Excerpt from current writing project.
Yay second school semester. Every month I think I’m better :)
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Veronica was at school for a week straight, which was probably a record for her. She showed up in my art class, to Diana's and my surprise. “She's in our class?” Diana mouthed at me when we watched Veronica walk through the art room. She sauntered through, her high heels clicking sharply against the tiles, and she slipped into a seat on the far side of the table we were at. She turned to me, pushing her pink hair behind her ear.
“Hey Bookworm,” she said, pinning me with her bright blue eyes.
“Um, hi Veronica,” I said, blinking rapidly. Why was she looking at me like that? “Have you met Diana?”
“Hi Veronica. Nice to meet you,” Di said, trying to be polite. Veronica barely looked at Diana, before turning back to me.
“Did you look up the cliffnotes I told you to, Laci?” she asked me, as she opened a mostly blank sketchbook. My sketchbook, and Diana's, were more than half full of assignments, sketches, practice and project ideas for class. I scribbled along the edge of the next empty sheet in mine.
“No I kind of finished the book over the weekend.”
“You're working harder than you need to. It's only high school.”
“Actually,” Diana started. I knew she wanted to explain to Veronica that school is designed to help set us up for the real world.
“Hey you know what, Laci, you'd look really cute with side bangs, what do you think?” Veronica talked right over Diana. Veronica quickly flipped to a blank page in her book and started sketching a face, and drew bangs and eyes on the top third of the oval. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Diana's mouth curl into a scowl.
“It's kind of cute, I guess,” I offered, looking at her drawing.
“I can take you to my hair girl after school, if you want,” Veronica offered, speaking quickly. “You'd like her. I bet she'd do some highlights for cheap, too.”
“Um no, that's okay. I have some family stuff to do after school,” I mumbled, shading the side of a tree I had drawn.
“Ew, why? Just skip it and hang out with me.”
“No, I really can't. Mom's been making me promise I'd do this for months, you know?”
“Sure,” Veronica said sourly. Veronica spent ten minutes scribbling frantically on her paper, instead of what the rest of us were doing – moving onto starting the project we were on. Then she suddenly stood, and walked out of the room with her bag. The piece of paper from her sketchbook fluttered in her wake. I grabbed it.
“Laci, Diana, did Veronica say where she was going?” Mrs Holt asked us from her table near ours.
“No,” Diana said into her butcher paper. Mrs Hold grimaced and turned to her laptop, probably to write an email to the principal or the student counselor. “I thought we were hanging out tonight,” Diana said, still frowning, as we stood outside the school doors after the last bell rang.
“We are,” I said, my hand still clutching paper Veronica left on the table. “I just didn't want to spend time with her today. I felt like she would have argued.” “She was really rude to me,” Diana said, as her mom's minivan parked by the curve. “Come on, it's my sister's turn to cook tonight so it won't be too weird.” We both got into the car. As her mom pulled away from the school, I flattened the page Veronica had left with me. In the very center, in between a bunch of dark scribbles, she had written just two words. Don't lie.