NOW.

Khalid al-Fayet sits at the table, hands shaking. It shakes as he picks up his drink, it shakes as he forks his food, it shakes as he texts Maggie, it shakes and it shakes and it would not stop shaking.

It wouldn't stop shaking since Colette did what she did.

He can just imagine her there, smiling as she leaned against him, laughing at something Kennedy said. He could feel Colette's presence wherever he went, and it wasn't the Colette-that-was and that everyone remembered, but it was his Cole. It was his stormy-eyed girlfriend, whose laugh carried like song, whose lips melded against his perfectly.

It was the Colette of old, who was charming and witty and beautiful. He wanted to show everyone that girl, to remind them of that girl. Because that was the Colette he knew and he remembered and mourned.

But that wasn't the girl people remembered. Colette Evans was a murderer, a cold-hearted killer whose last life she took was her own. She pressed the cold barrel of the gun and fired. She fired and fell and took millions of lives with her as she went down. No one mourned for her. Her face wasn't placed in the school montage, or the small tribunals spread in their little town. No one mourns the killer. No one mourns the broken girl.

No one, except Khalid.

He picks up his drink and sips it timidly, watching as people eye him warily.

That was what life was prior to Colette Evans, anyway. It was lonely and isolated, as he sat at the back of the canteen watching the world revolve around itself. And then those stormy eyes clashed with his and he was sucked into sea, trapped in the storm that was Colette Evans.

With Cole, he was popular, just like she was. Granted, they weren't dubbed the couple, nor were they at the top of the food chain, but they were noticed and loved; Colette loved to be loved.

And without her again, Khalid finds himself shunned and outcast. For some reason, he doesn't really mind this time.

He watches people pass and sneer and look away in fear. He knows what they say. He knows people say that it was him who turned their beautiful, smart Colette Evans into a monster, into the storm she always was.

"Khalid," he hears.

He freezes, because that voice...it sounds so much like Colette, or at least the world that she had dragged him into. He freezes because he's half sure he's delusional, that the phantom of Colette is playing mind tricks with him.

"Khalid," the voice repeats.

He turns around, wary and unsure whether he should be more afraid of seeing Cole, or not seeing her. When he turns, he swears it's Colette Evans as she was in his mind - traditionally beautiful save for her eyes. But he blinks once, twice, and slowly the stormy grey eyes turn darker, into a dark chestnut brown.

"Kennedy," he says, startled. He hasn't seen the girl since school started, and he had heard rumors that she had even transferred out. "Oh, uh, do you want to sit or -?"

"Yeah," Kennedy croaks, sliding into the seat opposite him. "I just...no one else..."

"I know what you mean," he says. "You don't have to explain."

Kennedy nods wordlessly, gripping her fork until her knuckles turn white. She stares down at her plate of food, not saying a single word. Khalid wonders if this is her first time experiencing all this. Kennedy, like Colette, was one of the popular girls. She was less outgoing and loud; more reserved, serious. The stark differences between her and Colette often made Khalid wonder what drew them together. Isolation, loneliness - Khalid is half-sure these emotions are all new to the likes of Kennedy Mcmillen. Kennedy's the kind of girl to always be surrounded by her posey or a throng of admirers - no matter how out-of-place her serious and bored demeanor might seem in the sea of giggly, chirpy cheerleader-types.

"How're you holding up?" Khalid asks. He watches as her brown eyes dart from the food to him, as if contemplating whether to give him a proper response or tear him down with a snarky comment. He has no doubt in his mind that the old Kennedy would have raised a cool brow and told him that she was a big girl who could take care of herself. But this new Kennedy, she seems just as lost as he is.

Her shoulders lift up and down in a shrug. "Well," she says, pushing a piece of lettuce around with a fork. "Needless to say, I've certainly been better." She attempts a wry smile at that. "But, I guess...I've also been worse. So. Bright side. I guess."

Khalid gives her a half-smile. "Hey, my psychiatrist would like, be totally proud of you."

"Whoop-dee-doo," she deadpans, sounding a bit more like the Kennedy he knows. "At least someone's proud of me." She looks up from her untouched salad and straight into Khalid's eyes. He can see the sadness there, the exhaustion and desperation pooling behind those eyes. He sees them, and he wonders if it's a mirror to his. "My psychiatrist says...says I should talk to someone about it. I guess, I don't really know who to talk to except, well...you." She shrugs, pushing strands of hair behind her ear. "It's stupid, I know, but like -"

"It's okay. I get it," Khalid says, and he can practically feel the relief waving off her. "After school?"

"Yeah," she breathes. "See you at Pit Stop?"

"Okay."

She smiles, or at least tries to, and puts her fork down decisively. "Great," she manages weakly. "I'll, uh, see you then?"

"Sure."

Kennedy smiles meekly, looking like a ghost of the girl she once was. She picks up her tray - still full of food she refused to eat - and walks off.

"Hey, Kennedy?" Khalid finds himself asking.

She turns around expectantly.

"It's okay to miss her," he says softly, so that the people around them wouldn't hear.

Kennedy presses her lips into a tight line, nods once, and walks off.

Khalid resumes to his meal, observing the people around him, and feeling slightly different. More sane. Stable.

And then he realizes it as he picks up his can of coke -

His hand isn't shaking.