4 Chapter Three - The Afternoon...

It just passed twenty to two when Briella comes out of the school building and into the wide schoolyard. She immediately makes her way to the usual wall where she spent her breaks throughout her education in this school.

At first, she is alone. She looks around, turns around and looks behind her.

People are scattered in groups of threes or fours, some even fives. Above that would be rare on the school grounds, but, of course, not that it never happens. It would usually be the mass of people returning from the lunch they had downtown, that would return in groups of eights, not commonly would there be more than that.

She continues observing her surrounding, looking for something to do. It doesn't take long before her heart almost jumps out of her ribcage...

She sees Ryan...

He is sat by a trunk of a tall tree, with a notebook on his lap, and a pen that is constantly moving...

'I wonder what he is writing or maybe even drawing...' Briella thinks to herself. 'Whatever it is, I bet it takes a lot of concentration and focus... he looks very invested in what he is doing...'.

Then, before anything else could be done, she hears panting behind her.

Briella turns around just to see Nadia approaching her, breathless. When she stops by Briella, she allows herself to slump downwards and anchor her hands against her thighs.

"What exactly happened to you???..." Briella asks. Seconds pass before scenarios began to play through Briella's head. She widens her eyes upon a possible cause to her being out of breath. "Don't tell me you went back to your old ways, Nadia, did you?... Who was chasing you now? Also, let me get one thing straight, it wasn't a teacher, right???".

"Chased? No, I wasn't chased..." Nadia replies as she manages to get a hold of her breathing. "I was just trying to find you...".

"So, you were running... just to look for me?...".

"Yeah..." Nadia replies.

"Wait... Why? Why exactly?".

"Well..." Nadia begins. "I wanted to, obviously, look for you, but I am also working towards a summer body, hehe!".

"Hmmm... You... you do know we are still in Summer, right...".

"Yeah, but for next year, I mean..." Nadia replies.

"Ah okay..." Briella begins. "Wait... is it not a bit too early for that?... We still have Autumn, Winter and Spring to get through...".

"Its never too early... nor is it ever too late..." Nadia replies.

"Okay... I'll give you that one..." Briella says.

"Anyways... what were you doing so I couldn't find you for a good ten-fifteen minutes??" Nadia asks.

"Well... to be honest... I went around to all my extra-curricular activities and signed back up for the new academic year.".

"Ah okay... I see... while on that, I really need to remember for one of the following days to sign back into drawing and singing...". "Last year, I totally forgot to do so...".

'Ohhhh okay... so that was why I didn't see Nadia in drawing and singing...' Briella thinks to herself. 'All this time I thought she was avoiding it for some reason unknown to me...'. "All this time, I thought you were avoiding the clubs..." Briella ends her sentence with a gentle chuckle as she rubs the back of her head in some sort of relief.

"Oh, I'd never..." Nadia suddenly stops. "No... I take that back... because of that one weird guy from two years ago... I think he had a crush on me... a huge one..." Nadia says.

"Who?... was it the one with light brown-ish hair, with that fringe???".

"Yup, that one... still can't get the way he stunk out of my nose..." Nadia replies.

"He didn't smell bad! He just has tons of cologne on..." Briella responds.

"That is what I mean... he had some much of it on that it actually made him stink...". Then, as if it was a sudden moment of realisation, Nadia's eyes open wide. "Wait... tell me, while on the topic of crushes... what happened to you this morning???" Nadia asks, she can't help but let out a chuckle or two...

Instantly, Briella's face reddens.

Subconsciously, her eyes move away from Nadia onto Ryan, who is still sitting by the big tree, as the top of his pen moves swiftly.

Then, as if he felt her eyes on him, he looks up from his page and directly at her. He once again looks right into her eyes. It was that one look of his that caused an explosion-like feeling to radiate and circulate all around Briella's body.

Just like this morning, Briella is the first one to look away and break their eye contact.

Her eyes point towards the ground as a darker shade of red appears on her cheeks. Her heart begins to pound against her ribcage like crazy.

It only takes her a few minutes for everything to calm down. It must have been that within those few minutes, Ryan had picked up his stuff and left, because when Briella looked back up, he was nowhere to be seen by the tree trunk...

"Briella?... Would you be so kind as to tell me what has just happened, also please don't hesitate to include any details from this morning..." Nadia says, with a blank, yet humorous, facial expression.

"Well... To-to be honest..." Briella begins. "I don't really know... its like... I feel strong, but every time Ryan looks at me... I... I" Briella says. Suddenly, her face turns deadpan as her eyes become half-closed, "I... I feel like I get winded in my stomach..." Briella adds.

'Well, that became oddly graphic!' Nadia exclaims in her thoughts as her jaw lowers ever so slightly.

"But yeah..." Briella says though a smile that shows off her slight discomfort.

"M-maybe you are in love?" Nadia says.

"Look who is talking nonsense now..." Briella replies as her deadpan face returns.

"Look... I'm just trying to say that love too can make you feel that way..." Nadia retaliates.

"I think its also worth mentioning that he is my crush, although I do want for him to love me and me to love him, I have to face the reality..." Briella says as disappointment is expressed across her face.

"And the reality of this situation is what exactly?...". Now Nadia is the one with the deadpanned face.

"Well... I... I just feel like I might not be his type...".

Nadia lets out a gentle sigh. "Well, you will never find out if you don't try! I mean you-" Nadia suddenly got cut off by the school bell. Her face returns to an emotionless gaze at Briella. "... That's the bell for class time... isn't it??".

"Yeah," Briella begins before turning back and looking up at the cathedral bell. "Looks like its about... 5-10 minutes till class starts, I think we should get going..." Briella says. "Through, I understand what you were trying to say. I must try in order to find out...".

"Ehhh, there, there about... You have got the gist of it, one way or the other..." Nadia replies as they both begin to make their way back inside of the school building.