“H-how the hell are you not more exhausted?” Beth questioned bitterly between deep gasping breaths for air.

I was only slightly winded myself, having kept a steady pace throughout our hour-long run around the school’s outdoor track during gym class today. An extremely grueling endeavor for the vast majority of my classmates, several of whom literally collapsed from exhaustion and had to be taken to the nurse's office.

“I uh, just paced myself pretty well is all.” I said sheepishly, knowing full well that if I had to do a run like this last year I’d probably be even more out of breath than Beth was right now.

“No, seriously, you’re barely even winded, Jenni. How the heck are you not wheezing and panting like the rest of us poor degenerates here?” Beth demanded.

“Ah, come on Beth. Despite being pretty nerdy, Jenni’s never been a complete slouch at gym stuff.” Scott said, coming to my defense.

“Y-yeah, I mean, I know that, but she was running pretty much the whole time. Whereas most of the non-jocks, and other people not on the school’s sports teams have had to stop and take breaks, despite being yelled at not to.” Beth pressed on, not willing to let things drop this time.

“I mean, I am probably a bit-” I slowly started to make up some kind of excuse before I was interrupted by the sound of another person collapsing onto the floor.

“Ah Christ. Not another one.” Beth said, bemoaning the fate of yet another of our classmates. “Has Coach Philips seriously gone insane, pushing us all like this.”

“I guess I’ll handle it this time as well.” Scott said rather sadly.

He had already ferried two other students to the nurse during class time. This was probably the biggest reason why Scott himself was not all that tired, unlike Beth.

“Seriously, I wouldn’t be so bad if he just let us walk, but nooooo. Can’t have us slacking off, and going soft or whatever it was he said.” Beth spit out angrily. “Why is he being so much more of a prick lately? I’m not the only one feeling like this right?”

“No, he has become much more rude and unkind, in general.” Mira said, speaking up from behind us, causing Beth and I to spin around on our heels to see her.

“Oh. It’s you.” Beth responded coldly.

“Who else would I be?” Mira questioned, maybe rhetorically…?

“I’m not going to answer that, or Jenni’ll be mad at me again.” Beth told her bluntly. “I see you’re also not too sweaty or exhausted either, huh. Why is that?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors, running from…things.” Mira answered vaguely.

Even I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by things? Did she mean monsters, other paranaturals, the IDPA? Nothing came to mind as the one definite answer.

“What does that even mean? Things?” Beth demanded, her temper starting to slowly get away from her. Likely as a result of her frayed nerves and sheer exhaustion.

Mira gave me a knowing look, waiting a bit for me to say something.

Letting out a weary sigh, I gave in to her silent request and spoke up.

“Mira likes to go hiking in the woods, sometimes you hear noises that could be from dangerous wild animals. At least that’s what she told me.” I answered with a hopefully sincere-looking shrug of disinterest. I was getting better and better at lying and deception, and I really kinda of hated it to be honest.

Skills Updated!

Running 55 => 56

Deception 39 => 40

Yes, thank you blue box. Message received. I’m a giant terrible liar now, and a bad person. Got it.

“Yes. I like hiking, and running from wild animals.” Mira replied with utter dispassion to my made-up story.

“Right…” Beth said skeptically, eyes moving between the two of us. “How do you know so much about this that you can answer for her. You two have barely known each other for what? Two weeks now?”

Beth was never dumb, at least in my opinion. But she rarely was this nosy about my or even other people’s business as she seemed to be when it comes to Mira. For some reason, Beth really didn’t care for Mira all that much.

“Well…” I started strongly. “Mira and I have been working on our English project together, and the topic of what we like to do for fun came up at some point.” I comfortably elaborated on my lie.

“Yes, and in this conversation I expressed the deep enjoyment I derive from running for my life in fear of various unknown and extremely deadly… wild animals.” Mira said, doing her best to back me up.

“So what then? You’ve gone hiking with her a bunch. That's why you’re in so much better shape than you were before?” Beth asked, clearly not really buying our story.

“Uh yeah, that and…” I started vaguely, not sure how to convince her without revealing more than I should. So much for being a master of deception already. “I uh, we’ve been jogging together after school.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Both Beth and Mira looked at me with equally disbelieving eyes. I glared at Mira for giving me that look and tried to mentally compel her to back me up.

In response, she rolled her eyes dramatically and said. “Yes. I also am a big fan of running around… suburban neighborhoods. That’s me, just a really big fan of running.”

“Yep, and I’ve kinda wanted to get into better shape myself. Judging by how things went in class today. I’d say it's going pretty well.” I said with a horribly fake smile as I grabbed the limp and now uncomfortable Mira in a tight side hug to show just how sincere we both were.

“Right…” Beth said exaggeratedly. “So, either you’ve both suddenly turned into mush-brained jocks, or the two of you are keeping a secret that you don’t want to tell me. Either way, I’m not buying it so *Pflepgh*.” Beth said before blowing a raspberry at us and giving me a thumbs down with both hands.

I sighed in defeat as the three of us arrived in front of the girl's locker room finally.

“Look, Beth, I seriously don’t know what to tell you. I’m in better shape than I was, obviously. I’m not sure what more than that you want me to say.” I said, trying to keep my deception and excuse as truthful as possible. After all, I was in much better shape. Even just compared to last week.

After entering the locker room and making to our way to where we had stored our clothes, Beth finally spoke up again.

“What I want is for you to explain why this random girl you didn’t even know a month ago is suddenly the center of your life now.” Beth demanded, her voice was sharp and tinged with growing emotion. “Seriously, Jenni, why the hell are you spending so much more time around her instead of us?”

What she really meant was “Instead of me?”.

I didn’t say anything for a long while then, feeling a bit relieved that it was just me and Beth right now. Mira had done her usual routine of grabbing her clothes and sequestering herself in one of the bathroom stalls. Maybe that is what gave Beth the courage to finally open up more about how she was feeling, but either way, I didn’t want Beth’s anger or hurt feelings to be directed toward her.

“Beth, I haven’t been spending all that much time with her.” I started to say.

“You have.” Beth quickly rebutted. “In the last month, how many times have you hung out with me or even Scott, outside of school?”

“Well, we had our band practice last week, and…” I began to list off all the times we’d hung out, but found to my honest surprise that I couldn’t really think of the other times we’d done anything together.

“Exactly, and?” Beth said, her words cutting sharply and deeply into my heart.

“I’ve been busy.” I said, trying to defend my actions. It was true though, I was actually super busy. Between keeping up with my regular studying amount for school, and now studying and practicing magic every night in my room, I was incredibly busy.

I just couldn’t tell her that though. Not the real answer anyway.

“You’ve been busy.” Beth mimicked, clearly not at all satisfied with my response.

She slammed her locker loudly, further reinforcing her feelings on the matter.

“Beth, come on.” I implored, hurrying to finish getting changed so I could keep up with her.

“Why? Aren’t you going to wait around for your precious Mira to finish first?” Beth sniped while starting to walk away.

Barely getting pants and shoes back on, I fumbled to catch to her as she walked with purpose out of the locker room

“Beth, stop.” I demanded a bit more loudly this time.

“Why should I?’ Beth said with hurt and a slight bit of anger in her tone. She did stop though, and turned around to look at me once the two of us were back outside in the main hallway in front of the locker room door.

“Beth, I’m sorry I haven’t been spending as much time with you as I want to, but I have been really busy, honest. And no, not with Mira.” I told her, trying to will her to believe me, but having growing doubt that she should ever could. At least not until she knew what was really going on.

Beth didn’t say anything at first. Seeming to consider what I had told her.

“I believe you when you say you were busy, Jenni. I guess I can even believe Mira isn’t the main reason. But it’s something, and I…” She paused looking down at her feet and crossing her arms. “I’m sorry Jenni, I just don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

Her sudden confession caught me off guard slightly. More than slightly, to be honest. Beth was usually so guarded, and always tried to act tough around other people. Now though, in spite of her closed off body language, she looked every so slightly more vulnerable because of what she had said.

“Beth… Beth, I promise I will tell you everything that is going on with me.” As I said that, I moved up closer to her and placed my hands on each of her arms in a gesture of comfort, or so I hoped. “More than that, I promise you Beth, I will always and forever be your friend, till the day I die.”

Those last words may have come across as dramatic to Beth, but to me, till the day I die had a much heavier more immediate meaning.

“Pff, so melodramatic.” Beth scoffed, but she also had a smile on her face and the edges of her eyes were a little red.

“It was a bit much.” Said the voice of Mira from behind me again.

“Wha-, why are you standing there spying on me?” I demanded after spinning around to look at her.

“See?” Beth almost shouted in vindication.

Mira calmly raised one eyebrow and said. “Really, you’re going to be mad at me for being the one spying.”

She was obviously equating the dream I had about her to spying, but I also couldn’t really disagree either.

“N-no, it’s just…well, we were having a moment, alright?” I said defensively.

“Okay. Have your moment.” Mira calmly stated without making any visible effort to move or leave.

“That’s not what-” I started to explain before being interrupted by another voice. A new voice.

“What’s all this chatting and gossiping going on out here in the hallway?” The voice of Coach Philip said while walking out of the Boy’s locker room.

“Oh, uh nothing Coach Philip.” I quickly explained, while looking down at the floor nervously.

“We were just leaving Coach, sorry if we were loud.” Beth said with a half-sincere smile.

“Uh-huh, well it’s good I ran into you actually.” Coach Philip said as he walked toward the three of us. “After seeing how well you did today, I’ve been meaning to follow up with you about joining the school’s track team.”

“Th-The track team.”I stuttered even more nervously. “Before you said you wanted me on the volleyball team.”

“Did I? Ah well, that’s the one I meant then.” Coach Philip said to me with a big, almost intimidatingly so, smile.

“I really don’t know about joining any sports team. I’ve honestly just been so-” I tried to calmly and rationally explain before a loud and way too eager voice interrupted me.

“She’ll do it. In fact, so will I.” Beth shouted, almost triumphantly at her grand suggestion.

“W-wait a minute you c-can’t just-” I tried once again to speak up for myself before being interrupted, again.

“Fantastic!” I’ll see you all after school then so that we can get your uniforms and paperwork sorted.

“N-now hold on-”

“Sounds great. We’ll both see you there.” Beth answered for the both of us.

Coach Philip waved one of his meaty hands at us as he walked away.

I turned, almost in shock to look at my one-time best friend.

“What have you done?” I asked her, my voice hollow and grave.