“Ami!” I hear Carol call out to me while we are walking to class. She and Hailey are walking towards us.

“Oh, hey you two.”

“Are you alright, Amicia?” Hailey asks.

“I’m pretty good, why are you asking?” Sam is standing silently next to me, looking at how the conversation unfolds.

“After we got your message we messaged you a couple of times but you never replied.” Hailey explains.

“Did you? Oh my Goddess, I didn’t notice.” I take my phone out and start going towards the group chat.

“Maybe you didn’t get a notification, it happens to my app all the time too.” Sam breaks her silence.

Both Hailey and Carol are nodding. “These chat apps still aren’t perfect.”

“I am very sorry I missed it though…”

Carol quickly hugs me. “Don’t worry about it, we are just happy you are okay.”

“Thanks.” I hug her back.

“Me and Amicia have something to ask of you.” Sam comes immediately to the point.

Hailey looks a bit taken aback by the sudden comment, but luckily Sam quickly notices it and reassures her. “Ah, don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. We’d just like to invite you to lunch with us and a friend of mine.”

“To get to know each other a little better.” I clarify.

“Oh, we would love that, right Hailey!” Carol stops hugging me and gets back to Hailey’s side.

“Yes!” She enthusiastically proclaims. “We’d love to indeed!”

“Great.” Sam smiles. “Where do you want to eat?”

“Good question.” Hailey puts her hand on her chin.

“What about the Mexican restaurant next to the Gymnasium?” Carol proposes.

-Oh, I do want to try Mexican food!-

“Yesss!” I enthusiastically nod.

“Well if Ami is okay with it, I’m okay with it.” Sam laughs.

“Sounds like a plan then.” Hailey approves of our choice as well.

“Oh, and what about Max?” I look to Sam who promptly waves away my concern.

“Don’t worry about it, that girl is an omnivore. She can literally consume everything with a big smile on her face.”

“Let’s meet in front of the Gymasium’s entrance then, around 12:30?”

“Sounds good, I’ll let my friend know.” Sam takes her phone and starts texting Max.

“We do kinda need to go know though.” Carol checks the time on her watch. “Drama class is about to start.”

“Alright, see you later then, Sam.” I quickly give her a kiss.

She embraces me, with her phone still in her hand and kisses me back, and whispers. “See you later kitten.”

I leave her embrace, a bit flustered by her whisper and follow Carol on our way to drama class. Hailey joins us after having said goodbye to Sam.

“Hey Amicia?” Carol looks like she’s hesitant to ask something of me.

“What’s wrong?”

Carol blushes a bit. “Nothing, really… but did your girlfriend just call you kitten?”

“Carol!” Hailey cries out, now she’s blushing as well.

“Oh.” And now we are the three profusely blushing idiots. “Y-yes she did. I really like cats a lot so she uses that as a nickname for me...” I tell them a partial lie.

“It’s really cute!” Hailey calls out. “I wish my partners would give me cute names like that.”

“You’ll find someone who does eventually, Hails.” Carol assures her with a pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Carol…” Hailey stops lamenting her problems for a second and turns back to me. “Amicia, are you ready for drama class? It’s your first time, right?”

“N-not really to be honest. Big crowds aren’t my forté.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Are they anyone’s?” Hailey smiles.

“Well, I don’t really have an issue with them.” Carol shrugs.

“Yes, but that’s because you are Carol, Carol.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” She pouts.

“I’m just saying you are… unique.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Her pout turned into a smile. “But Ami, I’m sure you’ll be fine. “You’ve got us to support you after all.” Carol gives me a thumbs up.

“Should I be reassured by that?” I joke.

“Oh, what a meanie.” She starts laughing.

“But thank you, I already feel a bit more confident now.”

“That’s what we are here for.” Hailey smiles.

“That and a good education of course.”

“Carol, you are ruining the moment.”

My friends both start laughing and I join them in doing so.

“So, miss Auxchandelles, show us what you know about the arts.”

Our drama professor immediately pulls me up to the stage the minute the lesson starts. She does look remarkably happy having another student in her course.

“Okay professor, but can I have Carol to play against?” at least I won’t have to stand on the stage alone then.

She smiles. “Sounds interesting. I will allow it.”

Carol quickly joins me on the stage and whispers to me. “I meant support from the benches, not from up here.”

“But you said you didn’t have issues with stuff like this right?”

“That’s because I need to learn to shut my mouth.”

I smile at her. In the meantime I can hear Hailey laughing, Carol must’ve said something before coming up here but quickly gets shut up by the death stare of our professor, which in turn made Carol smirk.

“So what’s the plan, Amicia?”

“How about this…” I whisper the plan into her ear, after I’m done she starts smiling. “That will be good. Let’s go.”

“Whenever you are ready ladies.” The professor sits herself down on the front row as we get set to start our little play.

“Brilliant work. Bri-lli-ant.” The professor is giving a standing ovation together with the rest of the class. “The way you portrayed the class struggle between the lover and her girlfriend’s parents was just phenomenal. Especially in such a short amount of time to prepare. Not to forget the great technique the both of you showed. Sure there is still a long road left but that’s why we are here after all.”

“Thank you, professor.” Me and Carol bow before our audience. I’m a tiny bit out of breath because of the adrenaline of acting. Who’d have thought that being comfortable in your own body could lift so much of your shoulders.

“Good job Ami.” Carol pats me on the back. “Are you sure this was your first time.”

“In a way it was, in another it wasn’t.”

Carol looks a bit confused at me but shrugs in the end. “Great job either way. Let’s get to our seats. I think we earned a rest.”

“Nicely done you two.” Hailey welcomes us back when we sit down next to her.

“Thanks Hailey.”

She smiles at me. “See, I told you you could do it.”

“All thanks to me of course.” Carol brags, but gets a small knock on the head from Hailey in return. “Ouch!”

“Serves you right! Don’t steal the credit from Ami, she clearly was the star of the show.”

“Aww.” Carol pouts. However, she doesn’t have a lot of time to face her sadness because our professor is already getting on the stage to give the rest of her lesson.

The lesson went pretty smoothly overall, with just a couple more drama techniques juxtaposed with our little performance from earlier. This did make the techniques pretty easy to digest. After the lesson our group of friends heads towards the gymnasium to meet up with Sam and Max. And to be fair, right in time, because I’m already quite hungry.

-Maybe I should’ve eaten even more this morning?-

“Hey, Ami?” Carol pokes my shoulder.

“What’s up Carol?” I tilt my head a little.

“Have you met this Max before?”

I nod. “I have. Well… I talked to her once quite briefly and saw her once before, so it’s not like I know her that well.”

“Would you know if she’s into girls?” She shyly puts her index fingers against one another.

“I don’t know Carol. You’ll have to ask her yourself.” I laugh and when I look back over to

Hailey I see that she is facepalming.

“Really, Carol?”

“Hey, I would like to have a girlfriend too, you know.” The two of them start having their usual friendly discussion again.

“We are there to get to know eachother better. Not to do some kind of blind-date event.”

“I’m just gathering reconnaissance data.”

“Ugh, what am I ever going to do with you.” Hailey tries to put up a serious act but quickly starts giggling.

“Love you, Hails.”

“Love you too, Carol.”

“Oh, do you now?”

“Carol!”

It doesn’t take long at all before we see Max and Sam in the distance waiting for us.

“Hey there, girls.” Max greets us first and Sam does so too after giving me a welcome back kiss.

“Hello! I’m Hailey and this ruffian over here is called Carol. Nice to meet you.”

“Hey, who’s the ruffian here! You keep hitting me!” Carol pouts again.

Max starts laughing. “Well, I don’t know whether or not you are one, but I can definitely tell you are cute as fuck.”

At that moment something breaks in Carol because her mouth stops moving and her face is flashing red.

-Well, that probably answered her question.-

“Is Max always this direct?” I ask my girlfriend.

“Occasionally. She does like flirting with the girls.”

“Ooooh, I see.” I reply, but it almost gets buried in the sound of my growling tummy.

Sam laughs and I think even Max heard it because I could see her suppress a giggle.

“Let’s get to the restaurant now because my girlfriend is getting hungry. I don’t want her tummy to start digesting itself.” Sam addresses the group. Leaving me completely flustered.

-Why tummy, why now. Couldn’t you have waited a little longer.-

My tummy growled again, but even louder this time.

“I think we should hurry.” Now Hailey and Carol are giggling too.

-Whhyyyyyyyy!-