It was another typical day at school, the only truly entertaining moments at school being before school, break, lunch, and after school. After school, she was hanging out with Felicity, since there’d been some misunderstanding between her and her dad about pick up time. Teasingly, while Felicity had been distracted, she snuck one of her little notebook booklet little things out of her bag. Her mischief was soon discovered for as soon as she’d done it, Felicity whipped around and caught her in the act, and her eyes widened. “Hey!!! Give that back!!!” She exclaimed, for some reason she was always touchy about people so much as touching her bag, so Alisia couldn’t help but in this way. Smirking, Alisia held the little booklet above her own head, so it was far out of reach of Felicity’s grasp. Felicity jumped for it and as Alisia skipped backwards a bit to avoid her, Felicity tackled her. Not wanting either of them to get injured, Alisia stumbled around, doing her best to stay upright and keep the booklet out of reach.

  Of course, this didn’t work very well, and Felicity managed to snag the little booklet looking notebook out of Alisia’s hand, then balled her free hand into a fist and punched her hard in the shoulder. “Owwww, geez Fee, no need to freak out so much.” She managed a smile and her friend only frowned and made a face at her. Alisia chuckled and rubbed at her shoulder where Felicity’s fist had connected with her shoulder, wincing slightly. “Shut up.” Felicity responded, tucking the booklet back into her bag. Her mood was a little sour, yet she knew she’d lighten up shortly afterward. But she’d been attacked like this by Felicity throughout the school year to know it wouldn’t actually leave a bruise or anything, it just stung for now. The pain would eventually fade, and there would be no mark to show Felicity had hit her at all. Luckily by now Alisia was used to these occasional hits, so it was no big deal.

  The thought of people probably questioning their friendship, considering how one would attack the other at least once a day, amused her. “So, want to hang out this weekend?” She asked, while Felicity was texting a response back to someone on her blackberry. “Ah, sorry. I have piano this Sunday, and my parents insist on me constantly hanging around my cousins.” Alisia frowned, “Your cousins are still there? Daaannggg, haven’t they been here since winter break?” To this Felicity nodded, “Yeah, their leaving when my family does for the Philippines this summer.” With a small sigh she just nodded, knowing this for quite some time. But honestly, she thought it was ridiculous cousins would come and visit for so long, she knew her own cousins wouldn’t be able to even do that. Mostly because they all still had school to be worried about, and apparently Felicity’s cousins didn’t.

  Then, Felicity added in a quieter voice so as not to be overheard “Besides, I have a concert Saturday night, I really need to practice. There’s also the costumes to consider, I have to go over the dance with the back up dancers and—“ Alisia interrupted her before she continued the list that would surely go on forever. “I know I know, it’s alright Fee. Don’t worry about it. Besides, aren’t you the one that said it was dangerous to talk about that sort of thing at school?” Being careful as well, Alisia’s voice was also lowered, and she glanced around to keep an eye out for eavesdroppers. At this Felicity also looked around, then nodded in agreement. “I’m just saying.” Before they could continue their conversation, Felicity’s father pulled up and Alisia waved good bye to Felicity as she watched her friend hurry off to the car waiting for her.

  Watching her friend being driven off, she was a little startled when a guy approached her from seemingly nowhere. “Hey there, my name’s Francis.” The guy introduced himself, offering his hand to her. She couldn’t help herself, she frowned a little at this sudden strange greeting that had come out of nowhere. Yet she managed to recover fast enough to smile back at him and took his hand. “Hiya, I’m Ali—“ Then he interrupted her “Alisia, I know. I overheard your friend say it.” Okay, she certainly didn’t remember Felicity saying her name any time during their conversation…but she was just going to go with it for now. “Well, its nice to meet you Francis.” He hadn’t let her hand go, and he kept looking so intently into her eyes, it made her feel uncomfortable.

   When it seemed like he had no intention of releasing her hand, she tugged it back gently, trying to make him remember he had a grip on her hand still, in case he somehow forgot. Yet the minute she did, she felt his grip tighten on her hand for just a moment, startling her, before he let her hand go. There was silence between them for a moment, and she couldn’t take his intent look anymore, and glanced away. “Sorry about that, I guess I forgot to let go.” Francis commented, talking cheerily and lightly as if there was nothing wrong. Deciding to also act like nothing was strange; she managed to smile back, though it was a little forced this time. “Ah, its fine. Don’t worry about it.” He nodded, and she looked him over and took in his appearance. As far as looks went, he didn’t seem that bad. His eyes were bright blue, ashy blonde hair that went a little pass his chin, and was a bit wavy and had a shine to it as the sun glinted off of it. On top of that, she could clearly see the faint outline of muscles along his arms, and on his torso, since he was wearing a tight, dark blue muscle shirt.

  On the inside, she felt like making a face and thought ‘Yuuuuck.’ While she knew she was a weirdo, she honestly just couldn’t stand it when a guy had such obvious, visible muscles like Francis. In her eyes, his attractiveness went down a bit, but she considered that she’d be willing to be friends. Even if he did kind of creep her out. “So, was there something you needed, Francis?” She inquired, eyeing him for a moment, her gaze faltering when his eyes met hers. “Huh? Oh, nothing in particular. You just seemed like a really nice person, and I thought it would be fun to be friends….if that’s okay with you.” His gaze turned inquisitive, and even though she found him really strange, he was being pretty nice. So she nodded, “That’s nice of you to say….sure, we can be friends if you like.” Alisia informed him, and his whole face seemed to light up. It caught her off guard that such words could make him so happy, but she was pleased such a thing could make him happy so easily. After all, besides the creepy feeling she was getting from him (which she was firmly ignoring for now), he seemed like a sweet and nice guy.

  While she silently pondered what she should say or do next, his phone started ringing and he glanced at the phone, then at her. “I’m sorry, I have to take this.” Smiling a little, she just shook her head at him slightly, letting him know it was okay. “Its fine.” Then she glanced at her own phone and realized she should probably start heading home. “Anyways, I have to go. It was nice to meet you Francis.” He looked kind of disappointed, but nodded. Then without another word, she turned and left to get to her car. Yet she could’ve sworn she felt a pair of eyes on her back, but she decided that was just her own paranoia. Well, she hoped so anyway. As she got in the car, her phone vibrated, and she slipped it out of her pocket, looking to see who it was. A little surprised, she saw it was JR, and she unlocked her phone to answer him. He’d sent her a text:

  Hey Alisia, I heard you were free. Wanna hang out this weekend with me and the guys?

Her eyes widened and she felt suspicious. How did he know? She quickly sent him a text back, which was easy, because she was known to be able to text really fast. Apparently her other friends couldn’t, but it was probably  because unlike them, she was on her phone a lot.

  Sure, sounds like fun. But how did you know I was free?

While she waited for a response, she took out her key and stuck it into the ignition, turning her car on. Before she backed out of the parking spot, she checked her phone for a message. Sure enough, there was one, from JR.

  Great! I’ll let the guys know. Oh, and Felicity texted me a little earlier that you had nothing to do this weekend. So I thought maybe you’d like to hang out with us this weekend.

  She felt her cheeks turn a light pink. How embarrassing!!! Why did Felicity feel the need to tell him that? Knowing Felicity, she got suspicious and wondered what exactly Felicity was planning. Yet, she was happy to be invited somewhere, instead of having to invite others, like it had been practically this whole year so far.

  Oh, I see. Geez, that’s kind of embarrassing that she did that….haha. Well, is there any place you guys wanted to go in particular?

  Then she placed her phone down, looked in her mirrors, and then pulled out of her parking spot. Later she’d check her phone for a response, wondering where JR and the other guys wanted to go. The first few things she thought of were the mall and the beach, but they’d already gone there, even though on both occasions it had been a mere coincidence. While she thought of these things, she kept her eyes totally trained on the road, ignoring the vibrating of her phone that told her JR had texted her back. Even though she really wanted to check the phone, she knew there were no traffic lights that would come up while she headed home. Besides, she wasn’t confident enough in her driving that she could text and drive at the same time. Not only that, but the police around here had eyes like freaking hawks, and you could get a ticket just for making the smallest of violations that most people didn’t even know existed before. The only reason she knew this much was from being in the car with her dad, who had gotten a ticket or two while she’d been in the car for ‘crossing a double yellow’ or something like that. Or she’d overhear about a ticket he got because he was complaining to her mom about it.

  Within a few minutes, she arrived home and parked her car, taking the key out of the ignition and placing it in her pocket. Then she picked up her phone and unlocked it to see what JR had said.

  Yeah. How does the park sound? It’s like, a nature park and I hear there’s a hiking trail nearby. Ren really wanted to check it out, and it sounds like fun. We could have a picnic too. What do you think?

  A small smile appeared on her lips. So, Ren liked nature stuff huh? Honestly, she would’ve never expected that. But hanging out at a park, exploring a hiking trail and having a picnic later did indeed sound like a lot of fun. So she quickly texted back,

 That sounds great!! It definitely sounds like a lot of fun too. Want me to bring anything for the picnic or something?

While heading into the house, her phone vibrated again and she tossed her back pack and purse into her room before checking it.

  Oh no, don’t worry about that. We’ve got the picnic covered; believe it or not, some of us are decent cooks, haha. Why don’t you just meet us at the park at around twelve tomorrow? I’ll send you the directions later.

  Being at a park with a bunch of guys…now that she thought about it, she felt a little nervous. This would be her first time being the only girl among a bunch of guys….She shook her head, pushing aside the incoming negative thoughts. They’d gotten along pretty well at the beach, and she was sure that tomorrow wouldn’t be any different. Her only issue was that she was going to have to fib a bit to her parents, because there was no way they’d be okay with her being the only girl among guys. In fact, they’d probably insist on one of them coming along, or making her bring her brother. Geez, how embarrassing! As she took out her homework to finish up, her mind worked out ways and plans so tomorrow would go just fine, with no problems from her family.

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Author's Note:

Sorry I haven't updated in forever!!!! ><;;; Please forgive me, but I had some private issues pop up (you can glance at my blog) and it kinda stopped me dead. My, erm, "writer's block", lets call it, is over now though. So is school and finals in general. From now on, I'll try to update a little more often.