. Twitch was just standing there posting them up.'

                I gaped at her. 'You're making this up.'

                Sidney gestured to the rest of the caf. 'Then what are they all talking about?'

                I felt displaced all of a sudden. Molly Townsend was my nemesis. What did Twitch think she was doing? She was taking enmity to a whole new level. I'd never done anything that awful to Molly; the worst I'd ever done was getting her consecutive detentions, which I had to serve with her.

                'Where's Twitch now?'

                'Where do you think? She and Molly and Mr Ross are all in with Mrs Hastings.'

                'Oh shit,' I exclaimed, my eyes widening.

                Lacey smirked and started talking like she was telling a "three men walk into a bar" joke. 'Your mentor, your enemy, and your soul mate are all in a room together...'

                I didn't need any more encouragement: leaving my lunch behind, I hopped up and headed for the principal's office.

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