: A Bloody Nightmare

Returning to school the following Monday was pretty hellish, to say the least. At first, no one seemed to acknowledge that anything had happened, apart from my friends, that is. And then, at break, Billie just wasn't there. He wasn't hanging around with us, and neither were his friends. The same happened at dinner; he wasn't there either.

By the next day, however, people seemed to have worked out what had happened. Gwen and company came up to me during break and started quizzing me about it; Adam and Ann got rid of them pretty quickly before they could even unleash their venom, but it was written all over their faces. They found it funny, and they were just waiting to say, "I told you so."

And shortly after they left, Nichola and Kerry appeared to offer me their condolences. Or, you know, something along those lines. "I can smack him for you, if you like," Kerry offered, chewing noisily on gum.

"Hmm, she's good at that," Nichola informed me, examining her talons. They'd changed since last time – they were now bright pink and looked even more false than they had during the incident with Gwen. "Seriously though, Nesta, Mully would tear him apart for you if you wanted."

"Um, well, thanks for the offer," I said, smiling, "but it's okay."

"If you're sure," Kerry said as they reluctantly walked away. "But the offer still stands for Gwen, if you're interested."

"She might not be," Siân piped up, "But, you know, if you want you can kick their heads in on my behalf."

Kerry eyed Siân up and down. "Sure, but it'll cost –"

"No!" I interrupted loudly. "It's fine, Kerry, seriously. No need to, uh, kick anyone's heads in. Trust me."

I'd already gone through all of this with Adam. Out of all my friends, he'd seemed the most pissed off about Billie breaking up with me, partly because he seemed to blame it on himself. "It was my idea," he told me, "I was the one who said you should go out with someone because of Glyn, and now he's upset you –"

"I'm not upset," I'd insisted in response.

"You cried," Adam replied flatly. "That's bad enough."

I was touched that he felt that way but I still felt like everyone was overreacting. After all, it wasn't like we were a real couple. I'd been saying that to everyone, until I was blue in the face, but no one took me seriously. They all got little 'know-it-all' looks on their faces, like they knew something I didn't, but I had other things to worry about.

Primarily, that meant Glyn. I mean, sure, I was worried about school stuff. Right at that time I was stuffing my head with lots of things – Spanish verbs, science facts about batteries and physics and stuff like that, and lines for the play we were doing at the end of the Autumn Term; and on top of that, I was trying to complete two essays for my English coursework and another essay for History. What fun.

But on top of that, I had Glyn to concern myself with. As soon as it got out that Billie had ended things with me – or whatever you want to call it – Glyn came crawling out of the woodwork again, making many attempts to get me to go out with him, just like he'd done before. It seemed that Adam's suspicions had been correct in the sense that Glyn left me alone when I had a boyfriend but reverted back to his old ways the second Billie was out of the picture.

"I just knew you and him weren't meant to be," he gushed, following me to my History lesson (which was pointless as he had Law in the portacabins which were not only outside but on the other side of the school ground). "You just didn't fit together, you're too good for him, so, would you want to go out with me on Saturday?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but Ann materialised next to me with a bark of, "Push off, Newell."

He scampered away pretty quickly, as people tend to do when Ann loses her temper with them. She might be a geek, but she's a scary one when really, fully irritated.

Billie learnt this, on the Wednesday after Halloween. He, along with most of his friends, had managed to avoid us all on Monday and Tuesday, but after leaving a History lesson just before dinner, we ran into them on the Humanities corridor, leaving one of the Geography classrooms.

They walked towards us, and us towards them, but there was kind of a delayed reaction. I spotted them first, and Joe West spotted us first, but he didn't really let on. Ann and Adam noticed pretty quickly, and before any of us could stop her, Ann stormed right up to them and collared Billie, smacking him quite hard into the wall. She muttered something into his ear and then released him, stomping off down the hallway while he looked more than a little bewildered.

Shyly, I manoeuvred myself around them all and hurried after Ann, while Adam, Siân and Beth followed; shooting Billie irritated looks as they went.

I pestered Ann over the rest of the week to tell me what she'd said to Billie, but she always, always refused. She said it wasn't important, because he hadn't paid any attention to what she'd said. This just made me feel even more curious.

A week later, I found out.

It was after English on the Wednesday, as we all filed out of the classroom after the bell had rung for break. He was lounging against the wall opposite the classroom door, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on the floor. His eyes looked up as we began to exit, chattering quite loudly about the work we had just been doing during the lesson.

"Nerys," he said, voice quiet but still carrying quite clearly through the corridor, "Can I speak to you?"

I hesitated, but then Ann rested a hand on the small of my back and pushed me gently in his direction. "Go," she whispered, and I heard a kind of smile in her voice.

I nodded and walked towards him, and we began to walk down the corridor, side by side, in the opposite direction to everyone else.

"Ann's pretty scary sometimes," he said conversationally, while I tugged at my hair. "I wasn't expecting her to slam me up against the wall like that. I nearly shit myself."

"Mm," I responded, and he looked at me, wincing.

"I'm sorry," he said abruptly, coming to a halt at the end of the corridor. "That's what I wanted to say. I'm sorry that I upset you and I'm sorry I ever...Well, I'm just..."

"I just wasn't expecting it," I said quietly.

"Well, neither was I," Billie chuckled darkly, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't exactly plan it. Seriously. I wasn't even that pissed about Glyn, to be honest. I just...I just got mad, and it just came out."

"Do you regret it?" I found myself asking, and he shrugged, leaning against the wall.

"Not really," he admitted, "But probably not for the reasons you're thinking of."

"Oh. I see." I hitched my bag up my shoulder and took a few steps backwards. "So, what did Ann say to you, last week?"

"She told me to talk to you," Billie explained. "That was all."

I nodded, secretly relieved. I'd probably have thrown myself out of the nearest window if she'd made some kind of serious threat towards him.

"Can I sit with you at dinner?" Billie then asked, cocking his head to one side. "Because I'd like to. I don't want things to get weird between us or anything. I mean, I meant what I said: when you realise why I ended it, then let me know, but in the meantime, I want us to be friends." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then pulled his hand back as if he'd not planned on doing that. I looked up at him, and saw his face flush.

"Um," he mumbled awkwardly, edging down the corridor away from me. "Yeah. Friends. Please?"

"Sure," I found myself grinning, ignoring the swirling butterflies going crazy in my stomach. "Friends. Sounds...Well, honestly? It sounds like it'll be a bloody nightmare."

He rolled his eyes. "Can't be any more nightmarish than it was before," he muttered, but one corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin. "So, I'll sit with you at dinner?"

"If you like, but be careful, Adam might kick you a hell of a lot under the table."

"Really? He's annoyed at me?" Billie frowned, and I laughed.

"He threatened to knock your teeth in. Um, so did John, but I don't think you've got much to worry about there." I shrugged, pushing hair out of my eyes. "Um, and so did Kerry Mully and Nichola Cryer. Oh, and my brothers, but that's a given."

"I might go and play basketball at dinner, now I think about it," Billie said, slight nervousness seeping into his tone.

"Don't. I'll explain beforehand."

And he nodded, smiling at me, before turning around and strolling away down the corridor. I turned and walked in the opposite direction, a smile of my own slowly stretching across my face. Sure, we hadn't really talked about it properly, but things were a lot better than they had been just a week earlier.

Maybe things would go back to normal now.