“Have you seen the flier for the Valentine’s Day dance?” Casey asked, setting her tray down next to me at our usual lunch table.

            I glanced up at her, shaking my head. “I didn’t even realize there was a Valentine’s Day dance.”

            “Well there is,” she told me, producing a piece of red paper from her back pocket. “Take a look.”

            Curiously I pulled the paper from her hand, taking in the fancy script on the top of the paper, stating that it was indeed a Valentine’s Day dance. Interestingly enough, it happened to fall on the real Valentine’s Day, which was on a Friday. This Friday to be more precise. “When was this flier put up?”

            “Like two weeks ago, Holly. I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

            Casey looked behind me, grinning widely. Turning my head, I noticed Lance raising an eyebrow at me. I shrugged back at him. “I’ve been preoccupied.”

            “Did you see what kind of dance it is?”

            “No…”

            “Take a look.”

            Doing as he said, I scanned the rest of the paper quickly, my eyes landing on masquerade. I stared at it for a moment. “Masquerade?”

            “You know, where we all wear masks and no one can tell who anyone is?” Casey pressed, leaning forwards in her seat in excitement. “The kind of dance where you can dance with you-know-who and not be caught?”

            “I didn’t know Lord Voldemort would be attending,” Lance laughed.

            She rolled her eyes. “You know who I mean, Lance.”

            I returned my attention to the flier, a small smile forming on my face. A masquerade was the perfect type of dance… But it was still pretty risky. In my mind there was no mask that could hide Chris. He was recognizable no matter what, even if his face was hidden completely.

            “Well that’s because you’ve been dating the man for a few months now and are head over heels for him,” Casey commented casually.

            “Did I say that out loud?” I asked, staring at her.

            She laughed. “Yep.”

            I dropped my gaze in embarrassment. “Whoops…”

            “So do you want to go? We could go dress shopping,” Casey prodded, looking eager again. “Like on Wednesday.”

             “How much is it?”

            “Thirty,” Lance told me, snatching the flier from my hands. “You should go.”

            “Are you going?”

            He nodded, a grin crossing his face. “Yep. I’m planning on asking Lexi to be my date.”

            My heart sunk in my chest a little. He looked so excited… I couldn’t tell him she had a thing with Jeremy now.

            “You sure you want to take her?” Casey inquired, furrowing her eyebrows. “She probably already has a date…”

            “What? You think?” He looked surprised by the idea. “I should ask her soon.”

            I lowered my gaze, deciding to focus on the bottle of water in front of me instead of their conversation.

            “Are you going to ask anyone Casey?”

            “I, uh…” she trailed off and I glanced up at her, seeing an embarrassed expression crossing it.

            Lance crossed his arms. “Oh no. Not you too.”

            “What?” she snapped.

            “Don’t tell me you have a thing for your teacher as well.”

            “I-I don’t have a thing!”

            “You have a thing.”

            “I do not!”

            I resisted the urge to smack my head repeatedly against the table. Lexi had no idea what she was messing up. If her and Jeremy did start dating, she’d crush two people. I wouldn’t be surprised if she crushed three people by ditching Jeremy right after either… I shook my head. It was no use thinking ill of Lexi. She hadn’t exactly done anything wrong. Aaron’s words were just getting to me— and for all I knew, he could have been lying.

            “Well if neither of you get dates, you could always go together!” I suggested as cheerfully as I could.

            They gave me flat looks.

            I sunk in my a little. “Just a thought…”

            “You might think it’s okay to show up alone, but it’d be awkward for me,” Lance told me. “Going with my best friend doesn’t count.”

            I frowned at him. “What is that supposed to mean—”

            “Yeah, Holly. I don’t want to show up alone or with Lance. No offense,” she added with a quick grin to him.

            He shook his head. “None taken.”

            “Showing up alone isn’t a big deal guys,” I told him, pursing my lips. “Plenty of people show up alone to dances.”

            “Yeah. Losers,” they chorused.

            I rolled my eyes. “Guys.”

            Lance slapped me on the back. “It’s fine, Holly. Don’t worry about us. I can go with Lexi, and if worse comes to worse, Casey can go with Aaron.”

            “No!”

            Casey and Lance blinked at me in surprise. “Have an issue?” Lance questioned.

            I flushed, shifting in my seat uncomfortable. “Uh…”

            “Do you have a crush?” he teased, nudging me in the side.

            “No!”

            “You sound just like Casey.”

            Casey cocked an eyebrow. “Does Mr. Heywood know about this?”

            “Know about what?”

            I jumped violently in my seat at the new voice appearing over me. One of these days I was going to have a heart attack.

            “About Holly’s crush on you,” Lance continued, smirking.

            “She has a crush on me?”

            I turned my head up to see Aaron giving me a smug look. Immediately my face changed into a scowl. “No, I don’t. Quite the opposite.”

            “Ooh, hostile.”

            My eyes narrowed as he took a seat on the other side of me. How could he act like the other night didn’t happen? Did he expect me to be amiable to him?

            “Don’t be so rude, Holly,” Casey scolded, kicking me under the table.

            I winced. “Sorry…” But there was no way I’d be nice to him.

            “So want to hear something interesting?” he started, making eye contact with Lance, Casey, and finally me. “I bet you’ll all get a kick out of this. Especially you, Holly— seeing as how it’s about you-know-who.”

             An anxious feeling spread through my stomach. He couldn’t be about to say what I thought he was going to say…

            “My sister made out with Mr. Ross the night of the party.”

            Instantly Casey and Lance froze up. I bit my tongue to keep from groaning. Aaron waited patiently for everyone’s reaction. It took me a second to realize that I should be freaking out about this because he thought I was dating Jeremy.

            “Mr. Ross wouldn’t do that,” I stated firmly, rolling my eyes at Aaron. “I don’t think the effects of alcohol haven’t off yet. Or you got buzzed before school started.”

            Both Casey and Lance seemed to visibly relax. I relaxed as well; glad I could avoid crushing my best friends. Lance giving up on Lexi wouldn’t be the worse thing in the world though. I didn’t want to admit it, but she would probably crush him anyway. Casey, on the other hand, was a different story. It seemed like Jeremy actually had feelings for her. If Lexi were out of the picture, they’d probably be dating soon. There was no way I’d let Aaron ruin that.

            “I don’t think you know Mr. Ross as well as you think you do.”

            “Trust me, I do.”

            Aaron rolled his eyes. “You’re blinded by love.”

            Lance and Casey exchanged surprised expressions— probably because they didn’t know Aaron thought Jeremy and I were dating. Lance then switched his attention to me, looking almost flabbergasted. He had said the exact same thing as Aaron before a few months ago. I gave him a pleading look. He caught on quickly.

            “Mr. Ross isn’t like that,” he spoke up, snorting. “He knows better than to hook up with a student.”

            “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Aaron responded complacently, his eyes flickering to me.

            “Even if he was dating a student, he wouldn’t cheat on her,” Lance continued, not backing down. “I know you think you’re sister isn’t a very good person, but I highly doubt she’d go after her teacher.”

            Aaron rolled his eyes. “You don’t know her at all, Lance.”

            “Mr. Ross isn’t like that,” Casey spoke up now, looking uncomfortable. “He wouldn’t…”

            “Yeah, Aaron. You should put your head in a bucket of ice,” I suggested, pushing myself up from the table. “Or maybe you just want to make your sister look worse than you so people will like you.”

            His glowered at me. “What—”

            The bell rang overhead, cutting him off. I smiled sweetly. “Oops. Time to go.” With that, I twisted on my heel, my heart pounding in my chest as escaped into the crowd leaving the cafeteria. That was the first time in my life where I’d directly insulted someone I didn’t like. It gave me an excited feeling, a rush of adrenaline…

            But it also made me feel like a horrible person.

            Even if I was doing it to keep my friends from being devastated, and even if Aaron deserved it, it wasn’t like me. My shoulders sagged and I dropped my head, letting out a long sigh.

            Why did I have to be such a nice person?

            ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

            After school I quickly jogged to the school store, picking up Chris’s salt and vinegar chips and a Kit-Kat for myself. After paying I headed towards the science wing, keeping my eyes peeled out for Aaron. He hadn’t showed up in biology after lunch, and I was feeling guilty for snapping at him earlier. Even if deserved it, I still wanted to apologize.

            When I finally trekked into Chris’s classroom, I was halfway through my Kit-Kat bar. Knowing him, he would have probably stolen it from me and forced me to eat the chips instead if I hadn’t opened it. To my surprise, no one else was in the room. There was the beeping of the microwave from the supply closet, apprising me of his whereabouts. I sauntered over to the door, pausing only to toss his chips onto the desk. As I stepped into the room, I promptly flung my hand out to the side to stop him from scaring me. When my hand met air, I opened my eyes again, confused.

            He was standing on the other side of the room in front of the microwave, looking at me in amusement. “What are you doing?”

            I laughed awkwardly, dropping my arm. “I thought you were going to scare me,” I admitted sheepishly.

            He chuckled, gesturing me closer to him. “You’re so cute, Holly.”

            “Where are Lexi and the others who are staying after?” I questioned, moving closer to him. “Aren’t they supposed to be here?”

            “I told them to come at two thirty,” he informed me, grabbing my arm, and dragging me the rest of the way to him. “What’s in your hand?”

            I looked down to see the last piece of my Kit-Kat bar still clenched in my fist. Before he could react I stuffed it into my mouth, severing any of his hope to eating it. “Nothing,” I told him, holding my hand over my mouth.

            He smirked. “You think that will stop me?”

            I cocked my head to the side, not understanding what he meant. He pulled my hand down, moving his face closer to mine, taking the end of the bar that was sticking out of my mouth into his.  My face flamed as he broke off his end, moving away from me. After swallowing it, he licked his lips.

            “That tastes good.”

            I nearly choked on my end, my heart beating violently in my chest. It was crazy how easily he could send my heart into a frenzy. He chuckled, holding my face still. My body tensed as he brought his closer to mine, pausing an inch away.

            “You’ve got some chocolate on your lip.”

            Before I could protest, he licked it off my lip, causing me to pull away from him. “Chris! That’s gross!”

            He laughed loudly, letting me go. “I love you, Holly.”

            “What’s wrong with you?” I demanded, trying to cool my face down with the palms of my hands. “You’re acting strange.”

            “Am I?”

            I nodded my head. “Definitely. Is it because Aaron has been absent lately?”

            A grin flashed on his face. “That may be part of it.”

            “But even so you wouldn’t act like this… Are you sick?” I inquired.

            He frowned. “Well I did feel sick this morning.”

            “You did?” I questioned, my eyebrows furrowing together. “I didn’t even notice… Come here.”

            “What?”

            Ignoring his question, I placed my palm to his forehead. “It’s not warm…”

            He shrugged, pulling his hand away from his forehead. “Did you ever think it was because I was in a good mood?”

            “I didn’t know you could have good moods,” I deadpanned.

            He gently pushed my shoulder. “Holly.”

            “Are you in a good mood?”

            He nodded. “Have you seen the dance flier?”

            “Yes…”

            “Guess who is now a chaperone?”

            My eyes lit up in excitement. “You are?”

            He nodded again, a wide smile crossing his face. “As of today. Mr. Kole dropped out and, as usual, I’m his replacement. You’re going to the dance.”

            “You’re ordering me?”

            “You have no choice,” he said firmly. “And then you’re coming to my house after.”

            I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

            “I’m not telling you.”

            “Why not?”

            “I don’t want to,” he responded simply.

            “Chris!”

            “Holly!”

            “Stop that!”

            “Stop what?” he inquired, an amused expression on his face now. “Come on, let’s get back into the main classroom. I’ll help you with your lab report.”

            I grabbed the back of his shirt to stop him. “Hold on.”

            He glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

            “I… I want to kiss you,” I admitted, dropping my gaze. God. Why was it so hard just to say such a simple thing?

            “You don’t have to ask, Holly,” he responded, turning back to me. “You’re my girlfriend. You can kiss me whenever you want.”

            “In class?”

            He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

            I smiled, standing on my tiptoes so I could reach his face. As soon as our lips touched, the classroom door opened, sending us flying apart. Disappointment washed through me, and it seemed to affect him as well because an irritated expression crossed his face.

            “Mr. Heywood?”

            I recognized Lexi’s voice instantly. Chris glanced at the clock and I followed his gaze, realizing it was only two twenty. No one was supposed to arrive for another ten minutes. He let out a quiet sigh, motioning for me to follow him out of the supply closet. Reluctantly, I did so, dropping my Kit-Kat wrapper in the trash as I did so.

            “Good afternoon, Alexis,” he greeted her, offering her a polite smile. “You’re early.”

            “It seems Holly is too,” she responded smartly. “I’m glad. Now I don’t feel as bad.”

            I smiled hesitantly at her. It wasn’t like I could pretend that she didn’t make out with Jeremy. He should have known better. She should have too, she probably knew Jeremy wouldn’t say no… I bit my tongue. Here I go again, I thought with a sigh, thinking badly of her without knowing the whole story.

            “Well you guys can get started on your labs then,” Chris told us, taking a seat at his desk. “Just ask me if you have any questions.”

            “Sure!” Lexi responded brightly.

            I took a seat at my usual desk, pulling out my lab from my bag. Lexi took the spot next to me, pushing her desk so it was directly next to mine. Frowning, I turned to give her a questioning look. She gave me an innocent look.

            “Want to work together?”

            “Err… Sure,” I responded, smiling at her. If wouldn’t be fair if I was mean to her. “So um, are you going to the dance?”

            She nodded her head excitedly. “Yeah! I even have a date?”

            “You do?” I asked, feeling depressed again. Poor Lance…

            “Yep! Lance asked me after school today just before I came here.”

            My eyes widened and I quickly turned back to her. “Wait, he did?”

            “Yes m’am!”

            “And you said yes?”

            She gave me peculiar look. “Why wouldn’t I?”

            “I don’t know…” I was curious as to why she said yes. Wasn’t she having a thing with Jeremy? Why would she say yes to Lance? Were they just going as friends? No, I thought, it’s definitely a date. So what about Jeremy? As much as I wanted to ask her about him, I knew I couldn’t.

            “What about you, Holly? Do you have a date?”

            I shook my head. “Nah.”

            “Why don’t you take Aaron? He needs a date and you two seem to get along well,” she suggested, taking a pencil out of her bag. “I’m sure he won’t say no.”

            I stared at her for a minute, confused. Didn’t she know what he was doing to me? Didn’t he tell her what he knew? Why wasn’t he telling her anything? Sure, it was a good thing he wasn’t, but still… It was strange.

            “You don’t like him?” she asked, her happiness fading.

            I hesitated for a moment. Why was she upset about that? He was always saying such mean things about her… Just then I realized she probably didn’t know what he said about her behind her back. Which meant that whatever he said might not be true, which in turn meant maybe I had the wrong idea about Lexi.

            “Ladies,” Chris interjected, saving me from replying. “You can chat later. Right now you’re supposed to be working on your labs.”

            “Yes sir!” Lexi responded, mock saluting him. “Let’s get started, Holly. I want to finish this so I can leave in about half an hour.”

            “Are you going somewhere?”

            “I have a date.”

            “With Lance?”

            She laughed, shaking her head. “No! With Jeremy, of course.”

            Jeremy? She called him Jeremy now? A new feeling spread through my chest. I didn’t like where this was going. I looked up to see Chris watching Lexi with the same expression I was. Our gazes met after a moment and he frowned.

We definitely had to do something about this.

___________________________________________ 

It's incredibly hard typing with a sprained finger. I keep hitting ; instead of the enter bar, and K instead of O, and J instead of K, because all the keys I hit with my middle finger I have to hit with my sprained one now... But it was worth it. You can skip my rant about my concert, and the reason why my finger is sprained, or read all about it :D

Today's song is Terrible Things by Mayday Parade. It's such a sad song... At first you're like oooooh! How cute! And then you're like.... D: T_T Listen to it.

Okay. So I went to The Game Changer's Tour on yesterday to see A Day to Remember, Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil, and We Came As Romans, and it was AMAZING. Before I talk about the concert, let me tell you about the line. We got there at 10:00AM so we were the first ones there. It was me and my friends Avarie, Cheyenne, Kayla and Chantel. And when our concert buddies arrived, I went with them to Unos to use the bathroom and Vic and Tony from PTV walked in while we were there and it was one of those omfg moments because they were all like "what's good to eat here?" and I was like "o.o brownie sundae." not even thinking it was a desert :s And then there was this super duper cute kid in line that looked like a younger version of Kenneth Nixon from Framing Hanley with lighter hair and I was like fgjsdfg I want to go talk to him! So I ended up making friends with this girl instead, and it turned out she was friends with him, and so we got introduced and yeah. It was awesome. He was so nice and funny and he gave me his gloves and number and... I'm going to stop there. I'm having a girly moment. Now, the concert. We were front row, of course haha. My friend Nubia, who goes by Brooke, was pulled up on stage by Vic from PTV and he sang the beginning of Yeah Boy and Doll Face to her and it was so cute! They played their Like A G6 cover and I was like -_- because I hate that song lol. Next up was We Came As Romans. They were okay. But Oli from BMTH was dancing to their songs in the background and it was really distracting. But here's the best part. I was super exited to see Bring Me the Horizon, and learned every single song before hand. So they got on and I knew every words. Oli stepped into the crowd and grabbed onto my hand and held it in that way couples hold hands, right? So he pushed himself up onto the bar, still holding my hand that way, and snapped all my fingers backwards and fractured my middle finger. You could hear the snap. Even over the music. But he still wouldn't let go of my hand. So after a few moments of screaming and hitting him, he finally got what I was saying and he let go and was like, "holy shit, i'm so sorry." and I was like... it's okay. Then when he was singing Crucify Me, I was shouting all the lyrics at the top of my lungs and he grinned at me and gave me the microphone to sing and I was like FUCK YES. All my friends were so sick of hearing that song all the time and I was like I need to learn the lyrics, and it pulled off. There were a lot of photographers there, so I hope they got a picture of it :3 Next up was ADTR. Their performance was pretty awesome. Their background banner was the cover of their album without the person in the hourglass, so when he stood in front of it, it looked like he was in it and it was amazing. And they had confetti and balloons and at one point he got into like a blow-up hamster ball and rolled around the crowd. It was sooo funny! And crazy. I got moshed so hard. And there were SO MANY CROWDSURFERS. Not as many as in BMTH, but a lot more heavier ones. Heavier as in fatter. I hate fat crowd suffers. It makes me want to weight 200 pounds and land on them, see how they like it. But yeah. I'll stop now :L I could go on forever. Oh, and because he fractured my finger today in school I had to have a teacher helper write for me because I couldn't with my finger splint, and every time I went to write something wrong (we were taking a quiz) she was like nooo not like that and correcting me, so I'm pretty sure I got 100 lol :D

WAIT ONE MORE THING. On Tumblr I found this really funny picture of Pierce the Veils album Selfish Machines, but since they're mexican someone turned it to Selfish Mexicans and changed all the songs. So like, Bulletproof Love is Bulletproof Taco. And Stay Away From My Friends is Stay Away From My Taco, and The Boy Who Could Fly is The Mexican Who could Fly. Lmaooo