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It was 11.13pm on a school night, but Mark signed into MSN. He hadn’t been expecting the text he’d just received, and he had no credit to reply, but at the end of the text he’d been told to sign into MSN as soon as possible. He didn’t need to scroll down, “Amy (K)” was one of the first names on his contacts.

Mark says: What’s this all about then?
Amy (K) says: She’s said to Bruce that she just wants to be his friend, nothing more, which means she fancies you.
Mark says: Now hold on a second, why was she even speaking to Bruce?
Amy (K) says: He asked her to speak to him, duh…
Mark says: And you’re sure that means she wants to go out with me?
Amy (K) says: Pretty sure, but don’t! She’s poison!
Mark says: I know you don’t like her right now, but she’s your best friend half the time.
Amy (K) says: So? Don’t you think that that means I know her better than you do?
Mark says: Well in some ways yes, but you get annoyed at her for being “naïve.”
Amy (K) says: What the hell does that have to do with anything?! Wtf Mark…
Mark says: Look, all I’m saying is you can be a bit harsh on her, I mean if she really wants to be my girlfriend then I want you to be nice to her.
Becca has been added to the conversation.
Amy (K) says: Becca, he’s asking us to be nice to that stupid slut just because he wants to go out with her!
Becca says: wat th hell mark!!
Becca says: u think u can tell us wat 2 do?!
Mark says: Look, I didn’t say that, Amy said that Lisa rejected Bruce for me!
Becca says: urghh even just readin her name makes me sick!!!
Amy (K) says: Face it Mark, none of your friends like her, so just tell her no when she asks you.
Mark says: None of my friends? You two aren’t my only friends, I have other friends, friends who like her.
Becca says: o yeh? like who!
Amy (K) says: Ugh he probably means James or something.
Becca says: james!! i hate him too, he keeps upsetin char!
Amy (K) says: What!! Still?!
Amy (K) says: Ughhh Mark why are you and your stupid best friend so insensitive!!
Amy (K) has left the conversation.
Mark says: See, I don’t even have to say anything and you and Amy just go mental!
Becca says: well mayb u should be more sensitive to our feelings!
Mark says: How am I insensitive? So what, Lisa fancies me, how is that my fault?
Becca says: i dont beleive a word amy says about this, ther is no way lisa fancies u, shes so prissy, shes nvr even kissed a boy!!
Mark says: Maybe she’s saving herself for the one, and Amy said the one for Lisa was me, so shut the hell up.
Becca says: amy says she didnt say that.
Mark says: I thought she went offline?
Becca says: g2g
Mark says: Is Amy offline Becca??
Becca appears to be offline.

Mark signed out of MSN, swearing under his breath. He wasn’t insensitive at all; it was these women and their stupid PMS, not his fault at all. He was so pleased at first, when Amy texted him to tell him that Lisa had rejected Bruce, it felt like he had scored a goal in front of 100,000 people, or he’d just achieved a new world record. Bruce used to be his best friend, they went to the same primary school, yet the second they met Lisa, things changed. The thing about Lisa was that she didn’t do anything. She didn’t get off with boys at parties, she wasn’t sexually suggestive, but Mark reasoned it was the fact she was so innocent that made him like her so much. He hated Bruce for liking the same girl as him; Bruce always made everything into a competition. They had always fought over possessions: who got to borrow what from each other… And then it dawned on Mark; Lisa was just another possession to be had, Bruce clearly just wanted to prevent Mark from getting something he wanted, he didn’t really want Lisa at all, he just wanted Mark to lose. He felt a rush of anger, and angrily stormed to his bedroom.

Bruce hated early mornings. He was actually a morning person, he was always up and about, ready for school in no time, but he hated having to walk to school. The weather was always temperamental, and nobody else who lived nearby ever walked in with him. He was one of the first people to get an iPod when they came out; it became a prized possession on the way to school, until he got a new phone with a music player on it, which rendered the gigantic first generation iPod useless to him. He was in school at 8am: not too bad, there were usually people in by that time. He arrived to find most of the crowd were already in school: Ryan, Christian, Lyall, Alex, Daniel, James, Catriona, Rebecca, Amy, Georgia and Charlotte.

“Hey.” Bruce muttered to Ryan, who turned around, smiled, and then turned back to his conversation with Alex and James.
“Hey Bruce, I heard what happened with Lisa last night.” Charlotte hugged him, completely oblivious to the vulture-like Rebecca and Amy, who were listening intently.
“Nothing really ‘happened’, Charlotte, I just told her I liked her and she was shocked about it, so she said she wanted some time to think about it.”
“Didn’t she just tell you to leave her alone? She sounded pretty upset when I spoke to her.” Becca told a white lie, to see if she could get Bruce to contradict his story.
“No? Will you stop being so nosy Rebecca?”
“Yeah Becca, shut up,” Amy admonished her best friend. “What else happened?”
“Christ, you’re both in fine form this morning aren’t you?” Daniel commented sarcastically.
“What!” Becca and Amy shrieked, completely over the top.
“Nothing happened. Nothing interesting occurred. Me and Lisa are absolutely fi-” Bruce stopped.
“Hey guys,” Lisa smiled and raised a hand in greeting. “What were you away to say, Bruce?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Ryan, did we have any homework for English?”
“What am I, your walking homework diary? No, of course we didn’t.” Ryan rolled his eyes.
There was a momentary lull in the conversation, and then Emily arrived.
“Cat, let’s go to the shops, I need to buy breakfast.” Emily dumped her bag on the ground.
“Okay…” Cat got up and hurried after Emily who was already on her way to the shops.
“Jesus, what a bitch.” Becca commented, looking to Amy for approval.
“Yeah I don’t like the way she treats Cat, and she swears so much, and she’s so boring!” Amy replied immediately.
“Yeah and she’s such a man eater!” Lisa added.
Charlotte joined in, “How much chewing gum does she go through in a day!” She suddenly glanced at Georgia, who raised an eyebrow at her in disappointment. Charlotte fell silent.
“She’s a slut.” Daniel spoke as if this was a scientifically proven fact. Nobody paid any attention to his remark, he was constantly like this, either being insulting or awkward, just because he could.
“You know she’s friends with that weird new girl, right?” Amy looked at the other girls, as if to say ‘I have a plan.’
“Ugh yeah, what was her name again?” Becca asked.
“Two ton Tallulah!” Amy, Becca and Lisa chorused, and then fell into fits of laughter.
“Her name is Tulu and she’s from Africa, don’t be ignorant.” Georgia finally spoke.
“Oh shut up Georgia, go hump Mark’s leg or something.” Becca rolled her eyes and fell about laughing.
“One, that’s not even true, I don’t fancy him, and two, how hypocritical can you possibly be?! You fancy him so much!” Georgia got defensive.
“I’m so glad I’m not one of them.” Alex remarked to Lyall, who had spent the past few minutes being ‘playfully’ beaten up by Bruce. Lyall was a fragile, slim, pale boy, who was merely grateful that he had a large group of friends to hang about with, regardless of how he was treated.
“We did have English homework…” Christian said quietly to Ryan.
“Oh I know, I thought it’d be funnier to take Bruce down a couple of pegs though.” Ryan nodded to Christian.
“Ah… I see.” Christian replied, frowning in disapproval.
“Remember the time he made you climb a tree, even though you’re scared of heights? And then wouldn’t walk back to his house, which we could see from the tree, to get a ladder to help you down?”
“We had no homework for English.” Christian replied, grinning at Ryan.

“Hey Tulu, thanks for inviting us to your party!” James spoke on behalf of himself, Mark, Daniel, Alex and Christian.
“It’s okay.” Tulu replied, letting them into her house.
The boys made their way through to the kitchen, where a lot of party guests were congregated. The boys split up to speak to other people.

Emily, Catriona, Charlotte, Alex and James

“Hey Jamesy!” Emily gave him a hug, all smiles.
“Alex!” Charlotte gave him a hug.
“Charloootte!” Alex beamed. He had a crush on Charlotte, she was so clumsy and lovable, he didn’t see her as ‘crazy’ like so many others did.
“Charlotte, where’s my hug?” James pretended to sulk, giving her a hug. “Where did you get your drinks from?”
“They’re sitting out on the back step to keep cool,” Emily cut in. “Could you get me another one?” Both Catriona and Charlotte noticed Emily pushing her chest forward as she said it, looked at one another and started laughing. Emily didn’t notice.
“Oh, um, yeah, yeah I could do that.” Alex hurried off, leaving James standing bewildered. “He’d better get me one too… You weren’t even speaking to him, you were speaking to me.”
“He’s so adorable.” Emily shrugged her shoulders with a smile on her face.
“He’s like a cute little brother.” James replied.
“That was pretty gay.” Emily smirked, and then turned back to Catriona and Charlotte.
James looked slightly offended, and then beckoned to Charlotte for her to follow him. She pretended to be interested in what Emily had to say, then made her excuses and followed James. He led the way upstairs, looked in a couple of doors and then found the room he was looking for – the bathroom.
“Um…” Charlotte finally spoke, sounding nervous.
“Let’s go in the bathroom.”
“I don’t really want to…” Charlotte looked around. “I think I’m gonna go back downstairs…”
“Oh come on, don’t be rubbish!” James gave her what he thought was an encouraging smile. “Just a kiss?”
Charlotte looked highly creeped out, and didn’t say anything. James knew she didn’t want him to, but quickly reasoned in his head that she didn’t reply, so deep down she wanted him to. He leaned in and kissed her on the lips.
“What the hell!” Charlotte pushed him away, evidently disgusted. She ran down the stairs; James ran down behind her, causing Charlotte to panic and run away from him, back into the party. When James followed her into the room just a moment later, he was met with the fierce glare of Amy, who was rubbing Charlotte’s arm, while Becca hugged her. Amy stormed towards him, and James slowly backed out of the room.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Amy demanded, poking James in the chest, forcing him backwards.
“I… I like her, so, so I thought…” James tried to explain, but couldn’t. He didn’t have an excuse. He wasn’t even drunk.
“You thought you’d try and molest her? You’re disgusting!”
“What! I didn’t try and molest her! I just kissed her!”
“Oh how romantic of you, was that before or after you touched her chest?”
“What! I didn’t do that!”
“She says you did!”
“Well she’s lying!”
“Typical! You think people will believe you just because you’re sober? Sober people have a clear head, they know what they’re doing!”
“Exactly!” James shouted incredulously. “She’s drunk! How is her word suddenly more reliable than mine!”
“You were going to rape her!”
“Rape her?! What the hell are you taking?! I just kissed her!”
“Why don’t you just leave!”
“I live in the middle of nowhere, I’m staying over at Mark’s tonight.”
“Oh, typical, Mark gets dragged into everything! I bet you go whining to him about how we’re all ‘PMS-ing’ and how we’re all so stupid!”
“You’re just being stupid now, Amy.”
“See! You called me stupid! I’m right!”
“You know what, I don’t need this, screw this for a game of soldiers.”
“Go make out with a guy or something, that’s what I heard you were in to you sick freak!”
“Do you have any idea how much of a walking contradiction you are, you weasel faced bimbo?!”
“BECCA!!” Amy shrieked, bursting into drunken, crocodile tears. Becca rushed through to the hallway, and looked from Amy to James.
“That’s two girls you’ve upset in one night, James, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Don’t you start, Becca, I’m warning you, I’m this close to snapping!”
“You’re warning me? Is that a threat?!”
James was too angry to find words to respond, but was rescued by Mark who was passing through, trying to find the bathroom.
“What’s going on here?” Mark asked, stopping to survey the scene.
“Your friend is being a dick to my friends!” Becca sniped at Mark.
“I see. James, come with me, sorry Becca.” Mark nodded and then headed up the stairs. James followed him up. Mark sat down on the top step, motioning for James to do likewise.
“What really happened, mate?”
“I kissed Charlotte, right where we are now, she freaked out and ran downstairs crying, Amy came over and had a go, and because she’s drunk she started crying too. I swear, Becca was away to do the same thing just when you showed up.”
“Mate, girls are mad, just don’t bother with them, let them come to you.”
“We’re not all you, you have three girls throwing themselves at you and you’re quite happy to let them without taking advantage.”
“Three girls? What are you talking about?”
“Amy, Becca, Georgia…”
“Georgia? What? Don’t you mean Lisa?”
“Lisa? No? I’ve never heard a word from her about you. No, Georgia definitely has a crush on you, she never stops speaking about you.”
“Yeah but that doesn’t mean she fancies me.”
“So why does that mean Lisa fancies you? Sure, she talks about you all the time, but she’s clearly not interested.”
“Amy said she was.”
“Why would Amy say that?”
“Why wouldn’t she? She was just telling me the truth, because she’s my friend.”
“Amy and Becca are sly, Mark, they’d tell you anything if they thought it meant you would go out with them.”
“Why would they tell me a girl they hate so much likes me?”
“They scheme, they plan, they’re girls, you’re just going to have to wait and find out why.”
“Wise words man,” Mark’s eyes glazed over as he drifted into his own thoughts. “Wise words…”

End of Part 1.

(I've decided that I'll title each of the installments the name of the character it's focusing on!)

Daniel

Daniel wasn’t really sure when it happened. One day he woke up, and felt nothing but hatred for his best friends. Mark and James hadn’t done anything to offend him; they’d never once attempted to provoke him into a fight, nor had they been overbearing or neglectful. He just had nothing but hatred, and he couldn’t explain why. He’d been hanging out with Bruce a lot, recently, at first he thought maybe Bruce had been influencing him, but despite everything bad thing Mark had accused Bruce of doing; bitching about Mark was something Bruce didn’t do. He wondered if it was his experience with Emily that had caused him to truly hate people. His first kiss was with Emily. They had been out with a few people from the group; they weren’t even going out; and he decided to kiss her. He hadn’t intended there to be tongue involved, but there was, and then he felt it – she had chewing gum in her mouth. Daniel had been horrified, and had held nothing but pure contempt for Emily ever since. He’d never told anyone about it, except for Bruce, who laughed and told him that he’d had worse, he’d kissed a girl with braces, and he cut his tongue on them. They’d laughed about it, and Daniel subconsciously, he assumed, began to prefer Bruce to Mark. It seemed to Daniel that the rivalry between Mark and Bruce was entirely delusional on Mark’s behalf – Bruce didn’t seem to be bad at all. Mark accused Bruce of bullying his friends, yet Bruce had been nothing but good fun to be around, unlike Mark. Daniel even liked some of Bruce’s weird friends, like Lyall and Alex, although he found Christian a little bit too much to bear. He felt like he’d been living in a dream for so long, and he’d only just woken up. He had nothing in common with Mark or James. He had had a few classes with Mark when they started senior school, and he was in the same registration class as James, the bonds he had with them was based entirely on school. He didn’t like any of the girls they insisted on hanging out with, and he didn’t like that all they cared about was hanging out with the girls. He didn't understand their fascination. It was an endless cycle of pursuit and tears that he didn't want to be a part of. He shared a Maths class with his best friend James, and his new friend Ryan. He'd started the year not really knowing much about Ryan, conversing solely with James, yet now he was noticing he was inching away from James instinctively, sitting closer to Ryan, making each other laugh. Laughter was far better than James' incessant complaints about "the girls." Daniel found a kindred spirit in Ryan; someone who also had to put up with complaints about "the girls", except Ryan had to suffer Bruce's whining about Lisa. At one point, Ryan had been stuck between Mark and Bruce, his two best friends obsessing over the same girl, but Ryan had slowly shifted away from Mark; and Daniel wondered if he could do likewise. He supposed that situation could resolve itself, if Lisa were to just choose one of them, but she was too scared, frigid even, to make a choice.

Daniel found himself in one of the larger suburbs branching off from the city. He'd been to Lisa's house once before, for a party, although he wasn't familiar with the suburb itself. It took him a good twenty minutes of aimless wandering and getting lost in his thoughts before he recognised where he was; and began walking towards Lisa's house. He stood outside the semi detached house, and called her on her mobile.

"Hello?" Lisa sounded doubtful that it was really Daniel calling her; surely it was Mark using his phone.
"Hi Lisa. Can you come outside?"
"Huh? Why?" Lisa was suspicious; Daniel had never been nice to her before, he was openly hostile towards her - she knew why, but she didn't want to acknowledge the reasons.
"I'm standing outside, and I'd like to speak to you, that's why."
"Um... give me a minute, I'll be out." Lisa hung up, and then visibly panicked, wringing her hands and repeating 'okay, okay,' to herself.
Lisa threw a warm jumper on, with big roomy pockets, a shelter of sorts. She trudged down the stairs, and slipped out the front door, closing it quietly behind her.
"Hello Daniel." She smiled meekly at him.
"Let's spare the niceties," He smiled sarcastically at her. "Are you going to put them out of their misery?"
"Huh?" Lisa feigned ignorance, trying to buy some time before he confronted her.
"Mark. Bruce. Are you going to choose one, or what?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"You know what I mean, don't play dumb. Or are you playing? It seems to me like you're either so thick headed that you have no idea that they're both obsessed with you, or you're so vain that you think you can just play on their emotions as you please."
Lisa felt as if she'd been slapped across the face, and her mouth hung open in shock. Her eyes began to well up, but she kept it together.
"Well?" Daniel raised an eyebrow.
"What right," Lisa spoke slowly, to prevent herself from crying. "Do you have to just come round here and say that to me?"
"What right do you have to just mess around with my friends?"
"I've not done anything!" Lisa both pleaded and snapped at Daniel.
"Exactly!" Daniel fired back. "You've done nothing, and that's the issue!"
"Well, what do you want me to do?! I didn't ask for any of this!"
"Sure, but you're more than getting your fair share of thrills out of it, aren't you? Jesus Lisa, you're letting them fawn all over you and giving them mixed signals so they try harder to outdo each other! They used to be best friends!"
"Well that's not my fault! They're causing all of this, not me! And what do you care that they used to be best friends? You'd be nobody if Mark had Bruce. As it is, instead he has you and James. Bruce has Ryan, Christian and Lyall. So what?"
"So you just think it's okay to play with their emotions? You think you're doing me a favour? I don't even like Mark, and I don't think you do either. You just like the attention!"
"What! How dare you?!" Lisa looked angry, and attempted to slap Daniel, who caught her wrist. "Ow! Let go!" Lisa looked scared and defensive.
"Listen to me, you stupid little slut! You're going to either choose one and start going out with him and reject the other one, or reject them both and put them out of their misery. This isn't fair on anyone."
"I know you used to fancy me." Lisa narrowed her eyes. Daniel let go of her wrist, which fell limply by her side.
Daniel said nothing, and Lisa sensed she had gained an advantage.
"What? You think I didn't know? You're so intent on believing that I'm fully aware that people like me, so I'll just go ahead and admit it. Yes, I know, it's not hard to realise. I know you used to like me. And I know why you hate Emily so much."
"If you even breathe a word of that to anyone, I'll humiliate you." Daniel made the empty threat.
"Oh you'll humiliate me? I'm pretty sure Mark and Bruce wouldn't stand for that. I'd just hate to see you with no friends, Daniel, I mean Mark does have James to turn to, it's not like he even needs you..."
Daniel paused for a moment, then smiled wryly. "You're the most devious, under handed bitch I've ever come across," He held up a finger to stop Lisa from responding. "Just know that I'll be watching every move you make, just waiting for you to slip up. I want you to be aware of that, because the day I humiliate you will be the day you realise the world doesn't revolve around you, and I want to be the one to break the news to you." Daniel smirked. "I'm going now. Try not to get too paranoid."

Daniel watched Lisa slip back into her house. He didn't hear her crying, but he knew she would be. He sauntered all the way to the bus stop, to catch the bus back into town, and couldn't help but feel good about himself. He was going to end their reverie, one way or another.