Dawn

Aria was back to normal on Monday, which was weird as hell. After all, I'd been a bad friend, ditched her, Kat and Jason at the beach, and she was laughing and talking to me like a normal best friend usually did. As I said, weird. Had she forgiven me or was she just in a good mood?

Kat on the other hand, was the one acting weird, ignoring me and playing some stupid game on her phone. Or if she did look up, she would give me a nervous look like she was scared of my reaction to something. At least that was what it seemed like.

Aria had asked me how the date was; Kat hadn't. In fact, she was annoyingly intensely focused on the game, eyes narrowed and not looking where she was going. 

I snatched the phone away from her unresistant grip and raised an eyebrow when she whined at me to give it back. 

"You need to focus where you're going or you'll bump into someone."

"But I was just about to kill that little biatch!"

Lately, my hormones had been kicking up; first the unnecessary, ugly crying breakout when Aria and I had a fight, then the day with Noah where I experienced really weird feelings, and now this. I knew I shouldn't be getting all worked up about Kat ignoring me, but I couldn't help it.

"No one cares about your freaking game!" I almost hissed. "Why are you acting all nervous like a mouse?" 

She looked taken aback. "Well, um, nothing."

What kind of reason was that? 

I opened my mouth to tell her so when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I almost ran right into a wall of hard muscle. 

"Mmmphh what the freaking hell- oh, uh, hi Noah."

I glared at him as he smiled down at me through his eyelashes. 

"How are you?" 

I rolled my eyes. "Pretty good. You?"

"Average."

So this was a random conversation. Were we back to being awkward?

"I want to know whether you could hang out with me again? You know, for fun. Like on the weekend or after school or something?"

"Uh, okay. I can do that." I gave him a nervous smile. 

"Could we go to your place?" 

"Of course." I was going to Dad's place tonight, and I was pretty sure he wouldn't mind... if he did, I could just call Noah a friend. 

Nervously shifting from foot to foot, I glanced at Noah, then away, then at him, then away until Kat pushed her way between us and tried to tug her phone out of my suffocating grip. 

"Gimme my phone back!" She muttered, prying it out of my stiff fingers. Giving me a glare, she hurried after Aria, who was heading towards her locker. 

"I'll just go now," I murmured, glancing at Noah one last time. "See you in English." 

"See ya," he said, and stepped closer to me until he was one breath away. I swallowed, my throat dry. The bloody hell was he doing?

Then he leaned forwards and brushed his soft lips on my forehead, hands resting on my shoulders, then he lifted my chin with one finger and tried to peer into my eyes. 

I stepped back a few paces and looked down to the ground. "Bye," I told it, then rushed off. My nerves were jangling and damn I was confused. 

I supposed I still needed some getting used to the fact that if I had Noah as a boyfriend, I was bound to get affection from him in public since he clearly wasn't one to hide his feelings, and that I should be expecting it. Taking a deep breath, I forced the red from my cheeks to fade away, then got my books for maths from my locker and headed down to roll call. 

*

"Alright Aria, just tell me why you're acting like we never stopped being best friends?" Stupid hormones kicking up and making me all weird. I sat down next to her in period five, giving her a half questioning, half annoyed look. 

I waited for an answer as I shuffled my books around the tiny, stupid desks we each had to vomit our brains up at. When there was none, I picked up a pencil, twirled it around my fingers, and looked at her.

She gave me an annoying smirk and said simply, "I got payback. Now that we're all equal-"

"All equal? What the hell does that mean?" I cut her off. 

"It means that we can go back to being friends."

We stared at each other real hard, until I felt like my eyeballs would pop out from the stress.

I blinked and sighed, feeling all the fight go out of me. Didn't I want this to happen? I wanted to continue being friends with Aria, so there wasn't any point in sparking another fight.

Nodding, I turned when Kat plonked herself down with a rattle of keyrings on her bag and said in a small voice, "Friendship solved?"

"Yep." I glanced at Aria and looked away. She lowered her own stare. 

"Well, I hope you had a good time at your date," Kat told me, giving me a small smile.

"Thanks. I did." I already felt light-hearted at the mention of our basically perfect date. If every other outing went as well as that one did, perhaps there really was a connection we had between us. 

"Noah actually asked me if I could hang out with him again," I continued, grinning. "I don't know if Jason will be there though." The last part I spoke to Aria. 

"Eh. It's okay. You two need some get-to-know-each-other time anyway, from the looks of it."

I furrowed my eyebrows at her response, slightly suspicious. "How do you know we don't know each other well enough?"

"Oh... you know, the way you act around him. At school," she added, her eyes suddenly darting away from me.

"Right," I replied, blushing now. If I was really that noticeably flustered...

"Anyway," Aria continued, "This weekend I'm going to formally invite Jason over to my house for lunch to meet my scary old mum, so wish me luck. She's probably going to force him to do half of the washing up afterwards, and bash him over the head with a frying pan if he gets a speck of dust on the dining table."

"Ooohh, that's harsh," Kat laughed. "That's why single is best, my ladies."

"My ladies?" I repeated with a raised eyebrow while Aria almost fell off her chair in silent laughter. 

Rolling her eyes, Kat shushed us as the teacher walked in with her signature glare and spectacles. 

"Time for boring Health," I yawned as Aria switched on her laptop and went straight to the internet to search up, "How to make your mum approve of your boyfriend." 

Shaking my head and tutting at Aria, I got the whispered response back, "Well, it's not like your boyfriend's much better than Jason, is it?"

Gritting my teeth at the thought of my  mum meeting Noah, I looked away and pursed my lips.

*

"Hey Dad," I said as I dumped my schoolbag into my chair. He normally didn't come back this early, and it was only half past four. He came home at five most days.

"Oh, hello. How was school?"

"Normal. You're back from work early!" I came up beside him as he opened the internet on our home computer.   

"Yeah. They let me off."

"Nice... why though?"

"Wasn't much to do."

I knew that he worked at some sort of financial company, that was all. If I asked, he'd just say, 'It's a bit hard for you to understand', though the last time I asked this was about two years ago, so I probably wouldn't have much trouble now.

"I wanted to ask you something," I said, desperately hoping that I wouldn't fumble my words. I had to get everything right, and I had to sound convincing.

"Hmm?"

"Can... could I have one of my friends over tomorrow?"

"Sure, honey. S'long as this 'friend' is a girl."

"Um... it's a boy. But he's just my friend, you know. Not... um... you know," I added hastily, battling back the creeping red on my cheeks. Liar.

"Oh. Okay. But I'm gonna see him first before you guys go off and do your stuff. Is it for school?"

"No..."

"Oh I see what you mean. That's fine. I just wanna see him, yeah?"

"Of course." I breathed a sigh of relief. If it was mum I was talking to, she'd already be hitting me with her shoe or those stupid fluffy slippers she ordered me to wear around the house. (She would always say the floor was dirty when she only cleaned it like five minutes ago.)

"I'm gonna do schoolwork," I yelled over my shoulder as I went into my messy bedroom, just as my phone chimed. 

Hurrying over to it, I noticed that it was from Noah. He'd texted me? About what? My stomach squirmed from excitement, or maybe it was just because I was feeling hungry. 

The message read, I'm sorry for being so nosy, but I would just like to know whether I can come over to your place? 

A smile pushed it's way onto my face as I texted him back with a yep, it's all arranged! Tomorrow? 

I waited for what seemed like hours, but was only a few seconds, and when he didn't respond, I frowned and wanted to bang my head against the wall. 

You idiot, he's not gonna reply in like two seconds because unlike you, he probably doesn't use his phone that much! Use your brain, Dawn.

Huh. Right. 

So I went over to my desk and sat down, got out my schoolwork, and tried to focus. I really did. But every time I heard a vibrating noise, I'd basically fling down anything I was holding and my hands would fly towards my phone.

Of course, it wasn't him. 

Eventually, it was time for dinner and he still hadn't responded. When my dad called for the fiftieth time, I picked up my phone and placed it on the kitchen tabletop so I would be able to hear if he had responded, at the risk of my dad turning it on and finding out a whole other load of secrets. Call me a little bit mad, but I really needed to know. Now with prickles of worry, I downed my meal faster than my dad, and that was really saying something. He could finish any meal in five seconds flat. Okay, I was exaggerating. Five minutes. 

"Since you ate so quickly," Dad laughed as I placed my plate in the sink, "You can wash up."

Shit. I'd eaten faster for a specific reason, and it was not because I wanted to wash the friggin dishes. 

Mumbling now, I turned the tap on and hot water sprayed over my dirty dish and utensils. We never used the dishwasher at dad's place because it would waste water- it was only ever him or me and occasionally a friend. 

As I poured dishwasher liquid and impatiently watched it glug out, I heard a very distinct buzzing noise coming from the tabletop. 

Just as Dad was getting up to check who was messaging me, I literally dropped the bottle into the sink and tripped my way towards the bench, grabbing the phone and putting it on mute, then deleting my notifications with a swipe of my fingers. 

"Who was that?" My dad asked, looking at me with his 'dad stare' on- a raised eyebrow and a calculating look.

"Um, just one of my friends." I looked up guiltily from my phone.

"The same friend you were talking about earlier?" 

"No?" I was screwed- I was talking in questions now. 

If his eyebrow went any higher, it'd disappear into his hair. 

"Hmmm," he hummed, then held out his hand for my phone.

"What?" I'd never get to check my messages now, and I really needed to know so goddamn bad. What if Noah couldn't go? What if it was something urgent?

"I'm not going to look at it," Dad said calmly. "I remember that when I was a teen, I kept secrets from my parents all the time too. I just don't want your phone to be a distraction. Is that okay, honey?"

 I felt all the blood rush back into my face. Thank god. Thank god he was the most understanding dad in the world. 

Nodding, I silently passed the phone over, then shuffled back to the sink and squirted the dishwasher liquid viciously over my plate and now dad's too as he walked into the living room and placed my phone onto the couch armrest. 

No matter. I'd just steal it back tonight.