Cassandra

I got to our usual meeting spot for our Mathinator meetings early today.

Only Samantha, Lily, Eric and James were there.

Not really wanting to make any small talk with anyone and make things awkward, I just sat down in my usual spot and waited for Bella to show up.

5 minutes later, she walked through the door, smiled when she saw me and ran over to sit beside me.

"Hiiii!" Bella greeted me.

I smiled back at her, then grinned mischievously.

"Hey Bella, guess what?" I asked.

Her eyes lit up and she immediately caught on to what I was talking about.

"IS IT ABOUT YOUR SECRET ADMIRER!?" She vociferated loudly. I lightly swatted her arm.

"Say it a little louder, I don't think they heard you in China." I joked. She smiled sheepishly back at me.

"Sorry, it's just so exciting!" She gushed.

I nodded in agreement.

"I know!" I beamed at her, practically bouncing up and down myself in my seat from all the excitement.

"Well then, is it?" She interrogated and I nodded with a smile.

She gasped.

"Ooh, do tell!" she said in a strange British accent.

I giggled.

"Well this morning there wasn't anything, which was a bit disappointing." I started.

She frowned, dismayed.

I continued "Buuuuut-"

her face lit up again.

"-when I got back from chemistry class I found these." I said, whilst waving a bag of Hershey's kisses in her face. She moved back in surprise with a laugh. "And there was this note." I finished, holding out a folded up piece of paper.

"Let me see!" Cried Bella as she pretty much snatched it from my hands. I laughed as her eyes scanned the page twice, carefully reading each word.

"That is so cute! I-" She had begun to say, happily until she was interrupted by someone clearing their throats above us.

I looked up and saw James and Eric looking back at us.

Simultaneously I said "Hi Eric, hi James" while Bella said "Hi Eric, go away James"

I cocked my head at her, confused with her attitude towards James.

James clutched his heart dramatically. "ouch" he said then leaned close to her face and continued sarcastically, "that hurt."

I thought I noticed her face go pink but she quickly pushed him away, grumbled something that none of us could understand and said in a very annoyed tone "What do you want, James" and by the time she did, she was normal again.

James smirked at Bella, crossed his arms at her and looked at me when he said "I couldn't help but overhearing that Cassandra over here has a secret someone that we don't know about. So spill."

And I was about to when Bella snapped "it's none of your business" at James.

I put my hand on her shoulder "Bella it's fine, I really don't mind" I cooed trying to calm her down.

But she just whipped her head at me and said forcefully "No it's not fine he's trying to pry into your personal business and it's rude so he needs to leave!" Her eyes pleaded desperately for support.

I just put my hands in the air as a sort of surrender. I was going to be like Eric and stay quiet for the rest of the conversation.

Bella looked back at James with gritted teeth and said slowly "Leave. Now."

"But Cassandra said-" James tried to say in protest.

But Bella interrupted him and said in an even harsher tone, "I said leave."

The second time she said it, James just scoffed at her ran his hand through his chocolate brown, straight hair and said "Whatever." And walked off with Eric waving back at us and scurrying after him.

After I was 100% sure they were gone I turned Bella to face me "what was that all about?" I asked her, genuinely confused.

She just blushed, broke eye contact with me and mumbled "Nothing."

But I just kept looking at her "No seriously, why were you so rude to James?"

James was a decent person. He was tall, had brown hair, brown eyes, he was average height, average weight but definitely leaned more on the skinny side, wore glasses like me and played video games, your average nerd but would definitely fall under the 'cute nerd' category. His only problem: he had an attitude. And not a good one. But other than that he was a pretty ok guy so that's why it baffled me so much how mean Bella was to him.

But all Bella could do in response to my question is tuck a stray strand of her pale blonde hair behind her ear and mumble "It's complicated." Then she looked up at me with her baby blue eyes and pleaded, "I really don't want to talk about it so can we talk about something else. Please?"

I could tell she really wanted me to understand so I sighed, decided to let it go and responded with "Fine, let's get back to trying to figure out who my secret admirer is."

She smiled at me and said "yeah ok, sure."

We spent the rest of the time talking, but I couldn't help but think about what went down between James and Bella.

I didn't know what Bella's beef with James was, but as her best friend I would find out. No matter what.