Carlos burst into Mal's room and slammed the door shut behind him, leaning against it as if to keep someone out with his eyes squeezed shut in his state of stress, not even looking or announcing his presence.
"Umm, Carlos! I'm changing here, what the hell?" Mal yelled at him from across the room where she was clutching her dress up to her chest.
Carlos opened his eyes for a split second from his previous scrunched up in embarrassment expression "Oh my God, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't see anything, promise, and you know… I can't lie!" Carlos turned around to face the door to give Mal some privacy before continuing with his blurted out speech, "I mean, it's not like I haven't seen it all before you know, we did kinda grow up together." He began to laugh nervously and wished his mouth would just stop working.
"Not the point! Why are you back so soon anyway? What happened?" Mal asked him, half concerned, half annoyed at his outburst into her room.
"Sorry" Carlos repeated, "I just… I went to Jane and I did tell her how I feel but I didn't tell her that I wanted to go out with her. Well I did but then I told her the truth and I couldn't help it and now I don't know what to do." He started to panic.
Mal slipped on her dress as quickly as she could before giving Carlos the all clear, "Okay, you can turn around now. Actually, could you just do this zipper up? All these damn dresses some with complicated contraptions of one kind or another." Mal asked as she walked over towards the boy who now looked worryingly pale.
Mal held her blonde hair back whilst Carlos zipped up the back of her dress, constricting her breathing just a enough to remind Mal of why she really hated the things. She then turned back around to face him to find out what on earth had gotten the shaken boy so flustered, "And breathe. Tell me what happened. What exactly did you say to Jane?"
"I told her…" He began, trying to keep the truth down despite knowing that the gummy wouldn't let that happen, "I told her that I loved Jay. And that I was going to ask her out but I actually want to ask him out and oh my God what have I done? I can't believe this, why did I do that? I didn't even tell myself all that and now I've just gone and told Jane everything? Oh my God... you know, this is your fault!"
"Me? I tried to warn you! God, I knew this would happen, I knew I shouldn't have let you go running off to Jane on your own." Mal started pacing in front of Carlos, not looking shocked but as if she was hatching a plan.
"Wait, you knew? You're not shocked? You don't think I'm weird?"
Mal stopped in her tracks and looked up at her friend who was now looking extremely close to either crying, passing out or both.
"Carlos, firstly sit down. Look, I didn't know but I suspected. Evie and I have kinda had bets on it for a while now. I have to let her make me over now." Mal shivered at the thought before regaining focus, "anyway, of course I don't think you're weird, why would I? I have Ben and Evie has Doug; I know what… love is now… I think." She shook her head slightly, "we're not on the Isle anymore Carlos, we are allowed to have feelings."
"Yeah, I know. It's just… Jay's my best friend. And I didn't even know I had these feelings until like ten minutes ago. I mean obviously I thought about stuff like that but not this. You know?" Carlos sighed and put his head into his hands in defeat.
Mal looked down at her weary friend and sighed softly, worried for him. She placed a hand hesitantly on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.
"What did Jane say when you told her?" She asked.
"Not much. I kinda screamed at her and ran away before she had the chance to say anything. Oh God what if she tells people? What if she tells Jay? Jay cannot find out about this."
"Yeah, okay." Mal stood up from her spot on the bed next to Carlos and started pacing again, but slower this time as to not get her vulnerable friend more worked up, "okay, you stay here and lay low for a while. I'll go find Jane and see what she actually got from your little outburst and make sure she's not going to tell. If Evie comes back then, I don't know, make an excuse to leave. Or tell her; whatever you want to do, I really don't think Evie will say anything to anyone. The again, I really don't want that make over. Maybe try and keep it quiet for a little longer." Mal let out a small laugh at this which made Carlos smile a little before going back to his expression of turmoil. "But wherever you go, I'll meet you back here in 20 minutes, okay?"
Carlos nodded, standing up to move over to Mal's desk and taking a seat, collecting a book he could keep himself entertained with whilst she was gone. Mal slipped on her shoes and started towards the door,
"Oh, Mal?" Carlos called to her from his place sitting at the desk.
"Yeah?" She replied.
"How long do you think this will last? I really don't want to be walking around telling everyone the truth for the rest of my life."
"24 hours and it should've worn off. I'm not really sure what we're going to do with you for the next… 23 and a half hours to keep you away from people but we'll work something out. Right, I'll be back in 20." And with that, she left.
Carlos leant back in his chair and let out a frustrated, whiny growl. Why was he so dumb? Why did he think this was a good idea? Even if he did like Jane, the whole idea of a truth gummy seemed completely ridiculous right about now. He sat back up straight and actually began reading (well flicking through) the book he had picked up. It was something about fairy magic in the old days and as much as that would usually be something Carlos was interested in, he couldn't focus and was far too concerned about how long Mal had been and when she would come back.
Mal walked as quickly as she could without looking suspicious, in search of Jane. She knew that really, if she stood still for long enough, Jane and her endless list of questions about cotillion would gravitate towards her eventually without any effort on her part. Mal had developed an extremely low tolerance for cotillion since the whole thing seemed to be dependent on what she wanted and as much as she enjoyed Jane as a person; her questions were becoming increasingly tiresome. She shook the thoughts from her head and concentrated on where Jane could possibly be. She had already checked the library, the gardens and girls' bathroom and was quickly running out of places to look. Mal stopped for a moment to think, pouting a little and looking around at potential places Jane could be. When she was about to start moving again, she spotted Lonnie just ahead and decided that she was her best bet to finding Jane.
"Hey, Lonnie, wait up a sec!" Mal called in Lonnie's direction.
Lonnie turned to look at Mal and waved a little, walking towards her to meet in the middle.
"Hey, Mal, what's up?" Lonnie said in her overly chipper voice.
"I was just looking for Jane, have you seen her?"
"Not since this morning. Why?"
"I uh… just have to talk to her about… cotillion! Yeah, I know she's wanted decisions from me and I just got a free moment, you know, busy, busy, busy!" Mal said, trying to sound equally as chipper as to not be suspicious.
"Well I'm headed to the gym right now and I know some of the girls go there sometimes to watch the boys practice. You could try there?" Lonnie offered.
"Yeah, perfect, let's go! No time to waste! Like I said, busy, busy, busy!" Mal said, urging Lonnie forwards in the direction of the gym.
Mal quickened her pace, looking at the watch on Lonnie's wrist ever so often to make sure she wasn't leaving Carlos for too long. She had five more minutes until her twenty was up and she didn't want to be AWOL for too much longer. The two girls entered the gym but as Mal went to go upstairs, Lonnie stopped her,
"Um, I'm gonna go this way, I'll catch up with you later." She told Mal who was in too much of a rush to really register what was going on with Lonnie.
Mal reached the top of the stairs in a hurry and saw Jane right in front of her. She stopped for a second to catch her breath from all the brisk walking and stair running before walking over to the small crowd of girls next to the banisters.
"Jane, hi!" Mal almost shouted.
For the second time that day, Jane jumped in shock at one of the villain kids shouting her name in her face. It was almost becoming routine.
"Oh hey, Mal, what's up?" Jane said; trying to shrug off the near heart attack feeling Mal had just induced.
"Can I talk to you for a sec? Like in private?" Mal asked, eyeing the other girls in the group slightly.
Jane nodded and Mal ushered her over to the side where they would be out of earshot of anyone trying to eavesdrop.
"Did Carlos come and speak to you earlier?" Mal asked, trying to seem nonchalant.
"Oh. Yeah, he was being super weird though. Why do you ask?" Jane said.
"Yeah he's been a little off today, I just wonder if he might have said anything to you about what might be wrong?"
In the background, the two girls could vaguely hear the commotion from the boys practicing below them and Chad's big mouth speaking up about something he didn't agree with and arguing with someone. This was nothing new but Mal's mind wandered a little to think back to where Lonnie left her at the bottom of the stairs but didn't let herself dwell on it, she was on a mission. However, she could tell that Jane was getting distracted by this and snapped her fingers in front of her distant expression.
Jane jumped a little before getting back to her train of thought, "Umm well he was kinda rambling and speaking way too fast for me to get much, and anyway, my mind's complete cotillion mush right now. I think he said something about Jay… you don't think they've fallen out do you? Maybe that's what's wrong with him. That would be so sad; they're like, the best of friends. I also got something about him telling me the truth. But whatever that was, I didn't get a lot of it." Jane said, speaking in various tones of thoughtfulness and enthusiasm.
Mal nodded slowly for a second before replying,
"Right. Yeah maybe it's something to do with Jay, I haven't seen him today. Are you sure you didn't get anything he said about him?" she said, trying to prise something else out of Jane just in case.
"Not that I can remember… maybe you should go talk to Jay, I think practice will be over soon. By the sounds of it, it might already be done. I'll let you know if I remember anything though. With all this cotillion planning going on, I haven't had much luck remembering anything these last few weeks. Hey, speaking of which, do you know when you have a minute that we can talk about stuff? I really need your decision on some of the decorations."
Mal held back a tremendous sigh and instead smiled and said,
"Well, would you look at that? I have to run but I'll be sure to catch up with you later for cotillion planning. Maybe you could ask Ben's opinion for some things in the meantime. Good luck though."
Before Jane could say anything else, Mal dashed towards the stairs and exit, both trying to avoid Jane's cotillion babble and get back to Carlos who was probably by now having a major panic attack back in her dorm. She ran now across the campus, glad for Carlos that Jane didn't remember what he said and that he had nothing to worry about. She still had the issue of trying to keep Carlos out of everyone's way for the next 23 hours to think about but she decided to tackle one obstacle at a time and for now, her friend was safe.
Jane went to tell Mal thanks and ask her another quick question about the position of tables and centrepieces but she disappeared before she could even get out 'tha'. That left Jane at the top of the stairs to think. She really did hope that Jay and Carlos were okay and she worried about what could be wrong with Carlos and why he was acting to strange earlier. So she thought. She tried to remember what exactly Carlos had said to her about Jay so that she could maybe shed some light on the whole situation. She retraced her mental processes: she was walking out of the library, thinking about the colour order of the streamers they'd ordered for cotillion and trying to picture the different combinations in her head. Then she remembered that she had some math homework due the next day and was trying to fit some time into her schedule she could do it. That's when Carlos sprung on her; right between lunch and fourth period, metaphorically of course. She replayed what she could remember of the conversation that came after that and the bits she could actually decipher from his quick speech.
That's when she remembered. She realised what he had said to her that made him run off in such a hurry. Jane's eyes widened in shock before her brows knitted together in slight confusion. But she was sure. He couldn't have said anything else. Carlos said he was in love with Jay.