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  “It’d be easier if Tori wasn’t in the class,” Chloe said.

  “She’s such a bitch,” Tina declared.

  Chloe shook her head. “It’s not even that; I mean, for the most part, she’s kept pretty quiet, except when she’s forced to open her mouth for an assignment. I just want to avoid the Frosted Flakes at all costs.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Kristen agreed.

  “On top of that, I keep catching her looking at me. It’s really weird. I’ve been in the same classes with her since we were in middle school, but I don’t think she’s ever noticed that I exist before this year.”

  Kristen’s eyes became angry slits. “She’d better not start trouble with you!” she snarled.

  “Just keep your distance from them the way you’ve always done,” Tina suggested. “They won’t bug you if you don’t give them a reason.”

  “I hope not,” Chloe muttered. Her stomach rumbled, its hunger begging for attention. “I guess I should head up, then, before the line gets too long.” She set her book bag down and headed towards the lunch line.

  “I’ll come with you,” Kristen stated, standing. They walked to the front of the cafeteria together, their arms almost touching.

  * * *

  Tori glanced up from her lunch and noticed Chloe and that freaky friend of hers heading up the main aisle to get food. She lowered her eyes to her tray, swirling her mashed potatoes around the plate.

  I don’t get why she hangs out with that outcast, Tori thought, peering at Chloe for a fleeting moment before returning to her potatoes. She dresses so well, yet her friend looks like a total freak! Why would she even bother talking to her when she dresses like that?

  “—and her dyke girlfriend,” Sabrina was shouting as Tori snapped back to reality.

  “Huh?” Tori asked, realizing that she had tuned everyone else out.

  “I was pointing at that freak and her dyke girlfriend. What planet were you on?”

  “Oh, um, I was thinking about what the next episode of Rescued is going to be about,” Tori lied. “Who are you talking about?”

  Mandi dramatically pointed to Chloe and her friend. “Those two!” she replied, her sleek black hair snapping around as she turned to them. “I mean, look at them! They’re practically holding hands!” She stuck her finger in her mouth and imitated vomiting.

  Sabrina nodded fervently. “It’s disgusting! You know they’re a couple, right? It’s written all over their faces.” She spun in her chair and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Perverts!” She screamed, throwing a soggy fry in their direction. “Why don’t you move to San Francisco and get married, you homos? You’re disgusting!” She made a V with her index and middle fingers, sticking her tongue between them. The other girls at the table burst into laughter, making the same derogatory gesture and throwing food at the passing girls.

  Tori noticed Chloe glance in their direction as she kept walking. She whispered something to her friend, and they both shook their heads.

  Tori glanced down at her potatoes, frowning. What difference does it make? Tori asked herself, reluctant to speak her mind in front of her friends. They need to get over this obsession with everyone being a lesbian in this school. She poked her potatoes a few more times, her appetite suddenly missing, before deciding to dispose of her tray.

  As Tori set her tray on the counter, Chloe was paying for her food; they were only a few feet apart from one another. Tori then noticed the girl with the pink hair glaring at her, standing protectively in front of Chloe.

  “You got a problem?” the pink-haired girl demanded, blocking Chloe from Tori’s path.

  “No,” Tori replied impatiently. “Do you?”

  “Yeah. I have a problem with you and your friends getting in our business—especially since the school year just started. Can’t you worry about the other stupid shit you usually talk about and leave us alone?”

  Tori wanted to spit a retort at her, but she controlled herself. She simply glared at Kristen, the hostility she felt reflected in her opponent’s eyes. They maintained eye contact for a few seconds, their scowls a battle of wills. Once Chloe was ready to get out of line, the other girl ended the staring contest as she swung around to Chloe’s side, once again blocking her from Tori as they walked away.

  When Tori returned to her seat, her friends gawked at her.

  “What in the hell was that about?” Mandi demanded. “Why were you and that lesbo staring at each other?”

  Tori shrugged. “To hell if I know,” she replied. “She probably wanted to make out with me or something.” She struggled to chuckle at her joke, but she knew that she didn’t mean it; she had to say something, though, or they would have started making fun of her right along with Chloe and her friend.

  Though Tori didn’t have a problem teasing others, she hated it when her friends dished it out to her. She knew that her friends talked about her; she’d walked in on a few hushed conversations over the years. It hurt Tori’s feelings, of course, but it was the price she paid to stay popular. Besides, she talked about them, too; that was just how things were. Her friends were mainly trophies, symbols of her social status and popularity. She couldn’t remember the last time she had someone in her life who she considered a genuine friend.

  Sabrina smirked at Tori’s comment, walking up to the pink-haired girl as she passed. “Why don’t you leave Tori alone, dyke? She doesn’t want anything to do with you or your girlfriend!” She pushed the girl’s shoulder.

  The cafeteria was eerily silent as everyone watched the conflict. Chloe’s face turned crimson as she rolled her eyes. She started walking away, pulling her friend by the arm to keep her out of trouble.

  Her friend wrenched her arm out of Chloe’s grasp and turned to face Sabrina, her eyes dark slits. “Leave us alone, bitch! Go back to gossiping about stupid shit, you brainless bimbo!” Her face radiated pure hatred as her nails dug into the palms of her clenched fists.

  “Why don’t you make me, lezzie?” Sabrina hissed, their faces centimeters away from each other. The girl snarled, and Sabrina’s eyes flashed mischievously. “Eew, gross! She just tried to kiss me!” She stepped back with mock disgust.

  The pink-haired girl’s entire body tensed up as she prepared to attack, but Chloe managed to hold her back. “Stop it, Sabrina!” Chloe begged. “Just leave us alone!”

  Sabrina scoffed. “The last thing we need is for you dykes to start trying to convert the other girls in this school, especially ones that are way too good for you!”

  The girl tried to jerk herself out of Chloe’s grip once again, but Chloe planted her feet and kept a firm hold on her shoulders. As a guttural sound vibrated the girl’s throat, Sabrina was tempted to take a step back for her own protection. Refusing to let anyone see her fear, Sabrina instead took a step towards the girl so that their noses were almost touching. Sabrina’s eyes twinkled malevolently, daring the girl to take a swing in a room full of witnesses.

  Before the scuffle could escalate further, though, the security guard rushed into the cafeteria and broke up the fight. “That is quite enough!” he bellowed, standing between them. “Break it up right now or all of you are going to the principal’s office!” He looked around the room. “If I hear one more outburst from anyone for the rest of lunch, I’m going to start assigning detention!”

  The girls reluctantly returned to their respective sides of the room and tried to regain composure. The Frosted Flakes quietly congratulated Sabrina as the rest of the cafeteria excitedly whispered about the fight.

  * * *

  Chloe sighed. “So much for them leaving us alone if we keep our distance.”

  “At least now we know why Tori was staring at you,” Kristen growled. “Why in the hell can’t they just leave people alone? Are their lives seriously that boring?”

  Tina wrapped her arm around Chloe. “One of these days that group is going to get theirs. This school isn’t going to put up with their shit forever.
”

  “Yeah, but we’re almost out of here,” Mark argued. “It’d be pointless to start anything with them now.”

  “What pisses me off is that they never get in trouble for anything!” Lisa exclaimed. “If we started throwing food at people or initiated a fight, we’d get suspended. It sucks that they own the school and no one can stop them!”

  Mark nodded. “All they would have to do is flirt with the security guard, and we’d end up getting suspended instead!”

  Kristen noticed Tori staring in their direction, so she sneered and threw up both middle fingers at her. Tori’s eyes widened, and she turned away without another word or glance in their direction. Kristen felt vindicated; usually, Tori would never let anyone get the last word in and would retaliate. The threat of detention was most likely an incentive to keep quiet, though; if she ever got detention or suspension, she’d lose her cheerleading privileges.

  Kristen turned back to the group, about to point out that Tori had backed off for once, when she noticed Chloe’s face. She was visibly distraught, and tears were threatening to escape from the corners of her eyes.

  Kristen entwined her fingers into Chloe’s and began to get up from the table, pulling gently. “Let’s get you calmed down, okay?”

  Chloe nodded as a tear streamed down her face, and she stood up to follow Kristen.

  After saying goodbye to their friends, Kristen guided Chloe towards the cafeteria door, still holding her hand. They heard loud whispers from the Frosted Flakes, the words dykes and perverts perfectly audible despite the guard’s threat to stay silent. Kristen ignored it, though; she was used to their taunting. They’d been teasing her for years about being gay because she kept her hair short and dressed differently. She was mostly amused by it, actually, because they were clueless.

  They had no idea how close they were to the truth.

  Kristen and Chloe walked into the girls’ bathroom and occupied the larger handicapped stall, using their book bags to cover up the gap underneath the stall door. Kristen positioned Chloe against the back corner and kissed her gently. Chloe’s body sank into the concrete, its coolness easing the tension in her shoulders. Though Chloe’s face was still pointed towards the floor, her tearful eyes glanced up at Kristen.

  Her gaze was greeted by Kristen’s cool blue eyes as they burned into Chloe’s. Kristen slowly began to caress Chloe’s face, and Chloe instinctively tilted her head back to give Kristen access to her neck. “Relax, baby,” Kristen whispered, her lips brushing Chloe’s earlobe as she spoke.

  Waves of goosebumps erupted on Chloe’s arms and legs as Kristen gently kissed her neck. “The bell’s going to ring soon,” Chloe protested breathlessly. “We should probably get going.”

  Kristen glanced at her watch. “We have 10 minutes until the bell rings for next period.” She kissed Chloe’s neck in the spot that always made her knees buckle. “We have plenty of time to get our minds off of those stupid Frosted Flakes.”

  Between the sensation of Kristen’s lips and the cool concrete, Chloe soon forgot about the altercation in the cafeteria and wrapped her arms around Kristen.

  Chapter 5

  Despite what had happened in lunch, Chloe couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. Only a handful of times in the nearly three years since it started had Chloe and Kristen managed to sneak away between classes. They generally restricted such activities to the small amount of alone time that they had between school and either Chloe’s mother getting home or Chloe having to leave for work.

  Chloe and Kristen had become best friends on the first day of Kindergarten and had been inseparable ever since. It was only when they became teenagers, after nearly ten years of friendship, that they became more than just friends. Once hormones started raging in their adolescent bodies, both girls realized separately that they were attracted to girls as well as boys. During one of their customary weekend sleepovers, they confided their secret to one another—and it wasn’t too long afterward that they also admitted their attraction to one another. Within a few weeks, they began exploring their desires, and their secret relationship began.

  They weren’t dating, per se, at least not exclusively; they’d both been in other relationships over the years, and during those times they kept their intimacy at a minimum. Still, they couldn’t help but to occasionally rekindle their passion for one another, for no other guy could please them in the same way.

  No one knew about their arrangement, not even their close-knit group of friends. Both had agreed that it was easier and safer this way; no one could leak their secret in times of anger or boredom if they never knew to begin with. Though they kept their romance hidden away, they sometimes couldn’t wait until after school to show some sort of affection. They were both thankful that most of their peers hadn’t paid much attention to them over the years; they often got away with leaning against one another and entwining pinky fingers in the gap of space between them. Best friends most of their lives, no one thought twice about them occasionally resting their head on the other’s shoulder, and they took advantage of that as much as they could.

  Occasionally, someone close to them caught onto the way that they looked at one another and how they always found a way for some sort of physical contact. Lisa and Tina had separately asked Chloe if something was going on, but she denied it. Mark had asked Kristen once, too, but she insisted that nothing was going on. It wouldn’t have mattered to their friends—they were all open-minded and embraced diversity—but Chloe and Kristen both agreed that it was just safer to keep their arrangement quiet.

  The Frosted Flakes were a difficult bunch in general, but their attention became especially troubling when they saw Chloe and Kristen together. Chloe wasn’t sure if they actually knew that something was going on or if they were just guessing because she and Kristen were always together, but Chloe tried to keep her face passive in their presence so that she wouldn’t give anything away or add more fuel to the fire. Chloe did her best to ignore them and dismiss their comments, but she couldn’t always shake it. She never understood why the Frosted Flakes had to attack them; they’d never even talked to them, let alone did anything to provoke them. Chloe often imagined what she’d say back—how she’d scream at them for being so stupid and superficial, how she’d throw things at them for a change—but she knew that buying into their teasing would just make things worse.

  Before Chloe realized it, school was over for the day. She soon found herself at home, resting and trying to scrounge up something for dinner before she headed off to work at Trend. She only had about an hour and a half between school and work during her weekday schedule, and she generally worked an eight-hour shift during the weekend. Though it was tiring, she was able to both save money for college and buy whatever she wanted. She’d turn 18 in July, so she hated asking her mother for money; a single parent, Cynthia had enough financial hardship without Chloe bugging her for new clothes.

  The first few hours of her shift were uneventful. As she stood behind the counter, folding and hanging up clothing to send back to the floor, she heard a cell phone ring near the entrance. A bubbly voice immediately answered and began talking loudly as she walked into the shop. She was used to this; most teenage girls had cell phones next to their ears as they gallivanted around the mall, and they had no sense of volume when they were talking on them. She rolled her eyes discreetly, smirking as she tried to ignore the loud, one-sided conversation from the girl browsing the clothing racks.

  “Oh my god! I can’t believe Jake and Katie broke up!” the girl exclaimed as she inspected the fabric on a shirt. “They were, like, so perfect together! That’s going to make things so awkward at lunchtime!”

  Chloe quietly chuckled to herself. They were all so dramatic.

  “Well, I just hope he and Aaron stay friends. I mean, you know how close we are to Katie, but they’re on the football team together…”

  Chloe raised an eyebrow. She realized that the voice sounded eerily famili
ar, and her stomach dropped. She looked up to see Tori, the last person in the universe she wanted to see, browsing a clothing rack. She sighed heavily as she tried to figure out a way to avoid her. Tori had yet to notice Chloe at the counter, and Chloe prayed that she wouldn’t find anything that interested her so she’d just leave. Chloe resisted the urge to duck behind the counter; her manager wasn’t too far away, and she still had a pile of clothing to sort through. Tori wasn’t worth getting in trouble over, so Chloe would just have to deal with her if it came down to it.

  Tori was now in the center of the store, droning on about celebrities who had split over pregnancy issues. Chloe scoffed quietly at the conversation, rolling her eyes at how superficial it was. She couldn’t fathom why actors, athletes, and performers were so important once they were in a movie or TV show, joined a sports team, or released an album; they were put on these pedestals and paid ridiculous amounts of money when the people who really made a difference in the world—scientists, activists, teachers, nurses, and others who worked hard to make the world a better place—were rarely noticed and often underpaid and underappreciated. Still, she sympathized with the rich and famous; they could never escape the constant scrutiny. Their fans forgot that they were just people, so when a fairly common occurrence in the real world happened—breakups, pregnancy, infidelity—the entire world felt the need to insert their opinions as if it happened to them personally.

  Tori’s laughter broke the silence as she browsed the racks. Though she was now only a few feet away from Chloe, she still hadn’t noticed her. It’s so hard for these entitled brats to see outside of their tiny bubbles, Chloe mused, though she was thankful to be invisible for the moment. They never bother to look at the salespeople or treat them like real people. We’re just servants to these spoiled brats.

  As if reading Chloe’s mind, Tori glanced over at the counter. Her phone still pressed to her ear, Tori stopped talking for a moment as her eyes met Chloe’s. Her grip released slightly, causing her to look away as her phone nearly plummeted to the floor.