-I-
SUMMER BREAK BREAKDOWN

Yasmin re-adjusted her head band and puckered up her lips in the mirror, applying the dark red lipstick she had just bought over them.

It seemed so weird to be back in Stylesville and even though she had been away for only half of summer break, she felt as if everything had changed. For starters, she was different. On the outside, it was pretty obvious. She had dyed her hair over the break, not too extreme because her mother would never allow her to dye it too drastic, but now it was a dark ash blonde with a few random dark brown streaks through it, keeping it still natural so she could dye it back whenever she wanted to.

She had considered dying her hair for a long time but she never felt she needed to as she was happy the way she was, but just before summer break started for only the second time in her entire life, she wasn't happy with herself. The first time was all those years ago when her mother had told her she was moving to Stylesville and leaving her old life behind. Luckily, she had found and even better one when she arrived. Well, for a while.

On the inside she was different too, she was weaker. Weaker than she had ever been before. She had always felt strong inside, like she could take on the world and win, not matter what happened. Now she was just alone.

She returned to her bedroom and picked up her hand bag before glancing over at the desktop background on her computer which was sitting on her desk by the window. It was of the four of them, back when there was a four of them. They looked so different… so happy. It was hard to believe that the photo she was looking at was only from a few months ago and she hadn't seen or heard from anyone in that entire time.

She took one last glance at the photo before turning off the screen and leaving her bedroom, saying goodbye to her mother and leaving the house. It was only a ten minute walk down to the mall and Yasmin enjoyed being outside for a change. Over the break she had been in New York, taking a writers' course that lasted five weeks. It was a great experience for her and her mother often reminded her that it would be a great reference for her application to college for a writing course, but suddenly she wasn't sure if writing was what she really wanted to do anymore.

She pressed the button at the lights and waited to be able to cross the road, making her way towards the mall and seeing all the familiar sights that she had missed in her absence. Luckily one thing hadn't changed in the last few months; the mall was as busy as ever.

She made her way along the path, waving to a few friends she saw along the way like Fianna and Meygan who were mucking around with the fortune teller, as well as Roxxi who was sporting a new haircut and a darker color.

"Cool look Yasmin," Roxxi said, winking over at her as they crossed paths, Roxxi with two large bags filled with clothes under each arm.

"Thanks Roxxi! You too," Yasmin responded kindly, before looking over to the Smoothie Bar.

She slowly made her way over to the bar, sitting up on one of the stools and spying one of her closet friends Eitan at the other side of the bar, about to give a fresh smoothie to one of three younger girls he was serving. Yasmin looked down and saw the radio, leant over the desk and switched it on loud, turning the volume up to the sort of volume it used to play.

She sat back down and Eitan looked around, seeing Yasmin and smiling broadly, his eyes lighting up. She smiled back and Eitan slightly lost grip of the smoothie he was holding, recovering quickly before turning back around and giving the smoothie to the middle girl before the three girls blushed giggled before dashing away.

"Yasmin!" Eitan cried, dusting off his hands on his apron and hurrying over to her, Yasmin standing and they briefly hugged over the counter of the smoothie bar. "It's so great to see you. How was the course? I bet you aced it, I've read some of your writing before, remember? I know it's fantastic!"

"Aw, you're too kind," Yasmin blushed, sitting back down and grinning at him as he moved to prepare her favourite smoothie. "No, it was cool. I learnt a lot; although it made me think a bit about… no don't worry about it."

"What?" Eitan said, looking up from the blender he was placing fresh fruit into.

"Oh nothing, it's just," Yasmin began, leaning her head on her hands, "now I'm not so sure if writing's what I want to do, especially after all that happened with… well, you know."

Eitan held down the blender for a few moments before taking out a glass and pouring the mixture into it, sliding the kiwi fruit over the edge of the glass and placing a straw in it before handing it to Yasmin.

"Yeah, everyone's talking about it," Eitan admitted, scratching his head uncertainly. "Burdine is over the moon though; sales of 'Your Thing' magazine have skyrocketed because there aren't any other rockin' fashion magazines to turn to, they're dominating the sales. Maybe this will just be an over the summer thing? Maybe everyone will come back and all will be forgiven?"

I looked down at the smoothie and twirled the straw around.

"Oh no, you weren't there Eitan," Yasmin said, thinking back to the last day of eleventh grade when it all happened. "I had never seen the girls like that, I felt as if I was in the jungle or something surrounded by wild animals. The things they said to each other… I just don't know if even we are strong enough to recover from that."

"There was nothing you could have done Yasmin," Eitan reassured her, leaning forward and placing his hand softly atop of hers. "If you had gotten involved, they'd all hate you too."

Yasmin looked over at him and half-smiled before he awkwardly took his hand off of hers.

"And besides, someone's gotta be there to bring the Bratz Pack back together," Eitan continued, smiling broadly. "And there's no-one I would entrust with that task more than you."

They were interrupted by another group of young girls across the other side of the smoothie bar who were asking for Eitan's attention.

"It's appears you've gotten popular since you enrolled in college," Yasmin teased, winking over at him.

Eitan poked his tongue out at her playfully, before going over to serve the girls.

Eitan had been the only person Yasmin had kept in contact with over the holidays. She felt weird about contacting just one of the girls without being able to contact all of the other ones. Eitan had been there for her and somehow seemed to understand what she had been going through even though he and his friends had seemed to stay on good terms regardless of the fact that most of them were spreading out across Stylesville and beyond this year.

Eitan, Cameron, Dylan and most of the other guys were a year older than the Bratz girls and had all graduated last year. That was around the time when the argument started and all the way up to their Prom when it hit a new high.

Cameron and Dylan had decided to have a gap year this year and had been travelling through Europe for the past few months, whilst Eitan had enrolled in Stylesville East College with a Major in Film Making and minor in Spanish. Yasmin had a feeling he dreamed of being a big shot film director, but he would never admit it. Unlike Yasmin, Eitan had never been sure of his dreams and therefore never really broadcasted them.

"Yasmin? Is that seriously you girl!?"

Yasmin looked around to see her friend Sasha standing over by one of the smoothie bar tables, bags of shopping in her hands and grin over her face that stretched from ear to ear.

She looked different too. She now had a trendy, spiky short haircut that came around her ears with a long swept side fringe. She wore a little white beret on the top of her head that matched with her very expensive looking dress, shoes and handbag.

She had spent her summer break in Paris with her Aunt who was a journalist staying over there. Her Aunt was interviewing Lo J, a famous singer and actress who Sasha was a big fan of and was going to interview for the magazine, but due to their being no magazine anymore; instead Sasha just went to shop.

"Hey Bunny- Sasha," Yasmin cut off, as Sasha hurried over to her and hugged her quickly. "I love your hair."

"You too girl! Oh my god I have SO much to tell you about Paris!" Sasha cried, excitedly and taking a seat down beside Yasmin. "Firstly, I found this entire row of stylish shops that were all 50% off! Well, it mainly because of the exchange rate, but anyway. Also, I brought these slammin' new head phones that are all sparky and the sound is of off the hook!"

Yasmin laughed at her giddiness.

Obviously Sasha hadn't really spoken with anyone much about Paris since she got back. Yasmin figured it was good she wasn't mad at her, after all Yasmin hadn't involved herself in the arguments, but the big test would be when any of the three of them were in the same place at the same time.

Sasha went on and on for another few minutes about how great Paris was before greeting Eitan and he served her a smoothie. Everything seemed to be almost normal until someone called Yasmin's name.

She looked around.

"Jade!" Yasmin said, smiling before realizing who was currently sitting with her.

Jade had also changed her hair over the beak, growing out her fringe and getting new extensions so her hair was much longer than Yasmin's and definitely longer than Sasha's. She had changed her style a lot too and wore lots of reds and patterns.

"Oh, it's you," Sasha spat, seeing Jade and grimacing. "Well, I better go before someone accuses me of something I DIDN'T even do. Talk later Yas."

With that Sasha stood up, collected her bags of shopping and walked off.

Jade glared after her, before turning back to Yasmin and smiling before giddily bounding over to her and sitting on the other side of Yasmin from where Sasha had been.

"Look at you girl, you look fantastic!" Jade beamed, happily.

"Thanks, you too," Yasmin responded.

"Oh, so let me tell you all about my break," Jade began, before ordering a smoothie from Eitan and launching into the hectic sounding holiday she had.

She, like Sasha, had travelled abroad with her parents, but she had gone to Japan to visit her father's grandparents whom she had only met a few times. They wanted to see Jade to give her luck before she started her last year of high school.

She spoke about how beautiful it was there, and how she felt soo inspired by the unique and trendy styles she discovered. Her grandmother had taught her some new ways of handling and sewing fabrics, which would be really handy for her as she still wanted to be a fashion designer.

About half-way through her story about a magnificent garden her and her parents went to during the third week, she received a phone call and had to walk away for a few moments, but in that time someone once again called Yasmin's name.

She looked around to see a very different looking Cloe walking over towards her from 'Strut It!'.

"Oh my god, Cloe," Yasmin cried, although worried about Jade returning.

She hugged her oldest friend and Cloe took the seat Sasha had left, ordering a smoothie with Eitan giving Yasmin a concerned look.

Cloe had done something that Yasmin had never thought her friend would have done, she had also cut a lot of her hair, but not as much as Sasha as hers was now shoulder length. She also wore quite tattered looking clothes which was odd for her because she often went on about how much she hated the tattered look.

"Wow, Cloe you look so different," Yasmin commented, drinking the last bit of her smoothie.

"Yeah, well being at band camp that kinda happens to you," Cloe responded, smiling. "My hair just kept getting in the way and all my nice clothes were getting ruined so I figured I should just buy new clothes that were already ruined, it worked wonders Yasmin!"

Cloe's parents wanted to go to a band camp in the Styleville woods over summer break because they felt she needed to learn to live without all of her material possessions. She was going to get out of it because of the magazine, but since it isn't in production anymore she had to go.

"The camp was the best thing for me Yas," Cloe explained, "honest; I learn soo much and met some great people."

Just as Cloe was about to launch into her story, Jade returned from her phone call.

"Oh, Cloe you're back," Jade said, spitefully.

"Jade, how nice to see you," Cloe responded, in the same spiteful sarcastic tone, "Now how about you go, cos I'm talking to Yasmin."

"I'm talking to Yasmin," Jade retorted.

"You know what, I'm getting into this again," Cloe snapped, standing up and glaring down at Jade before turning back to Yasmin. "You win, like always. See you at school Yas."

And Cloe left.

"Yeah, you know what I gotta bounce too," Jade said, glaring back at Cloe. "Talk later Yasmin."

And Jade left too.

Yasmin turned back around to face the Smoothie Bar and buried her head in her hands. There was no way she could keep this up forever; it was tiring her out already.

Suddenly she felt something against her arm and she looked up. Eitan had made her another smoothie.

"On the house," he said, sweetly and Yasmin smiled. "You need it."

"At least you haven't changed," Yasmin responded, taking the smoothie and taking a long sip.

"Is that a good thing?" Eitan asked, hopeful.

Yasmin laughed, "A very good thing," she said, and they smiled at each other.