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TWO DAYS HAD PASSED WITHOUT any sign from Will. That fact had been reminded to me by Barbara during lunch in the school's cafeteria on Friday, when she asked quite a very simple question.

"Has Will messaged you yet?"

It made my thoughts instantly roll to a stop.

I slightly shook my head.

Will had asked for my Facebook - which I believed had been quite a surprising gesture, especially from him - but he hadn't messaged me. Not yet.

Of course, only two days had passed. He had the whole time in the world to message me. Maybe he was following some three-day rule I didn't know. Maybe that was the social protocol. Never message someone the day after you're adding them on Facebook. Except that we'd been friends all along. Maybe there's another social protocol for that. A week, maybe?

But as soon as these thoughts began to form in my mind, something else took over me. I wasn't sure what it was, but I had a strange feeling that Will wasn't going to do that.

He wasn't going to message me.

I didn't know how I knew this. Maybe because if he was going to do that, he would've done it already. But no. That wasn't it.

Something just felt... odd. I could feel it in my stomach. Like the way some people could tell something was wrong before deciding not to step on the train that would be on the news several hours later due to a terrible accident.

Though the only logical explanation for Will's behaviour from the other day would be that he actually intended to keep in touch with me. But even so, the more I though about it, the more I felt like I was right. It was weird.

"Cece?"

I snapped back to reality. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay? You've barely touched your lunch."

I gazed down at the plate sitting before me, the steam now cleared off of my un-eaten burger. "Yeah," I gulped and aimed for a diversion. "Are you okay?"

It was Barbara's turn to look confused. "Why?"

"Uh, well, you inhaled your lunch again," I said, pointing at Barbara's empty plate. "Are you secretly a vacuum or something? Seriously, that burger's already making its way down your intestines."

"Okay, first of all," Barbara replied with her I'm-going-to-explain-why-your-sentence-was-wrong face. Being a future nutritionist did that to her sometimes. "That's not the burger, those are the remains of yesterday's lunch in my intestines, currently being recycled into poop. The burger is barely battling with the hydrochloric acid right now. Maybe not even that."

I pursed my lips. "Do you understand the notion of sarcasm?"

"I do. And you don't seem to understand the fact that I'm your friend, and I know when something is troubling you."

I fought the urge to smile. "Nothing is troubling me. I was just thinking."

"Ah," Barbara grinned, "the key word. And you don't happen to realize the fact that I know this is about Will, do you?"

I bit my lip. Was it about Will?

I didn't know.

God, what was I thinking? I barely knew the guy. Sure, we'd been in the same class in kindergarten and he had been my friend for almost four years, but I couldn't compare the Will I'd known back then to the Will I'd met a couple of days before.

There were eleven years between them. Thousands and thousands of experiences that had shaped little Will into the seventeen-year-old boy I'd met at Domino's two days before.

He might have carried the same name and features - heck, even the same fashion style - but inside him, everything had changed. Storms and rainbows had materialized inside him during the course of the years, and what they left behind was the interior of a whole new person whom I didn't know.

It happened to each of us. This is one thing we all had in common. No matter how many storms and rainbows pass through our souls; we never stay the same.

"Cece?"

"Huh?"

"You drifted off again."

I blinked, raising my eyes back to Barbara. God, I had to stop doing this. "Sorry. I was just - I don't know." I paused, shifting in my seat. "I feel kind of weird."

"You like Will, don't you?"

"W-what?" I blinked again, taken aback by her sudden question. Even though I should've seen it coming. "Where did you - "

"Look, Cece," she said and her tone was different all of a sudden. Weird, somehow. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Maybe I should've told you yesterday, when I... received it."

"Received what?"

She blinked, her gaze wondering off into nothingness. I realized what her tone was now. It was apologetic. "I'm so sorry, Cece."

My eyes were widened now. I felt more awake, and a lump began forming in my stomach. "Sorry for what? You're scaring me now."

She looked straight into my eyes as she spoke. "Will messaged me yesterday."

I raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

She nodded grimly. There was something else pinned into her expression. I didn't recognize it, though. "He... He said he wanted to reach me through you. That's why he asked for your Facebook. But it was Megan who ended up giving him mine, since he didn't know my last name, so he didn't have to message you anymore." She paused to study my expression. I was pretty sure it was blank. "And... We kind of started chatting."

"Oh." I paused, trying to process the information Barbara had just shot towards me, which resulted into a frown forming on my face. "Okay, let me get this straight. You and Will like each other now?"

"Uh," she winced, "don't say that."

"But it's true."

She shook her head. "No, no, of course not."

I raised my eyebrows and she shook her head again, this time faster. "It's not true, Cece."

I did the same gesture again, this time widening my eyes in a supposedly intimidating way. I noticed her lips tugging upward ever so slightly and I knew she was caving in. After a few moments, she finally started laughing, her cheeks slightly pink. "Okay, okay, stop making that face, please."

"So you admit?"

"Fine. There might be something there. But just a might. A weak one, for that matter."

I pursed my lips, nodding. "Okay."

The smile had washed off of her face and worry began to appear instead. "Are you okay?"

I shrugged. "Sure. It's not like I liked him or something."

It was her turn to raise her eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

I shrugged again. I didn't know what else to do. "Yeah. I mean - yeah."

"Oh, God." Her face crumpled. "You liked him. And I took him away, I - I stole him... God... God, I'm so sorry, I - "

"Stop saying that I like him." I was suddenly feeling irritated. "It's just that - I don't really get something."

She looked alarmed. "What?"

I straightened in my seat and tried to ignore the emotions already welling up inside me. "Well, first you said you wanted me to find a date for prom so I could accompany you and Marcus and do a double date and blah, blah, blah. And after finding someone that might actually be suited for this, you're telling me now that you're going to - what? Go to prom with Will? What even happened to Marcus? Are you just going to ditch him for someone you met two days ago?"

Barbara's eyes were widened. She looked shocked, almost taken aback. "Cece, I'm so sorry for putting you through this awkward situation, but - "

"But what?"

She bit her lip. "But, I don't know... It wasn't supposed to happen like this, I mean - "

"It wasn't supposed to happen?" I laughed, a laugh that sounded surprisingly humorless. "Listen to you. It's like you're talking about a love affair or something."

"You don't get it," she protested, "I wanted to help you get a prom date. I swear to God, I did. But... But this Will thing, it wasn't meant to happen, okay? I just - I feel really bad for it, and I wanted to be straightforward and just, I don't know, tell you..."

I shook my head, trying to remeber the last time I'd felt as confused as right now. "No offence, Barabara, but this, and I'm gonna say it, is kind of crappy of you."

She laughed an actual laugh that somehow only made me feel even more irritated. "Crappy? Seriously? Doesn't honesty count for anything anymore? The fact that I told you straight-away, and didn't go behind your back?"

"It's not about that and you know it. You wanted to help me get a date. You set up, and I quote, a magical hangout," I ari-quoted the words, "that was supposed to help me get that date. With Will. Am I right or wrong?"

"Yes, I know, but - "

"And now, after barely two days, you decided that suddenly I'm not the one who needs setting up. It's you. The girl who already has a date, and with a great guy, for that matter."

"Yes, I know, okay, but - "

"But what?"

"But I told you, I - I..."

She shook her head, her mouth moving ever so slightly as if she didn't know how to express her thoughts anymore. But no further words came out.

They didn't have to. I'd heard enough.

"Got ya," I said, barely above a whisper.

But it was too late. The knot from my throat was already aching and I could feel the anger and disappointment wake up from their hibernation inside me.

I resumed a hungerless eating and Barbara did the same, but her eyes shone with something I couldn't put my finger on. Guilt? Sadness?

But regardless of what it was, I knew she wasn't going to talk anymore. At least not now. And neither was I. The tension growing around us was enough to block out any further words.

But she did add something else. And her saddened tone alone was enough to irritate me even more.

"You know, this wouldn't have happened if Will and I had already met. Long before the four of us went out, I mean. But I practically met him an hour before you did, since I went to Megan's place, for the first time ever, may I add, straight after school. And - and then Will came home, and that's also when I talked to him about meeting you. But after that, I - "

"Okay, I got it," I cut her off. "Just please stop talking about this now."

She nodded silently in response, looking ashamed. And just like that, we finished the rest of our lunch in silence.

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Wow, looks like things are reaching a weird state. What do you think of Cece and Barbara's argument? Did Cece overreact, or was Barbara really being a bad friend? Comment down your opinions and predictions for future chapters :)

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