Make-Believe Ballroom

"I'd really like to know what's going through your mind right now." Lauren said sharply, after catching up with her. She didn't stop for a brief second to acknowledge her friend but kept rushing, yet it didn't phase Lauren in her blind annoyance.

"I swear to God, I am going to smack you in a minute Saskia and I won't even feel guilty. You completely deserve it."

Even the threat of injury didn't stop her as she continued her hurry to no destination. Just wanting to hide from everyone. From the questioning glances, the concerned best friend and the boy who caused her fragile state. She wanted a nice discreet corner where she could sink to the floor and bawl her eyes out.

Yet she was stopped when Lauren came to the end of her tether with her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back it was surprising that her shoulder wasn't dislocated by the motion. Their faces were close, so that Saskia was able to see the look of steely disappointment in the other girls eyes, making her recoil in shame.

"You have the sweetest boy I've ever had a conversation with looking desperately for you. He was practically begging me to help him find you and when he final grasped the courage he obviously lacks to talk to you, you behave like that? I know he's the boy you've been talking to Saskia, why are you treating him so badly?"

For a short while, she allowed herself to register everything she was being told in a harsh tone, trying to make herself see sense. Her heart was leaping and racing at the retelling of his actions. Yet the venom of jealousy was still running viciously in her body. Causing the dainty girl to grit her teeth and pull away with such force it shocked her friend.

"If he's so wonderful, why don't you talk to him?" she asked sharply, raising her eyes to make contact "I'm sure he'll be thrilled by your interest."

Still propelled by the same bitterness that made her speak so fiestily, she knocked into her friends shoulder as she pushed past to retrace the corridor she had just walked down. Leaving Lauren frozen in complete awe of the new side of Saskia. One nobody ever expected to emerge. Yet the edges of her sharp behavior were smoothed down by the timid glimmer that shone in her falling tears. Making Lauren desert any hostility she felt about the outburst.

Her anger being aimed at one person. The one who had clearly hurt her best friend.

♥

Anybody that didn't know his nature, would look over at him now and expect he had just been delivered unimaginably bad news. For the male gender should only display how distraught he was when he had that excuse. Yet he had always been terrible at disguising how he felt.

He could never lie without the guilt breaking the performance, though lying was something he tried to avoid like the plague. If he was excited, he had no way of containing it- he released it and allowed himself to behave like a child being fed E numbers. What he felt was his biggest flaw, was how the smallest thing could upset him and it would be readable in his big eyes.

Joshua Franceschi looked like he was moments away from screaming in frustration and crying at how hopeless the situation seemed to him.

"Did you show him that dead bird Max? I told you not to point it out." were the first words from Matt's mouth when he saw the state of their friend, slapping the other boys head.

He was hushed by a girl he didn't recognise, and then she dropped her scowl to look back at Josh with concern. He obeyed, and eventually fell into the vacant seat, joining the other two as they silently observed the boy who was too deep in thought to be bothered by the attention.

"Are we mourning or something?" the outburst came when he couldn't cope with the quiet or not knowing the reason behind his friends sadness. Or more importantly, he was disturbed by how comfortable Max seemed to be with sitting stiffly with no noise coming from him.

"It's not the squashed birdie you dick." the other boy took his turn to scold the older one.

"Oh I see," Matt nodded with sudden realisation at what was going on "it's a girl."

This caught the awareness of Josh who hadn't been paying a blind bit of notice to anything anybody had said in the past five minutes, yet remained discreet with his attention.

"Seriously, do you notice anything unless it's in big flashy signs being held by dancing monkeys wearing little pink mini skirts while they're whistling the theme tune to Eastenders..." The point of his vivid description trailed as Max began to play the scene in his mind with a sloppy grin of amusement on his face.

"Miranda, I need your help."

Everyone turned back quickly to the well spoken boy who had emerged from his thoughts on what he was going to do to resolve the circumstance. The girl bobbed her head immediately, already eager to assist the person she had known for a short while.

"She's not being your rebound girl to create envy is she? That's not gonna work with Blondie, Josh. You'll only upset her more you moron." Max interrupted before a syllable of the explanation could be uttered.

It happened once again where all the focus was returned to Max, the three others wearing matching baffled expressions at the things that came out of his mouth.

"Yeah, I wouldn't do that anyway." the girl said, trying to begin the conversation again.

"And why not? Why wouldn't you do that for Joshua? I'll tell you that he is the sweetest and most loving person you would be lucky enough to know! You should be jumping at the chance to do such a thing for him." Max protested, making Matt feel like he was watching a tennis match with the person talking changing with every cut off and sidetrack.

"Do you want to be that girl?" she snorted in amusement, shaking her head.

"Erm, anyway. After the lesson tomorrow I need you to point out the stuff on the desks to Mrs. Humpherson. Y'know, feed her lines about you caring for the school environment and the things that would be offensive to her one there at all that," Josh said seriously to her "Basically, push her into giving Saskia and I at least a weeks worth of detentions scrubbing desks or something."

They saw the objective of his plan, and were all in agreeance that this seemed like a realistic way of putting them in an environment where she couldn't hide from him.

"She doesn't seem like the type to except punishment Josh, I'll bet you're tarnishing her pristine record here." Miranda spoke from what she had witnessed and been told of the girl that firmly grasped the affection of the boy.

It caused a deep feeling of disappointment within himself for causing that. He cared too much about the reactions to his actions.

Yet he cared much more about making it up to the girl he had let down. Afterwards pursuing the feelings she had sparked