I swear sometimes we take the beauty of the Air Complex for granted.

On that sunny afternoon — one of the lasts of the year according to recent weather forecasts — we go down to the swimming pool together. Hugo and I have a diving contest. Little does he know, I recently took up yoga, so I’m much more agile than him, no matter how much he boasts about his muscles from the  top of the diving board.

It’s all in good fun, though.

At least, until Romain starts getting jealous in turn, and out of nowhere, kisses me. He takes me by surprise, but I push him away.

Too late. Hugo is already gone.

I quickly — too quickly — explain to Romain that kisses are out of the question, and run after him, but he is nowhere to be found.

Lining up for the diving board. I am the figure you see drowning in the water. It took me some time to warm up, okay?

Marie ogling Romain. As usual.

Show-off.

Marie on a Yoga break. Hugo and I, trying to have a conversation.

Looking straight over my shoulder, right at Hugo. Classy, Romain.

Awkward.

…

Finally telling him to stop. Too late…

The club has a secret room. It has a DJ booth, dimmed light, and a glowing dance floor. It’s a lounge with a quiet, soft atmosphere. It might as well be in another building. You can only access it if you have a special key, or if you know the special knocking code.

Hugo has the special key.

And I know the special code.

The DJ booth is playing a smooth jazz playlist when I enter, and we start swaying along the slow beat. For a while.

The girls from the cheer squad and I liked to go outside as a group. And sometimes, the boys would tag along. They watched us rock the dance floor with the perfectly prepared choreographies that put every single dancer to shame. Even the weird ones that always seemed to appear out of nowhere around midnight and had glowing eyes.

Really, we sort of suspected that part of their interest would have been lost without the short, short cheerleader outfits.

*sigh* Teenagers.

It doesn’t stop me from having the time of my life on the dance floor once my friends have had enough. I’m cheer-captain for a reason: whether with pompoms or with glow sticks, my whole family has rhythm in the blood.

And Charlotte and Romain apparently don’t mind me being busy with something else.

It’s okay, though. On this particular night out, my head is absolutely elsewhere. And pretty soon, I leave the dance floor too, anyways.

The Queen of the Dancefloor

The Queen I tell you.

Too preoccupied with my moves to care about them.

I barely have the time to reach my locker after Geography class, and Charlotte is already on my heels. She says there’s apparently something we need to discuss; she forbids me from sitting with the boys at lunch.

So I sit with the girls.

Our cafeteria is small, fit for the very limited number of students in our school, but that day it feels even smaller. It feels like I can’t breathe. Being called out by strangers is one thing; being called out by a friend is another. But being called out on your behavior by three of your best friends, it sucks the oxygen out of a cafeteria faster than the words “remember we have a test next period?”.

Marie is the angriest. She shouts, and she accuses, and she doesn’t realize it, but she’s not entirely being fair either. Charlotte tries to act supportive, and I see she’s not mad for the same reasons: mainly she’s hurt that I’m not talking to her about the situation. That these are the lengths she has to go to to get me to listen to her. Still, she doesn’t help.

Even Shanna is in on it. In typical Shanna fashion, she doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t scream, she is not pointing fingers. She is not pleased, but she talks calmly, clearly, and out of the three of them, she is the only one whose words I hear.

I know that she is right.

Ambush!

This would have been my last chance to talk to her, and her only. Maybe I would have been excused from the rest of the plan.

You know an argument is serious when there’s a half-eaten slice of pizza on the table and no one has made a claim for it yet.

No use defending yourself…

… When you’re attacked on all fronts.

Thank Plumbob for how oblivious teenage boys can get.