i like rainbows

2/11/19--Wolfwater High School

"What's going on?" Dara asks, setting her tray on the table and sitting across from Jessie.

"Nothing much. We're just wondering where Pax is. She's never late." The three friends look around for the fourth Musketeer, a little worried. "Do you think something bad has happened?" Jessie asks after twenty minutes pass and her friend still isn't there.

"No, I don't think so," Dara half-whispers, staring wide-eyed at the cafeteria doors. Marco and Jessie turn to stare where Dara was staring and both were shocked at what they saw.

Pax was smiling and laughing, her bag casually slung over her shoulder while she talked with Dustin Bryant. The three friends watch as they both walk over to their table. They vaguely hear Pax invite Dustin to sit with them and him say yes. It takes Pax a few more tries to get her friends attention and when she does, they stare at Dustin.

"What's wrong?" Pax asks, staring at her friends. They all just shake their heads and go back to eating their lunch. Noticing her friends were oddly quiet, Pax opens her mouth again. "Seriously, what's wrong?" she repeats, trying to figure it out herself.

"Nothing," Jessie rushes out, opening some chips and pushing them into her mouth. Pax ignores her friends behaviors and shrugs. "Are you gonna get some lunch or...?" Pax shakes her head, leaning the smallest bit closer to Dustin.

"We went to the café on the corner. The pictures are due today and we just had to edit a few more things." Pax smiles at Dustin who smiles back. The three friends watch the interaction with wide eyes and the slightest smiles.

They all stay silent for the remaining fifteen minutes of lunch. When the bell rings, they all rush to get to class.

Over the past two weeks, Dustin and Pax have gotten closer. Dustin's crush bloomed and grew into this massive tangle of vines and flowers around his heart. Pax was clueless, still messaging hell.raiser and talking to Dustin almost daily while thinking they were two different people. But, her conversations with hell.raiser were becoming less and less as both parties spent more time with their real life counterparts.

Pax had started to feel something, too, deep in her chest. When she met Dustin he had planted a seed in her heart, one that was starting to grow. And as much as she tried to ignore it, it had grown larger and started wrapping itself around her heart. She kind of knew what was happening, why she was feeling the way she was, and she didn't exactly know what to think. It was good, wasn't it? That she had started to like someone? That she, someone who didn't socialize outside of her friend group, was talking and had started to have her first-but-late crush?

It would be if she didn't doubt herself this much. Each time she realized she was staring at Dustin a little too long, she would yell at herself. Each time she caught herself thinking of him, she convinced herself he'd never be interested--that he'd only see her as a friend. Her doubts stopped her from forming too much of a crush.

So, when she noticed she was closer to Dustin than before, she backed away. She kept her eyes on her friends, who had not stopped periodically glancing at Dustin. She didn't think anyone noticed. Dustin did. He felt the flowers around his heart wilt a little when he notices Pax moves away. 

But he smiles and laughs along with something one of her friends say. As awkward as it was, they weren't icing him out and were acting like he was the outsider he really was. It made the flowers in both people's hearts grow some more to see how well the two separate lives had started to blend together. The flowers growing more gave them more hope for the future.