The Rumour

March 11th

The next day, the latest Madison incident was soon forgotten about, and I wandered into Owens as I did everyday, only to be mobbed by only Kyle as apposed to the three musketeers. I was happy to see Kyle as I always am, but already that day had started off differently, and I sensed that I was about to be pushed out of my comfort zone. Suddenly, nothing felt right.

Kyle picked me up and spun me around, giggling uncontrollably. I wondered if he’d been drinking.

“Hey Violet!” He giggled, camper than I’d ever seen him before. Perhaps he’d met someone.

“Hey Kyle…what the hell is wrong with you today?” I asked, staring into his beaming, warm face.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You seem so glum, honey!” He placed an arm around my waist and we began walking back through Owens to everyone else.

“Nothing, I’m fine…I just wondered where Oliver, Max and Josh were,” I confessed.

“Oh so I’m not good enough to mob you?” Kyle acted horrified, his mock horror putting a reluctant smile on my face.

“Of course you are darling,” I giggled. “It’s just I miss Oliver that’s all,”

“I know, well everyone else is here so don’t you worry your pretty little head honey,” He patted me on the head, and passed me around my other friends like some sort of rag doll to be greeted. Ronnie was the last to receive me, squeezing me tightly and sitting me on his knee with his arms around my waist. He did this a lot.

“How’s it goin’ Vi?” He asked, playing with a blonde strand of my hair.

“Good I guess, do you know where Oliver is?” I asked, turning to face him. He always had quite a sarcastic and cocky look to him, always a smirk plastered across his face for some reason or another. He had a few tattoos scattered across his neck, some small with black, curly writing, and some colourful and storytelling, which usually continued on another of his body parts. He wanted to get more tattoos and even more piercings.

“Yeah, he’s coming in soon, he had to work this morning, but when he does come in me and him are studying for our music final,” Ronnie gave me a sympathetic look. “And no stealing him, we need to ace this,”

“Okay fine,” I reluctantly agreed, letting myself relax into him, curling up in a ball against his chest. At least now I knew where he was.

I wasn’t sure why I was so conscious about where Oliver was, I guessed I was just protective and wanted to see him.

“What about Max and Josh?” I asked, interrupting Ronnie while he chatted with Sean, who sat to our right.

“Sorry Sean, hang on,” Ronnie apologised. “I don’t know, maybe they just got held up. I don’t know, Vi. Call them,” He said almost impatiently. I sighed, climbing off his knee and taking my cell from out my denim short’s pocket.

I called all of Oliver’s numbers, his cell was switched off, nobody was at his mother’s home or his father’s. So I guessed Ronnie was telling the truth. I tried Max and Josh’s cells too, but they were also switched off. Josh never switched his phone off. I smelled a rat, but I was probably just overreacting. I always was. What did I suspect they were doing anyway? It wasn’t a crime just because they weren’t here with me. It was just unusual that’s all. The group felt empty without them running around, tackling each other, or flirting with a group of passing girls.

I returned to the group, this time leaving Ronnie to his chat with Sean, and sitting by Lindsay, who was braiding Kyle’s fairly long hair.

“It’s gonna turn curly when you take this out, Lindsay,” Kyle sighed, his thumb circling around the touch pad of his iPod. “I put loads of hairspray on it this morning,”

“Good, it’ll look funny,” Lindsay tied up one tiny braid with a little rubber band, and started another, sticking her tongue out in concentration. “Wanna help Vi?”

“Sure,” I smiled, taking a strand of his unbelievably light blonde hair, and beginning to work on it. I weaved his soft hair into a perfect braid, tying it with a little green rubber band and started another, just as Oliver bound into the circle alone, shouting.

“Ronnie! Dude, I brought my notes with me so we could study. I told you I would,” He plonked himself down in front of Ronnie, with his back to me, paper flailing around between them. Ronnie reached behind him where his backpack was to grab his acoustic guitar.

“We can practice cadences,” I heard Ronnie say, not having a clue what that meant. Ronnie glanced up at me, catching my eye as I stared at them both. I understand that they’re busy studying for their important music final and all but couldn’t Oliver at least have said hi to me?

“What’s with Oliver?” Lindsay muttered to me. “Have you guys fallen out? You seemed fine yesterday,”

“We were, but he’s acting weird. He hasn’t even looked at me,”

“Oww!” Kyle exclaimed as I accidentally tugged on the strand of his hair I was holding.

“Sorry babe,” I stroked Kyle’s head absent-mindedly as I sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He rushed off barely without a goodbye yesterday and now today…he’s just totally ignoring me,”

“Hey dickwad,” Lindsay called, and everyone stopped and looked at her, including Oliver. I smiled, that got his attention. “Aren’t you gonna say hi to your girlfriend?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Oliver smiled. “Hi,”

And with that, he turned around and began incoherently blabbering to Ronnie about music. I just stared at the back of his white t-shirt, disbelieving. What the hell was wrong with him? I turned to Lindsay.

“What is with him?” I whispered to her frantically, beginning to braid Kyle’s hair faster.

“I dunno, he’s never like this,” Kyle chipped in, not taking his eyes off his iPod.

“I know,” I sighed. I made a mental note to call him later. I tied another of Kyle’s braids and gave up, sat with my head in my hands. I just couldn’t figure it out. I began to leaf through my memory, thinking of anything I might have done to upset him.

“It’s not you, Violet,” Lindsay simply stated, stroking Kyle’s remaining bits of hair that weren’t braided.

“You know me way too well, Lindsay,” I smirked, running my fingers through my hair.

“I know,” She beamed. “How about you come to my house tonight? Take your mind off things. We can give Kyle here a makeover,”

“Hey does that mean I’m invited too?” Kyle perked up, leaning his head back to beam up at us.

I smiled. “That would be great,”

-----Lindsay’s house-----

Lindsay’s room was one of the strangest places you will ever enter, a lot more so if you knew her really well.

You would expect her room to be black, all black, with nothing with any remote colour in anything anywhere. You’d expect a pet snake or something sat in a glass cage in the corner. You’d expect it to be stuff and hot and smell of incense. You’d expect it to be messy, CD’s and clothes scattered over the floor. You’d expect Cradle of Filth posters to grace the walls.

Well, the Filth posters still did grace the walls, along with Marilyn Manson, Children on Bodom, Slipknot and Korn. But her room was very airy and bright, a slight smell of her perfume sprinkled in the air. Her duvet lay on her water bed was indeed, black, but her walls were pink, with white polka dots. Her carpet was white, with a pink shag pile lay in the middle. Her room was really clean, too. And she liked it this way.

“Just because I’m a Goth doesn’t mean I can’t like pink,” She would say.

I loved it, I thought it was cute and actually, taking into account her personality, suited her perfectly. Kyle was the first to dive onto the water bed, even though we all cringed waiting for it to burst as soon as his knees hit it.

“Please be careful Kyle,” Lindsay smiled, hanging her black backpack on the back of her door. She pressed play on her CD player and indeed, Marilyn Manson’s ‘Tainted love’ filled the room.

I tentatively sat on the bed cuddled with Kyle, and Lindsay sat in her computer chair in front of her silver Apple Mac, swinging on it and occasionally spinning around.

“So, has anyone figured out what’s gotten into Oliver?” Kyle asked, squeezing me. I shook my head.

“Nope, it can’t be anything I’ve done,” I grimaced. “I thought it might be Adam…” I trailed off when I felt Kyle wince beside me. I forgot about his feelings for Adam.

“…But I don’t think it would be,” I finished, catching Lindsay’s sympathetic eye.

“Maybe he‘s just stressing about his finals?” Lindsay suggested. I thought about it for a minute. It would make sense, he did get stressed pretty easily when he let himself. His music qualification was really important to him. Hell, if I was doing my finals too the relationship would be on the rocks. Mine weren’t until next year.

“You know what? You’re probably right,” I smiled. “So how about this makeover?” I climbed off the bed, and began to rustle through Lindsay’s huge make up box in the corner of her room. She joined me, picking out crimson lipsticks, jet black mascara tubes and sparkly black eyeliner pencils. Kyle sat on the bed against the wall, looking incredibly worried about what we were going to do to him. He still had all his hair in braids, so surely it couldn’t get that much worse.

“Right,” Lindsay started “Lipstick first,”

“Oh no,” Kyle cringed as the crimson spread over his plump lips. I began to laugh at him, suddenly feeling a lot better.

“It’s okay Kyle, Violet and I will dress up too and we can take some pictures,” Lindsay suggested, putting her concentrated face on as she applied devil red lip liner. He looked ridiculous.

“Why?” Kyle complained, whacking his fists on the bed. I continued to laugh, as I began applying some pale foundation to his pale skin. Not that he needed it, he had wonderful skin.

“Because you let us, honey,” Lindsay grinned, showing all her pearly white teeth in her toothy grin. “Nobody else would let us do this,”

“True,” Kyle said, receiving a slap on the wrist for closing his eye whilst mascara was being applied. “You should do this to Oliver as punishment for ignoring you,”

“Now there’s an idea!” Lindsay exclaimed, and we all burst into laughter at the image of Oliver in a dress.

Now I was feeling better.