The Stolen Kiss

Chapter1

The sound of the alarm echoed in Vien’s room. She groaned as she reached for her phone on her side table. With her eyes still closed, she managed to press the snooze button, then hastily pulled her blanket over her head.

Five more minutes. She thought to herself.

She was about to doze off again when it rang again! She cursed under her breath. Although still a bit fuzzy, she turned off the alarm and tossed her phone to the other side of the bed. She literally dragged herself to a shower.

After doing all her morning rituals, she went down to find an empty dining hall. Then she saw a post stuck on the door of the fridge. Her parents are out of the country for a vacation. She sighed as she grabbed her keys and went out.

Vien likes going to school early to avoid the bulk of students entering the university minutes before class. She’s not really comfortable with the crowd, so she makes sure to be early every day. She is a girl who manages her time pretty well. She doesn’t like wasting her time on nonsense matters. That’s why people call her uptight and boring, but she doesn’t care.

There were only a few cars parked in the parking lot when she arrived, which was a good thing for her as she isn’t very good at parking her car. She actually hates it. There was one time when she almost hit a luxury car while trying to park in between two cars. It was a nightmare for her.

After parking her car, she headed straight to her locker to get the things she needed for her morning classes.

Then she felt a pat on her shoulder and there she saw her best friend smiling at her.

“Good morning, Vien!” She greeted her with her usual bright smile.

“Hi, Stellar!” She greeted too.

“Have you had your breakfast?” The taller girl asked.

She just shook her head.

“Thought so! I brought you breakfast.” She handed her a paper bag which had a sandwich in it.

Stellar Zelinsky. Their families are friends. That's why they have been friends since childhood. Both vowed to never leave each other’s side. Their personalities may be a bit opposite, but they complement each other. Stellar being the friendly and easy-going type, a total softie indeed and Vien being the quiet and kinda snobbish one.

“I’m surprised you’re early today.” Vien asked the other brunette as she munched on the sandwich. She knows too well that the girl is not a morning person and waking her up can be a handful.

“Morning job.” She pointed to the camera swinging on her neck. Stellar is the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the school paper.

“I was assigned to cover the Org day today. I have no choice but to wake up early. Lane bombarded my phone with messages and calls just to make sure I was already awake.”

That explains the booths set up on the campus grounds and the festive music blasting from afar while she was walking on her way to her locker.

Vien laughed at her best friend. “That’s what happens to sleepy heads!”

“So, have you decided to join the swimming team?” Stellar asked while wiggling her eyebrows.

She shook her head.

“Oh, come on! That’s your passion. You should join again! You need to be there.” Stellar’s right. Swimming is her passion, but she gave it up due to some circumstances.

“I don’t know, Stellar.” She looks away.

Then she felt the other girl’s hand on her right arm and gently rubbed it.

“I understand.” Stellar smiled at her.

“Once you’re ready. No pressure” She felt the sincerity in her best friend’s words, then hugged her.

“Anyway, I’ll wait for you in your last class later so we can go together to our usual spot. Bye, Vien!” Stellar waved at her.

“Bye, Stellar! Thanks for the breakfast.” She smiled, showing her gummy smile and waved at Stellar, who started walking away from her.

“Good luck on your exams later!”

—

The day passed gruesomely slowly and Vien was already dead tired from all the long hours of lectures and head-cracking-long exams she took.

“Time’s up! Please pass your papers.” The professor announced it to the whole class. Some immediately got up in their seats and handed their test papers to the professor, while some groaned in annoyance as they jotted down answers randomly in their papers after religiously chanting different prayers.

Vien took a last glance at her paper to check if she had missed answering any numbers. After checking everything, she stood up and placed her paper on the professor’s desk.

“Hey! Are you sure you took an exam?” Stellar asked the moment she saw Vien walking towards her.

“Huh? Yeah, I did. Why?”

“You don’t look stressed at all.” Stellar pouted while looking at Vien, looking all fresh, as if she did not break a sweat while answering those gruesome questions in her exams.

“All of your classmates that went out of that room looked hella wasted. Then there was you.” She added and even poked Vien’s cheeks.

Vien has always been at the top of her class. She has the looks, the brain, not to mention that her body is to die for. She pretty much has it all that many guys are lining up to her just to have her attention and her privilege to be called her man, but sadly, that ain’t her priority.

“I am stressed, Stellar. It may not look like it but right now I am missing my bed and I just want to be hibernating.” She answered, causing both of them to chuckle.

“Anyway, where are they?” Vien asked, linking her arms to the taller girl.

“Cafeteria, let’s go!” Then Stellar pulled her to run.

“It is not good to make Charlotte hungry. We don’t want her to hang us both on the school field upside down.”

Vien then fastened her running. She might not admit it but just the bare thought of an angry Charlotte is scaring the s**t out of her.

Upon entering the cafeteria, there were only a few students as it was already past 5 and most students had left the school premises.

Every Wednesday of the week, Vien and her 4 best friends allot their after-school time to bond as it is the only day that they are all free from practices and school commitments. It's kinda lame, but they called their weekly bonding the “Wednesday Girlies”.

“You’re both late.” Charlotte glared at the two.

“Sorry.” Vien pouted, then hugged Charlotte on the side.

“I had an exam. We had to extend it for a couple of minutes.” She explained.

Vien only acts clingy to her close friends. Only they know that Vien Hansley could be a baby too.

“I have a feeling that it will be my lucky day.” Isabella said excitedly.

“Says the one who holds the most number of dares done!” Karina said.

As a part of their bonding, once every month, they will have their Dare Day when they play a game and the loser will do a wicked dare.

True enough, Isabella has the most number of punishments under the belt. Guess, luck isn’t on her side.

“Who can ever forget the dare you did to an innocent couple?” Vien joined in their conversation while fixing the pizza they ordered.

“My acting skills were on-point that day!” She proudly beamed.

“But I really felt guilty doing it. At least they are still together.” After doing the dare, they helped the couple reconcile and explained to the girlfriend of the guy that everything was just a dare. And that took them a while.

“Mine is really terrifying!” Stellar admitted. She did the “Mom, Dad, I’m pregnant” dare.

“Geez, I was so nervous the whole time that I thought my heart would fall out of my ribcage. Then when I said it to them. I thought Mom was going to peel me alive. Jesus Christ! She was so furious!” Everyone laughed at remembering the look of Stellar’s mom. She was close to fainting.

“And the iconic, “Mama Mary” comment of your Dad!” Isabella almost choked on her drink, remembering how Stellar’s Dad remarked on her.

“Remember how you volunteered for me to clean our school? It was so tiring and draining that I got sick for 3 days and had to take special exams to make up for my absences.” Karina whined, then took a sip of her lemonade.

“How about cheering for our school’s basketball team as our school’s mascot.” The grimace on Charlotte’s face is so evident.

“I almost drowned in my own sweat inside that thing! It was so hot, and I had to jump all over the place and dance some weird dance steps!”

“At least, you danced with your face hidden in a mascot costume. Remember how you made me dance “baby shark” on the school field during break time with all the students looking at me like I'm a crazy alien from another galaxy?” Isabella said.

“You’re still the queen of dares.” Karina acted as if she was putting an invisible crown on Isabella’s head, which caused everyone to laugh.

“Vien hasn’t done any yet.” She smirked at them. Vien, the luckiest among them. She always wins their games easily. No sweat at all.

“So, what’s the game today?” Isabella asked while stretching a few muscles and even popped some on her neck.

“We’ll play the Game of Phone.” Charlotte answered.

“Game of what?” They said in unison.

“So basically, all we need to do in this game is our phone. I’ll pick out questions in this box.” She showed them the box in her hand.

“And all of our answers will be found on your phones. Don’t worry, I don’t know any questions here. I asked Joy to make them during one of our boring classes. Rest assured, no cheating. Questions?” She explained everything to them while looking at her friends to see if they understood everything.

“Okay, let’s start!”

“Who has the most number of photos saved?”

They began to open their gallery to check on their photos.

“8,792” Isabella confidently said.

“I concede.” Charlotte replied. “I only have 3,000+ photos in my gallery.”

“Me too.” Vien also agreed. "I cleaned my gallery last week. Damn it!”

Karina also shook her head.

“I win —”

“11,298” Stellar cuts in.

“Wow, Stellar! I never thought you’re that vain!” Vien couldn't believe it that she even took her friend’s phone to check.

“No, silly! Most of the photos on my phone are from school activities. I need it for the school paper. Not even half of it is my face.” Stellar explained.

“So, I win! Yay!” Stellar did her own celebratory dance.

“First to get 20 likes on a tweet.”

The girls busily tweeted on their phones.

“Done!” Charlotte showed them her tweet which had 120 likes in less than a minute.

“What the?! That fast?! I just posted mine!” Karina shouted in disbelief.

“Of course! She’s the most popular female student in the university. How can we forget?” Isabella said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Charlotte Thorne is a part of the school’s dance team. With her out-of-this world visuals and overflowing talent, she instantly became popular with the whole university. No one dares to mess with her or else you’ll have to fight the whole university population. That’s how powerful she is. Charlotte smirked at them, relieved that she would not be a victim today.

“Most contacts save name which start with the letter "A "."

“I only have 4.” Isabella pouted.

“Mine is 9.” Vien sounded hopeful.

They all looked at Karina, who was still counting her contacts.

“Okay, we get it! You win!” Vien stated the obvious.

“How many are yours?” Charlotte asked curiously.

“15”

“Wow! Are all of your contacts starting with letter A?” Isabella was still in disbelief of the number, Karina said.

“I thought you didn’t have friends!” Vien butted in.

“Hey!” She lightly hit Vien on the arm.

“Just to remind you that my last name is Andersen and I come from a big family. And I always arranged my contacts by surname first before the name. That’s all, thank you!” She said and flashed her winning smile to the 2 remaining girls in the game.

Vien and Isabella are the only ones left in the game. Both girls get anxious, not wanting to lose.

Stellar suddenly realized something. “It’s the battle of the extremes! The luckiest vs. the unluckiest girl! This is exciting!” She chuckled.

“For the final round, here’s your task.” Charlotte then picked out one of the folded papers in the small box.

“Send a message to your parents. First one to reply, wins.”

Upon hearing the last task, it took a while before Vien absorbed what the task was. She saw Stellar looking at her intently, more so worried. She gave her best friend a small smile.

Both girls started typing their message to their parents, either mom or dad.

“Dad! Don’t let me down!” Isabella was jumping on her seat as she didn't want to make it back to back. Meanwhile, Vien is staring blankly at her phone.

“Yehey! I won, Dad replied! Thanks Dad! You’re the best!” Isabella excitedly showed the reply of her dad to the group.

Vien couldn’t do anything but to sigh. She lost, she had to do the dare.

“Vien, are you ready for your first ever wicked dare?”

She couldn’t help but to feel nervous as the look of her best friends pretty much screams trouble.

“Are you serious?!”

“Yes, we are!” All of them nodded.

“You have to kiss Carson on the lips.” Charlotte repeated the wicked dare she needed to do.

“There’s no way I’ll do that!” She exclaimed. She looks at Stellar, hoping she can help her out of the situation. But she found the latter on her phone a few meters away from them.

“Come on, Vien! He's been your crush for a very long time, and we think it's about time you know to let your feelings out.” Isabella tried reasoning out.

“Guys, move on! That was in first-year student years! I don’t have a crush on him anymore!” Vien said defensively. Back during her first-year student years, she had a huge crush on Carson because the guy was so cool and handsome. As soon as her friends knew about it, they began to tease her to the point where they would call out his name randomly and loudly every time Carson was within their area. Although, he still looks handsome as ever in her eyes to which she’ll never admit.

“Then the more that this will be easy.” Karina said as she sipped on her drink.

“But he’s not here.” She reasoned. She thought if Carson wasn’t around, so was the dare. Because there’s no way she’ll put an effort in finding him. No way.

She saw how her friends shook their heads and smiled mischievously at her.

Charlotte moved closer to her and reached over her shoulders, “Who said he’s not here?”

Then she turned around, Vien’s eyes landed on a group of students on the far left of the cafeteria who were busily discussing probably something about their group project. And there he was. Her target.

She cursed under breath. Checkmate! Her plan didn’t work out and, by the looks of her friends, they will not let her go after she did the dare.

“Okay.” She said defeatedly.

When Carson stood up to go to the restroom, her friends immediately nudged her to follow him. She glared at them as they were more excited than her.

Vien found herself hiding near the entrance which leads to the restrooms. She planned that as soon as Carson walked towards her direction, that’s when she'd execute the dare.

Then Vien heard the door open.

That is it. She said to herself.

The footsteps are becoming nearer and nearer towards her position.

Her heart is racing. She took a deep breath. In one swift move, she turned to her side and grabbed the collar of her target. With her eyes closed, she slammed her lips into his.

Vien felt like the world had stopped. Inhaling his sweet scent is intoxicating and addicting at the same time.

Man, his lips taste like strawberries.

She ended the kiss and pulled away. Slowly, she opened her eyes to meet the other one of her long-time crush.

SHIT!

She felt her heart drop to her feet.

Instead of Carson, she saw a girl. A stunned pink-haired girl who is by far the most gorgeous girl her eyes ever laid on.

Then the girl smirked.

HOLY s**t! I f*****g KISSED A GIRL!