I Need You Like a Heartbeat

"What is wrong with Seth, really?" I asked two girls on both my sides.

"God! We're still doing this?!" Katy groaned before biting her ham sandwich.

"No one knows, Stella." Mia said, sighing. It was probably because of my annoying ways of asking about the boy. I watched him leaning by the pole, arms crossed on his chest. Apparently, he was also watching the other guys toss that football all over the place. He was across the yard from the tree that we're sitting by right now.

"So, why isn't he playing with them?" I asked again, pulling some grass out of the soil. Katy looked up from her sandwich to Seth, and Mia also did look up from her paper that she was writing, then turned to me. I looked at Seth, and she did, too.

"I don't know. But, he used to play a lot." Mia said.

"Like, a lot." Katy nodded. "You know, he loved sports just as I love ham."

"What happened?" I asked. "Why did he stop? There has to be some sort of reason. If he loved it, then why stop?"

"Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing." Mia tapped her pen on her chin. "You remember your first day?" She asked, pointing the pen to me.

"Yeah."

"Well, like two weeks before that, they had this football game and the boys were pretty pumped about it." Mia explained. "Then, a few days after that game, which is like a few days before you arrived, he was out for about five or more days, or something."

"And, you know what Xander told me?" Katy added, chewing her snack. "They think he had an injury with his arm or something. None of the other boys knew how it happened, though."

"Hmm, I see." I nodded. "Can I tell you something?"

"Yeah, sure." They nodded, too.

"On my first day here, I asked you about Seth, right?"

"Ooh! So, even then you already liked him, huh!?" Katy giggled.

"No. That's not the point!" I laughed slightly at the both of them. "So, I sort of eavesdropped on the twins and Seth while they were talking, and I heard Seth say that "they", whoever that is, said that he has to take a little break, whatever that means."

"Oh, well, then maybe it was an injury or something." Mia shrugged.

"Oh, my God! You know what we should do?" Katy, with eyes wide, did some sort of wail. "We should spy on him!"

"What?" Mia asked her.

"Yeah, we should! We could use the other boys as sources, and maybe even his neighbors!" Katy said. I can tell that she already had something planned and that she's pretty excited for it, too.

"Katy, you're totally right! We could go on some sort of mission, and we'd finally know what the deal is with that boy!"

"No, we shouldn't." Mia shook her head. "In case you've forgotten, we have this 'code of silence' crap. Never spread rumors, or something like that."

"Come on, Mia James. It'll be fun!" I nudged her shoulder.

"Yeah, and I've always wanted to spy on someone." Katy added, pouting.

I can tell that Mia was about to give in to her bestfriend anytime now.

"Fine!" Mia rolled her eyes.

"Cool!" Katy clapped her hands, giggle. "But, just out of curiousity, what made you change your mind?"

"I think I already know this one." I grinned at Katy.

"A new article for the school's newspaper." Mia winked at us.

"I knew it." Katy and I both said at the same time.

***

"Okay, I told you," I started to say as slowly as possible. "We are not going to spy on Seth, we're just going to find out what his deal is, look through some background, make his 'walls' come crashing down and-" I watched Alex as he just nod to everything I say.

"Yes, so basically, you guys are going to spy on him." Xander said, raising both his eyebrows and trying to make one of his smart remarks gain emphasis.

"Dude!" Katy yelled at him in annoyance.

"He's right, Stella. We are technically going to spy on him." Mia added.

"No, because to me, it's called 'figuring out'." I explained, adding air quotes on my last two words.

"It's the same thing." Xander argued.

"No, it might not be." I glared at him. "I mean, don't you want to find out what's wrong with him?"

"Yes, we do. Ever since you got here, he started to act all-" Alex started but I cut him off.

"You are so not pinning this one on me. I didn't even do anything to him!" I defended myself.

"I know, yes. I know, Stel." He raised his hand in defeat. "I'm just trying to say that-"

"It's the first time we've seen him act that way." Xander finished for him. "And, we think it's kind of-"

"Suspicious." The twins said at the same time, as the other two girls nodded.

"How do you mean?" I asked, one eyebrow raised in curiousity.

"Well, we might think that he likes you or something." Mia said.

"Yeah, I mean that's kind of the first thing you think of when someone's acting like a jerk in your high school years." Xander shrugged.

"Exactly." Alex nodded in agreement.

"And, then, we thought that maybe he just hated you for no apparent reason." Katy shrugged while rolling her eyes.

"Well, then. Let's find out the reason why he hates me."

"Or, why he loves you." Mia faked cough, thinking she could hide that one from me.

"I heard that." I stuck my tongue out to her.

"But, wait-" Xander hesitantly said.

"Dude, what is it now!?" Katy smacked his shoulder.

"Katherine Stone, would it kill you to just give me some respect?! I was just about to ask a simple question!" Xander yelled back.

"You've been saying 'but, wait' so many times, Xander! Would it kill you to stop?! We are all here planning some sort of stake-out and you're wasting our time because of your stupid little non-existent brain!"

Xander and Katy were both arguing in chorus that their voices started to blend together and we can barely understand a word they were saying.

"Oh, really!? Then, if you're so smart then why won't you see-" Xander forcefully walked towards Katy. We all looked at him and stopped from our non-sense activities when we heard a few seconds of silence. He then groaned in annoyance.

"See what, Anderson!?" She, too, inched a little closer to Xander.

"Nothing." Xander's voice croaked and died down.

"Geez!" Mia said. "Just eat your Chinese food."

It's probably going to take a long time for me to get used to Xander and Katy's bickering. But, as long as I have Chinese food by my friend's backyard, I'm good.

"What's up with that, man? You've completely lost it back there." Alex said, slightly laughing to himself.

"Can we not talk about it?" Xander looked away from my gaze, sighing. He looked up again to see that Katy had angrily made her way to their kitchen, grumbling and stomping. Mia hesitantly followed behind her, saying something about Katy raiding the fridge again.

"What was that you were supposed to say to Katy?"

"Nothing." Xander, with his voice getting lower by the minute, stuttered.

"Okay." Alex sighed. "We could proceed to the 'you can tell me anything. I'm your brother' talk, or we could just skip the agony and cheesiness, and you just tell me what it is. It's your call, dude."

"Alex, come on." Xander whined to his twin brother, who was giving him a questioning look. He sighed. "Fine. I'm just tired of Katy, okay? She seems to find a lot of ways to make me tick, and then we argue, and if she's not doing that, she gets pissed off by something and them takes it all out on me."

"Maybe it's because you let her." Alex sugested, shrugging. "But, you've always been that way. I mean, you guys have always been arguing on a regular basis."

"I know that. But, she has been different lately. A few years back, we weren't even that close. Sure, we were all friends. But, the only connection was with you and Mia, and Katy and Seth."

My attention was caught when I heard Seth's name in the twins' conversation. I wondered what he had to do with Katy. Thinking back to one of the awkward 'get-to-know' talks at the cafeteria table, I remembered that their parents were close friends and they have been friends, too, just not that close. Seth was just another one of Katy's 'go-to' person when Mia wasn't around, and that rarely happens.

"What do you mean?" I asked, finally speaking after listening to their talk for a while.

"Back then, we just know each other. We were never really that close. I guess, we would have these casual talks, but never past the point where we have to continue our conversation for hours."

"So?" Alex and I simultaneuously asked, gesturing for Xander to go on.

"So," He continued. "If we're close to being 'friends' now, I don't see why we have to argue all the time."

Xander looked at me, and I had a feeling I know where this is going.

"I'm getting pretty tired of it. I mean, if she hates me, she could just say it to my face." He sighed heavily.

"Instead of being nice to you one day and being all rude on another." I scoffed, being all too familiar with his situation. "Tell me about it." I mummbled, rolling my eyes.

After a few minutes, we eventually changed topics. But, unfortunately, Alex just had to come up with a brilliant idea. It is a brilliant idea, although it brought back a topic that both Xander and I were trying to get passed.

"Hey, do you have more of that?" I asked Xander, pointing both my chopsticks at the dumpling in front of him.

"Yeah. In case you don't remember, we ordered Chinese for five people, and since Mia already had dinner,-" He cut himself off when he saw a different dumpling in front of me. "Oh, can I have that?" He asked, reaching out to the take-out box.

"Sure, here. You know, I-" I started to say.

"Guys, hey!" Alex excitedly interrupted. "I have an idea." He proudly stated with a raise of his eyebrows.

"Uh-oh." Xander put his box down. "If this is one your pranks, we-" He gestured to the both of us and pointed accusingly at Alex.

"No, dude." Alex breathed out exasperatedly. "This is going to help you. Both of you."

"Go on." I said as Xander motioned for Alex to go on.

"So, what if, while you and the other girls 'spy' on Seth, you" Alex turned to his brother. "'Spy' on Katy, too?"

"Well, it could work, but," I processed what he said.

"How do I do that when Katy's going to be busy spying on Seth?" Xander asked.

"Well, maybe you don't have to do it yourself." Alex said. "Maybe Stella here could help you."

"Me? How? I mean, -" I was about to protest, the difficulty of spying on two confusing people finally came to my realization.

"Yeah, it could work, Stella." Xander nodded. "You could just talk to her, tell me what she says about me. That kind of stuff." He explained like it would be easy to do. Sure, making conversation could be a piece of cake, but bringing up a guy to a girl during a random talk while spying on another? I'm pretty sure it would be tricky.

"I guess." I sighed. But, they still spotted a bit of hesitation.

"Come on, Stella. Help me out here. You know I can't exactly talk to her about this without fighting in the process." Xander looked at me with pleading eyes. Alex agreed to his comment by chuckling to himself. The twins looked at each other, and Xander flashed me a grin.

"Besides, I'd do it for you and Seth."