As promised, Mary, Josie and Mark ate lunch together that Monday.

Mark started the morning off with moving his chair back to the girls, to which he was welcomed with open arms by Josie, given a nod of acceptance by Mary, and given death stares by some of the soccer boys.

“I might have just made everything worse…” Mark whispered to Mary and Josie, trying to shrink in on himself so he wasn’t stared at as intensely, but with no luck.

“That’s fine. We’re all in this together,” Mary reassured him, slamming her fist into her other hand, and sending a death stare back at the idiots.

It probably didn’t help much, but Mary, at least, felt a bit better.

“We should try to keep a low profile the next few days,” Josie said, glancing around the class. Mark nodded.

“It’s all that damn teacher’s fault,” Mary grumbled. Josie put a hand on Mary’s shoulder, a reminder to calm down, and Mary inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly.

“Sorry,” Mary said, “but it is.”

“It is,” Josie agreed easily, “but we can’t really change the past, only deal with the present.”

“You sound like my grandma,” Mark put in, before instantly holding his mouth, as if he was trying to swallow the words back in.

“Oldie Josie,” Mary teased, but Josie was left unimpressed.

“Ah, youth,” she said instead, smiling at the other two, who were staring at her intently.

That did it, and they all broke out in laughter.

“So. The plan. Low profile. Don’t go anywhere alone,” Josie said after they had calmed down a bit, and stared over at Mark, “that’s especially true for you. We can’t follow you to the toilet, they might be waiting out there for you.”

Mark shrugged, as if it wasn’t an issue, “I guess I’ll just hold it, then.”

“And we’re going to follow you to your club activities,” Josie demanded, “just in case.”

“I don’t think that’s really necessary…” Mark started, but the smile Josie sent him made him shut up.

“I’m so happy someone other than me finally realizes that Josie is the scary one…” Mary said dreamily.

“I’m not scary,” Josie said, sounding scary.

“Oh. Right. Yea. Not scary at all, sorry,” Mary said quickly, scared.

Mark laughed.

Nobody talked about how this might all be an overreaction. Josie and Mary knew it wasn’t, but they noticed Mark didn’t mention doubts about the plan, either.

Mary assumed Josie had told him at some point, and Josie assumed he had just heard the rumors, or noticed when he was hanging out with them.

But both Josie and Mary assumed he knew, and that he knew Mary had been involved with them previously, and both of them were secretly happy that he had still chosen to come back to them.

First break, Mary and Josie decided to go with Mark to the basketball court, where he would meet with his friends.

While it wasn’t really necessary, they didn’t think, it was better to be amongst people, and big strong basketball boys weren’t a bad choice.

Where Mark played, Mary and Josie sat on the sidelines, doing their own thing.

“You’re staring,” Josie said.

“No I’m not,” Mary answered.

“Sure,” Josie said, dropping the matter.

At lunch, they would of course eat together, except now Mary and Josie followed Mark to the cafeteria to help him get his sandwich.

“It feels weird to be escorted by you two, everywhere I go…” he had complained, but Josie had simply looked at him, and he hadn’t said a complaint after.

On the next break, they went out to the basketball court again. The girls were sitting on the side, with Mark playing a 3-on-3 match, as not everyone from the club had showed.

“He scored! I think!” Mary squealed out. She wasn’t entirely sure about the rules of basketball, but she did know that getting the ball through the hoop was like shooting a goal.

“I thought you weren’t looking,” Josie said, mirth in her voice.

“I’m not,” Mary said, making a big show of looking the opposite way, “I just saw it out of the corner of my eye, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Josie said, but instead of dropping it this time, she added, “it’s okay for you to look, you know.”

Mary didn’t respond and the matter was dropped then.

After school, the three of them found themselves in a bit of a problem. While they didn’t think anything would happen after school, they also didn’t feel comfortable taking the chance.

Mark was going one way, with Mary and Josie going the opposite way, which was a recipe for disaster.

So Josie decided that they were all going bowling for an hour or two, and then Mark could go home afterwards.

“I can also just get a car to come get me…” Mark mumbled, but either the girls pretended not to hear, or they actually didn’t hear, and he didn’t repeat himself, so bowling it was.

At the bowling alley, Mark decided to pay. Josie politely thanked him, but Mary spitefully tried to pay him back to no avail. Then Mark made it clear that he didn’t pay because they were girls and he was a boy, but just because it was a special occasion for him, and he wanted to pay to celebrate.

“Special occasion?” Mary asked, curiosity piqued.

“It’s embarrassing to say,” Mark answered.

“Now we’re even more curious,” Josie said, giving him a smile that told him he had lost.

“It’s the first time… I’m out bowling… With…” Mark struggled the longer he got into the sentence, but the girls kept staring at him, not letting him off the hook.

“It’s the first time I’m bowling with friends, okay?” Mark said, rushing through the sentence to the point where words muddled together and it took them a while to process what he had actually just said.

“Aww!” Mary said.

“Aww!” Josie said.

“Aaaah!” Mark sighed.

“Now was that so hard?” Mary asked, knowing she would have been super embarrassed as well. For some reason, calling people ‘friends’ before having established the fact for sure felt like walking into a store naked.

It was vulnerable.

Yet, knowing this, she still decided that mercilessly bullying him about it was the right way to show compassion.

“As a sign of appreciation, and to celebrate our friendship, you get to go first. Just tap in your name there,” Josie said, knowing how to make an awkward situation just a bit better.

Mark went over to the machine and started to figure out how it worked.

“Let me know if you need help,” Josie offered, but he shook his head no, being deep in thought.

The girls followed what was happening on the big screen hanging over them.

“R?” Mary asked, as Mark typed it in, “did it not register your M and A?”

Mark turned around to her, genuinely confused, before he had a lightbulb moment, turned back to the machine and deleted the R.

“Right, that must have been it,” he said, laughing at it just a tiny bit too hard.

“Is he embarrassed he typed something wrong?” Mary whispered to Josie, to which Josie gave the ‘I don’t know’ shrug.

After a while, Mark had finally figured out how to type M A R K and Josie went to type in her and Mary’s names, deciding it would go too slow if Mark was left in charge of it. 

And probably also spelled wrong.

They had a fun time. Mark turned out to, surprisingly, not be very good, and he kept complaining about how heavy the balls were compared to what he usually threw around.

Josie got a lot of strikes and spares, landing her in an unrivaled first place, followed by Mary who had some lucky breaks, but mostly threw the ball in the gutter, and then came Mark, who had become best friends with the gutter by the time they finished.

Afterwards Mark went home, the girls waving goodbye to him, before going their own way.

They walked in silence for a bit before Mary stopped, gathering courage. Josie noticed and stopped as well, giving Mary the space and time she clearly needed.

With a deep exhale, Mary finally asked “What do you mean, it’s okay for me to look at him?”

Josie was clearly taken aback, not at all expecting that question. She looked uncomfortable, rubbing her hands together before putting a small lock of hair, that had fallen loose from her braids behind the ear, only for it to fall back in the way.

“Josie… I don’t know what you mean. Please tell me,” Mary said, voice so soft and vulnerable that Josie couldn’t stand it, couldn’t answer her right away.

“Nothing important…” Josie lied, and while Mary knew she lied, she didn’t dare to ask again. Josie looked like she would break if she did, or maybe something between them would break. Something fragile that hadn’t even had a chance to exist properly, maybe.

Whatever it was, Mary didn’t ask again, and they went home in silence, not even saying bye when their paths split, and they each went their own way.