ive days. Two hours. Fifty four seconds.

It has been five days since Luke and I stopped talking. I'm not going to say that those five days were the worst, because they weren't. Other than me ignoring Luke and him doing the same thing, the week went pretty great. Zach and Alex sat with us through the entire week in lunch.

Sometimes Luke would want to sit with the guys and I had to pretend like he wasn't here. The closest contact that we ever had is when Sophie took Luke's opinion in something and he claimed otherwise, then she took my opinion in that same thing and I had to agree with Luke. If this isn't progress, then I don't know what is.

"You are really failing me right now, TV," I mutter as I switch channels.

"No."

"Nope."

"Just watched it."

"Too long."

"Too short."

"No–wait, what the heck is that?"

"I don't care."

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Spongebob Squarepants!

Absorbent, yellow and porous is he

Spongebob Squarepants!"

"Well, I have no choice," I throw the remote on the end of the couch, then it takes me three seconds to realize what I just did and I groan.

I try using my flexibility powers and my long legs to get the remote with my feet. I stick my tongue out of the corner of my mouth as I slowly lift the remote with my feet, then I throw the remote in the air and I catch it with my hands.

"Yes," I smile in victory.

*Ding-dong*

I let out another groan in frustration before I flip around and I land on the floor. "Flipping ow," I grimace before I push myself and jump up. I drag myself to the front door.

I pull it open and Cora stands on the other side with a wide smile on her face and I squeal in excitement. "Cora!"

"Lyn!" She throws her arms up. I wrap my arms around her and she hugs me back. "I missed you so much!" She exclaims, once she pulls away.

"I missed you too," I smile, then I step aside to let her in,

"How are you?" I ask her.

"Good, but it's all been so stressing, dude," she sighs. "The classes. The baseball team. Working at the hospital. It's so overwhelming."

"You're a strong person, Cee. You can do it," I smile at her encouragingly.

"Thanks, Lyn," she pulls me in a small hug.

"Ah shit, you're here," Cole's voice comes from behind us. Cora and I pull away to find him standing by the stairs.

"That is no way to treat your girlfriend, jerk," she crosses her arms.

"Sorry, baby," he apologizes and he walks over to us, then he kisses her cheek and I internally aw.

"Apology accepted," Cora grins sincerely and Cole smiles, then Cora drops her grin and narrows her eyes. "For now."

"I'm leaving," Cole salutes before he runs back upstairs.

"You can run, but you can't hide, Falls!" She yells after him.

"We'll see about that, Granger!" Cole yells back.

"He's a butthole, but I still love him," she says, smiling and I laugh.

The door bell goes off again and I excuse myself, then I open the door to find the girls standing there.

"Hola," Riley waves.

"Riley, it's 'Ola not Hola. The H is silent. I don't know how the hell are you Brazilian," Sophie sighs.

"I know that. I'm not stupid. I just had to add my little touch," she grins.

"Can you please walk inside? You're blocking the doorway," Colette tries to push between them.

"She just called me fat," Sophie stares at Colette with shock. "Oh well, I don't care."

Riley and Soph walk inside the house and I hear three squeals. After another series of greetings, hugs, I missed you's and I missed you too's, the girls decide on going out together.

"We're not going skating, are we?" I ask, grimacing slightly at the last time and my numb tush.

"No," Sophie deadpans, obviously still haunted by last time's memory.

"No no, no skating. We're just going to have some girl time," Cora declares. "Go get dressed, Lyn."

Here we go again.

| | | |

"We're going to go shopping, get manicures and pedicures, go to Victoria's Secret-" Cora lists, as we walk in the mall.

"Wait, why do we need to go to Victoria's Secret?" I cut her off.

"To buy something from there, of course," she answers.

"But it's expensive and I don't really have the money for that," I tell her.

"Don't worry. You can just buy a perfume or something," she suggests. "I don't have the money to buy anything from there too," she whispers, leaning in and I chuckle.

"We should go to laser tag too," Riley says excitedly.

"Yes," Sophie exclaims in approval and Colette nods.

"Laser tag sounds like a good idea," Cora agrees along.

"Which store should we go to first?" Colette asks, even though I know that she will just go around looking through the clothes and buy nothing at the end. I do that a lot anyways.

"H&M?" Sophie pitches in.

"Sounds good," I approve.

"Let's go," Cora says, barely containing her excitement. I guess it has been awhile since she last went out or had any fun. I feel bad for her. If this is how college life is, I will give it up already, but if I told my dad that, he'll probably say something like 'no daughter of mine is a quitter'. It's not like I'm really going to drop out of college anyways.

Going to college will help me get out of San Francisco and although there are a lot of amazing memories here, there are still some pretty bad ones here as well too. It will give me a chance to escape my old life and start a new one in a new place and a new city. I know that I can simply start a new life here in California, but I don't want that. The memories will still be stuck in mind and I can't forget about the past no matter what.

We spot H&M and walk inside the store, heading to the ladies' section. Whenever I go shopping, the only things I buy are hoodies or jumpers. No matter what season it is, I buy the same thing. They are much more comfortable than normal tops and t-shirts. I look homeless most of the time, but hey, at least I'm comfy.

"So, we will just go around searching for whatever we wanna look for then we will meet in the fitting room, okay?" Sophie looks at the four of us for confirmation and we nod,

"Lottie, where are you going to meet up with us?" Sophie turns to her.

"The fitting room," she replies.

"Okay."

"We'll meet up in twenty," I tell them and after they give me a nod in approval, I head to the hoodie clothing racket and I pick like ten hoodies, knowing that I will only buy three or four.

For two hours, we go around the store picking clothes and trying them on. Sophie and Riley got a few pictures for their Instagram. I don't even have any type of social media apps. The only apps I have are YouTube and Pinterest and the rest are games.

We even forced Colette to dress up with us so we could take a group picture of the five of us. I'm not a huge fan of shopping–the perks of being a lazy bum–but I had fun with the girls and I bought two hoodies, two jumpers and a pair of jeans.

The four of us pay for our clothes, then we head to the beauty salon and get manicures. Colette does her nails black, Sophie does hers yellow, Riley chooses blue and Cora chooses purple, while I choose red. My nails never looked cleaner. I'm used to naturally long, uneven ones, but the lady at the beauty salon fixed them up.

We decided to leave laser tag lastly after we eat, then we go to Victoria's Secret, in which we literally buy nothing.

Finally, we decide to go the food court. I've been in the mall for four hours and I'm already hungry, which is a new record. Usually, I get hungry every thirty minutes and I know that my mum will soon drag me to the gym. We all order from McDonald's and get our food then we take a seat on one of the tables.

"So, what's up with you?" Cora asks and bites in her sandwich.

"What do you mean?" I frown, getting my fries out.

"You seemed off in the morning," she says after swallowing.

"Let me tell you why," Sophie grins.

"No," I whine.

"Story time?" Cora says.

"Story time," Sophie nods.

"Tell me," Cora smiles in enthusiasm.

"There's this guy at our school called Luke Carter," Sophie starts and I groan, sinking in my seat.

"Wait, Carter? Doesn't Anne hate them or something?" Cora asks.

"She only hates their mom," Riley corrects her.

"Got it. Go on," Cora gestures for Sophie to continue.

"Anyways, this guy is kinda the bad boy of our school and Anna here became friends with him. Over time, she started having a liking towards him, but he started dating Jennie, the girl from our school who hates Anna, then Anna and Luke fought because he told Jennie about Anna's anxiety and she insulted her family," Sophie explains.

"Did Luke really do that?" Cora asks.

"I don't think he did," I answer, puffing my cheeks.

"Why does that Jennie character hate you anyway?" She questions.

"Because she's a racist bitch," Riley replies instead.

"Even though Anna literally did nothing to her," Colette adds.

"Hold up, so she's racist and she started dating your crush?" Cora raises an eyebrow.

"Um...pretty much," I respond.

"Give me her address. I need to teach that bitch a lesson," she decides.

"See, Anna? That's how you deal with a seal, not defend her," Sophie gestures to Cora with her hand.

"Don't offend the seal," Colette tells her.

"I needed to rhyme it," she murmurs.

"You defended her?" Cora's eyes widen.

"Yes," I say. "She might treat me like crap and offend me, but she doesn't deserve to be talked about like that. I don't care about her opinions and I told her off when she talked about my family in a bad way,

"And for the whole Luke thing, it's their choice and their life, I'm not going to butt in just because I like Luke. He actually looks happy with her. I don't want to ruin that for him, even though I'm sure I did. Luke is a person who deserves the best and if the best for him is the worst for me, then I would get over it and go along with it just for him," I tell them, feeling myself running out of breath, even though I didn't talk in a fast paced way.

"Wow," Cora drawls out, taking a sip from her Cola.

"What?" I chuckle breathlessly.

"Midnight falls," Colette sings.

"I do not," I say, remembering the meaning of Lottie's language.

"What does that mean?" Cora wonders.

"That Lyn here is in love," Sophie grins, nudging me.

"I'm not in love with Luke," I differ.

"Not yet anyway," Riley teases.

"That's not true."

"Sounds like soon-to-be love for me," Cora sips from her Cola.

"Even if it does, which it doesn't; Luke is still dating another girl," I play with the straw and take a sip from my smoothie, chewing on the straw a bit. It's basically in my system.

"Look, Lyn, you have to know that you're a great person and whoever lost you; lost a great person who cares. It will be their loss not yours, but I think it's not too late. You should go talk to Luke and fix it up with him," Cora advises me.

"He doesn't even want to talk to me," I mumble, pouting slightly.

"You go talk to him. A guy can't do it all."

"He looks like he doesn't even want to talk to me," I correct.

"Looks," Riley snorts at the pun and Sophie smacks her arm.

"Ow. What?" She rubs her arm, glaring at Sophie and Soph glares back at her.

"It's like he prefers ignoring me," I say.

"You sure about that?" Sophie raises her eyebrows.

"Yes?" I reply, hesitating.

"You'll see, he probably won't last long without you," Sophie says confidently.

"True," the other three sing.

I sigh and shove my hands in my pockets, then I feel something in my pocket and I get it out. It's Luke's cigarette pack. I totally forgot to throw that away.

"You smoke?" Cora shrieks, once she spots the pack in my hand and Sophie starts choking on her food.

"No. It's Luke's," I say quickly, then the four of us rush to help Sophie with her choking dilemma and I hand her the soda to drink from it. She takes large sips from it before she breaths deeply, inhaling and exhaling.

"Why do you have Luke's cigarette pack?" Riley asks.

"I took it from him, so he would stop smoking," I reply, inspecting the pack before I put it back in my jacket's pocket.

"Yup, he definitely can not last long without you," Cora takes another sip from her soda, leaning back in her chair.

| | | |

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