January rolled by ever so slowly. After a week it felt like we had been in school for almost a month already, and I doubted I was going to make it through this year. Not if it was going to be this slow.

Sky quickly made his way into our little group. The cause of this was probably Tori who had been so eager to make friends with him and invited him to have lunch with us the first day. After that he was just kind of in.

He was very charming, Sky. And unfortunately also very good looking. He was pretty tall, he had dark curly hair. Not the messy curls that I was cursed with but well behaved curls that fell over his for head and eyes, which were dark brown and mysterious. He had the funniest way of dressing. Usually, it was plaid shirts and jeans that he folded at the bottom to reveal a pair of bright colored socks. And from time to time he also wore a bowtie.

Of course, Sky was very popular among the ladies. Not only by the way he looked but also by the way he talked. There seemed to be something with the guys accent that made almost every girl practically pass out right on the spot. Sky didn't seem to notice how wanted he was though. He walked through the corridors as if there weren't 17 girls more or less plainly staring at him. If it had been me I would've started asking people out right away. But he didn't.

At first I thought the girls in our little group weren't actually interested in him in that way. Okay, yeah, Trina had basically thrown herself at him the first day trying to make him love her, and failed miserably too. But not the other ones.

That was of course until that day in the end of January.

I was casually surfing the web just as all normal teenagers do these days, when I saw Cat had uploaded a new video on The Slap. I clicked it and her giggly face immediately appeared on the screen. Next to her was Sky and I looked up at the title of the video again.
'Cat interviews cute guys'

I suddenly felt my insides twitching a little bit and I wondered briefly why.

"Okay, Sky. Do you know why you're here?" computer screen-Cat asked the puzzled looking Sky.

"Uhm... You told me there was going to be a party here tonight. So I showed up..."

"Oh..." Cat smiled. "Well it is a party."

"But where is everyone?"

"It's just you and me!" Cat yelled and Sky jumped a little in his seat. Cat giggled once more and started to ask him the usual random questions. Sky's confused look grew by the second and so did the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. By the time the video was almost over I was sure I had eaten something bad.

"Kay." Cat giggled. I could tell she was about to ask her last question because the video looked to be coming to an end. "Do you like tea?"

It was like something exploded inside of me. Was she really asking him that? Him? The guy she had just gotten to know? Was she really asking him about tea?

I felt silly about it, b ut for some reason I'd thought that was kind of our thing, but as I thought about it. Maybe not? And I couldn't just claim it a subject she wasn't aloud to touch if she wasn't with me. She was free to speak about whatever she wanted. To be fair, she hadn't even broken the rules because she hadn't actually told anyone about the tea parties themselves. She was just asking Sky a casual question, nothing to get upset about, right?

"Yes. I love tea." Sky answered, a wide, perfect smile plastered on his face. It was weird enough he hadn't left the room and also the country by now. But smiling? Something was seriously wrong with this guy.

"Me too!" She giggled.

"Me too." I murmured. Then I realized I was in fact talking to a computer screen. Getting crazy now too, was I?

She wrapped up the video and reached over to turn off the camera. Then everything went black.

I wasn't jealous. I couldn't be. We were just friends and this wasn't supposed to make me feel like I had just been stabbed with a knife 700 times. We were just friends, right?

Was I jealous?

Rex was on my arm when I walked into school the next day. For some reason I felt like having him there. It just felt safer. I was confident that what I'd felt the day before had meant nothing. I wasn't jealous. When she'd started talking about tea I'd just felt like she'd broken some kind of hidden promise. But actually, she hadn't. So it was no big deal. And I was definitely not jealous.

Tori and Sky were standing by Tori's locker and I braced myself before walking up to them.

Be cool Robbie. Remember: You're not jealous.

"Hello my peeps." I greeted. Not the coolest way to say hello maybe.

"Looser." Rex said and I stared at him.

"I'm not a looser."

"Yes you are, and that greeting just made it even clearer. Don't you two agree?" Rex asked Tori and Sky. Tori squirmed a little. She was obviously trying to get out of asking the question.

"Of… course not." She said. Sky was chuckling.

"That's hilarious." He said.

"What is?" I asked. "That I'm a looser?"

"No." Sky laughed again. "The puppet act. You're really good."

I saw Tori bite her lip anxiously, preparing herself for the attack.

"I'm not a puppet!" Rex exclaimed loudly and Sky laughed again.

"That's funny."

"Hey Scone-boy!" Sky fell silent. "Shut it." Rex snapped.

Sky looked confused. He seemed to be looking confused pretty often. Maybe he just wasn't used to this kind of weirdness where he came from. Cause one thing was for sure. We weren't normal.

"Sorry, he really gets mad when people call him puppet." I explained.

"Uhm... Don't worry." He said, the confused look still on his face, before anyone could say anything else Jade and Beck walked up to us.

It was funny how they always seemed to enter together, Beck and Jade. I wondered slightly if I was ever going to have that kind of relationship with anyone, where you always come and leave with the other person as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"What's going on?" Beck asked as he walked up to us. Jade came to stand beside him and he casually slipped his arm around her waist.

"Not much." Tori answered with a shrug.

"I thought our psychotic friend Cat would have scared you off by now." Jade said, turning to Sky.

"What are you talking about?" Sky asked, the puzzled expression back on his face. Or maybe it never left.

"Oh come on. Are you saying her little 'party'..." she put quotation marks in the air with her fingers "...yesterday wasn't weird?"

"Maybe at first. But then I actually found it quite endearing."

Now it was all of our turns to look puzzled.

"What?" Tori said and I could only agree. I didn't know of one boy who hadn't run screaming away from us after Cat had invited them to one of her little parties.

"It was charming." He said, smiling and in the corner of my eye I saw Jade furrow her eyebrows.

Suddenly, Tori drew a sharp breath.

"Oh my god! You like Cat don't you?" Her whole face lit up as she looked at Sky. "Don't you?"

"Uhm… I don't know." Sky started but the red tint on his face said otherwise. "I guess she's kind of cute. But we just got to know each other, right?"

"That's so sweet!" Tori was biting her lip, basically jumping up and down with anticipation.

"Alright, calm down." Sky said. He was also smiling right now. He had a beautiful smile. "I don't want to rush things. So please don't say anything. I'm just going to get to know her better and see where things go."

Tori was beaming, Jade looked utterly disgusted and Beck looked at Tori as if she was crazy, though I thought I saw a small smile playing across his lips. Me myself was just staring. The feeling I had just felt in my stomach made it pretty obvious to me.

I was definately jealous.

About a week into February I got sick. Sicker than I had been for a long time. Fever, mean cold and just feeling really tired, I was forced to stay in bed all day. This bothered me a whole lot.

Since I was home I couldn't be in school, and since I couldn't be in school I couldn't keep an eye on Sky and make sure he didn't make a move on Cat.

Yes. I had pretty much accepted the fact that I liked Cat. I didn't really know when it had started, maybe I always had. It was probably this 'you don't know what you've got until you lose it' kind of thing. But I wasn't sure. And as a matter of fact, I hadn't lost her. Yet.

Cat and Sky seemed to get closer by the day. They hung out more. She was actually the one who he hung out the most with out of all of us and I figured there couldn't be much time left until he asked her out. And then it would be too late for me. On the other hand I didn't want to do anything myself. I had tried once before to ask Cat out. I asked her to the Prome, the Hollywood arts prom which, for some stupid reason, had gotten the name 'Prome' instead. I blame Tori for that one. Anyway, it didn't go well and it ended up in me accusing her of lying which she actually wasn't and she being mad at me for over a week before we talked things out.

I didn't want anything like that to happen again, and besides she didn't even like me that way. I figured if I just waited it would wear off, I couldn't do anything stupid and let it ruin our friendship. But at the same time I really didn't want Sky to have her.

Speaking of our friendship Cat and I hadn't had a Tea party in forever. Not since the one with the mermaids and the rain. I was starting to think she had forgotten about the whole thing. She used to be so eager about it, and now she hadn't even hinted towards it in over a month. I guess with Sky coming around our tea parties were now history. And as soon as he asked her out and swept her off her feet she was going to forget I even existed. But what could I do?

I took another sip of the Tea I had made for myself and slid down under my covers even further. I was really not feeling well, and I had been sick for almost four days. I had probably missed a whole lot in school and Sky had probably already taken Cat without me being able to stop it. Being sick sucked.

I put down my cup and closed my eyes, thinking that I could sleep the sickness and the sadness off. But I opened them immediately when I heard a loud banging on my window.

AN: Short, but kind of important. I hope it wasn't too boring… whatever. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. It really means a lot. Make my day and send me another one? :)