Vol.4 Rewrite, Chapter XIV — The Friendship Project

There was something soft and sweet pressed against my lips, but it wasn’t Violet’s lips. She was still responsible for that feeling, but what she was pressing against me was an orange slice, her eyes fixated on me.

It was understandable why she was worried, it was already lunch-time, and I hadn’t talked for most of the day.

Looking around our little group as I chewed, I could see the others were thinking the same, Mathilda voicing her worry first.

“It’s unusual for you to be this quiet,” Mathilda said. “By the looks of it, I thought you two had a great weekend together after leaving my place, but now, I’m not so sure.”

We were in the cafeteria, Mathilda being the last in our group that needed to finish her food, but right now was as good time as any to voice my worries.

“It seems like my sister has no friends,” I said after swallowing the orange slice Violet had fed me, another one coming my way. “I’ve been thinking about a way to help her get some.”

“Your sister is that pretty woman who was waiting at the school gate last year, isn’t she?” Mathew asked.

“Swine,” Mathilda grumbled, tossing him a look.

“What did I do now?!”

“You remember her, that’s what.”

“Oh, so now I can’t remember a friend’s sister?!”

“Not when she’s your type, no.”

“Oh, sod off! I’m not interested in her like that!”

“What about Miss—”

“Now, now! Calm down you two,” Stephen intervened. “You two are derailing the conversation.”

I was thankful for Stephen’s usual reeling in of those two, but this time, I was left a bit curious about who was Mathilda going to ask about. Was it the Miss that run the library? Or maybe it was Miss Maple. The latter was closer in age to my sister, but the library lady looked younger than she was, and she was also popular with the boys, so she was a strong contender too.

“As I was saying,” I resumed after those three stopped bickering and Violet was done wiping my mouth. “I’ve been thinking about ways to help my sister get a friend, so—”

“What about my sister?” Mathilda asked, her face lit-up like a Christmas tree. “I’m sure my sister would love to meet yours!”

Yeah, I had no doubts about that either as she was the first person who came to mind when I started brainstorming possibilities. Thing is, Claire is even wilder than I am and doesn’t look like she can hold back all that much when compared to me. Meanwhile, Sophie was closer in personality with Violet, but a bit more serious. Me and my girlfriend were able to find an equilibrium, but who knew how things would work out between Sophie and Claire.

Still, despite my reservations, Claire was also the best option. Hopefully, sis would learn to loosen up with Claire and she’d have someone else to talk about her issues.

One thing is certain, those two better not walk around junctions together, otherwise there will be plenty of car crashes from distracted drivers.

I said yes to her suggestion, and we began making plans to introduce the two. It wouldn’t be this weekend as I and Violet wanted to save it for couple bonding time despite none of us having voiced such need or want yet. Next weekend however sounded perfect, so we settled on that, Mathilda getting right to it, putting Claire up to speed through a very cheerful phone call.

Me? I’d save the conversation for when I got home. Things like these, I prefer to do them face to face.

“Haah, that person wrote on my desk again,” Violet sighed once we got back to the classroom after lunch recess. On that Monday morning, when we first got to our math class, we had found the word “bitch” written on her side of the desk in pencil. Violet didn’t think much of it, if at all, other than wipe it out. We were now back to the same classroom, and the same word was there again, but only momentarily, as Violet promptly cleaned her side of the desk, again, not thinking much about it. I, on the other hand, got suspicious. It was awfully coincidental that it appeared first thing in the morning on her side of the table, and a second time now. It looked a lot like Violet was being targeted by someone. Someone who might be named Vanessa.

I had no proof of that, and Violet was blissfully ignorant of the possibility of being a target for bullying, so I’d keep quiet about it for now. Even if my blood boiled just thinking about someone calling her that.

The next two weeks went by relatively fast. Violet did find that word written on her side of the desk a few more times, but I think we ended up solving it by Violet completely ignoring it, and me having taken a picture and shown it to our homeroom teacher after no one else was at school, keeping it a secret even from Violet. It must have really been Vanessa who was doing it because it completely stopped after Miss Maple told our class that there had been some students writing stuff on the school desks and that she’d better not find out that our class was also doing the same thing. It sounded like she was selling us the idea that other classes were having the same problem, but Mathilda asked around her friends from other classes, and none had heard of it. Plus, there was the face Vanessa made when Miss Maple issued her warning. Without a doubt it had been her, but I still couldn’t understand why she was antagonising Violet so much. And why write it in pencil? Of course I didn’t want Violet to be bullied, but really, writing mean words in pencil? What? Is she mean-spirited enough to do that but not enough to still care about damaging school property?

None of that mattered now however, as it was finally Saturday, and Sophie was going to be introduced to Claire. My sister was curious to see who Paul’s girlfriend was, unaware that my plan was for the two to become friends. I considered telling her about it, but decided that it was best not to. “Miss Perfection” might end up fumbling stuff and put unneeded pressure on herself, like someone else I knew.

We were waiting close to a café we’d be having ice-cream over when I heard Violet giggle. Looking at her, I understood the reason why she was laughing; with my excitement, I was hopping in place.

“Boing, boing, boing!” I laughed, looking at her.

“Abby, behave!” my sister hushed, always the soul of the party. “We are in public right now.”

True, we were, but it’s not like the street was particularly busy, and the same goes for the café. It was that time of day between people making their morning groceries before it got too hot outside and that people started going out, either for eating out, or buying what they needed to make lunch after having slept-in in the morning.

“Ah! They are there!” I shouted, waving my arm to the other two after seeing them come around the corner, the other two immediately returning the wave with the same energy.

“Listen to me!” Sophie cried out while Violet giggled a third time before telling sis that it was no use being a stickler for rules when I was this excited. Violet, you’re too allowing! My sister complained to her next.

“Am I?” Violet asked, confused. “I always get the feeling that I might be too inflexible at times.”

She was at first, now, it was as Sophie said, Violet was too allowing of my behaviours sometimes. Sometimes. This wasn’t one of them.

As I watched Claire come closer with big steps, her chest bouncing menacingly, I stepped partially behind Violet, hugging her arm and preparing my nose to the incoming assault.

Luckily, that didn’t come to pass, as Claire kept enough of a distance from me to not overwhelm my nose. She did sound very affectionate towards me and Violet as she pinched our cheeks as a greeting, especially because she realised I was taking cover from her perfume. She told me—whether jokingly or seriously, I don’t know—that she’d like to take me with her next time she goes to buy some perfume since I had such a sensitive nose.

Then, she shifted her focus towards my sister.

An even bigger smile lit up her face, and she approached my sister, their chests meeting and her nose almost touching my sister’s.

“Well, aren’t you exactly my type?” Claire said in a low, husky voice. “Do you have a boyfriend too?”

My sister turned beet-red, probably thinking that Claire was planning on making her like me and Violet. It was also probably very confusing for her someone who was in a relationship acting so overtly flirty.

Flirty? More like sexual harassment.

This had been what I had feared.

“I erm, don’t,” my sister stammered. “You’re… Paul’s girlfriend… right?”

“Fufufu! That I am!” Claire laughed, pulling her face away from sis, giving her some miniscule bit of what was very much appreciated personal space. “We’ve been happily together for sixteen months now! Haah, how I miss him…”

Then, she went back to have her face almost touching Sophie. They had her eyes locked, Claire’ glistening while Sophie looked like a deer staring at headlights.

“I like you!” Claire said, going straight to the point, further cementing the confusion my sister was feeling.

Without giving sis a moment to think or even react, Claire hugged her arm and dragged her away to go sit at a table, telling sis that she just knew they’d be great friends and that she wanted to exchange big sister’s stories about their cute little sisters, leaving us three standing there, worrying about them.

“Maybe introducing my sister to yours wasn’t my best idea,” Mathilda said, seemingly only realising it now.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” I said, not wanting to admit defeat before the end. “Violet and I were like that at the beginning, and look how we turned out.”

“Honey, I never was such a stickler to rules and manners as your sister, nor were you as wild as Claire.”

The three of us fell into a silence as we watched the other two. Sophie sat politely while Claire had moved her chair to sit closer to sis and leaned closer to her, talking about something as she combed a strand of hair behind my sister’s ear. It was clear Claire was enjoying toying with Sophie while my sister was in high alert.

We decided to sit down too, as that had been our plan all along, and watch over the other two from a distance.

“So, erm, since we are now served and there’s not many people around,” Mathilda began after each of us had their servings delivered by the waiter. She was having, perhaps unsurprisingly, strawberry with white chocolate chips ice cream. “How have things been between you two? I saw these past two weeks that you don’t seem so… down.”

I appreciated Mathilda asking about such a private matter in a tactful way instead of “so, you two have managed to find opportunities to bang lately, huh?”

“Yeah, Violet and I found a solution,” I told her after checking with Violet if that was ok to be shared and having had a taste of my caramel and pecan nuts ice cream.

“Oh, good,” Mathilda smiled. “It’s no fun watching the two of you when you’re all droopy or cranky.”

Yeah, that idea of sharing underwear really was paying dividends. We still got a bit pent-up, but that extra closeness we felt the rest of the time helped us wait for a moment when we could express our love more physically.

“What about you? Any progress?”

“With Stephen?” Mathilda asked, as if it wasn’t obvious. “Not really. Although, now that I think about it… he seems to have grown up a bit lately, hasn’t he?”

“How so?”

“I mean, like… he seems to have grown a bit uninterested in girls after Violet rejected his advances.”

“Damn, babe! You really tore that guy’s heart, huh?”

“I-I did no such thing and you know it!”

“Or maybe you rejecting him made Stephen think that you started liking girls because he asked you out,” Mathilda laughed.

“Oh, not you too!” Violet huffed, looking away and taking a big bite of her cinnamon with roasted coffee chips ice cream.

As I laughed, I snuck a look at sis. She was now a bit more relaxed and had her phone out, showing Claire something while her new acquaintance listened with a smile, both now leaning towards each other. Claire let out a short laugh and pointed at sis phone, saying something that made my sister’s face sparkle with joy as she moved closer to Claire without even realising it. As sis talked, Claire looked up at her, a warm smile forming in her lips as she watched my sis go on and on and on. I could see why, when sis got this excited… she really was breath-taking.

I didn’t know what happened in the in-between from when they sat to now, but if it was indeed sharing embarrassing stuff about me—and Mathilda—then that was a price I’d happily pay if those two started getting along.

“Looks like Claire pulled back a little,” Mathilda said, having also been observing our sisters. “My sister’s friends have pretty much left town to go study away and stuff, so she has been feeling pretty lonely recently. And like she said, Sophie is just my sister’s type.”

"Does Claire swing that way too?” I asked, now legitimately curious about it.

“Dunno,” Mathilda said with a shrug. “She had a female friend she was very close with before she started dating Paul, but they went their separate ways since then, so maybe? Sis has a bit of a complicate past with relationships, so I never asked. What I meant by that is, my sister likes to be friends with cute, pretty girls, and your sister fits perfectly that description. Sophie is pretty hot.”

“Swine,” I said, echoing her when she’s talking to her cousin.

“Pfft, ah-haha! Ok, fair. Although, it’s true, Mathew likes them about your sister’s age. He has a huge crush over Miss Maple, you know?”

Oh? So it wasn’t just a teenage crush over a teacher, but his preference? Interesting. That also explained why he didn’t show much interest to other girls our age.

“He’s got good taste, I’ll give him that.”

“What about you two?” Mathilda asked, her expression a mix of legit curiosity but also mischief. “What are your types?”

Violet and I pointed at each other. I explained that we were each other’s first love, so it was hard to say if we truly were each other’s preference, we became each other’s preferences because we fell in love with one another, or if our answer was a result of our inexperience. One thing I did leave clear though: I couldn’t imagine myself dating someone who wasn’t Violet as, even with her flaws, she has been nothing short of a perfect partner for me.

“Made for each other, huh? Sure sounds like a dream,” Mathilda hummed, her expression taking a lonely shade. “I sometimes wonder if Stephen and are made to just be friends and nothing else. Unlike in the movies, sometimes people just don’t match that same relationship energy, do they?”

This talk, was Mathilda thinking about giving up again, did something happen, or was she just having a down-to-earth moment?

“Erm… I don’t know if Abby and I were made for each other or anything… we just put in the effort to see things from the other’s side and compromise without judging. But maybe it’s like you said, some people aren’t really meant to be in a relationship together… however… without trying, can they really be certain?”

“Hmm, love sure could come with a user manual, couldn’t it?” Mathilda said, nodding as she thought about what Violet said.

My phone buzzed then, and I checked it to see what was up. I couldn’t understand why sis was texting me when she could have just walked up to me until I looked at where she sat to see that table empty.

Have those two gone for a walk together?

Her text said that she and Claire were going for a walk and—

“Beep!”

“Screech!”

—and for us to enjoy our ice cream with Mathilda.

Did my joke about those two causing accidents when walking close to junctions turned out to be true? Because those two were very well dressed in a similar way, both wearing tight jeans and sleeveless tops. Claire’s red top hugged her feminine silhouette and showed her bellybutton and cleavage while my sister opted for a white top that wasn’t as form fitting and revealing but still very complementary to her curves, and it just sounded like a car honked at another one and the latter hit the brakes hard. Now, there were sirens being heard too.

I texted my sister back, asking if she saw what all that noise was. Soon enough she answered back, telling me that a driver passed the red light while she and Claire were crossing the street and he almost drove into two cars, one of them from the police. Yup, my joke seems to have been spot on.