Ah yes, miss Carlyle

The last few minutes of his last class seemed to slow to a dragging pace. Pages turning, books closing, lockers shutting, mumbling of teenagers filling his eardrums. He suddenly felt nervous. Am I actually going over to Rina's house right now? What am I going to do? I don’t know how to fix things. What am I going to say? Where am I going to stand? What will I do with my hands? Is she just going to be sitting and watching me? Why have I done this to myself, why do I care if she comes on the camping trip? Why do I--

"Watson" he a strange thing, someone is saying my name.

"Watson" there it is again.

"Fucking idiot, Watson." ok well now I have to address this.

He finds himself in the parking lot, backpack secured to his shoulder, water bottle in hand. How did he get here, he was just--

"Dude what is wrong with you..." Bonnie Carlyle was standing in front of him.

"Huh? oh sorry. I was somewhere else."

"Yeah well, look at who you're talking to okay. Don’t ignore me like that." she sounded annoyed. Like she doesn’t often experience someone not paying attention to her. Hmm, that felt kind of fun. Let's keep doing that.

"I'm sorry, who am I talking to?" She stood aghast, eyes wide and mouth open. "Is something wrong? You’re looking at me strangely."

"You! I--How--" She screamed internally and her eyes turned to a fury. She turned around and began to storm off.

"Bonnie--Bonnie I'm kidding, what is it?"

She stopped in her tracks. He really shouldn’t be doing this. He needed to find out what the Palace was. From what he knew, Bonnie was a part of it, and this is as good a chance as any to get information about it. But why is she talking to him?

She turned around and stared at him with an anger that he could feel in his chest. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"Bonnie--I'm sorry, I saw a chance to make you squirm and I took it, can you blame me? I mean look at you. You're always so poised and put together, we've almost never spoken, I might never be able to have any control of you ever again."

"You don’t have any fucking control over me!" she snapped back at him.

"No, no, of course I don’t. What is it? I do have somewhere to be right now."

"And where's that?" she insisted.

"I’m just about my own business, don’t even worry about it." She seethed again. If the water had stopped boiling, it raged to a rapid boil once again and steamed out her ears. She stood for a few seconds and calmed herself, and then returned.

"What did you say to Joan you asshole?"

"Huh? What?" hm surprising. He didn’t expect Joan to even mention him to anybody.

"She just blew past us today and mumbled your name and said fuck a few times and then away she went! What the fuck did you say to her." What an excellent feeling he felt. Is this the height of bliss? Is this what entering heaven feels like? Where's Saint Peter, he feels close.

"Bonnie, I promise you; I said nothing to her today. And I mean nothing--I didn’t say a single word to her.”

"Today?"

"Yeah today. Yesterday she was helping me a bit with some Calc we were doing."

"Helping you? Why would she be helping you?"

"I don’t know, maybe I asked nicely. What's your problem? I mean what’s wrong with Joan helping me with Calc?"

"Nothings wrong with it. It's just weird. She didn’t tell me."

"Why does she have to tell you?" She's flustered and doesn’t know what to say. It seemed the group of the four of them are close and share a lot with each other. But she wasn’t over here screaming at him about Mary. Maybe Mary is more discreet and holds her cards closer to her chest. He would like to be held close to her chest. Joans chest wouldn’t be too bad either. In fact, the tight pink shirt Bonnie was wearing made her chest look very appealing.

"She has to tell me because--because--well why wouldn’t she?"

"Bonnie, what’s the palace?" there will never be a chance at the rate this conversation is going. Her face suddenly turned a dark grey. Like a corpse that had been dug up long after it was buried.

"I...don’t...know...what...you’re...talking...about..."

"If you tell me what it is, I’ll tell you where I’m going after school. That sounds like a fair trade to me."

"How…how do you know about…about that."

"I keep my ear close to the ground."

"I have to go." She seems to wrap her arms around her spirit looking for comfort and float away.

Suddenly he was alone again. On the surface Bonnie seemed an image of status, grit and ambition. Underneath that surface, like so many people, a construed mass of ego and self-doubt held together by a smile.