Ramona's face was set in a pensive grimace. She bit her carrot viciously, crunched until there was nothing left, then bit it again.

"Have you guys ever noticed-" crunch crunch " - that the supporting characters are always more interesting than the main one? Like, do you think it's a consolation for not being the centre of attention?"

I scrunched up my face in dismissal. "After a six hour shift, I'm surprised I have the mental capacity to keep my eyes open, let alone talk about the role of supporting characters."

Mona, the terrible twosome, and I were sitting on a brightly coloured table in the youth centre that Scott volunteered at. Scott and I were both wearing our uniforms as we were coming back from a shift, and the others had followed shamelessly. Part of me thinks that it's because of Scott's awesomeness - and not their allegiance to yours truly - that they decided to stay.

Dante's face crumpled in thought, "she may actually have a point there, you know. Like, for example, if say - Kenny was the main character, he'd be totally boring. All he'd be doing is complaining about life to whoever just happens to be there. But as my sidekick, he rocks being the nerd with the obsession with writing in that book of his."

"I heard that," Kenny shouted, rooting around in the literary section of the youth club. Two seconds ago, before Ramona had spoken, he was complaining about the club's possession of (and I quote) 'the pretentious wannabe classics'.

"Of course everyone has to have a copy of Divergent. Like, give me a real classic, why don't you? Where's the Pride and Prejudice? The War and Peace? Work with me here!"

I then pointed out that he was probably one of the few teens in existence that actually wanted to read those. Mainly because we all found them boring and pretentious, and also that no-one was going to spend two months reading War and Peace like he did. Most people our age couldn't even spend an hour reading a children's book.

He simply shrugged and said that his originality was simply what was going to make Leona fall for him.

We all exchanged disapproved glances at that.

"I was counting on it!" Dante replied to Kenny's comment. It was funny how they always took the opportunity to take digs at each other. Maybe opposites really do attract.

"I've decided that I'm going to write a novel," Kenny declared, stepping out from behind the bookcase to come into view. His voice was no longer disembodied.

Ramona scoffed, "Okay." She said. "Just make sure that your supporting characters are more interesting than the main. I'm pretty sure that's how the greats do it."

This made myself and Dante chuckle.

Kenny puffed out his cheeks and sighed. I realised that he was serious when he began to disappear from my view once again.

"Wait!" I called, feeling bad. "What would it be about?"

He squealed excitedly and scurried to our table. I was forced to take my legs off of his chair.

"I was thinking about it last night," he began. "And I want it to mean something. Not just be a story, but a story with a message. An underlying meaning, you know?"

Dante nodded like he did. I mirrored his action.

"I don't know what I'm going to write about yet," he finished. "But all its going to take is a bit of inspiration."

We all took this as, "I'm going to be shamelessly observing all of you until one of you is interesting enough to write about."

Ramona groaned.

A voice then cut in, fast approaching, in response to Kenny's words. It was Scott, back from the errand he'd needed to do on our way home.

"I could always be your muse, Ken," Scott winked, never missing a chance to be the joker. He and Dante got on well, I think you'd have guessed.

Kenny only shook his head shyly. He never did take any sort of flirtation well. Scott chuckled, with full knowledge of this, and joined us at the table.

"Maybe you can write something about that terrible dinner with Tyrell's foster parents yesterday." Dante winced at the memory. "If that's not a story, I don't know what is."

Scott looked confused, which is exactly how I felt. This was the first time he was bringing it up.

But none of us said anything. Some things, you just don't ask about. You have to wait for the right time.

Ramona put her hand up urgently, the last bite of carrot still in her mouth, "I know!" she hollered, stray pieces of the orange vegetable shooting out through her lips. "Why don't you write a romance?"

"Like, The Fault in our Stars romance, or Fifty Shades romance?"

"I don't know, man. Whatever floats ya boat. I don't judge." She responded calmly, shrugging and sinking back into her chair. I think she figured that she'd contributed all that was necessary.

"Yeah," Dante agreed. "The main character should be called - hmmm, how about.. Breece! And it should be about how he's taking decades to simply ask a girl - let's just call her Shayah for now - out. Then his best friend Donte - with an 'o' - saves the day and everyone loves him by the end. What do you think? I would so read that."

I rolled my eyes, "that was neither smart nor witty, I hope you realise," I frowned.

"Oh, I do. But it got the message across just fine." Dante beamed in response.

Scott chuckled,"boy, do you need my help!"

He sighed in the way a mother does when she complains about having to do absolutely everything and told us all to lean forward towards the table. He grabbed a pencil and a lined notepad from the nearest shelf, and split the page in half. The first half was titled, 'Happenings', and the second was titled 'What this means'. His handwriting was exquisite. If asked, I'm pretty sure people would say that I was the school drop-out upon comparison. This guy was way too well-put-together to fit any 'high school drop-out' stereotype.

"Right," he began. "You're going to tell me everything that has happened with this girl, however big or small, and then we're going to try and figure out what it means. I'm talking straight up psycho analysis. You guys can help too-" he gestured to Kenny, Dante, and Ramona; she looked like she was about to fall asleep.

"So after we analyse everything that has happened, we all come up with a conclusion. The question: how should Reece go about approaching this Ayah girl?"

"Is all this really necessary-" I protested, to be cut off by Ramona.

"Sh. Scott's talking."

In response to this, I put my hands up in surrender.

"Now," Scott smiled, not in the least bit deterred by my reluctance, "Let's get started. We should do this in chronological order to see how your feelings have progressed. What came first?"

"So... Kind of like chapters in a story?" Kenny asked excitedly. I could already see his arm slowly reach for his pocket, where his book was kept.

"Yeah...if you want." Scott replied uncertainly. He was not yet used to Kenny's abnormalities. The cereal thing shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though. That, I thought, was pretty standard.

I decided to play along. "I suppose the first thing would be when I saw her. I was just coming home from a shift and I was trying to see her through the crack between the doorframe and the door."

"I always knew you were a peeping Tom!" Ramona protested.

I shoved her playfully.

"O...Kay," Scott wrote down what I said under 'Happenings' . "And how did that make you feel?"

I wracked my brain with no success. How was I meant to know how first seeing her made me feel? I was probably the worst person at putting labels on my feelings.

Scoot looked at me with narrowed eyes. "If you can't recall your feelings, then we know it wasn't love at first sight. Thank God, I can't stand the people who believe in all that bull."

Kenny's face went from outrage to consideration to pure outrage again. He was a big believer in love at first sight - his 'love' for Leona being a prime example. Meanwhile, I still didn't know what to to believe.

Scott wrote 'mild interest' in the 'What does this mean?' column. It was next to 'First sight'.

"Okay, what's next?"

"He was staring at her the whole coach ride on the way to school the next day," Kenny interjected. "That's gotta mean something."

Scott's expression seemed surprised. I couldn't help but feel like they were all probing my brain and rooting around for my deepest secrets. I found it unsettling somewhat.

"Well, that takes it from mild interest to...small crush?" Scott said, surprised. "What changed in that time? Did anything happen to peak your interest?"

I thought back to the morning after she arrived. The bathroom incident, I'd decided to unoriginally call it. I didn't really want to tell them about how I'd tried to speak to her and she ran away from me.

"I...don't know." I said. It was something I wanted to keep to myself.

Dante seemed to pick up on my discomfort, he could be very perceptive when he wanted to be, "well the next thing would be the dream, right? Big guy over here runs into my room at freaking 6am and calls a team meeting to tell us that he had a dream about Ayah. That has to go on there."

As Scott wrote, his eyebrows were raised in surprise. He spoke while he was writing. "Was it the kind of dream you have about your grandma or the kind you have about a hot substitute teacher?"

I groaned while Ramona laughed til she actually started coughing. "Why does everyone ask that question?" I muttered. "If you must know-" this was directed to Scott "- I was saving her and she was drowning."

"Yawn-fest," Dante criticised. "Put down that it means he needs to get a life."

"Maybe it means that he went from mild interest to small crush to crush. Like, emphasised in italics or underlined. That's a pretty good pinpoint, I think." Kenny commented.

"I thought we agreed that it wasn't a crush, Kenny." I groaned.

"I agreed on no such thing."

"Well, it sounds good to me. I'm putting it down," said Scott. Against my will.

"Well my genius detention plan is next, right?" Ramona exclaimed excitedly. "I got Reece into trouble so they could be in detention together. Just another one of my well-thought-out masterful plans. She's in my English Lit, you see, and Mr Hunter gave her a detention for not having her textbook. It was perfectly planned, really."

She beamed proudly, as if she had just saved the world itself.

"Okay," Scott nodded. "Reece. What's your opinion on this?"

"Well, it's the first time she smiled at me..?"

"We're hitting so many milestones!" Dante interjected sarcastically.

I shot him a death glare that shut him up, "It made me feel all light to make her laugh. She hasn't done much of it since arriving. Her smile is pretty."

Ramona and Dante both made vomit noises to each other. Kenny was shamelessly scrawling my words into his book.

"I'm gonna say that the crush has progressed by this point.." Scott wrote. "Any last things to add?"

"Uh, can we just write over all that in big, bold, letters that Reece should just get some balls and ask her out like a normal human being?" Dante said tiredly. "I'm really tired of seeing him pine with no results."

Ramona hit him on the back of his head, "that was crude! He'll do it in his own damn time. Some things are better appreciated from afar, and I'm happy Reece knows that."

Kenny was eating this all up, by the way. I had hardly ever seen him so content with the world. Or write so fast.

"She spoke to me at the Careers fair. I think that would be the last one," I said tiredly. At that point, all I wanted to do was go home and rest. Having your feelings broken down and analysed for everyone to scrutinise isn't exactly enjoyable.

"Okay, and final time I ask this, I promise - how did it make you feel?"

By this time, everyone had noticed my fall in enthusiasm. Ramona and Dante had stopped bickering to actually look at my face. Kenny dropped the book on the table and looked apologetic. Scott displayed his readiness for my answer with raised eyebrows.

I sighed, "Uh, I suppose it made me remember that she's an actual person," I cleared my throat- "Before, she was kind of just this idea in my mind. I had no basis to like her - I didn't know what she was like. And then she spoke, and it's like I liked her in a whole new way.
I appreciated that she was a person, and she was so different to anything I'd ever known." I finished.

"Well she's lucky to be liked by you, man." Kenny smiled. I suppose he couldn't resist writing a few notes.

"I second that," Scott agreed, clapping me on the back good-naturedly. "You're a good guy. Horrible at burger flipping, though."

This made me laugh.

On the bottom of the page, Scoot wrote in his immaculate handwriting:

Conclusion: I SHIP REYAH.

And they all chanted this on the way out of the youth club.

"Of course - we'll work on a better ship name," Ramona whispered reassuringly to me on the way home.

"Thank God," I whispered back gratefully.

*

After saying goodbye to Ramona and Scott; Dante, Kenny and I made it back to the home around 12am. Late night shifts and an abundance of psycho analysis tends to eat through our limited precious time.

I opened the door as Kenny wheeled Dante in the home. We tried to be as quiet as possible, because Maggie told us that we'd be in trouble if we woke up any of the smaller kids with our late-night antics.

Yep, our group is totally wild.

The slight creak of the door made it harder to be silent, so I had to do it slowly to try and avoid sound.

And then, lo and behold, as I opened the door, there stood the very person that we'd been talking about an hour before.

She stood at the sink staring at us, looking guilty. When she realised that we weren't anyone
important, she went back to her task.

Dante looked up at me and mouthed, "the universe agrees with me!" and wheeled away, to the ramp that took him upstairs.

Kenny followed shortly, after nudging me suggestively and winking. I really did love my friends sometimes.

I sat down on the counter. I'd been watching enough to know what she was doing, instantly recognising it because I'd done it many times myself.

"If you're looking for a midnight snack (very accurate timing, by the way) then you'll be looking for a long time. All the good stuff is in the pantry, which...only Maggie has the key for." I paused and waited as she carried on looking, "Unless you want a mustard sandwich...?"

She carried on looking and I thought she'd ignored me. When I didn't leave, she spoke.

"Why do you make every effort to talk to me?" She asked bluntly. It was the kind of blunt that makes a person likeable (but I couldn't trust my judgment because of possible bias).

I shrugged, her comment taking me by surprise, "Uh, I don't know. Thought you might need a friend, that's all."

She turned to face me, her expression confused and slightly disapproving, when we both heard the unmistakeable sound of her stomach growling loudly.

"You skipped dinner?" I asked expectantly.

She looked like she wanted to say something, but decided against it and only nodded, looking down. Her hair was still left free to roam from career day.

"Well then," I said, fishing inside my bag and producing my bag of extra food from work. I placed it on the table in front of her with a flourish.

"You came at just the right time."