During lunch, I could feel my social anxiety skyrocket, but I did my best to hide it.
"Hey everyone." Kriss greeted as she sat down.
"Hi." Yai and Cherry said at the same time. (Yai is a 10th grader, 2 years younger than me and Nacina. She's in the musician program. She's very cute and slender with long straight black hair, clashing with her pale complexion. Cherry is a senior, like us, she has Maroon hair, which is cut into a bob, and she has light brown eyes and ebony skin.
"You can't sit there," Cameron stated, pointing at Kriss's seat.
"Uh... why not.?" She inquired.
"A ghost haunts that chair and he'll torment you forever unless you give me a snack as an offering. You see I am the mediator, you can only calm the ghost by appeasing me, first." He answered, holding out his hand towards her. Kriss reluctantly handed him her pudding cup. "Alright, you can sit there." He stated. Nacina flicked his arm.
"Ow!"
"Don't force people to give you their food." She chastened. Cam poked out his lip and started eating the pudding anyway, only speaking between bites.
"I didn't force her to do anything." He remarked. (Cam has been friends with Nacina almost as long as I. He has short dark brown hair, almost black, light brown eyes, and a tawny skin tone)
"It's fine if I sit here, right?" Will asked as he sat down next to me, smiling. I blushed and looked down at the table.
"No... you have to give me an offering first." I replied.
"Dammit, Cam! You're being a bad influence on Akina." Nacina stated flicking his forehead this time. Cam winced in pain and then he retailiated by tickling her. "Stop it! Please!" Nacina pleaded.
"I'll stop if you give me a kiss." Cam offered. Instead of responding, Nacina got up from her seat and ran off, with Cam chasing after her. I was snickering to myself while watching them when someone tapped my shoulder. It was Will offering me a snack cake.
"You have a really cute laugh." He noted, "I think I'll like to hear it more often." I blushed while taking the cake from him.
"Alright, your offering has been accepted." He grinned and started eating next to me quietly. Well... this isn't so bad. Once Nacina had run out of breath she returned to her seat and Cam sat beside her, he hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Your friend did like 50-speed push-ups in front of the class today." Kriss bragged to Nacina.
"Oh...." Nacina panted, "...Cool." She replied.
"Girls are just easily impressed," Will remarked.
"Then how many push-ups can you do in a minute?" Kriss asked. Will smirked at her.
"I can do 500 one-armed push-ups with you standing on my back." He answered.
"Prove it." She challenged.
"Nope." He replied, taking a long sip from his carton of chocolate milk. I took Judo and kickboxing classes growing up and I still regularly work out when I'm free so the class penalty wasn't actually too bad for me. I didn't feel like telling anyone that and forcing the attention back to me, so I let the topic change naturally, before jumping into the conversation.
Today's social interactions somehow didn't end in total failure. I was so happy about this that a permanent smile was plastered on my face as I was walking home. I'm sure all the people who are seeing me right now are either creeped out or terrified.
"Hey let's go to Icy's," Nacina suggested. Obviously to ease her sugar addiction.
"Alright... but this time don't steal my ice cream," I teased. Nacina pouted saying,
"But that's the best part!" I chuckled slightly. We took a detour to head to the ice cream parlor, called Icy's. We both got double scoop cones so we could eat our ice cream on the way home. We were steps from our neighborhood when Nacina suddenly stopped walking. She finished off her ice cream cone and began staring behind us.
"What's wrong?" I asked, only to be shushed by her. I frowned in response.
"Do you hear that?" Nacina asked? At her word I focused on listening then I heard noises that sounded like muffled thunder.
"Yeah," I replied. Nacina grinned.
"The guardian is still fighting for us... even now." She commented, she then looked at me. "I can't see why you don't like him; he protects us and he has that otherworldly charm." She added. I looked down.
"It's not that I don't like him... I'm just sick of everyone talking about him all the time. I rather discuss anything else." I retorted. Nacina scoffed then she started walking home again.
"You're so bitter." She stated. I am so not bitter. Unconsciously her words began making me sulk. We split up in front of my house and when I entered, my nose alerted me to what is today's dinner. Mom was preparing nachos. All in all, today has been a good day.
The rest of the school week went by and my new friends stuck around. Speaking to them was hard at first but after the third day, I began feeling comfortable saying hi first and sitting beside them without an invitation. On Friday Cherry decided to invite me to her house for her birthday party. Note that I've known her for three years and this has never happened before.
"I already invited Nacina and she said she's definitely coming, be sure to show up too." Cherry's invite was practically a command, it honestly didn't seem like "No" was acceptable at all.
"Okay, I'll come," I replied. Cherry smiled and lightly flipped the long side of her asymmetrical fringe over her shoulder after my statement. She then left without saying anything else to me. Later when I told Nacina the news she said,
"This is great! Now we can go together!" Nacina gets invited to other people's houses all the time but she only attends half the time, to hang out with me instead, and since I'm so bad at socializing I've always refused to go somewhere I wasn't formally invited to, even if Nacina asked me to come. I'm definitely not the party crasher type. "We have to go shopping and we will pick a dress for you! Jeans are not acceptable!" She declared.
"I don't think anyone else is dressing up and I'd rather not stand out," I replied but Nacina waved my statement away.
"Too bad! This is your first party that wasn't just the two of us and our families! You will be gorgeous! You will stand out! And you will like it!" Nacina proclaimed with her hands on her hips.
"I highly doubt I'll like it," I stated timidly. Just imagining lots of people staring at me made me nauseous. Nacina rolled her eyes.
"You don't have a choice! You're sleeping over at my house tonight." She stated. Just like with Cherry's invitation I knew I couldn't say no. Nacina talked with my mom and mom agreed to let me sleepover.
"You girls don't stay out too late tomorrow and be careful, oh and call me if you need anything tonight, sweetie, remember I'm right down the street." Mom stated. I nodded and went to my room with Nacina who rummaged through my closet looking for something acceptable for me to wear. In the end, she decided shopping was the only option. We walked to the nearest clothing store and Nacina looked around mumbling things like "You're a winter so... this shade of blue will look really good on you. But it's about time you found a boyfriend, so maybe red is better..." As she was mumbling I eased into the far corner of the store and sat against the wall. I know she's doing all this because she cares about me, but I'm so nervous I don't know what to do... My thoughts were spiraling out of control then, suddenly my mini panic attack was interrupted by a large crash outside the store.