"Mom, Dad, I'm home!" I yelled as I entered my house.

"Hey sweetheart, we're in the study room" Mom shouted.

I threw my bag on my bed and went into the study room. My mom and dad were going through some papers. When they noticed me, they looked up, keeping the papers aside.

"Hey" I chirped.

"Hey pumpkin," my dad opened his arms for a hug, which I gladly accepted. "How was school?"

"Great! And guess what? I just made a new friend today" I grinned.

"That's great. You should call---wait its a him or a her?"

I laughed at dad's remark. "There's no need to be protective. It's a female"

"Ok. But if it's a guy, make sure I meet him first. I need to lay some rules see that he doesn't hurt my baby girl"

"Rules?"

"Well, like not disturbing my pumpkin's beauty sleep at night etc etc" Dad chuckled.

"Aw dad. But wait a second, why are there no rules for Aaron? He disturbs my 'beauty sleep' all the time. You shouldn't have given him the spare key" I huffed.

"Well, Aaron has had this right since he wore diapers" Dad laughed.

"Not fair" I muttered which just made him laugh more.

After gossiping some more, I bid them goodbye and went to my room. After doing homework for a while, I went down for dinner. The dinner was yummilicious (even if that isn't a word).

I was tired after the dinner. So I did what most of us do in case of being tired, I retired to sleep.

***

Holding my bag, I entered the school gates. Like always I stayed invisible in the crowd. I was walking with books in my hands when out of nowhere, a boy pushed me and I fell. My books dropped out of my hand. The boy bent down to help me but when he saw my face he quickly got up and went away.

That was weird, I thought.

I picked up my books, when I spotted Aaron. I waved at him but he just ignored it which was even weirder. I finally spotted Kinsy and jogged towards her. I told her about the weird happenings.

"Ofcourse! I told you. You can't make any male friends"

"No, it's not true" I took a step back.

"Oh please. You are too sociably awkward. You will never be able to befriend any boy and no one will even marry you in the near future" She laughed.

"No. I have Aaron" I reasoned.

"Oh no no. That friendship was out of pity and force of my parents, since they are good friends with yours. It's not like that I wanted to do that" Aaron came up from behind.

By now, everyone had gathered around. They were shouting "Loser! Loser!"

Tears were threatening to come out.

"Ha! You're such a loser" Kinsy shouted.

"Loser" everyone chanted.

"Loser"

"Loser"

"Loser"

"Muffin"

"Muffin"

"Muffin" Someone shook me by the shoulders and I got up. It was a dream.

Sweat covered my forehead and I tasted a salty liquid in my mouth, which I realized was due to my tears.

I felt a grip on my shoulders, I was about to shout when a hand covered my mouth.

Oh my god. A burglar? Kidnapper? Oh God I don't want to die so fast. This can't be happening. I tried to scream but it sounded like a seal's groan.

"MUFFIN" I heard someone whisper. I calmed down. He removed the hand from my mouth.

"Candy?"

"Ofcourse Muffin"

I let out a sigh of relief. I wiped my sweaty forehead with shaking hands.

"Hey, are you okay? You were shaking and crying in your sleep" He said wiping my cheeks.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

"It's okay. I'm here. I'll always be" He pulled me into a hug and patted my back.

"Promise?"

"Promise" I stayed like that for a few moments and enjoyed the heat radiating off him. My shaking and trembling stopped and we both just sat there enjoying each other's embrace that is, until I realized one thing.

"Hey. Wait a minute, what the hell are you doing here and how did you get here?"I pushed him away and glanced at my door. It was locked.

I narrowed my eyes at Candy. His concerned face changed into a sheepish one.

"You see, I wasn't able to sleep. So I thought that I could wake you up and talk till I fell asleep and as for how I came, your window was open" he said pointing at the window.

Every ounce of what I experienced two minutes ago vanished and it was replaced by mixed feelings. A bit of anger mixed with disbelief. I gave him an accusing glare and pushed him off my bed.

"Ow. Hey, is this the way you treat your hot and cool best friend?" he said rubbing his butt.

"What kind of 'hot and cool best friend' wakes a person at," I looked at the clock,"....THREE IN THE MORNING! AARON PELT, YOU ARE DEAD!" I got up and chased him around the room. Finally, when we were both out of breath, we collapsed on my bed.

"Go bring me something to eat" Aaron gave me a slight push.

"You know where the kitchen is. Go bring it yourself" I said.

"Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaasssseeee"

"OKAY! FINE!" I groaned and got up.

I dragged myself to the kitchen and filled a bowl with some chips and went back to my room, only to find Aaron.....SLEEPING!

What the hell?!

First he wakes me up and then sends me to get him food and then he SLEEPS!!

Looking at Candy sprawled on my bed, even I felt my eyes drooping. So I kept the bowl on the side and fell on the bed beside him and went into a dreamless slumber.

........................

"AAH I'm going to get late!" I shouted while putting on my converse. This is so not happening! I am going to kill that lout!

I'm going to stab him in the eye with a....with a...ugh!

Wondering what happened?

Well, you see Candy decided it would be hilarious to make drawings on my face with a freaking marker. It took me forever to remove it. He is soooo dead.

"ALLY! YOU JUST HAVE TEN MINUTES TO REACH SCHOOL" My mom shouted from downstairs.

Ugh!

I quickly ran down to where my dad was waiting for me. He was going to drop to school like he was doing for the past three days.

I quickly hugged my mom and went into the car. Kinsy was being distant and I don't know what I'd done. She never came to pick me up and rarely met me in school. Like the other day when I met bumped into her, our conversation went something like....

Me: Hey Kins! What's up?

Kinsy: Oh h-hi. Nothing.

Me: Okaaaay. So, wanna hang out?

Kinsy: Huh? Uh no. I'm busy.

Me: I never told you when.

Kinsy: I mean I'm busy today and the rest of the week.

Me: I was talking about Monday, next week.

Kinsy: Huh? I-I have a family dinner.

Me: Tuesday?

Kinsy: Cousins are coming over.

Me: Wednesday?

Kinsy: Aunt Gracie is coming.

Me: Who is Aunt Gracie? You only have one aunt.

Kinsy: Uh- She is my relative from,uh, Finland

Me: Finland?

Kinsy: Yeah

Me: *gives suspicious look* By the way I want you to meet my new friend Sam.

Kinsy: You have a new friend? *gives me incredulous look*

Me: What do you mean?

Kinsy: You are so awkward to talk t- . I-uh mean you-uh- that's great. Okay I gotta go. Bye!

Me: Okay. Bye!

Kinsy had been trying to avoid the topic of hanging out together a lot! So in the end I gave up and started hanging with Sam, who was awesome.

"Here you go, pumpkin" Dad stopped his car in front of the school.

"Bye dad." I waved and jogged towards the gate where I found Sam waiting for me.

"Hey Sam! Were you waiting for this awesome girl" I asked pointing towards myself.

She rolled her eyes. "Haha. Now hurry up or else you're gonna miss your first class"

"Aye aye capt'n" I mock saluted and went with her to the homeroom.

Upon entering the room, guess whose face did I see?

Let me give you a hint. It is a HE. Nickname reminds you of something yummy. Is going to get shredded by my bare hands.

Guess it?

Yup. It's Candy.

When he caught my gaze, he sent a wink my way, which nobody noticed. I just kept shooting daggers at him. He is not going off this easily now. He is going DOWN!

I was busy shooting glares at him and I didn't notice his dumb girlfriend strutting her way towards me.

"Who do you think you're glaring at Miss Coward?" She sneered.

"Oh just your no-good boyfriend Miss Pea Sized brains" I said without thinking.

"And who gave you the right to even look at him? And why the hell are you glaring at him?"

And how do I reply to that?

"Uh-He,um, he stole my cat! Yeah"

That was a convincing lie. Right?

"You don't even have a cat" Candy piped up from behind.

I face-palmed myself mentally. Why did he have to come and say that?

"How do you know that?" Miss oh-so-popular said giving him an accusing glare.

Think Ali. Think.

Trying to look for something to distract her, I realised that I was glaring at Aaron's foot. So I did the best thing I could do at that moment.

I stepped on it. HARD.

He got the sign and started moaning and whining like a baby.

"Oh my God! I don't think I'll be able to walk again. It HURTS!" he whined.

I rolled my eyes. Drama queen.

"Oh em gee. Sweetheart, you okay?"

And again she proved herself to be the dumbest person alive. I mean she can perfectly see through her heavily outlined eyes that he is whining which shows that he is NOT okay.

"Ow. Ow. Ow" Candy started jumping on his other foot. I stifled a laugh.

"Aw my poo-ah baby"

Poo-ah? Seriously?

"You just started war Missy" she glared at me.

I am okay with all her 'wars' provided it doesn't involve anything related to one thing: attention.