EDITED.

What on Earth had happened now? I was sure it was going to be something about her mom or Kevin. Whenever they had done something weird, Hannah had always made a big deal about it. Like once, her mom had worn Hannah's dress which was two sizes smaller for her to a family party. For so many days Hannah had went on about how her mom had embarrased her by wearing that dress. Since then Hannah has been locking her wardrobe and carrying the key with her everywhere.

I reached her house and rang the doorbell. Sarah's car was already parked outside. Hannah opened the door after a few seconds.

"What took you so long?" She asked, pretending to be annoyed.

"I was at school, remember?" I replied flatly.

"Come on, Sarah's already here," she took my hand and pulled me upstairs to her room.

"Okay, so let me just tell you the whole thing," she began once we were in her room, "you guys are probably gonna to get angry a bit. But just listen to what I have to say and then you can say whatever you want. Okay?"

"Okay" I and Sarah said together.

Hannah took a deep breath and started and this is what she told us.

8 hours ago

Waking up with a massive headache which was totally predicted, Hannah realized she had only 15 minutes to get ready due to which she decided to skip the first two periods, let the headache recede and then go to school.

 On her way to the class, Hannah saw Amelia standing near her locker, typing away furiously on her phone

"Hey!" Amelia looked up and smiled at Hannah all of a sudden, as if she had been waiting there just to do that.

"Hi," Hannah dragged the word while deciding whether to smile or not. Just like yesterday, this too was completely unexpected.

"That dress of yours yesterday. Hot!" Amelia beamed, "Where did you buy it?"

"I just got it online," Hannah replied giving her a half smile. She knew that people like Amelia had way better clothes and never asked others for fashion tips or let alone the names of the shops.

"Ohh okay. So are you skipping class too?" Amelia asked.

"No, I woke up late," Hannah was in no mood to stand there and tell everything to the girl everyone in school envied cum disliked and whom Hannah barely even knew.

There was an awkward moment of silence where none of them spoke so Hannah decided to end this unwanted conversation.

"Umm, I should get going. Don't wanna be late for the next class," Hannah said forcing a smile on her lips and turned to leave.

"Me and my friends are going to the beach. You know, just to hang out. Wanna join?"

This made Hannah look at her in shock mixed with confusion. She had never spoken to Amelia in her entire school life. Yet she was here, standing in front of the so called queenbee of their school and being asked to join her to the beach. What the hell does this girl want? Hannah thought.

"Look Amelia, this is weird but we don't know eachother. Like at all. So what are you doing?"

"I am just trying to new friends. Is there anything wrong about it? Plus, I asked you because Sal's coming too" Amelia gave her a knowing smile and winked at her.

At the mention of Sal's name, Hannah visibly turned red. He was one of the best basketball players of Elk Grove High. Though he had average looks, his sea green eyes were to die for. He was always quiet and mysterious and the only friends he had were the people from Amelia's group. No one knew about Hannah's secret crush except for Rachel and Sarah. So how on earth was it possible that Amelia knew too?

"What do you mean?" Hannah asked keeping a straight face but the blush on her face had already given her away.

"Ohh come on, Hannah. I heard you and your girls talking about it last week in the washroom."

Hannah was angry and excited at the same time. Angry because Amelia had eavesdropped and excited beacause she now had a chance to spend some time with Sal. There was no way she could she say no now. If Hannah wanted to, then she could have easily manipulated the topic and warded off Amelia by giving her some excuse. But not when Sal was in the question.

"It'll be fun," Amelia pushed, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, well, I'm in," Hannah sighed and shrugged her shoulders, trying to hide her excitement.

Together they went towards the school's parking lot where Amelia's friends were already waiting.

"Okay so introductions first," Amelia said after reaching them, "Hannah, this is Sal, Vanessa, Kyle and Aaron, my boyfriend."

Sal and Kyle gave her a smile and nodded at her while Aaron gave her a wide grin and waved his hand. Vanessa stood blank faced staring at her phone as if she hadn't noticed Hannah at all, flipping her dark brwon hair over her shoulder.

Aaron's blue eyes went from Hannah's head all the way to her feet and then back up again, with the smile still plastered on his face, which made Hannah a bit uncomfortable 

"And this everyone is Hannah. She's coming with us to the beach," Amelia said casually. It was a declaration, not a permission. The guys nodded as if they did this on a daily basis- pick some random girl and bring her along to the beach or wherever it was that they went to hangout. But Vanessa just looked up from her phone and gave Hannah a weird look.

All of them sat in Aaron's Range Rover SUV. Aaron was on the driver's seat with Amelia next to him. Ofcourse. Hannah, Vanessa and Sal sat in the middle seat with Sal between the two girls while Kyle sat in the backseat.

"Buckle up, bitches!" Amelia looked back and grinned and off they went.

present time at Hannah's house

I and Sarah stared at Hannah wide eyed. Our expressions had been the same since the moment Hannah had mentioned that she had met Amelia near the lockers and had started talking to her.

"And?" Sarah asked raising her eyebrows.

"And I went to the beach with them."

"Dude, what happened then?" I chipped in.

"Nothing, we just chatted. I mean they talked, I listened. Half of the time I had no idea what they were talking about so instead I concentrated on staring at Sal."

I let out a small laugh. I knew that Hannah really liked him. Sal was always the burning topic during our late night sleepover talks. But Sarah had started getting irritated about Hannah's constant 'Sal blabber' and had once snapped at her saying that others had other topics too. That sleepover had been very awkward and we all had slept early without saying anything further. Since then Hannah talked about Sal only when she and me were alone.

"Dayum bitch!" I grinned at Hannah, "The things you do for the love of your life!"

"You guys are not mad?" Hannah asked making her signature puppy face.

"It's okay. You did it because you wanted to be with Sal. I mean yeah, it is a bit unexpected but eh, it's just one small trip and you did get to talk to him after all these years of oggling him from far off," I said placing my hand on her shoulder.

"And we won't mind if you spend some time with Amelia's group just so that you get a chance to get to know him better," Sarah winked. Even though Sarah normally hated the Sal talks, I knew that she wanted them to be a thing as much as I did.

"But don't get too involved with Amelia," I said, "her friends seem fine but you never know about her."

"To be honest, she too seemed fine to me," Hannah said looking down at the pillow that she was holding.

What! First the whole incident and now Hannah saying this? Yeah Hannah was the easily trusting one among us, but to judge a person based on the first meeting, that was not what Hannah ever did. I am sure Amelia must have given her a couple of compliments on her outfit or her hair or her eyes or her smile or her fucking everything! As much as I wanted Hannah and Sal to happen, I did not want Hannah to get any closer to Amelia. She was bad news. But she was also the only string.

"Hannah, no. She is not. It's all a fake exterior and you know it too.We don't call her the Real Life Regina George for nothing. No one knows what's hidden inside." I said, dropping my voice a little and making her to look me in the eye.

She looked back and gave me a little nod.

********
Reaching back home I thought about the whole incident again and a very important question came to my mind. Why was Amelia doing this for Hannah all of a sudden? Just some kind of fun match-making thing or was there any other hidden motive behind all this? If it would have been any other girl in place of Amelia, I wouldn't have bothered much. But as I said before, you never know with this girl. 

Something didn't seem quite right. I had this strange sinking feeling that was not going away. I had no problem with her friends as they seemed okay to me and had never gotten into any kind of trouble. As far as I knew. But Amelia was especially known for all kinds of shit things she did. Shoplifting, DUI, coke. You name it, and she was involved.

It was all on Hannah now. She had to be carefull around Amelia and make sure that she did not spend much time with her. Well of course, I and Sarah were there to keep an eye. But now all we could do was keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.