Saving Sloane Winters

Sloane Erin M. Winters
Keywords back, Glastonbury, what, do, you, want

“We’re back!” Bess grinned, flinging her arms out and spinning into the crowd of year ten girls. “I swear, if I had to spend another week with pimply thirteen year old boys, Chinese scholarship kids, and all that green and black; I would have died of nostalgia!”

Kay snickered when the tiny blond was shoved to the floor. “You should kiss the ground, Bessie. Oh, Glastonbury! Sweet halls of Glastonbury! How I missed you germ infested halls! How I dreamed of that hideous statue outside the science labs! How I longed for our single sex education that our parents pay 20K a year for!”

Bess’ goofy smile fell off her face, and onto the ground the Kay had sprawled herself across, kissing the ground. I picked the smile up, and decided I needed one for myself.

You can never get too many smiles in your life.

“You and I both know that you’ve been begging your mum to send you to Carey Grammar or that Wesley College, because you thought that a co-ed ‘learning environment’ was better than an all girls,” Bess rolled her eyes. “Remember? Your argument was,” her voice switched to a falsetto. “‘If you send me to that shit hole for another week, I’ll be a lesbian with a girlfriend who has tattoos by the end of this month.’”

I felt like bursting out into laughter, I could feel it rumbling in my stomach, and up my throat, waiting to come out, and it did. “Kay, my little sweet, you are definitely not lesbian. Who’s the one all sappy with Jaiden? Who’s the one who still makes out with her Jesse McCartney poster? Who’s the one who has sexual fantasies in her sick perverted mind with Draco Malfoy?”

“I nod in agreement,” said Bess, nodding in agreement.

Kay muttered something about Bess and ‘marble statue worthy’ Riley being sappier.

We pushed through the crowd of burgundy and gold clad girls (I’ll admit, I did miss the colour of green jumpers and black blazers in the crowd too) and made our way to the Auditorium, where our Principal—who was beyond the valley of ugly—wanted to hold some big assembly.

“You know,” murmured Kay absently.

I glanced at her dryly. “No, I don’t know, Kay. Please enlighten me as to what I should know.”

“I never did understand why they moved the whole school to Xavier, it was only the VCE building that burned down, they should have just moved the elevens’ and twelves’.”

“Maybe they did it because most of us have never had interactions with boys in our entire lives.”

“Well, Mandy seems to have loads of interactions with boys,.”

“You’re forgetting that Mandy came here in year nine from a public co-ed school,” said Bess smartly. I wish I had some of her intelligence, then maybe I might have passed Physics last year.

“Stupid bitch,” mumbled Kay, and I gave her a small smile.

_____________________

“Your hair is different today,” Tristan says, as I plop ungracefully beside him on the park bench. His eye looks perfectly fine now, being a month since Teak punched him.

A month since he told me he 'wanted' me.

What for?

Tristan puts his arm around my waist, and draw me closer, and his cheek would rest on my hair.

It was all humdrum.

Tristan was predictable, and I wasn’t sure if I liked that or not.

“Is it?"

"Mhmm," His voice hums, tickling my head. "It's weird at school now, you know. I think we all missed having girls at our school. I missed you."

I avoid the last three words. "Kay misses Jaiden, it was all she could talk about the whole week back. I think I missed all that green and black too."

He snorts. "Aryan misses not being able to hit on that girl. What's her name again? Florence? Fanny?"

I laugh. "Not Fanny, you nincompoop. Fleur. She actually looked a bit miserable today."

It settles into comfortable silence for a while, just watching kids in the park, watching life go by.

Tristan pulls out his phone, checks the time, and stands up, pulling me with him. "I gotta go," he smiles, it's a pretty infectious smile.

I smile back.

Then he does something unpredictable.

He kisses me.

"Catch ya, Sloane," he grins, then turns away, out of the park.

That was unpredictable, and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.