It sickened me to see Leira so comfortable with Josiah, without a care in the world. Oh, pish posh if she was some mirror creature probably from another dimension, she looked like me, so she was good enough. Throw a blanket over the fact that she wasn't me. It didn't matter if she wasn't like me. She just looked like me. Before I let my anger boil over enough to start shouting at Josiah and blow my (or Leira's) cover, I realized that it wasn't his fault. There was no way Josiah could've ever known about Leira. My anger subsided and was replaced with an admiration of Josiah and that he could handle Leira and her antics. 

As I closed the gap of space between the 'happy couple' and I, I noticed something I didn't want to see. Josiah was... Laughing? Harder than he ever had with me. His head dipped back ever so slightly with joy, and his chest rose and fell with hearty chuckles and him trying to catch his breath. Leira laughed along as well, leaning in close and putting her hand on his chest. I never did that, it seemed to push the boundaries of a relationship between a freshman and a junior. 

I growled, zeroing my eyes in on them. Before I knew it, I slammed right into a trashcan and fell in, my legs flailing as I screamed for help. If Josiah was even paying attention, I knew he would've helped, but he must've been too distrated by Leira. Finally, someone literally lifted me out of my suffering, and I ended up sitting in someone's arms bridal style. 

"Are you okay?" Some random guy was holding me. "Oh, sorry." He awkwardly put me on the ground and I dusted myself off. 

"Thanks." I muttered.

"Parker." He held out his hand for me to shake it. The first thing I always looked at in a person was their eyes, and his shone bluer than the ocean, which was weird for someone with sandy brown hair. A contrast from Josiah's jet-black locks and green-as-grass eyes. 

I shook my head out of my trance when I remembered I wasn't allowed to just stand there and analyze people in society. "Ariel." I shook his hand, and that was that.

Leira and Josiah were long out of sight now. They could've been a mile away and I wouldn't have known with the sea of people that the halls of Mogermentry High were filled with. When all hope of finding them seemed to be lost, a familiar voice was calling, and clearly not in my direction.

"Ariel!" I watched Annabelle tear through the crowds, trying to get to Leira. "A-R-I-E-L! Ariel!" Annabelle always spelled out people's names when she was trying to get their attention. An odd habit, but I wasn't about to try and change it. Annabelle just marched to the beat of her own drum. That's when the thing I did not want to happen happened. Leira turned around and greeted Annabelle with a big smile, one more than I ever would've given Annabelle on a daily basis, and I could tell Annabelle realized this when she went into for the impromptu hug Leira was offering her. 

"Hey..." Leira trailed off when she realized she didn't know my best friend's name. Typical.

"Annabelle?" Annabelle finished Leira's sentence for her in confusion. 

"Of course! Annabelle! Sorry, I'm just having a bit of a headache." Leira fake fell sideways a little bit into Josiah, which made me gag. She gripped her head in fake pain. What a poser. Literally.

"We should probably get you some food." Josiah grabbed Leira's waist and led her away from Annabelle towards the cafeteria. I diligently followed. Annabelle showed up by my side moments later. 

"Ariel?" Annabelle whispered, touching my face as if she was testing if I was real. She probably was. 

"Yeah. That girl with Josiah is not me. No time to explain. We have to get her as far away as possible from him. China sounds like a good option." I was hoping Annabelle would get the fact that my message was urgent and she shouldn't pester me with questions. But of course, she pestered the whole way to the lunch room.

"Annabelle, enough!" I scolded her after the thirty-second question. By that time, we had reached the cafeteria. 

"How are we going to find Josiah and..." Annabelle trailed off, seeing if she could trick me into telling her the mystery of the whole thing. I shook my head and her shoulders sunk in defeat. 

"There!" I pointed across the courtyard, where a head of black hair stood atop broad shoulders, standing out among the rest. That's all I could see of him, but I knew it was Josiah. 

"How did you do that?" Annabelle asked as I dragged her across the grass.

My heels dug into the ground as I sharply halted. Annabelle ran into me. "From now on, I forbid you from using interrogative clauses until the bell rings. Is that clear?" I looked her in the eye intently like a mother would a child. Annabelle nodded, and we proceeded towards Josiah. 

"Wait here, and watch her." I pointed to Leira, who was sitting four tables away. "Even better, go talk to her." Pushing Annabelle forward and out of my way, I fluffed my hair and strutted towards Josiah.

"Hey," I gave him my most flirtatious smirk and flipped my hair, trying to imitate was Leira did to make him laugh so hard. Josiah did laugh, but not in the way I wanted to. He sort of turned to his buddies and snickered like, 'Did you just see what my freshman girlfriend did? What an amateur.' 

"What's up, baby girl." Josiah pulled me closer like he did with Leira earlier. Not anything unusual, but I wasn't complaining. Thinking of Leira, my head turned sharply to the table where she and Annabelle were sitting, and Leira looked like she was getting awful bored awful fast. But when I turned my head, before I could stop it, my hair flew into Josiah's eye. 

"Ow!" He yelped in pain, something he never did.

"What's wrong?!" I shifted my focus back to him. 

"Your hair...my eye..." Josiah muttered while rummaging through his backpack, his 'injured' eye squeezed shut. 

"Let me see." I pulled open his lid and a green iris was staring back at me. Chills went up and down my spine as I searched for any scratches. There was a thin one, but it was long, and all across his eye. Thank you, split ends. "I see it." Josiah stopped looking through his bag, probably for a mirror, and looked straight at me. Those eyes were like seaweed. It was hard to me to focus on what I should do about the scratches without getting lost in his eyes. I shook my head. There's time for that later. I scolded myself, searching Josiah's eye for anything else. 

"Anything?" He whispered, trying not to move his head since my fingers were so close to his eyes.

"There's just one long scratch across your eye. Should you take your contacts out?" I removed my fingers from around his eyes and looked at him. Josiah shook his head in discontent. 

"I won't be able to see." He waved the idea off, and suddenly his eye seemed a lot better.

"But don't you have glasses?" I pressed on, with fear that Josiah might get an infection if he kept the contacts in for too long with the scratch.

"Ariel. I said I won't be able to see." Josiah awkwardly shoved my shoulder as a sign to leave. Moments after I left, Leira swooped in, cheery as ever. I bit my lip, holding back the tears since I knew what was about to come. They started to fall down my face as I walked backwards, watching it happen. Leira slid in and wrapped her arm around Josiah, who snubbed her. When she attempted another flirtatious move a few seconds later, Josiah threw up his hands in frustration and started yelling at Leira, who pretended to be on the verge of tears. When Josiah did the 'slit the throat' hand motion as a sign that we- well him and Leira -were over, the water spilled over my eyelids and trickled down my face, leaving long streaks behind.

As if the Josiah thing wasn't bad enough, I tripped and started to fall backwards, panicking when I realized that I was right in front of where a trash can usually was. Maybe this is a sign, that I keep falling into trash cans. I thought to myself as my body got closer and closer to impact. When I landed, something weird happened. I wasn't surrounded by trash. In fact, my airbag was sort of muscular. 

"Again?" Parker asked.