soft. [maeve wiley]

thirteen.

"still no news from maeve, then?" eric asked us when we were locking up our bikes.

holidays had just ended and i'd gotten really close to aimee and ola in that time.

while getting closer to ola was understandable, it was quite the shock for me when aimee suddenly showed up at my door and demanded for me to do her nails, in the cutest way possible, of course.

we saw each other pretty much everyday of the holidays after that.

"no, but that's fine. i'm over her." i shrugged.

was i really? i was, right? of course i was.

eric looked at me with an unconvinced face. "are you sure about that?"

i nodded. "yeah, absolutely. she's not at school anymore. out of my sight, out of my head."

otis seemed almost relieved about maeve being gone. i didn't know why, though.
eric always made little jokes about how otis really liked me, like, actually liked me. he said that otis felt like my crush on maeve took his chances of being with me.
as if i wasn't, like, almost fully gay and otis definitely did not match my type in guys.

"no more clinic, no more drama." our sexually repressed friend said.

"you can't give it up!" eric retorted. "think of all the status you're throwing away."

"knowing everyone's secret sex shames isn't going to make me popular."

well, he was right about that. it definitely wasn't going to make him popular, but i doubted that anything would. otis was a nice guy, but not someone that could live with the pressure of being popular. it'd probably get to his head and he'd do something stupid that then would result in everyone hating him.

"no, it's going to make you all-powerful."

"uh," i butted in when i saw ola standing in front of the school entrance, waiting for us. "maybe don't mention the whole clinic thing to ola. she might think it's weird."

eric scoffed as we walked up the stairs. "yeah, 'cause it was weird."

"hi!" ola greeted cheerfully.

i skipped my way towards her and gave her a big hug, even though i'd seen her just a few days ago.

ola hugged me back, of course, and pressed a kiss on my cheek. "i missed you," she pouted jokingly.

we weren't, like, a thing officially, but it was obvious that she liked me and i might've started to like her too, or maybe i just thought i did. i guess some people might think that we were a couple, based on the way we acted around each other, but we weren't.

"i missed you too!"

"oh, you guys are super cute, but stop now. it's disgusting." eric mocked, throwing his hands in the air, meanwhile otis just looked uncomfortable. maybe eric was right about the whole crush thing.

"how are you feeling? are you nervous?" i asked once we started walking towards the entrance and ola took my hand.

"yeah, a little bit. is there anything i should know about?"

eric shook his head. "um, no, not really. nothing interesting ever happens around here."

right on cue, a group of face mask wearing students came running out of school, screaming.

we all exchanged confused looks.

when we got inside, a boy ran towards us, screaming: "there's a plague!"