He She It

five: a urinary tract infection

By the time lunch rolled around, Lilly had seen the photo of Adam a total of nineteen times.

Adam himself, however, was proving surprisingly elusive.

Or at least, he was until he walked right up to her, grabbed her sleeve and dragged her into a disabled toilet.

"Adam," she said, watching as he locked the door and then sat down on the toilet seat, eyes noticeably red. "What the fuck are we doing in here?"

"I need your help."

"You definitely need somebody's help," she said, leaning back against the wall. Adam bit at the side of his thumb. "Like, a few armed policemen. Or a karate black belt. Or-"

"Jesus, Lilly. I get it," he interrupted. She muttered an apology under her breath and, for the very first time in her life, wished that Brianna was locked in a toilet with her. Despite all her misgivings, (predominantly her as yet unexplained attraction to Michael Brooks) Brianna was decidedly better at comforting people. She didn't usually imply that people were in such deep shit that they needed the protection of an entire police unit, anyway. "If I don't want to spend the rest of my life fearing for my life, then I need an excuse."

"Right. Where do I come into this?"

Adam took a deep breath, and then held out his hand. "If you pretend that the only reason I was ever wearing a mini-skirt is because you bribed me with your prize money and annoyed me until I agreed, then I'll be your model. Deal?"

Lilly nodded and shook his hand, a grin spreading across her face. "Deal."

***

Lilly had been annoyed at Brianna before. She had been angry at Brianna before. She had been completely and utterly fed-up with Brianna before.

She hadn't, however, ever had such a strong urge to claw her eyes out of her head.

She'd practically skipped into the canteen after her conversation with Adam, beaming so hard that if it weren't for the fact that her teeth so strongly resembled Stonehenge, she might have passed for a model for an orthodontic company (incidentally, Lilly's own experience with braces was less than advert-worthy; she'd blatantly refused to have any of her teeth removed on her first visit, threatened to sue if they 'put that bloody mould' in her mouth, and walked out twenty minutes later, perfectly okay with the fact that she would never have to invest in fake teeth for Halloween).

All it took was a two minute conversation with Brianna to bring her full circle and back to scowling again.

"I'm not, like, transphobic," Brianna had started when Lilly informed her and Amara of what she had officially titled 'the great breakthrough of two-kay-fifteen.' "But don't you think it's going to be a bit... I don't know... weird?"

"Here we go," Amara muttered under her breath, bringing her Chemistry textbook closer to her face as she waited for Lilly's inner social justice warrior to emerge and initiate the inevitable: an argument of epic proprotions, presumably one that would either end in a nervous intervention from Amara or somebody getting slapped - probably Brianna, judging by the look on Lilly's face, and also the fact that Brianna was about as capable of slapping someone as Amara was of not forgetting how to form coherent sentences whenever Natalie so much as said hello to her.

Considering Natalie had asked Amara how she was yesterday and she'd replied: "well I haven't got a urinary tract infection, so I'm pretty good, thanks," Brianna's chances of winning this fight did not look good.

(In Amara's defence, Lilly had just been telling her that her Mum had a urinary tract infection).

(Also, in Amara's defence, Natalie was stood very, very close and she looked very, very good, and so naturally Amara had been very, very panicked).

"Weird?" Lilly echoed as Amara tried to focus on anything but her incredible inability to talk to hot girls without implying that her mood was strongly dependent on whether or not it burned when she took a piss. "Jeez, Bri, you're starting to sound like Mikey. I'm just trying to help someone."

"Please," Brianna said, taking a sip of her apple juice and doing an excellent impression of not being intimidated by Lilly's glare. "You just want to win this competition. Stop acting like you're some sort of matyr."

"Okay," Lilly said, stabbing her pasta so violently that her plastic fork snapped in two. "Yes, I want to win the competition, but I also want to make sure Adam's safe from pricks like your boyfriend. How desperate are you, staying with someone like him?"

Amara winced and lowered her textbook, nuding Lilly's knee with her own from under the table.

"Play nice," she mouthed.

"It's fine, Amara," Brianna said, pushing her chair back and standing up, lunch in hand. "I'm just going to sit with my prick of my boyfriend."

There was silence for a minute, and then Lilly looked up at Amara and grinned.

"Did you really feel the need to tell Natalie that you didn't have a urinary tract infection?"