He She It

ten: two optimistic inches

There was one thing Lilly loved more than herself, and that thing was sleep. Currently, she was running on three and a half hours of it, (almost four, if you counted the few minutes she'd managed to get in chemistry before she was slapped over the head with a textbook by Amara) and about twenty three cups of hospital coffee, which was the - legal - hot drink equivalent of meth: not particularly pleasant, but bloody brilliant at waking you up.

There was also one thing Lilly hated more than Michael Brooks, and that was hospital. She'd spent more than half of her night watching Grace retch into a bowl while various doctors came and stuck various things into her body, and so naturally, she'd been the very definition of pissed off all day.

Apparently not quite pissed off enough, though, because the very second the bell rung to signal the end of school and - Lilly hoped - the start of a solid twelve hours of much-needed sleep, Amara sprinted up to her. She wrapped her arm around Lilly's shoulders as well as she could at her height of five feet and two optimistic inches, and gave her a smile that Lilly recognised as her 'I want something' smile.

In return, she flashed Amara her 'I want to kill something' frown, and prayed her bloodshot eyes and inability to stop yawning for any longer than two minutes explained why she was physically incapable of doing whatever it was that Amara wanted her to do.

They did not.

"I don't know what you want, Ra," Lilly said, and then yawned again. "But I do know that I'm not doing it for you. Ask Brianna, or someone."

"But she's with Michael," Amara whined, which was about as pointless as telling someone that the sky was blue, or the grass was green, or Lilly's ego was huge: it was an unchanging fact. Brianna couldn't have been more attached to Michael if they were conjoined twins. "Anyway, she can't curl hair. I need you, Lil."

"Oh," Lilly said, slapping herself in the forehead. "It's your date with Nat tonight, isn't it?"

A boy passing by them stopped to make a gesture with his hands that was supposedly an imitation of his idea of lesbian sex - which even Lilly realised would require incredible gymnastic skill to carry out, and she was about as straight as a ruler unless you caught her at just the right time of night.

Amara flipped him off and then raised a finger to her lips. "Ssh," she hissed. "I don't even know if it's a date. She probably just wants to hang out."

"Right, because everyone reserves a table at ridiculously expensive Italian restaurants when they 'just want to hang out,'" Lilly said, elbowing her friend in the ribs. "Face it, Ra. Tonight is your dating debut."

"And you're going to let me go with this hair?"

Lilly shrugged. "It looks fine."

"I'll wear bootleg jeans."

"Wear whatever you like, Ra," she said, rubbing her aching eyes and pressing her forehead against the cool metal of her locker. "I'm too knackered to care."

"I'll wear Crocs."

"Okay, fine," Lilly sighed, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "I'll help you get ready, but you better make me a fucking strong coffee, Khan."

***

"Damn, Ra," Lilly said, tipping the last of her drink down her throat and spinning the mirror around so Amara could see her new, improved reflection. She winked. "You almost look as hot as me."

"Was that meant to be a compliment?" Amara asked, and Lilly would have insulted her right back, except Amara had been biting her way through her nails for the last half an hour, and looked like one wrong word could send her into a puddle of self-doubt and tears. Instead, she just lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

"Relax," she murmured into the duvet, "Natalie adores you."

Amara stood up and started pacing the length of her room, keeping up a constant chant of 'oh, shit' as she did so. When she came to her window for the seventh time, her chanting came to a rather panicked end, and she threw a cushion at Lilly to wake her up.

"She's here," she said, clutching her stomach. "Oh God, Lil, I can't do this."

"You can."

"I can't."

"Can."

"Can't," Amara hissed, just as the doorbell rang. There was the sound of the door opening, and then an overly perky 'good evening, Mr Khan' from the girl responsible for the current, frenzied state of Amara's internal organs. "Shit. What do I do?"

"Actually going downstairs would be a good start," Lilly said, standing up to give to give Amara a hug. "And don't order the spaghetti. You always get it all over your face - it's not attractive."

"Anything else?"

"Be yourself, and tell her you like her tits."

And with this last piece of questionable advice, Amara went downstairs to Natalie and Lilly fell back on the love of her own life: a bed. She was woken up half an hour later from an even more questionable dream involving Mr Hades in drag by a text from Adam, which read:

can i come over?? sorry about the short notice, it's kind of urgent.

"So much for twelve hours of sleep," Lilly murmured, and prepared to deal with what was most likely going to turn out to be the third emotional breakdown of the week.

(Not including her own).

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(a/n: this is literally the worst filler ever and i'm so sorry please don't hate me okay)