"I'll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies." - Homemade Dynamite

-

I have to admit that Kris wasn't too far off because her friends were amazing.

Bella is sweet, gentle, and nice. Not the 'I-don't-know-when-you're-going-to-break kind' nice, the real nice. I don't think she understands how much I appreciate that. I think my favorite part about Zoë is that she hits Kris whenever she makes an inappropriate comment. Kris makes a lot of those, so, long story short, Zoë amuses me. Jasper and Adam are twins, and quite hilarious. One minute they're fighting over who's the cuter twin, the next they're telling each other that they're the best brother in the world. Everybody is great.

Except for Kris of course.

"Adrianna, do you want to go to the movies with us today?" Bella has a giant smile on her face, while it's all frowns on the inside for me.

Is she out of her mind? Now that's not nice at all; she doesn't know how sad we are. That's not an excuse to ask stupid questions. Somebody's meds obviously haven't kicked in yet.

"That's nice, but no thanks. I'm not a fan of movie theaters." Truth be told I just don't want to go, but I can't just tell Bella that because she probably won't understand. I'm not completely lying though; I don't like movie theaters or any place that has large crowds of people. Therefore my lie count for the day stays down.

"That's fine. We can just go to Kris's house and watch movies." Scratch that; time to lie away.

"I'm busy." Sleeping. I'm busy sleeping.

She looked disappointed with my answer, but I didn't stick around to take it all in. It's not that I don't want to hang out with them. It's just that after today, my first day in a new place, I need to be somewhere safe. Maybe when I have the confidence, I'll invite them over to my house.

Which will most likely be never.

This school is a maze. I mean I've figured out where all of my classes are and everything, but wandering around the school is still like a fun puzzle game, except without the fun.

"I have a lot of really great movies at my house." Hello? 911? I would like to file a disturbance report. Yes, I am being stalked by this insanely creepy girl, who never learned the word 'boundaries'. What do you mean that's not an emergency? You obviously can't hear my heartbeat right now.

"You'll have fun" Yeah, I know I will.

At home.

In my bed.

I thought you believed in second chances? I am the literal definition of second chances; I believe in second chances, but Kris is crazy. She's pretty. She's a stalker. She's pretty.

I didn't realize what I had said to her until after the fact. Until after my stomach did that weird thing where it tangles itself into billions of knots, not realizing that it's just cut off my air supply. My body started screaming "I need air!", however, I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy trying to untangle my stomach. You know what I'm talking about. Right?

Please tell me you know what I'm talking about.

"Great, I'll see you after school." Why is her eye twitching? She should probably get that looked at. She could have eye cancer.

I stood there for a while after Kris had walked away, thinking about what I was going to tell Cole. He is all for me getting new friends and leaving the house, but only after that person has undergone a full background evaluation and taken a sacred oath.

We could just not tell him. Who is this "we" that you're referring to; I'm the one who has to lie to him. True, but I'm apart of you, so it's "we". No, no you're not.

"A friend's house? You made friends?" Cole sounded like he was both hyperventilating and squealing at the same time. I couldn't tell if he was excited or terrified. I knew him well enough to know he was pacing too.

"Well, she's not my friend. Her friends are my friends, and we're all going to hang out at her house." I am still waiting to hear back on whether or not she has any actual priors relating to stalking. Until then, she is still just a weirdo who likes to follow new girls around.

"That's nice but-"

"I know you want to say no, but if you do, I'll have to make up an excuse for why I can't go. And I'm tired of lying."

He didn't say much after that, but there was still that undertone of worry in his voice that he did his very best to hide. No matter how hard he tries to hide it though, I can still hear the worry. I wouldn't be able to call myself his little sister if I couldn't.

Contrary to popular belief I don't like giving my brother mini panic attacks. I almost told him to go and take some of my anxiety medication, but quickly decided against. Even though I think my medication is dumb and worthless, it's still my medication and I've always been terrible at sharing.

I mean I'm sharing enough in my life right now anyway. I share my headspace with a bunch of violent voices. I have to share oxygen with a bunch of rowdy high schoolers. I share this planet with a bunch of strangers I don't know.

I'm a very charitable person.

Δ

By the end of the day, I still hadn't decided on whether or not to ditch them. Cole told me earlier that if I change my mind or if I want to leave early, to just call him. He gave me a ten-minute speech about the dangers of peer pressure and how proud he is of me that I am even considering going.

Conclusion: He is so pro-me-ditching-them.

What about you; what do you think that I should do? Well, attractive people will be attending the event, so I think you should go. That's all you care about? Yep; besides knowing you, you'll probably get all scared and shaky halfway through and end up leaving, so does this little debate even matter. I am going to prove you so wrong.

"Hey, Adrianna. Are you ready to go?"

"So ready."