The raucous giggles started up again.
The girl poked her head just over the bridge. Fire red hair, resembling a male lion's mane, with perfectly placed twists and waves, floated over the railing, sunkissed with orangey gold. She was born with it. She turned back, hiccupping another short laugh.
"A gaffe with the god," the grumble lowered with the thought of her enemey.
He joined her now, at the railing. The girl reached her arm over the short bridge, to assist her friend from the water. Her skin a creamy white, unblemished except for the small brown freckle just under her elbow. She smiled with a creamy white face and rose cheeks, unblemished aside from the small brown freckle to the left of her pretty petite sized nose.
"Dang her stupid freckles." Echoed silently from inside the head.
She smiled again, the red headed demon, reached the hand a little farther. That perfect hand, attached to the feminine arm, coming from the cute slim body. A chunky, brown-covered arm emerged from the pond clay reaching for the ideal hand, pulling the hand.
A shriek. Caught by the tennis shoes, the girl lay half drenched in the pond, half held by the boy on the bridge, who now had a clear view up her size small, short skirt.
"Celena!" An angry accusation.
"Shannon." A calm reply.
Shannon's feet having slipped out from her shoes, she now sat beside her friend. The boy ran from the bridge to the side of the pond, trying (stupidly) to look helpful. Shannon merely ignored him, glaring viciously at her adversary, who simply helped herself up then spun around and smiled through teary eyes of frustration.
"I'm so sorry." She made it off to sound like some kind of joke. The truth being, it had possessed her agian, that evil that left her so vulnerable. She knew very well that Shannon was breaking a lot of rules by continuing on with their friendship. In the human food chain, Shannon had worked her way to the top, but hadn't left her old friend behind. She should have. Shannon knew it, Celena knew it, but that only made things worse. Celena found herself in constant hope that Shannon would drop her, give her a proper reason for all her jealousy and anger. But still Shannon kept her on a string. Like a security blanket while on her odyssey through popularity. It was the pulling that hurt the most, the tugging of the string.
Shannon's heart was pure, was being the prominent word. Now her heart had been contaminated. Years of role switching to apprise the important of her good character, had diseased her. It seemed to Celena to be quite the epidemic. Shannon was not the only child to spawn from the virus, simply the only one who retained enough purity to see where she was going. The blind ones were long ago lost. The occasional time one could see them peek out from behind their name brand clothes, but for the most part, they were gone. That was Celena's fear, to be lost to the cloning process, that was what hurt. Taylor ventured too close, more than once Celena had seen that blank look, coming from her eyes. That faded and fashioned look of having been twinned. She had seen it a few moments prior, as that male had pushed her into the pond. Shannon watched on blankly until the boy's laugh, it was a joke, Shannon laughed as well. What was he anyway, Celena thought, lord father of the androids? Turning back to look at him, he looked like a dog waiting for his master. He was balanced on all fours, with all patients concentrated on Shannon, his head tilted slightly to the left allowing his ear length chestnut hair to flutter a little in the breeze, as if his will power alone could make her move. His gold/tanned eyes were fixated on her, his European lips pursed. (His parents were Spanish. He himself was picture perfect and so much more.) Celean breezed passed him (still in his dog pose.) Sad, such a beautiful creature being reduced to that.
Shannon was mad. Joke or no joke she was no longer presentable to stand before Christoph. She glared at the poor boy now squatting by the pond holding out her shoes. Celena, standing beside him, looked like a sac of dirt with eyes. Her mascara was running, and her dark clothes, all at least two sizes too big, dragged down her shoulders. Wtih much grumbling Shannon trudged out of the pond and graciously received her shoes, which she held rather than wore not to mess them up. Christoph looked her up and down, obviously not as impresssed as before and began to look around. Shannon then did the only thing she knew of to help her self worth, she cried. Not the sappy with-drawn dribbles Celena, (spite herself), had let through, from humiltiy and betrayal, but large emotion filled tears brought on by dramatics. She flung herself at the boy. He jumped back to save his clothing. She asked herself over to shower and change. That, he was ok with.
In the shadow of the remains of her companion, Celena followed. She stayed clear of the boy who had pushed her off the bridge, to have her disappear, and was now trying to walk fast enough to lose her behind. But Celena knew she would never be lost. Lost was this boy and where ever he was leading her friend. She wondered how long she would be able to follow.