[16] Sororicide

It was Saturday and I had absolutely nothing to do as always; my mum was at work and Theo was on his Xbox, shouting happily to his friends about how unfair it was that he got killed on some stupid video game. I didn't get the appeal myself – it all just seemed so repetitive, but to be fair to him, I hadn't ever really tried it so I couldn't give knowledgeable judgement as such. It was easy to say that I was bored and upset that Noah was still being weird. The day before he hadn't acknowledged I was there most of the time and kept daydreaming in the middle of a conversation.

And the thing was I was adding to the awkwardness because I couldn't get an image of him and Mackenzie together or ignore that he was probably being weird because he knew about Harrison. It was safe to say that telling him about that was a big mistake and telling him everything else wouldn't help.

I flicked through my books on my bed, attempting to find non-existent motivation that I knew wouldn't come. Mrs Porter was already going crazy about revision, adopting the phrase 'little but often' and screaming it at just about every student that admitted to doing anything else after school. I didn't get it – I was exhausted after coming home from school – why would I ever want to extend that by doing even more? Though I guess I only wanted to pass English so all the other subjects I had the joy of taking were irrelevant, no matter how good I was at them.

It was then that I passed Katie's number in my notebook. Should I text her? Was she serious? Did she actually want me to text her or was it just because I was nice to her?

I was glad that I at least had an excuse not to call her, because that would be so much more awkward. No, at least she could just not reply to me instead of actually telling me that she didn't want to speak to me. I decided that realistically I didn't have much to lose and with Noah being weird, I had the risk of going back to being friendless at school. I took a deep breath as I typed her number into my phone. Why was I making this into such a big deal? She was only a person after all – it's not like she was going to murder me if I said the wrong thing. And it was her that gave me her number after all.

Hi this is Via?

And then I stared at my phone silently for some unexplained reason. Well, it could be explained through the logic that I was desperately hoping for her to reply immediately but you know, that makes me sound like an even bigger freak than what I already was. I knew she probably wouldn't but that wasn't what I wanted to hear at that time. I wanted to be told that I might have a chance at making friends at my school so that I didn't feel so lonely all the time. I was finally hoping for what my mum hoped for every day after school when she asked me how it'd gone, and it made me feel even worse about myself than before.

Screw this, I thought to myself, and threw my phone over to my desk where I wouldn't be tempted to obsess over it again.

XXX

Ping! My phone rang loudly, and it filled me with anxiety. What if she told me to get lost or something worse? What if she just spoke to me  because she was upset and now doesn't want to? I realised too soon that I was

hyperventilating and probably the only way it would stop would be to actually look at my phone.

I crawled over to my desk, hating that it was 11 o'clock and I was still in my pyjamas; I'd had breakfast and then just gone back to bed because I had nothing to be getting on with. My heart was beating fast in my chest and I crossed my fingers.

Oh hey!

When you realise how stupid you've been because you've been stressing about a text that read 'oh hey'. Yeah, Via, you're really smart. My phone vibrated again

Wuut?

Luckily, I wasn't that out of the loop to not understand wuut meant, but it still painfully took me a few minutes to get it. The question gave me even more anxiety because I had absolutely no idea how to answer it – what was deemed to be an acceptable thing to do at 11 o'clock on Saturday? I mean, I didn't think that Katie would find staying in bed in your pyjamas very appealing, and saying I was doing revision just made me sound like a nerd. I decided to go simple:

Nothing much. U?

I hated text speech with a passion, but I was following Katie.

Nothing much either – just getting ready for a party this Friday

That sounds cool

(And not something I'd ever be invited to, I wanted to add)

Oh hey I was gonna go shopping for an outfit – do you wanna come with?

Katie was asking me to go shopping with her? That was a surprise to say the least. I replied without thinking about the consequences.

Sure

Well this was going to be fun, considering that if I don't think up some plan, it's just going to be a one-sided shopping trip with her.

Cool – meet me at the mall in half an hour.

How was I going to do this? I had no idea and only thirty minutes to figure it out.

XXX

She smiled and waved as soon as she caught sight of me. I gave one awkward one back, not quite sure how this friendship was going to consist of – Katie was everything I wasn't: popular, loud and extremely confident. How we were going to become friends with such a gap in experiences? How will this ever work? I took a deep breath, pushing away the thoughts of the wreck that was inevitable going to unfold. I could do this, I told myself, I could do this.

"Oh hey!" Her curls bounced from her shoulders. Why can't my curls be like that? Why were they so unbelievably frizzy instead? It didn't make sense that someone should have such prefect hair.

I waved back, smiling and tried not to cringe at how bad this looked from the outside again. I had a feeling I was going to be thinking that a lot today.

I took the notepad out of my bag and Katie smiled, showing a set of perfectly formed teeth.

"Great!" She stated, and we walked indoors "So, I was thinking that we could go into the store over there first because I saw a great top in there last week..." I was definitely out of my comfort zone – not to sound like the cliché 'I'm not like other girls' girl – but shopping was not in my list of favourite things to do. I tended to wear the same clothes every day that I wasn't in my school uniform: converse, jeans and a select t-shirt from my extensive collection.

Today I was wearing a black-and-white stripy one because I was feeling a bit plain, and just shoved my hair into some sort of messy bun – and no not the kind that looked messily nice – I mean the kind that was actually messy. I probably looked like a mess myself but I supposed that I probably did every day so it wouldn't really make any difference.

"AH here it is!" She produced a black backless top with a low collar triumphantly. "What do you think? Too much?"

She was now asking my opinion? My opinion? Shit – what was I supposed to say?

I opened the lid of my pen and scribbled down a response

I don't think it's too much – though I would get a hoodie with it or something? Sorry I'm not great at this I'm just thinking about the fact that it's so cold at the moment

Was I too blunt? Oh God she probably thought I was a weirdo, now didn't she? Did she? I couldn't tell as she scanned the word

"Yeah no I see what you mean!" She squinted at the top she was holding by the hanger "It would probably do for something else though"

I nodded. Why was this already so awkward? I officially hated myself – this wouldn't be awkward if I could just fucking speak to her.

This was just never going to work, I finally admitted to myself; Katie would never learn sign language like Noah, and it wasn't like the whole notebook thing was working effectively. It hurt, but I knew that it was the truth.