First break, after taking it’s sweet ass time, finally made it and I hurried off to the meet-up point with the squad. I managed to spend my entire morning staying out of the Shaved Coconut’s warpath and I wasn’t about to be caught yet.

I found Max with Lily and Trent out in the small courtyard, near the library. They were seated at our table, under a huge shady tree. I yawned loudly as I made my way over to them, noticing Lily was eating a donut from the cafeteria. I immediately felt envious as the thought of my plain egg salad sandwich sitting in my bag came to mind.

“Lily, that looks really gooddd,” I drooled

“It is really good, almost as good as Ms Wilts’ cupcake. Oh wait, you wouldn’t know about that since you weren’t in class yesterday.” She teased before taking another bite.

“I hate you so much right now,” I shook my head at her.

“How could you hate her?” Trent wrapped his arm around Lily, placing a kiss on her cheek but she only squirmed with annoyance as she tried to finish her donut.

Ahh, the beautiful romance of my real life OTP. I do find them insanely cheesy but man, do I love me some good cheese.

I watched the two of them flirt in their own world, as Trent booped her stubby nose and then place another kiss on her cheek. She flushed up, looking almost as red a cherry. I grimace at them, realising cheese is good but too much is not.

To avoid looking at them some more, I quickly looked over at Max, spotting a chobani pouch of yogurt in her hands. My jaw instantly dropped.

I plopped down next to Max, batting my eyelashes at her as I eagerly eyed up her pouch. She looked at me, stared me dead in the eye and then quickly sucked all of the sweet, creamy yogurt up with no sympathy.

“Gah!” I clenched my chest. “You girls are so brutal.”

“You don’t deserve any, you basic trash,” Max remarked, pulling another pouch out from her bag, waving about in my face.

I pleaded her with my eyes, begging for just a taste.

“Max…” I begged, “I am so sorry for not paying my respects to you. Oh, my beautiful Queen~! I beg for your forgiveness! I will never not listen to you again! You are right....”

I let out a desperate sigh.

“I am… basic trash!” I dramatically fell onto the table, fake sobbing until I felt something cold touch the back of my neck. I slowly rose my head, staring up at Max with tears in my eyes.

“What the fuck is happening?” Trent commented but we ignored him.

“Shh!” Lily hushed at him. She was a sucker for drama performances.

In Max’s hands, she held the unopened pouch of delicious Chobani yogurt. She smirked at me, raising her eyebrow as she pursed her lips.

“Well, peasant, with an apology like that, how could I not forgive you?” She humoured. “Have you learnt your place?”

I got off the bench and kneeled on the ground, staring up at her.

“Yes, my Queen!” I bowed down to her.

“Very well, all is forgiven,” She passed me the Chobani yogurt, and I graciously accepted.

“Thank you, my Queen!” I cried out at her. I opened the pouch and quickly indulged into the bittersweet taste of the creamy yogurt.

“Andddd this here,” I turned to see Oscar standing behind me with a familiar stranger beside him. “Is Queen Max and her loser servant, Oliver. They will literally sacrifice their firstborns for a tub of yogurt, so don’t trust them.”

“People are into weird kinks these days,” the stranger commented.

It took me a second but I shot up once I recognised the stranger as our hero, Beanie-Punk! Only Beanie-Punk was now Beanie-less. Such tragedy.

“Holy shit, aren’t you the kid that tried to save our asses yesterday?” Max asked, whilst I stared at him in awe. I wasn’t expecting to meet with our saviour so soon.

“Ah, yeah,” Beanie(less)-Punk nodded. He glanced at Max and then at me, his eyes flicking straight up to my hair. “Kinda hard to forget a person with bright pink hair running into a bush.”

“I’m not surprised Palmer is looking for your ass, Oliver,” Oscar said. “But I’m really surprised to learn that YOU helped them, Jules!”

Jules, huh? Not the name I expected for a punk.

“You gotta look out for your peers, right?” Jules said.

“You can look out for them by stopping them from ditching!” Oscar scoffed. “Here I thought I found another good guy.”

“He is a good guy!” I defended Jules. “He tried to save us from Mr Palmer’s wrath.”

“You guys still got busted though. He was fuming when you drove off,” Jules replied.

“You didn’t get into trouble, did you?” Max asked.

“Not at all, he thinks you guys roped me into it,” Jules said.

“Damn, he is gonna go off about that too.” I sighed.

I looked over at Jules, who quickly looked away from me and ran his hand through his dark hair. He tried to play it cool but that failed the second he glanced back at me.

“So you’re Jules?” Trent spoke up, grabbing Jules’s attention. He still had his arms wrapped around Lily, resting his head on her shoulder. “I’m Trent, and this here is Lily.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Jules!” Lily said with her usual chirpy attitude.

“Yeah, it is nice to meet you, Mr Hero,” Max added with a flashy smile

“Nice to meet you guys too, I suppose,” He offered a small smile back.

“Seriously though, this is our last year guys!” Once the introductions were out of the way, Oscar didn’t hesitate to start his lecture. He took a seat beside me, and Lily scooted over so Jules could sit beside her. He seemed unsure at first but sat down anyway.

I watched him, while Oscar lectured us about ditching again, wondering why he would help a pair of no-gooders out and what he was even doing there. I even wonder if Mr Palmer told him off for wearing the beanie. Seems like a Mr Palmer kinda thing.

“O-LI-VER!”

I snapped my attention back to Oscar, who just frowned angrily at me.

“Did you hear any of what I just said?!”

“Yeah, such a disappoint, I know,” I nodded at him. “I promise to do better, Mum.”

“Jesus, you are a real piece of work,” Oscar groaned. “Why am I friends with you?”

I leaned closer into him, grinning as I dropped my head on his shoulder.

“Because you ~love~ meee,” I smiled sheepishly at him.

“I think I have Stockholm syndrome,” Oscar said. We all burst into laughter at that.