Alone at Six

"Hey guys!" We'd unfortunately accidentally caught Ms.Garrison in the parking lot. "I finished with those forms! So what are you guys planning on doing!?"

"Uh, putting on a concert?"

"No, silly!" She hit me in the shoulder like we were old friends and jumped. "Are you guys gonna go anything special!? It's the last day before spring break!"

That wasn't too surprising. It had been a pretty nice day out despite the puddles and still drying pavement. It was actually getting a bit too warm to be wearing a jacket, even at six.

I double checked my watch. It was Six-O-two. With the boxes, the cop, and Ashley and Jinxx's incident I was almost a hour late for meeting Cole. Great. Just fucking great. She may have already left by now, thinking I was a sadistic bastard.

"Well, uh, I'm not sure. Hey Jake, what do you think?"

Jake immediately went into a whole idea of a event including every member owning a building for a day, but I didn't stay around long enough to hear. He'd tell me later or complain about how I'd left him there alone. Even though he had three other people with him, he'd still complain because he knows I'd be the only one to go with his plan or bail him out of talking to Ms.Garrison.

I wasn't exactly sure how to get to the outside eating area so I just turned wherever it looked familiar. It all looked the same, though. Gray concrete, a eerie felling, and dirty plexiglass walls. It reminded me of a graveyard. After a few turns I found myself looking at the front of E building. Peeking inside, I saw Ryan talking to one of her friends. As much as I didn't like her already, I still needed to find Cole.

Knocking on the door, after I found out it was locked, I tried to hide my revulsion and smiled though the window.

Ryan quickly ended her conversation with her friend as they walked separate ways. Well, Ryan ran, but whatever. Noone cares what she did.

"Hi Andy!" She sounded like Ms.Garrison when she opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey," I tried and somewhat failed at keeping the annoyance out of my voice. Every word from her mouth was like a numb ringing in my ear. "I'm kinda lost. Can you tell me which way the cafeteria is?"

"Totally, just follow me." She made me think of if the waitress from the Dough Roller and Dora the explore ever had kids this is what it would be. She was like hell transferred into a human being......well, I wasn't exactly sure she was human. and I'm not sure how this lesbionic reprodution would work out.

"So!" She exclaimed, leaping into the air with each step, skipping next to me. "Why are you looking for the caff?"

"I'm looking for Cole." I realized that was probably a bad thing to say as soon as the words left my mouth. I've just admitted to Ryan that I forgot Cole and given her something to torture her about, even if it's not true.

"Oh, Cole." Ryan abruptly stopped, falling a few steps behind me as I resisted the urge to just keep walking and find the cafeteria by myself. "You're still hung up on that?"

"What do you mean?" Stopping to look back at her, I made sure to put as much discreet venom in my voice as possible.

"I mean" She drew out, putting her hands on her hips and leaning her head forward like I was an idiot. "What I said. Why are you still hung up on it?"

I shook my head with a unamused laugh. " 'It'? What the fuck are you talking about, 'it'?"

"Coooole. She's so.....eh." Ryan fake shivered as she walked towards me. "I mean, I know you were all buddy buddy earlier, but you're still hanging out?"

"Still hanging out?" What did she expect? There's nothing wrong with Cole, she's awesome and I'm not going to stand here and listen to someone else bash her. Even is Cole did do something that made her deserve it, the past is the past and I'm not part of that. I'm only interested in being in her future.

But one thing was bothering me and kept me from walking away. "Didn't you hang out with Cole? Didn't you go to the concert with her?"

Ryan rolled her eyes and gave a sly smile. "I did hang out with her. Until she slumped. And how could I say no to a Black Veil Brides concert?" She said walking towards me.

"You say no because you weren't friends." The irritation was clear in my voice, but Ryan pulled a Trina. "Why should she do anything for you if you aren't friends?"

"Because Cole is desperate." When I turned to stalk down E building Ryan just followed and kept on talking. "She knows when my birthday is and she still wants to be my friend. Why wouldn't she? I'm not going to shoot down her attempts, but I'm not going to act like they're any good."

I shoved the door open and it rebounded back, unfortunately Ryan was too quick to get hit. Not any good? So Cole's not good enough for her? Maybe she's just a shallow bitch that needs to get it together. There is nothing anyone could possibly do to deserve what Ryan is saying she did. You don't just drop someone like that but still take what they offer because you wanted it.

I walked as fast as I could while trying to think about where I was, the delay giving Ryan time to keep pase. Someone was coming out of C building and held the door so it wouldn't lock. He looked at me and Ryan with a bored expression, like this happened all the time.

"I mean" Ryan ran her hand through my hair scratching my head and I shook her off so fast I lost my balance.

"Don't touch me." I cut her off. What made her think she could scratch me? I'm not a stuffed animal or a dog, I won't purr, I won't respond positively. In fact I'm likely to try and bite off her hand. It's not okay for her to pet me.

"Come on Andy," Ryan leaned closer to me, making me back into the lockers to avoid her touching me again. "I'm not going to give you skin cancer."

My hesitation caused by her lack of brains gave her enough time to run her fingers through my hair again, moving it into my both my eyes and distorting my vision.

"It looks better this way." She claimed.

Instead of baking away, I took her wrist in between my pointer finger and my thumb and plucked her hand out of my hair like a leaf that fell on you in autumn. Bringing it out an arms length away, I dropped her arm and wiped my fingers on my pants to get the crawling feeling off. Letting her hand fall limp to her side, Ryan gave me a disgusted, unbelieving look.

"Okay, it's not like it's my fault she's such a freak. After her mom came in, hanging out with her was social suicide." She flipped her bright blue hair over her shoulders and turned to walk away. "I though you'd get it and be over her by now. Whatever, you know where I am when you are."

"Wait, Ryan!" I called after her. I hated to have to call her back after she was finally leaving, and was holding back after her jabbing at Cole again, but she was the only person here to ask. "What happened with Cole's mom?"