To tell, or not to tell.

"You doing P.E?"

Just another trivial question asked every Thursday. I roll my eyes.

"How many times, I always do P.E."

Mari smiles at me, her dimple showing as she walks with me in the general direction of the gym. "You want to parter up if we need partners?"

I almost laugh at how almost Western American she sounds. Stereo-typical it may be but she would totally suit the whole country-bumpkin look. Giddy on up cowgirl. I tell her this and she giggles, dimpling again as her blonde ringlets bounce in the wind. "You want to or not then silly?"

"The answer is yes, of course." By now we're standing outside the gym waiting for the bell to ring and the teacher to let us into the changing rooms along with a gaggle of girl who have also decided to congregate there out of sheer lack of anywhere else to be. There is nowhere in my small school to hang out at break apart from the dining hall which is cramped with horrible people pushing and shoving through. About five girls diffuse from the main group and approach us. Well, Mari. They meet halfway in between where I stop and the gaggle starts and greet in squeals and flapping hands. I would join in if I didn't have a strong unvoiced distaste for half of the girls there. They make me feel like an outsider and like I don't belong so instead of fluttering around the outskirts of the group I walk off to find Ashley who stands alone leaning on the wall.

"Yo, kiddo." It's a simple hello and it'll be the most she'll probably say. Ashley isn't a person of many words, but that's probably because no one talks to her since she came out, and by came out I don't mean declared to the world she was bi at lunch break in a loud obnoxious voice to create a scene and get attention, I mean she quietly admitted to her best-friend/crush that she had feeling for her. Said friend then freaked out, which is understandable, and told everyone she could find. Such as half of the cities youth. Which is not so acceptable. Well, not in the way she did it anyway;

"OMG, Ashley's GAAY! And she totally just tried to pull me!" The latter being a total lie, may I add. I'm not saying Ashley is horribly bullied or anything, she has her friends and no-one really says anything to her but they treat her differently and give her looks. It seems stupid to me when other people who are homosexual are perfectly accepted, but the fact is, Ashley has always been a bit out-there and people were just looking for a reason to hate her.

Anyway, back to the present, "Hey."

I receive a grunt in reply. "You doing P.E?" I can't believe I asked such a cliché question but I hate the horrible pregnant silence Ashley always leaves if you don't strike up some sort of conversation. Well, my talking and her... non-verbal responses. She shakes her head. Obviously she won't do P.E. She usually bunks off and goes to the library or off to the "smoking area" to have a fag, which by the looks of it she's itching for now, but today she's probably just going to give the teacher her note and piss off then. She gets in less trouble that way. She's actually three years older than me but skipped a year and then got held back a year as she got pregnant and couldn't come in, again. I would go into the pregnancy but she doesn't talk about it so I don;t know anything of it or what happened to the baby. Thinking about people like Ashley always make me feel guilty. I'm such a bitch.

The bell rings before I can ask anything more and I go to line up with Mari while Ashley stands hunched at the back. I bite my lip and wonder if I should go stand with her instead but I promised Mari. I'm to busy watching Ashley to notice that Mari has already started talking to me and now I'm ignoring her. We walk inside and I realize I've hurt her and Ashley's feelings in the space of two minutes. Good one.