Skates NaNoWriMo 2023

Chapter 21- Lily

Like everyday, all the same, Lily got up, brushed her hair, brushed her teeth, got dressed, went downstairs, ate her breakfast, and went to school. It wasn’t an exciting routine or anything, but it worked, and that’s all that mattered, that she got to school on time, functioning enough to learn and looking like a decent human being. For the first eight or nine years of her life that Lily went to school, she went for the fun, for friends, to learn. She still did that usually, but lately she was learning how things really went: you wake up early just so that you barely have enough time to rush out the door to go a building full or kids who most of which you would never talk to, never interact with, and sit all day in a classroom writing notes silently all alone rarely allowed to talk to anyone, and you would most likely never look back at to “prepare” you for your future. She had also learned that their future was just an even more bland version of right now, getting up even earlier to work even harder with mostly people who you hate but need to act like you love just to get paid a little bit of money that you either pay most of in taxes or spend on bills and groceries, and then give some to your child to make sure they wont understand the struggle you are going through. But that would have to be something Lily saved for later, she had school now, so it was time to push all of those feelings aside and get to class, where she was only meant to learn, noting else. Lily wasn’t really sure why her perspective had changes so very suddenly, but it had, and everyone was just going to have to deal with it.
She managed to arrive on time, and make her way to their first period class a few minutes before the bell even rang. Each one of their periods was fifty minutes long, bit some days they felt a lot longer than that, today being one of those days. Maybe it was because it was a Friday, so everyone including Lily was eager to go home, and that’s why the periods felt so long, but she didn’t really know. Lily also just wanted it to be the field trip, which wasn’t for another week, but they were getting closer to it everyday, and she felt the same way about Mark. Although she thought she might have been getting closer to him, she wanted to be even more, like, more than friends, a lot more.
When last period was about to start, and they were all just sitting around in their sixth period classrooms, people started to pack up so that when the bell went they could all leave immediately, people usually started to do this near the end of the day, when they thought that packing up early would make the day end faster somehow. They all took their seats for the last class of the day in social studies. Lily was near the back right corner, and was super close to Mark as well, there was only this one girl named Emma in between them. It felt that way too, Lily knew that Emma liked Mark, and Emma knew that Lily knew that. She was always trying to make Lily jealous in any way that she possibly could, it was almost as if it was a hobby, or a sport, only an insecure, already jealous person could do that, but it was really getting at Lily.
They were told just to review their notes for the unit to study for the test next week, so luckily no special projects or assignments, just a nice relaxing study period, or so Lily thought. She got her friends to go over to her so so that they could all study together, and looked over at Mark, which unfortunately Emma saw. She looked angry for some reason, so she turned over to Mark and started talking to him. Her voice was so soft though that Lily couldn’t hear what she was saying. Lily glared but kept watching, Emma turned her head to make sure Lily saw as she started stroking Mark’s arm, and she looked away.
“You okay Lils?” Eliana asked “your face is kinda red”. “I’m fine” she said angrily, clearly not fine. All Lily heard from Emma is what she said next, “Ok fine, I get it, you can work with your friends now, after school you can come over to my house to study, it’ll be really fun”. It’ll be really fun?! What is that supposed to mean she though. Emma was trying to get on Lily’s nerves, she always was. It was working too, when Emma turned back once again to make sure Lily saw all of that and smiled when she did made her blood boil. Emma was just this stupid pick-me girl who wanted to steal everyone from everyone! She stopped looking over and giving Emma the satisfaction that she wanted and continued working with her friends angrily for the rest of the period.
When the bell rang to signal the time for everyone to go home, Lily couldn’t have left any faster, she wanted to get out and away from Emma as fast as she could, if she wanted to flirt with Mark at least she could do with without Lily there. Lily was the type of person to get jealous really easily, the type of person who falls in love instantly, gets their heart broken as easily as glass, and most likely it will never be built up and fixed the same way again. She watched as Emma dragged Mark out of the school and inevitably to her house, Lily bet that Mark wanted it too, why else would he go? Her heart throbbed at the thought of him not liking her back, and especially of him liking Emma, could he not see what she was truly like?

Chapter 22- Mark

Emma pulled Mark out of the school and started walking to her house. She quickly moved from holding onto Marks arm to holding his and and interlacing their fingers. “Come on, don’t act like you don’t like this” she said sweetly. “I don’t!” He loudly replied. She just giggled and continued walking, dragging Mark along with her.
“Emma stop” Mark said “I don’t want to go to your house, and I don’t like you”. He had had enough and didn’t even care anymore, at this point, it was just plain annoying. She giggled again and said “stop lying, it’s obvious that you like me” “no I don’t!” “Why wouldn’t you? Who else would you like?” Mark stammered, he was not going to tell Emma that he liked Lily, especially if he hadn’t even told his friends. She smiled when he gave no response and said slowly in a mysterious tone “could it be, Lily?” “What? No! I don’t like Lily!” He shouted. “Good” Emma winked.
In just a little over ten minutes, they arrived at Emma’s house, the address on the door matched the one on the paper she gave him, so that’s how he knew. “Ok we’re here now! Time to study” she said. Mark groaned and rolled his eyes but she was already walking up the stairs to the front door. Emma pulled them both inside. She actually had a really nice home, and he found himself looking around the huge space. “So you like my house?” She asked “what? No” Mark replied. She laughed and said “you can just leave your shoes here, then come with me to the table so we can study”. Mark listened and then followed her.
She sat down at the table and looked through her bag for her notes but then didn’t grab anything and said “oh no, I must’ve accidentally left them at school, well, you’re here now anyways!” Mark stood up “you left them at school on purpose! I’m leaving” Of course Emma didn’t bring the notes, he thought she would at least do that. “Wait no Mark!” She called out. He was already opening the door to leave, she was so annoying, he was going home.
It took Mark a little over twenty minutes to walk back to his house, and he was angry the entire way. Couldn’t Emma leave him alone? Why did she have to bring him all the way to her house tonight to “study”? He got back home and then went to message his friends. “Emma’s so annoying, she didn’t even want to study!” Drew was the first person to read it and reply “well yeah obviously, you guys like each other I thought?” Mark was really angry now, but he knew he still couldn’t say that he liked Lily. “No! I don’t, she likes me though” he replied. “That’s obvious, she left her notes in her locker, and anyways why would she want to study Mark, are you that stupid?” Evan joined in. He thought about it for a minute, but it was true, why would she want to go home to study on a Friday especially. “I guess not” he replied “exactly” Drew said.
Mark was really annoyed with what had happened, and now he thought, maybe he should just tell his friends about Lily, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his phone buzzing. Kevan had joined now too, completely confused. “Hey guys what’s happening? What about Mark? And who’s Emma?” He laughed, since Kevan wasn’t in their class he didn’t know what had happened. “Emma’s this girl in our class that likes Mark? Drew sent. “Ooh! Does Mark like her back?” Kevan asked. “Well, he says he doesn’t, but I know he likes someone, and it’s probably her” Drew said. “Hey!” Mark barged in “don’t act like in not in this group chat! And no I don’t like her” “well then who do you like” Evan said. He thought for a moment, if he was going to tell them now wouldn’t be the worst time. “No one”.
They started blowing up his notifications saying that he was lying, and it was obvious he liked someone, even if it wasn’t Emma. “Come on just tell us, we’re not gonna make fun of you” Kevan said. “Yes we are” Drew replied. Mark wasn’t sure what went in in Drew’s head but saying that d wasn’t going to help at all. “I’ll tell you next week” Mark finally replied. He didn’t want to tell them over text where anyone could look back at and see. Luckily they stopped bothering him a bout it when he said that, and he went back to being mad at Emma.
He knew that there would be no point or benefit from being mad at Emma, so he just tried to forget about it. Since Mark had no hockey tonight, he decided to watch another movie, which he rarely had time for. The one he watched last was alright, but it had a part two, so he watched that. It was even longer than the last one and ended up being even more boring, with only about one or two minutes of something interesting happening.
Mark finished the movie reluctantly, had dinner, and after sitting down for a bit on his phone, he went to bed. He wished that he could’ve just told Lily that he liked her, but if she didn’t feel the same way, he would regret it a lot. Maybe she didn’t hear anything that went on with Emma Mark thought. Maybe she didn’t think anything of it and it’ll all be fine. If she did like him, Mark was worried that she might think that he liked Emma, and maybe start to loose feelings. Maybe I should just tell her, the worst she could say is no right? He thought. He also worried because in his head, he knew that “no” wasn’t the worst thing. Everyone could see him get rejected and he could make a total fool of himself, and no one wanted that. No one.

Chapter 23- Lily

Lily was heartbroken. She had left the school pretty soon after Mark and Emma, and waited to check if she could hear anything. She saw Emma smiling looking at Mark as they walked away, all which hurt. The most painful thing though, was when she heard Mark yell “No! I don’t like Lily!” They must have been talking about her, and Mark just so had to say that he didn’t like her, and not just that, he had to yell it.
Eliana and Natalia were by her sides, they were going home together, and they just stood there trying to comfort her. “It’s ok, there’s plenty of other people out there, you’ll find someone!” Eliana said. “Yeah, and if you seriously like someone who has to yell to the most stupid, annoying, rat, pick-me girl that he doesn’t like you, then you’re crazy” Natalia added. Lily gently chuckled, she knew her friends were just trying to help, but she really wanted to get home, she didn’t want anyone out here to see her upset like this.
They finished walking back, her friends were pretty good at making Lily feel better, but the best was Larry. As soon as they stepped through the door, he was there. Larry started dancing around, super happy, he was never upset over boys, he was just excited. He wasn’t upset that Lily had left anymore, he was just happy that she was back, that’s all that mattered to him. Larry was great at giving comfort, she was feeling better already.
“You wanna go upstairs?” Eliana asked. Lily nodded, but first she needed food. She grabbed a chocolate chip muffin out of the pantry for herself and tossed one to each of her friends. They gave Larry a quick pat on the head each before going up the stairs, then to Lily’s room. They usually liked to go to one of their houses every Friday and sit in their bed and talk.
Even though they were in the same class it always seemed like there was so much to talk about, almost as if they never saw each other at school. Today though, they just talked about how much they hated Emma, and it made Lily feel a lot better. She liked to get her feelings out on people like that by talking about them, and how much she hated them. “She’s just a pick-me Lily, if Mark likes her now, which I doubt he does, he’ll loose feelings so fast” Eliana said. “Yeah exactly, and did you hear him, he sounded kinda mad when he said he didn’t like you, so maybe Emma was just annoying him so he said that” Natalia told her. Lily didn’t really see how that worked but she went along with it anyways. “I wish you could switch seats with her in Social Studies, so that she would be far away from me” Lily said. “I wish you could switch seats with her, so that you would be right beside Mark” Eliana teased. Lily giggled, the only thing she could do while blushing that much. “So you do still like him?” Natalia asked. “Well, yeah I guess” she responded.
Soon enough Lily felt better and they all moved on from talking about Emma to the stuff they had done outside of school. Like Lily and her gymnastics, Eliana’s track and field progress, and Natalia about how was trying to teach her fish to do a back flip. “How are you supposed to get a fish to do a back flip Natalia?” Eliana asked. “Well, I just trace little circles on the side of the tank and try to get him to follow it and do a flip” she said. “Does it work” Lily questioned. “Um, not yet, but hopefully it will soon!” She answered. Lily and Eliana laughed at the idea, there was no way Natalia could get her fish to do a back flip. It would be impressive for someone more experienced with training animals to do that, but not Natalia, she was something for sure.
“Why are you guys laughing?” Natalia asked, slightly offended “I know you don’t think I can train him, but just you watch!” “Ok Nat, you do you” Eliana said through snorts. Natalia rolled her eyes, completely confident she could do it, and Lily didn’t want to break that confidence, it was kind of funny. “How many tricks does Larry know?” Eliana asked. “I’m not really sure, a bunch though, like sit, lay down, speak, roll over” Lily started listing. “Hey! That’s not fair that your pet can do a flip!” Natalia called out, and Eliana once again started laughing. “Nat, it’s not a flip!” Lily said. “Yes it is, he’s flipping from his stomach, to his back, to his stomach, that’s a flip” replied Natalia. “She’s got a point” Eliana said. Lily sighed, now they both thought the same thing, she couldn’t fight it now. “I guess so. But Larry’s a dog, and it’s easier for dogs to learn tricks”. “Ugh it’s not fair” Natalia said pouting playfully.
The girls continued talking on and on for a few more hours, still about some random things, before they got out a deck of cards to play with. They played a bunch of games and had lots of fun, it was almost time for Lily to have dinner and her friends to go home but they were enjoying being together too much. “Hey why don’t you guys just ask if you can stay over tonight?” Lily asked her friends. “Oh yeah good idea, I’ll text them now” Eliana said “yeah me too” replied Natalia.
Once all of their parents gave them permission to stay the night over at Lily’s house, they all went down for dinner. Since it was Friday, they had just ordered in some pizza, and it was really good. There was pepperoni, Hawaiian, and meat lovers, and all of them were completely finished my the end, which came pretty quickly. Once the girls finished eating and Lily cleared the table, they all went back upstairs to go and play their card games some more. The sleepover was the perfect end to her day, which hadn’t been good, but it had been fixed.

Chapter 24- Mark in progress

Mark woke up really late, it was almost one o’clock in the afternoon, it was an especially long sleep considering the fact that he went to bed early as well. He had to get up now, because he was starving, being asleep for that long and then having nothing to eat wasn’t the greatest. He pulled himself up and out of bed and them walked downstairs to go and throw some bread in the toaster. He got some peanut butter ready for whenever it was done, and walked over to sit on the couch. Mark grabbed his phone off of the charger and scrolled on it for a little bit until his toast was ready to be eaten.
When it was, Mark got up and went back over to the counter to put on the peanut butter and have his breakfast, which would be more like a late lunch. He ate and scrolled some more on his phone, looking through a whole bunch of random posts from his friends and classmates and people he had met once or twice.
The day so far had been pretty boring, nothing much happened, but he had luckily made some plans today to go out skating with his friends tomorrow, so that would bring up something to do this weekend, to make it less boring and more eventful. Maybe something cool would happen while they were out he thought, that would be fun. They all agreed to go at 2:30, and each meet each other there. Evan had to borrow an extra pair of skates from Kevan since he never really skated, but didn’t want to pay to rent some out. Mark and Drew both played hockey so they both had all of the equipment, plus some hockey sticks and pucks, which they were going to bring along too for everyone to play.
Even though Evan didn’t really skate much, he was actually pretty good, and often played street hockey with his younger brother, so he was alright. Evans brother really wanted to be in hockey, but it was just too expensive and it took up too much time, so sadly he wasn’t able to join, but that’s why Evan would still play street hockey with him.