Twinfestation

Much like Silver, his friends become different people as soon as they come close to the school. I was unfortunate enough to have homeroom with Ash, but he wasn't so bad then.

Ash caught up to me almost as soon as I got through the doors, but whatever he was going to say he didn't. He walked by me to homeroom with his hands in his pockets, head down, and quiet, no rude remarks about anything I said to anyone, no matter how big a opening I gave him. He didn't say hi to anyone, like I did to everyone, but that could have been since no one said hi to him.

"Hey Say." Layla's brown roots bobbed up and pushed between us. "Hey Britshit."

"Just to make sure, but you do know my name isn't actually Britshit, right?"

"Yeah yeah." Layla waved him off before turning to me. "I just can't remember it. Did you know that Saturday detention is nothing like The Breakfast Club?"

"Everyone did, Lay. You know, if you'd just gone to after school detention or Friday Academy you wouldn't have had to stay Saturday."

"Say, whenever a teacher says 'I'll have to clear my schedule for you.' you don't go unless you want to end up bent over a desk."

"I think it's different when that say 'You're a threat to student safety, I can't let you leave this room.' before it."

Opening her mouth, she stopped to think about it before saying. "Maybe. But I'm not taking any chances."

"Mrs.Devile is sixty three years old and has been married for forty of them."

"I trust no one." She turned her five foot two, red hared, tripping form then and took her black-chick-quality bubble-butt to homeroom.

"Kitten," Ash said thoughtfully. "do you every think she watches a little too much porn?"

"Yeah. All the time."

"Do you think you could tell her my name is Ash?"

"No. Never."

Sighing, he walked away to his usual table to sit. "I thought that might be your answer."

I sat in the back row, the seats next to me immediately filled. Ash sat a few rows ahead with his face in the crook of his elbow, the only indication of him being awake when he pulled his legs out of the way of the chair in front if him.

"Hey Salem." Max smiled too big up at me. "How was your weekend?"

"I saw you at the shop yesterday." Mia sat on the other side of me, smiling too big just like her rival.

For some odd reason, Max and Mia have always had a ongoing 'secret' fight over me. They'd try to win my attention, over affection, and would tell the most outrageous things that would sometimes disturb me. They tried to be discreet about it, but utterly failed in doing so.

"Yeah, I worked both days. like always." I tried to smile at them both but ended up looking overly eager to talk to them, fueling their obsession.

"I bought tickets to a Black Veil Brides concert." Mai informed me. "I bought two but my sister can't come this weekend. You want to?"

I smiled at her, glad I had a valid excuse and not have to flat out lie. Black Veil Brides is a cool band and all, but going with Mia.... "Sorry, I'm going on that trip with Mr.Smith this weekend."

"Aw, really?" Max's puppy dog face looked awful on him, like he was in pain, not trying to be cute. "I was hoping we could hang out."

"Sorry, mayb-"

Haru bust in the door then, her khaki skirt kicking up only to reveal a pair of boy superman boxers as she ran up to Mia. Her white partially buttoned up shirt sliding off her shoulder, reveled T-shirt underneath, and short flailing hair caused her to look overly distressed.

"You didn't e-mail me the project." Haru huffed.

"Uh," Mia looked at her the same way everyone else did. Like she was crazy. "Sorry, I forgot about it."

"You're online all day! How could you forget?" Literally yanking Mia out of her chair, they ran out of the door as the bell rang. Her seat was taken by a brown skinned girl who's name I soon learned was Nicole after roll.

"So Salem," Max pipped up, eyes going too-big. "What are you doing after school? Wanna see a movie? We could go to a matinee."

"Oh, I do to the collage for classes after fourth period. I don't get out until five, sorry."

"Oh, we could go after." He smiled.

"Maxwell." The teachers voice came from behind him, his full name causing his face to turn a painful looking shade of red. "I need you to go to the library so you can make up the test you missed."

"Okay." He reluctantly agreed. Looking back at me, he gave off a smile implying that this was my lose. "Talk to you later Salem."

I went back to working peacefully for all of three seconds before Nicole turned to me like she was going to say something, a smile spreading across her face instead. "Aw, you have pretty eyes."

"Thanks." I smiled. Most people didn't bother to look at my eyes and commented on something odd like my last match (which was forever ago) or how good a couple me and Hayden were.

"Do you like Panic! At The Disco?" She asked.

"Yeah, but not the new stuff that much."

"Are you gay?"

"Uh.....how'd you know?"

Her smile grew in triumph. "I didn't. But your eyes are pretty, you're cute, and you like Panic!. I was hoping you'd get four out of four by being gay so you could be my friend."

"Are all your friends gay?" I asked, rather hesitantly.

"No, only one. But being gay just makes me want to be friends even more. Are you taken?"

I paused. Am I taken? Or was Hayden's actions earlier a act of breaking up?

"Yeah, I am."

Giving me skeptical looks, she looked forward to Ash. "Is he gay?"

"Yeah." I smiled at the coincidence that she would pick Ash to ask about. "And he's single."

"Aw. I was hoping he was straight, he's cute."

I laughed and was quickly shushed by the teacher. Going over the material from yesterday, we opened our books and attempted to understand the equations on the page in front of us. It wasn't too hard for me, barely a challenge, but I ended up trying to help Nicole understand for most of the period. In the end, I gave her my number so she could call me if she needed help.



"Hey, Say, did you read up to the mark yet?" Hayden sat in the empty seat at the two person table, the one that no one dares to sit in. Unless you're Johna or Silver, of course.

"Did I- I finished the whole assignment Hayden." I looked over his face carefully for any hint of anything odd or out of place. Did he plane on saying anything again? Why was he acting so normal?

"Right, I forgot who I was talk...ing.....to." He looked up at me and scrunched his face in worry. "What's wrong?"

"Oh," Looking for the best excuse, I spotted Conner sitting a few seats behind him. "nothing. One second, I need to talk to Conner."

Looking behind him, he gave one big happy nod. "Oh. Okay."

I pushed out of my chair, trying not to seem aggressive in it while doing so. He was seriously going to act as if he'd done nothing? Like he was as Innocent as he looked, he'd never done anything wrong. How could he sit there like nothing is wrong? Unless he'd been doing it for so long that it's normal for him.

I sat next to Conner, about to put my face in my hands before I caught site of his paper. It wasn't regular lined paper, he was writing in a notebook filled of blank music staffs. He finished writing a line, waited a second, and crossed it all out like the ones before, repeating the proses over and over.

"Conner....what are you doing?"

"Oh, Dia Dhuit Salem." Conner looked up at me and I almost told him to look back down if he wasn't going to smile. His neutral look looked like a frown but I've never seen him frowning...or maybe I've never seen him neutral. His lips looked stretched out from smiling, but no one here besides his friends would think that, hair flattened as a sign that he hadn't bothered to take his time with it this morning to spike it, and his shoulders were slumped. School turned Conner from a good-looking, happy, energetic, enthusiastic person to one that looked like all happiness had been sucked out of him.

"Why are you crossing it all out?" I asked.

"Because they're no good."

"Conner," Looking over them, I couldn't comprehend what he was saying. "they're amazing. What are you talking about?"

He only shrugged. "They're not.....happy. I don't like them."

"If you're looking for happiness then why are you wasting your paper in school?"

"I'm not looking for it," He gave me his infamous Mona Lisa smile. "I'm waiting for it."

I was about to ask him what he meant but my mouth became occupied by the smile his put on it. Everything seemed to fall back in place in the world, Conner belonged happy, he owned the emotion.

His head turned with Yu who's eyes where glued to the floor in front of her. Though Yu was insane on Saturday, she wasn't completely like that. She bounced and was moderately warm all the time, helpful, a genuinely nice person. School took that from her.

"Hi Conner." Yu said, her eyes glued to the desk as she took the seat next to him. "Hi Say. I think Hayden wants you."

Looking over, I saw Hayden smiling and waving at me to come back. I stood as soon as Ash and Haru walked in and took the seats in front of Conner and Yu. Johna walked in before I took so much at three stepped towards my seat and pulled me to the side.

"Do you talk to him yet?" She asked.

"No. I think I'm just going to leave it alone."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Yeah." I shrugged "I mean, he hasn't said anything about it and we've had two classes together. So he obviously doesn't plan on doing so. And he's being so normal, so it's probably been going on for awhile now. What good would it do anyway? It'd only leave me without a boyfriend and him feeling stupid."

"Yeah, but........you should still talk to him. I know you're not serious about him," Johna got that almost pained expression she did when saying it out loud. "But you should work it out. When you do get into a serious relationship, you need to know how to solve problems like this."

"But I don't care. I only want to be in one serious relationship and I know he'd never think of doing that if we were."

"But, Say," Johna said all too softly, carefully like the girl at the restaurant. "you're not. And....you might never be. You need this."

I sighed again. I hate when other people are right.

Johna pulled me back to my seat and took the one in front of me. The teacher came in late with Layla, a pissed expression on her face from, most likely, something Layla had done.

"I swear," Layla said as she took the seat next to Johna. "everyone here just want to jump your bones.

"Tell me about it." Hayden mumbled with a suggestive look on his face.

I ignored Johna's glances as Hayden scooted over closer to me, leaving no gap.