We were in school and second period was just about to start. We were all in Sikowitz's classroom waiting for the coconut-milk drinking, barefoot, slightly crazy man that was our acting-coach. We were all listening to Tori talk about something Trina had done the night before.

"And then she just took it. She took the corndog right out of my hand and ate it. Right in front of me. Can you believe it? She calls me fat and then she eats my food!"

"Well..." Jade started and Beck gave her a typical be nice-look. Just like always.

"I once had a corndog." Cat blurted out and I could see where this was heading. Our pattern of conversation was always the same;

Someone telling a story, Jade throwing a menacing comment, Beck trying to get Jade to not be so obnoxious and Cat saying something completely irrelevant that ends up having nothing to do with the subject at all and everybody looking at her like she was some sort of run away mental-patient.

"No wait that was a carrot." She said and just as I had predicted she received concerned and annoyed looks from the others.

"I like Carrots..." I said.

Ever since Cat confided in me in the park I had tried to be nicer towards her. I had stopped giving her the looks that I used to give her when she said something stupid, and I had even made Rex stop poking fun at her.

The other ones looked at me, their eyebrows furrowed.

"Well, I do." I had realized that Cat always had been nice to me. Ok, she was nice to pretty much every one but... Whenever the other ones would make fun of me, she wouldn't. I hadn't noticed that before and it made me feel bad, I wanted to make it up to her. And now after our little talk it was more relevant than ever.

"Well that's great..." Tori said her eyebrows still close together.

"Good day class!"

We all turned our heads to see Sikowitz the wondrous coconut man enter, as usual with half a coconut in his hands.

"Let's start today's lesson!"

"This is the Asphalt Café!" Cat cried out.

"I... uhm… know that."

"I love the Asphalt Café..."

I had texted Cat to meet me at school by nine and she had turned up in all her Cat-glory right on time. Now she was acting overly excited as we walked around the school to the place where we usually had lunch.

"Soo..." I started. "You may be thinking that we're going to have tea here..."

"We're not?" Her happy facial expression turned into a bemused one.

"Nope." I responded. "I thought we were going to continue a little bit on the climbing theme and this time, maybe we could go even higher" I said looking up at the school roof.

She drew in a sharp breath. "Are we going to go on a spaceship?" she asked, looking completely stunned. I just stared at her. A spaceship? She always managed to catch me off guard.

"No, Cat, no spaceship. We're going up on the roof."

"Yay!" she yelled.

"And besides, there is no way we could go on a spaceship, none of us are" I started but she had already run towards the school building, now she was standing up close to the wall, staring up at the roof.

"Cat, we're climbing up from over here..." I said stepping over to her and dragging her with me by the wrist. She giggled as she followed me.

"Wiiiii" I heard her yell and I shook my head again. Oh Cat...

We made our way upwards and somehow we managed to pull ourselves up on the roof. There we put down our things and I picked up the tea of the day. Blackcurrant. One of my favourites.

It was a little bit later than it usually was for our Tea-parties. Basically because i wanted to be sure everybody had left the school. I hadn't really done anything like this before, I was pretty sure climbing up on the roof wasn't something encouraged at Hollywood Arts High school. Might even be forbidden. And yet, here we were. The two people no one would ever think to be breaking a rule, drinking tea on top of the school as the sun was slowly setting.

This was actually quite a romantic spot. I pictured this to be a place I would take my girlfriend... you know... If I would ever manage to get a girlfriend. We could sit here and watch the sunset and, you know, talk and... kiss and it would be so perfect and romantic and... I looked over at Cat. She seemed to be enjoying herself to the fullest, drinking her tea, smiling a little bit to herself.

Perhaps I didn't really want to bring anyone else up here. For some reason it felt like I would be betraying Cat if I ever did. I didn't really know why, but the moment we set our feet on the roof it had kind of become our place, even though it was our first time there, and it just wouldn't feel right bringing someone else.

We had been sitting in silence for a while when Cat stretched and yawned loudly.

"You tired?" I asked.

"Oh no!" Cat smiled. "Not yet."

Five minutes later she had fallen asleep. How she could do that was beyond me? It was like 10 pm and she had been up way longer than this before. I looked at her. She probably hadn't napped today, then. She usually napped, didn't she? Maybe this was what happened if she didn't.

I decided to let her sleep for a while. I sat in silence looking up at the now dark sky. I was lucky to have Cat as my friend. Without her I would probably just be miserable and lonely. Not that I wasn't already. But I was just saying that it would have been worse.

She was cute when asleep. She looked peaceful and calm, as if all the giddiness from when she was awake had just slipped right off her. She looked like the most tranquil person alive. Which was a total opposite of the normal, daytime Cat.

I woke her up when I felt like it was time leaving. She looked disappointed.

"I fell asleep!" She yelled. "Why didn't you wake me up? Now I missed out on all the fun."

"Calm down Cat it's not like we aren't going to have plenty of other tea parties, right?" I answered trying to calm her down.

"But they won't be on the roof!" She said, sticking out her bottom lip.

"No, that's true." I said slowly. "But it's not the place that makes the tea parties awesome. It's the company." That might work.

"That's so sweet Robbie!" She yelled.

Okay. It worked.

I suddenly felt something come crashing down on me and the next moment my arms were around Cat's back and hers around mine.

"Uhm..." I began, feeling uncomfortable but at the same time right in place. It was a weird feeling.

"Oh… Sorry." she said, blushing slightly as she backed away from me.

"Don't... uh… Don't worry." I smiled.

~~

In the beginning we had our tea parties fairly often, like two or three times a week. But as time passed the gaps between the parties grew longer and longer. Not that it really mattered though. Cat and I had become closer and closer and I was much less awkward and insecure now when I knew I had a real friend that really liked me for me. There was a time in my life when I could have never been this close to a girl without starting to read into it and thinking that we would fall in love and get married and make babies one day. Not anymore. Cat was my friend, and even though we now hung out constantly, made body-contact and just interacted a lot, I didn't feel like jumping her bones as soon as she batted her eyelashes against me. At least not all the time.

But just because the tea parties happened more rarely didn't mean that we stopped having them. And it was actually quite nice having them a little bit more spread out, because it built up some sort of anticipation in both of us that made it even more fun when we actually got there.

Once Cat took me to a local fair and we sat in the Ferris wheel for two hours drinking peppermint tea and having the time of our lives. Since there was no line what so ever we didn't have to get off as long as we kept giving the guy who worked there new tickets as soon we reached the ground. One other time I decided that we were going to go to the beach and we sat in the sand drinking Egyptian tea and simply not caring about anything else.

I was starting to leave Rex behind on occasion. Not that I wasn't still attached to him, I just left him in my locker more often, sometimes I even left him at home. The rest of the group pointed it out at one time and I just said that he had been particularly annoying that morning and that I left him at home. Rex was still a part of me. He just wasn't as big part of me as he used to. I found it quite scary not always having him there on my arm, but sometimes it was quite a relief, and I knew that if I ever needed him I could just take him out of my locker again.

The weeks passed and before we knew it Christmas was around the corner. As a Jew, I had been celebrating Chanukah already, but all my friends were really starting to get worked up for the holidays. And winter break was just starting, so I was in quite a holiday mood myself.

We were at Tori's house. She had invited us all over to exchange gifts and just hang out before we all went to different places. I was in a great mood, mainly because I had been invited. Okay so, nowadays I was actually usually invited. But I always thought it was out of pity, even if it wasn't.

We we're hanging Christmas decorations and carolling loudly. Tori had baked cute little gingerbread cookies and we were all having a great time. Yeah, even Jade was humming along and actually looking quite happy, walking around the house and putting up mistletoes with Beck. They made sure to kiss under every single one of them.

Trina was with us too, she was singing just a tad too loud causing us all to yell at her so she would stop.

She just gave us an annoyed look and continued to dance around the living room instead.

When Christmas-ifying Tori's house was all done we sat down in the living room to exchange gifts.

I sat down with the other ones and we put all the gifts in a pile on the table. And then Tori acted Santa Clause and started reading aloud from the presents and handing them out. From Jade and Beck I got a new harmonica. Lucky since Jade had tossed my old one in the ocean on our Trip to Yerba that summer. From Tori I received a Star Trek DVD, which caused me to squeal in happiness. Andre got me a jar of creamed peas. My favourite baby food. Trina got me a stash of signed photo's of her self and told me it was for when she became famous, and even though I didn't think those photos would ever be useful, since Trina had barely no talent at all, I thanked her for them and put them in the pile amongst my other presents.

Everybody seemed fairly happy with what they had received. Jade was admiring her new box full of scissors she had got from me with a small smirk on her lips. I suddenly found myself slightly regretting giving them to her. Trina was looking at herself in the mirror she'd gotten from Tori, who was sniffing her own wrist where she had just sprayed the new perfume Cat had given her. Cat was playing happily with the plush-toys she'd gotten from me and Beck and Andre was reading the back of the box with old movie classics that Jade had bought Beck.

After a while of admiring own and other's Christmas gifts Andre took place at the big piano and started playing something. Tori ran to sit down beside him and Andre looked at her.

"You want to show them the new song?" He asked, still playing the chords to the song and smiling at her.

"Sure." Tori beamed and she rose from her seat to come stand in front of the piano.

"Oh great." Jade said dully as we sat down on the couches to listen to whatever was about to happen. Beck hushed her down and she crawled up against his chest instead, closing her eyes.

I turned my head back to Tori and Andre while resting my arms on the back of the couch. Cat rose from the floor and sat down beside me just as Tori started singing. It was a beautiful song. Both Tori and Andre were very talented and I enjoyed it to the fullest. At the sime time though, I found myself feeling a little jealous. I wished I had that kind of talent. I guess because talent is also a source of popularity, and popularity was something I still wanted.

The song was obviously a Christmas song, but it wasn't like a cheesy one. This one was actually really good. I looked at Cat to my right and she was bobbing her head along with the music, smiling a bit to herself. Bu then I felt something poke me in the side of my stomach and I looked down. Cat was holding a rectangular-shaped box wrapped in bright pink wrappers towards me. It looked as though she was hiding a bit from the other ones and as I looked up at her face I saw she was smirking.

"Open it when you get home." She whispered and giggled a bit as I took the present from her, putting it between my stomach and the couch. Tori and Andre finished their song and we all applauded, except for Jade who had fallen asleep slumped against Beck. Grateful, that one.

I put the present in my backpack, trying not to show too much of it to anyone else. It had seemed like Cat wanted to keep it a secret, so I did too. When I got home though, opening it was the first thing I did.

I tore off the pink paper with ease and found a box. I opened it only to see it was filled with more paper, balled up into little scrunches and stuffed in the box as if to protect something. I started to pick them up, one little paper-scrunch at a time. And then I saw them. Two cups, one pink and one purple. I smiled to myself and picked them both up by the ear and turning them so I could see all the way around. I noticed small white letters written across them and I turned the cups so I could read it. The smile that cracked on my face when I saw what they said was one of the biggest smiles I've ever smiled. The white letters on the cups formed two simple words. One on each.

His and Hers.