“I know right? Plus everything I’ve read on those blogs is utter crap too. Nobody cheated on anyone, nobody did anything. It just happens and now the town is treating it as though he smacked me around and I burned his house to the ground.” She sighed irritably. Even if she wanted to talk about the break up, she wouldn’t know what to say. They’d broken up over a text? Underlying trust issues? The fact that they were stubborn and caught in a game of break up chicken and both had too much pride to fix it? No, instead she’d reinforce that it was civil, despite the amount of people that had caught them fighting that night
Kira couldn’t help but laugh at Ana’s bluster, a genuine grin on her lips for the first time in what felt like forever. “Settle down, mighty mouse.” She teased, patting the girl’s hand reassuringly before reaching into her bag, digging around for a granola bar. She felt a faint flush on her cheeks at Ana’s words, shaking her head a little. “I mean, I’d love for him to be hung up about it. But with him and Garrett in the same dorm I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a condom crisis in the next few weeks.” She joked bitterly, unwrapping her snack. “Which is fine, I have a date Friday anyways. He should be happy.” She failed to mention that the date was over long before it started. It was more that if she was spotted out with some other boys, people might leave her be rather than her being ready for other guys. She’d tried sex a couple of times since the break up, but nothing ruined the moment quite like crying. “Anyways, that’s enough about my boring love life. Who are you scoping these days?”
“Oh yeah, the gossip sites,” Ana rolled her eyes as if even visiting such places was beneath her. They were--in fact-- listed as only her second and third most visited websites, so it wasn’t entirely a lie. “Total bullshit, they have no idea what they’re talking about.” Then again neither did Ana but solidarity was more important than accuracy. Ana felt a mix of embarrassment and triumph when Kira laughed at her, and she could feel the familiar blush crawl across her pale skin. How embarrassing. At least Kira had turned to look in her bag, and hopefully missed the worst of it. Once she’d gotten her face under control, Ana wrinkled her nose again. “What sluts, they’re going to get every STD in Walterton. Condoms are only like 98% effective after all, if they’ve hit 100 girls by now the odds don’t look good,” she tried to joke, proud of herself for her math. “A date?” she repeated, leaning forward as she practically squealed with words. “With who?”
The followup question, however caught her off guard. “Me?” she stumbled, not expecting the conversation to have been turned back on her. The truth was Ana had done very little ‘scoping’ since coming to Walt U last year. Sure there were plenty of boys around--too many if you asked her sometimes-- but none of them had the sort of prestige Ana was looking for. To get that you had to date Walt royalty, and Simon Pride was too old. And the Prices...well she’d never made any progress with them--nor was she about to mention them to Kira. “Oh I don’t know, I went on a date with this one guy I met at a party but he was so not my type,” she admitted instead, covering with a story that wasn’t actually a lie--well they’d never actually gone on the date, but that’s because when he showed up he was wearing-- “Sandals. He wore sandals to a date. In public.”









