Previous Chapter Recap: The first day of school has just begun as Spencer meets up with his friend Toni, who is stressing out about college.
Kyle is really unhappy with his relationship with Jenny, and nearly everyone around him knows.
Melanie and Connie are the two new girls, who are half-sisters from California and don't get along.
Toni bumps into a shy classmate called Victoria that she's never met before.

Toni felt smothered sitting in the guidance counselor's office. The air was thick, and she couldn't hear the words that echoed in front of her. She didn't want to hear them. The walls glared at her and threatened to close in on her, leaving a flattened image of Toni that nobody would remember a few years later. She didn't mind.

"...here are some pamphlets...," Toni heard the woman say before her ears blocked the noise out again.

Toni saw her push a small stack of college flyers towards her on the desk surface, and the first thing she noticed was that they were all community colleges.

"Like mother, like daughter," Toni sneered at them silently.

"It will be fine, Antonia," the guidance counselor assured her and pushed the pamphlets further down to Toni; politely insisting that these were the only options she had. "Just put some effort in, okay?"

Toni scooped them up off the desk and viewed them even though all she wanted to do was rip them all into tiny pieces and stuff them down the counselor's throat.

"Put some effort in," Toni repeated as she playfully displayed a wicked grin. "Put some effort in."

"That would be the key to success, yes," the guidance counselor said and returned the smile gently.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Toni asked, more to herself than anything. "It's genius, that."

"Antonia, you're not getting up to anything again, are you?" she said. Her tone was calm and sincere and was meant to be understanding but it only sounded patronizing to Toni.

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Well, you do know," she said and tiptoed around the subject. "The whole ordeal last semester with Spencer and that exchange student from England, it–"

"You said I was off the hook for that," Toni said and clenched the pamphlets in her hands.

"Yes, but we don't want it happening again, do we?"

Toni wished that the walls would close in on her now. That she would disappear and not have to deal with being talked down to like she was nothing more than a misbehaving child.

"Would you like to sign up for an after-school study group?" the woman suggested. "It can really help get your GPA up."

"No," she said and stood up from the seat. Blood rushed to her skull and Toni clutched her forehead while steadying herself with her other hand. And then, for good measure, she added: "Thank you, Mrs. Clarke."

She headed for the door while holding the pamphlets, her black nails digging into the fragile paper. As soon as she stepped out into the hallway she threw into the nearest trash can and buried them deep under the litter so that nobody could find it. She didn't want Mrs. Clarke to see them lying there and then yell at Toni for dumping them.

"Did you drop something?" Spencer asked her when he came up to her.

"Yes, I dropped something in the trash," Toni told him and wiped her hands on her shirt. God knows what was in that trash can. "Also called throwing shit away."

"Well, whatever," Spencer said with a dismissal wave of his hand. "Guess what?"

"You're taking me to the Metro Diner after school?" Toni suggested and smiled slyly at him.

"You know I don't have money," Spencer said. To his credit, he did seem apologetic about it because he avoided Toni's eyes and sheepishly scratched his spiky hair.

"Pity," Toni said as her smile dropped. She turned her heel and strolled down the hallway, while Spencer ran after her to catch up.

"Hey, wait up!" Spencer shouted. "Don't you want to hear the big news?"

"No, not really," Toni admitted.

For a moment, a brief disappointment flashed across Spencer's face until he quickly concealed it with another smile. Toni had been his friend ever since her sophomore year and she clearly knew what his tell was. Whenever Spencer got nervous, he fiddled with his hair and the broken zipper on his hoodie. It was one of those things that were impossible to ignore once you noticed it, and Toni had been holding onto it so she could win all of Spencer's money in an unfortunate poker game someday. And you know, so she could comfort her best friend whenever he was anxious.

"Alright, fine," Toni said and stopped. "What is it?"

"I got an audition in Robin's band," Spencer explained, trying to act nonchalant about it but showing obvious excitement in his green-speckled eyes. "It's after school."

"Ah," she replied. "Weren't you supposed to join debate club?"

"Debating is just an adult word for picking on each other," Spencer said. "This music thing is way cooler. If we get enough gigs, I could be earning just as much as I would working a part-time job!"

"Wait, you'll actually earn money from this?" Toni wondered. She suddenly realized how cold the hallway was, and felt a chill creep down her spine. "Enough to provide for yourself?"

"Since when do you care about income?"

"I'm not an idiot," Toni snapped. "I know how salary and shit works. You know that, right?"

Spencer cocked an eyebrow when Toni started talking louder, and just as he was about to tell her that he was joking, Toni went off on another tangent.

"Everybody says I'm a fucking deadbeat, but I thought that at least you wouldn't think of me like that."

"I never said–"

"Oh, but you think it," Toni interrupted him, nearly biting her pierced tongue over how mad she was getting. "Everybody does."

With those final words, Toni left Spencer in the hall and walked off until Spencer lost sight of her in the pool of students scurrying off to third period as the bell rang through the corridors.

~*~

By lunch period, the cafeteria was bustling with loud chatter from the students. Every single table was usually occupied and taken for the remainder of the lunch break.

Luckily, Kyle never had to deal with this problem because he and his friends already had a reserved table that they always sat at. It was theirs, and they had even signed it. Kyle glanced at the small carved heart that read K + J on the table surface next to his tray. He didn't remember when he had written that. He couldn't even tell if it was genuine.

"Back to school parties are a thing!" Jenny said. "I've already wasted money on the decorations so it's happening."

Oh, right. He forgot that Jenny was in the middle of a heated debate with Darryl and Ace. Kyle couldn't stand her whiny voice sometimes, the way it forced itself into his ears.

"They're a thing in middle school," Darryl corrected her as a shoved a fork full of lasagna into his mouth. "Or preschool, even. And do preschoolers party?"

"They do not," Ace said.

By now, Kyle couldn't block out their voices properly anymore so he was left pondering over how parties could be a thing in preschool if preschoolers didn't party. Or was he reading too much into this?

"Just as I thought," Darryl said. "That settles it then."

Jenny didn't seem too into the idea of surrendering in the fight. She never surrendered, so she tried coming up with something else.

"Okay, well, I also wasted money on snacks," she said. "The good kind, not the dog food crap we get here."

"Why is everybody always dissing on cafeteria food?" Darryl said. "It's not nearly as bad as everybody says. If you hate it so much, just pour some Gatorade over it. Gives it that sweet upper layer."

Kyle stirred his fork around the untouched food on his plate. He wasn't eating because the food was bad, but because... Well, that was too hard to even think out loud.

"Hey!" Ace cried. "That was my idea!"

"As if you'd come up with something genius like that," Darryl said to him. "You just said that thing about making magic brownies for the party and that it'd be so fucking cool, and then you never made them! Who even does that? You can't just bring it up and then not deliver–"

"Hey, honey," Natalie said soothingly and put her arm on Darryl's shoulder. "Deep breaths?"

If humans had ears as big as elephants, could they use them to block out all the unwanted chit-chat? Kyle thought that if they did, then he was surely doing just that in an alternate universe.

"Relax, the magic brownies are on their way," Ace promised. "And I'll come if there's a keg and weed."

"Yeah, you got any weed?" Darryl asked. "I haven't smoked any for two weeks. That's a new record."

"Is it?" Natalie wondered.

But if there were alternate universes, then there would exist one where Kyle wasn't even together with Jenny or had these morons as friends. Maybe he was a completely different person. A person that he actually liked.

"Oh my god, shut up!" Jenny whispered and slammed her fist on the table. "A teacher could hear you. Idiots."

"Uh yeah, what a shock," Darryl said and threw out his arms to exaggerate the point. "Smoking joints and underage drinking in New York! What has the world come to?!"

"Oh no, I can't handle this criminality!" Ace joined in. "God save us!"

Ace pretended to faint while Darryl laughed at him like a maniac. Jenny was ready to claw their eyes out as the fire in her gaze grew. Natalie watched her pout and wasn't sure whose side to stand on, so she settled on a nervous smile that flickered between them both.

"Right, Kyle?" Ace said between laughs as he tried to calm himself down. "Kyle?"

So if this person in the alternate universe was so happy, what choices had he made? Kyle had always thought that his life had been doomed from the start. Even if his family was doing well for itself, Kyle felt like so many things were expected from him being the only child and son in the house. Ace gave Darryl a weird look that caught Kyle's attention. If he wasn't the one receiving that look, then something was off.

"What?" Kyle said.

"Were you even listening, bro?" Darryl asked him.

"Yes," Kyle was quick to say. "You were talking about Jenny's party. I will be there."

The expression in Darryl and Ace's faces was still evident, and Kyle was worried that he had been too formal again. Pulling out the robot voice never did him any favors.

"Just text the details, J," Darryl said and stood up from their table. "I have to run. Anybody joining?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ace said and lifted his tray up in one hurried swoop. "Let's go."

"Jen, I'll see you in History!" Natalie said and waved goodbye before Darryl dragged her away. They had either done that because nobody wanted to deal with Kyle's moodiness, or because they desperately wanted him to get the whole thing with Jenny over with right now. It was probably the latter. Doing it in the cafeteria was his best bet, so Jenny wouldn't freak out at him.

"Listen, Jenny..."

Kyle had trouble to find the next string of words. He should've planned this out in his head before actually saying anything.

Suddenly a girl came up to them, and Kyle backed away from saying it with such hasty steps that he might've fallen over himself.

"Greets!" she said. "I heard about your back to school party. Everybody is coming, right?"

The girl was standing with her head high, signaling the authority she apparently had over everyone else. Her blonde bob cut framed her sharp features and the faint freckles that had been covered up with makeup. There was something almost intimidating about her narrow eyes – they seemed to stare you down until you surrendered. Jenny would probably be jealous of the girl's oozing confidence, Kyle thought, but to his surprise she smiled from cheek to cheek.

"Duh," Jenny said through the smile. "We're doing a summer funeral."

"And reviving it at the end of the school year?" the girl wondered.

"Naturally," Jenny responded. "Connie, this is my boyfriend Kyle."

Jenny gestured to Kyle who was sitting next to her. Kyle didn't have the energy to lift up his head, but he attempted a polite smile and a small "hi". It didn't come out too great.

"Nice meeting you," Connie said. "Anyway, where is the party going to be?"

"I'll text it to you after school!" Jenny assured her.

"Sweet," Connie said and turned around. "Catch you later."

"Bye," Jenny shouted after her. "Love you!"

Connie disappeared from their sight. She certainly didn't waste any time picking out her words. Kyle found himself a bit jealous of her.

"She's such a bitch," Jenny noted coldly. Kyle turned to face her and saw that the smile had been completely wiped – like it had never even been there in the first place.

"Well–" Kyle began and trailed off in confusion. Hadn't Jenny just acted like Connie was her best friend?

"We met today in Algebra class," Jenny explained as if that would make Kyle understand. "I thought I told you. She said that I did the equation wrong and then told me how to do it, like I'm stupid or something. In front of everybody!"

Kyle tried nodding, but he didn't understand a single thing that Jenny had just said. Was that it? To him, it just seemed like Connie had offered her help.

"Is something wrong?" Jenny asked him when she saw his scrunched up frown.

Kyle switched from nodding to shaking his head, as he said:
"No, everything's fine."

"You barely talked to me when we went shopping on Monday, and I didn't see you at all yesterday. I thought that you'd text me, but you didn't."

"I was busy..." Kyle explained. Busy with what, he didn't know.

"I stayed up on MSN waiting for you to video-chat me or something," Jenny continued. "But you ignored me. And don't try to deny it, because I saw that you were online."

He had only done that because he didn't want Jenny to start writing a novel to him about how her day had been. That would only keep him up until midnight, but he couldn't tell Jenny that.

"I'm sorry," Kyle said. It sounded pathetic, so he added: "I am. I just didn't feel like talking."

"You used to be nice to me," Jenny whispered and her knuckles tightened. Kyle had never seen her let her guard down like that.
"Do you even remember that?"

Somehow, Kyle had only made himself sound even more pathetic. Seeing Jenny so close to tears made him feel like an asshole, because he knew that she would keep her guard up for the rest of the day and not let anything out until she was locked inside her room. That thought made Kyle unable to say anything else.

"I'm going to class. Bye."

Kyle couldn't concentrate after what had happened in the cafeteria, so he had decided to skip class. It was his fault that he had upset Jenny, his fault that he had let things spin out of control. And it only made the people around him suffer.

"Dear Jenny...," Kyle mumbled to himself.

He was in the empty hallway by Jenny's locker, attempting and failing at writing her a breakup letter. Kyle already knew that he would be labeled as a coward if he went through with this, but he was too exhausted to really care. At least he didn't do it by a text. That would be one of the worst things he could do. At least a letter was personal.

"Dear Jenny," Kyle said again and scribbled it out onto the paper that he pressed against the lockers. "I'm sorry about everything. No, scratch that."

He scribbled the sentence over with his pen and tried again.

"You deserve someone better than me. I am not a good boyfriend and I am sorry."

Kyle stepped back to have a look at the letter again. It was too short and Jenny would definitely not feel satisfied when reading it, but it was the best he could do. Kyle thought that he would probably stay home the next few days and skip the party, so that Jenny could process everything without exploding at him. If he was lucky she would even find herself a new boyfriend at her party.

"Okay, this is good," he muttered to himself. Kyle was just about to fold the little note and push it through Jenny's locker until he heard the echo of footsteps approaching him through the hallway.

He looked up in horror and saw Mr. Lee. Any old teacher would do to give him detention, so why did it have to be Mr. Lee? Kyle quickly hid the note behind his back, scrunched up in his palm.

"McHale!" his deep voice boomed through the hall. "Why the fuck aren't you in class?"

For a moment, Kyle was too scared to even muster up an answer. He lit up, though, when he realized that he could just repeat whatever Lee had said.

"Why aren't you in class?" Kyle asked.

"Don't get cocky, it's not your business!" Mr. Lee snapped. "What do you have back there?"

"Nothing–" Kyle tried, but it was no use because Mr. Lee had already taken the liberty of snatching the letter from him. It nearly ripped in half.

"No, don't read it!" Kyle pleaded. "It's private!"

"This is the worst breakup letter I've ever seen," Mr. Lee said, ignoring Kyle's whimpers. "You kids know nothing about real breakups. Just ask my ex-wife – she wouldn't agree with me, so that's how you know."

Kyle couldn't care less about Mr. Lee's love life – for fuck's sake, he only wanted the letter back because he regretted ever writing it. Why hadn't he just gone to class like everybody else?

"Can I have it back now?" Kyle asked, keeping his breaths even and calm. "Please, Mr. Lee?"

"You really think I'll let you off the hook that easily?" Mr. Lee said and smiled at the thought. Granted, he was right, but Kyle just wanted to throw away the note and forget about it all so he could go back to his usual sad life.

"You're looking at some serious detention time, McHale," Mr. Lee said and folded the note back to how it was. "And since I'm not the one babysitting you in detention today, I can make you stay however long I want."

"But I have a curfew, sir..."

"Well then, one hour of detention seems appropriate to make up for the lost time," Mr. Lee continued. "And I'll just get rid of this so-called letter."

Mr. Lee pushed the note into a locker and Kyle panicked. It had already slipped down completely and there was no way for him to get it out.

"Why did you do that?!" Kyle shouted. "You can't do that!"

"You were going to drop it off anyway," Mr. Lee said with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

Kyle was nearly ripping his dirty blonde hair off his head. His fingers had dug deep into the silky strands, tangling them together in a way that Kyle was absolutely not supposed to.

"But not in that locker...!" he cried out and to the relief of his poor hair dropped his arms to dangle in the air.

"Oh," Lee said and cast a quick glance at the locker that the note had dropped through.
"Well, I guess you could view this as one of those life lessons."

"What is this supposed to teach me?" Kyle shouted. He was a little startled at how loud his voice had become. If he thought about it, he realized that he probably hadn't raised his voice that high for years.

"I don't know," the teacher simply replied. "That's the life lesson. Now if you would please get to class, McHale."

Kyle turned around without saying anything. He hurried down the desolate hall and tried figuring out an excuse for being late, but he couldn't come up with anything because his train of thoughts only led back to what had just happened.

At least Kyle was able to calm down once he realized that he hadn't signed the note. If he was capable of receiving just a tiny speck of luck for the first time in months, then the person who owned the locker with that cursed note inside wouldn't recognize the name Jenny and think it was just someone messing with them.

~*~

The history class was never any fun, so Jenny usually had to invent her own fun to keep sane for the rest of the hour. Even if it was only one hour, that hour did not feel like just one hour. Jenny quite liked to pass notes to her neighbor Natalie, and to her joy Natalie always sent one back no matter how engrossed she was in her work. This time, it said:

Jenny. How many are coming to the party?

As soon as Jenny had read the small note she slipped it between the empty sheets of her notebook. Through years of note-passing, she had learned that this was the best and safest way to hide a piece of paper from the teachers.

It was rather ironic, really; when Jenny was supposed to learn historical events, she had somehow learned how to pass notes instead.

Jenny slowly, silently, ripped off a new piece of paper to pass while still keeping her eyes firmly locked on Mr. Williams so as to look like she was paying attention to the lesson. She then pressed a pen to the thin note and pretended to take notes on the beginning of Civil War, sometimes pausing and stopping to lift her head and pretend-listen to the teacher – but in reality, Jenny had no idea how to take class notes. She hadn't majored in that kind of note taking.

Around 50 people, I think. Also made sure to invite cute redhead guy. Please keep magic brownies away from Ace so he doesn't embarrass himself again. xoxo, J

Jenny carefully slid the paper toward Natalie. When Natalie read it, she let out a giggle before keeping it together and hiding behind a blank face. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice.

Well, except Melanie.

Melanie was sitting alone by the desk right behind them, rolling her eyes at their obvious note-passing. It wasn't fooling anybody, Melanie thought. Or maybe she was the only one who wasn't fooled.

Did they really have to do that in class? Melanie already had enough on her plate with adjusting to the new school and city – and on top of all that, she still hadn't found a friend.

It wasn't like she could just pull out a pair of binoculars and study every person she saw like she was observing wild animals in the savanna, and then pick out whoever she liked best. If that were the way to do it, then how would she progress after that? She was fine once she was in a conversation, but how would she initiate it? The bullshit about a simple hello going a long way was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. Melanie just blanked after the hellos.

Speaking of blanking, Melanie had long ago given up on Mr. Williams' interpretation of the Civil War. But not because she was lazy – Melanie was just waiting for him to delve into the more advanced topics of the war.

For now, she had settled on doodling a peaceful beach on the lined paper in her notebook. The beach was her happy place. Sure, in California it was probably covered in filthy grime and litter no matter how much people tried to clean up, but it was still a beach. It was where the big blue ocean met the sandy surface by the shore; that was her happy place.

Manhattan Beach was her absolute favorite beach city on the south bay. If you didn't look right behind you, then all you would see was just an infinite ocean in front of you and endless grains of soft sand to touch with your fingertips.

"This sandcastle needs a moat in the front," Henry's voice echoed in her mind. Melanie remembered that day, even though it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"And a hedge maze in the back!" she had replied, giddy over their new piece of art.

Henry had noted that this was their best sandcastle yet, and then continued to work with the sand shovel. Melanie thought that she should have done the same. If she hadn't paused to smile at him, then she wouldn't have said that next thing.

"I think you're my lobster."

"I'm a lobster?" he had repeated in confusion. "What is that, slang or something?"

Melanie decided to disregard it with a simple smile and said:

"Never mind. What should we call the castle?"

She remembered eyeing the big sandcastle and thinking that when they were done, Henry would only naturally step on it and ruin their hard work. However, that was a given and he would always apologize by buying her a snack from the boardwalk food stalls after.

"The Myers Castle," he said, gesturing out a rainbow with his dry, sandy hands. Sand had crawled its way under his fingernails, and Melanie couldn't help but think how sweet it was that he didn't care about that and went out to the beach with Melanie whenever she asked him to anyway. "After you, of course."

At that moment, Melanie was just ready to melt like a dripping ice cream in the summer.

"Okay, now this is officially the best castle ever," she had remarked and tried to not get too giddy over it. It was significantly hard to keep her emotions in check.

"Hey, Henry?" she had said after a minute of only hearing the waves of the ocean, the seagulls in the air, and the distant chatter of the small crowds.

"Yeah?" he'd said, still working on the castle without looking up.

"I know you're still upset about that thing with Connie," Melanie noted quietly. She had stopped building long ago and was just sitting on her knees in the sand, with her dirty jeans rolled up her legs. "She's just like that sometimes, and she doesn't always mean it but she can say some bad things."

Henry had just continued sculpting the sand with his hands as if he hadn't heard Melanie's words at all. He didn't even look up at her and Melanie was worried that she had said something wrong.

"Thanks, Mel...," he mumbled. "But I don't really want to talk about my relationship with you right now. If that's okay?"

It wasn't okay, but Melanie couldn't rightly say that because if she did she'd look like an annoying, jealous, mean, insensitive–

"Yeah, of course. It's fine. She's your girlfriend."

The sound of her pencil tip breaking snapped Melanie back into the present where Mr. Williams was still listing reasons for the breakout of the war while Jenny passed notes to Natalie. Nobody in the class had moved, and everybody still sat at their desks in the same way that they had done before.

Before Melanie could stop herself from being haunted by the memories, another one suddenly popped into her head. But this time it was a conversation between her and Connie, just a few days before they left Los Angeles for New York.

"Why do you always spend so much time with him?" Connie shouted at her.

"He's my friend," Melanie said. "Is it so weird for a guy and a girl to be just friends?"

To tell the truth, Melanie didn't see Henry as just a friend. He was her favorite person in the whole world. However, she would never have the guts to confess that to Connie when she was at this level of anger.

"Yes!" Connie screamed. "He's spending more time with you than he does with me. It's weird!"

When Connie started screaming her words, it was too much. Melanie could never stop herself from screaming back.

"Maybe he doesn't want to be with you!" Melanie shrieked so loudly that her vocal chords ached, now screaming at her to stop it before she lost her voice. "Your relationship is falling apart!"

Connie scoffed and walked right up to Melanie's trembling face, her voice now jarringly silent and close to a whisper.

"Is it really, or are you just telling yourself that because you're in love with him?"

Melanie was ready to tear out the page with her ruined beach on it but the bell ringing startled her and prevented her from doing so. Not soon after, the chairs scraped on the floor and students got up to get out of the classroom as soon as possible. Mr. Williams reminded everyone to read the chapters in their textbooks but nobody seemed to care. Melanie couldn't say that she did, either.

~*~

Right after the bell rung, Toni had escaped off to the library. She barely spent any time there because it was too quiet and as a New Yorker that was just unnerving – but this time she wanted to find something that could help her with colleges.

It was obvious that Mrs. Clarke whom she had spoken with a few hours ago knew nothing. Neither did Spencer. She thought the library was a good hiding place where she could avoid running into him again.

The first thing Toni noticed when she stepped into the library was how empty it was. It wasn't really a big surprise – who would even want to spend their break time in the library?

Toni had no idea where to start looking for books on college planning and she wasn't keen on asking the librarian, so she had instead wandered between the bookshelves and gotten lost somewhere in the philosophy section.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that she finally emerged from the claustrophobic bookcases and found a small table right by the windows where she could breathe. It was surrounded with bookcases, and the perfect hideaway spot. Too bad it was already taken.

"Victoria?" Toni said once she spotted that same long and frizzy brown hair from Monday. She only remembered it so well because it kind of reminded her of a birds nest. "I didn't know you hung out here."

Victoria was sitting at the table facing the windows, occupied with her work. When she saw Toni, she looked as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't do. It intrigued Toni.

"What are you doing?" Toni asked her and sat down at one of the many unoccupied chairs.

"English assignment," was Victoria's simple answer. Oh. Well, that certainly disappointed Toni's sense of adventure.

"Am I bothering you?" Toni asked, just because she didn't want to be a burden. Sometimes she was without even meaning to.

"No," Victoria said and continued to work on the essay. Toni kept staring at her, so Victoria decided to drop the pencil and elaborate. "I'm just used to being alone in here."

"Funny," Toni noted and laughed dryly. Victoria glanced at her again. "That's why I came here."

The corner of Victoria's mouth stretched upwards for just the fraction of a second, but it was enough for Toni to spot. It made her quite happy to see that Victoria was more relaxed.

"You came here to bother me?" Victoria asked.

"So I am bothering you, am I?" Toni retorted smugly.

"No, not at all," Victoria quickly clarified. "I was just... It was a joke."

Toni nodded as the conversation died out. All that was left was the obsessive ticking from the clock and the sound of Toni's fingers drumming on the table surface. Victoria had returned to her work and Toni sat next to her wondering if college was even worth it. She wanted to have a good future and a nice place to live instead of her mother's old grungy apartment, but the road there was so long that Toni thought it was a waste of time and effort to even try. She wasn't gifted nor was she ambitious, so what was the point? She could barely get a job.

It pained her to admit it, but it wasn't fair that Robin had a job and their uncle's apartment all to himself. What did she have?

"I don't really know why I came here," Toni said without even realizing what had slipped out her tongue until it was already out. Victoria looked up from her notebook.

"To be alone?" she offered quietly.

"Yeah, but I mean...," Toni began, but then decided against dumping all her worries of the future on a girl she had just met. "It's a library. It's the most boring place in school."

"It's not so bad," Victoria said. "The cafeteria is worse."

"Oh yeah," Toni said, remembering how many times she had been forced to run across the street to the Cafe Roma restaurant just to eat something edible. How many dollars did she even owe Robin now? "The food is gross."

"I guess...," Victoria agreed and lowered her head to the table again. Toni noticed that their little chat was starting to disappear into thin air again, so she quickly tried to revive it.

"I've never seen you in the cafeteria with the other juniors, by the way," Toni said.

"I've seen you," Victoria told her without saying anything else on the subject.

"What?" Toni said, dumbfounded. If Victoria had seen Toni, then Toni would've surely seen Victoria at least once or twice. Or would she? "When?"

"Plenty of times," Victoria explained. Her tone was awfully nonchalant compared to Toni. Noticing how confused Toni had gotten, she continued: "Smoking in the park before school, yelling at your friend during lunch... That guy with the messy brown hair."

Toni's mind immediately went to Spencer. She still hadn't seen him since her outburst and she didn't exactly want to talk about him, but she had firmly decided to not drown Victoria with her petty problems.

"Spencer? I was just telling him that nothing could ever be better than Ray's Pizza," Toni said, coating over her anger at Spencer with innocent humor. It seemed to be a good idea, because Victoria was slowly starting to become more interested in what Toni had to say. "He keeps trying to come up with new pizza places as if that's going to top it. He doesn't get it."

"Oh yeah?" Victoria replied and put down her pencil as if to say tell me more, tell me more!

"Yeah!" Toni echoed loudly. For a minute, she forgot she was in the library and had to pause for a second to lower her voice. "Did you know he said Pizza Hut once? Fucking Pizza Hut, with their stale pieces of bread."

"How many pizza places have you even been to?" Victoria wondered and smiled at Toni's weird obsession over the whole thing. Toni smiled back, happy over how quickly she had forgotten the thing with Spencer by just talking about pizza.

"Just Ray's," she joked in her most serious voice. "That's the only one that matters."

"Really?" Victoria said. Her smile was still visible, and it was enough for Toni to cave.

"No, I'm kidding," she admitted. Oh, how it hurt that her cover had been blown that easily. "But not about Ray's being the most important pizza place in the whole world."

"Will you be mad if I say that I've never been there?"

"Yes I will," Toni said and dropped her smile just to prove her point. "So don't say it."

A bubbling laughter started to escape Victoria, so she covered her mouth with her palm to keep it inside. It didn't seem too effective though. Toni spotted her dimples and she couldn't help but think about how adorable they were – how adorable Victoria was.

"I'll take you sometime," Toni stated confidently and threw her arm back over the chair. "Then you'll see what I'm talking about."

"Oh, but I have no money," Victoria said with her mischievous smile.

"Me neither," Toni admitted. "I was thinking we could buy the pizza and then sneak out with it."

"And how would we do that without anyone noticing?"

"We bring a big fucking coat," Toni explained as her hands tried to demonstrate just how big of a coat she was talking about. She nearly fell out of her chair and snorted with laughter.

"In this heat?" Victoria said to continue peppering her with questions.

"Yes," Toni said, steadying herself on the chair while refusing to back down from her new glorious master plan. "We'll bring one of those handheld mini fans or a pack of ice."

"This is a good plan," Victoria said as she stopped with the questions – which made Toni very pleased.

"I know," she leaned in to whisper.

Victoria shook her head, still grinning, as Toni leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and proud. Victoria picked up the pencil again and Toni immediately realized that the conversation was slipping through her fingers yet again.

"Are you going to Jenny's party?" Toni quickly asked Victoria. After she had said it, she regretted it instantly. Of course Victoria wasn't going to the party – she was obviously an introvert at heart. It was like asking someone if they enjoyed the weather when there was a snowstorm raging on outside.

"No," Victoria said, just as Toni had suspected. "I guess that's for the better."

Victoria's pretty smile had now been replaced with a frown. There was really no harm in trying to encourage Victoria to show up, was there?

"Jenny is so annoying that you will want to pull your own hair out," Toni stated and then followed it with "but her parties are actually okay. It's nice, chilling on a Friday after the school week."

"I just do that in my bed," Victoria said as if there was no difference.

"That works too...," Toni said even if she was, in reality, doubting it. "But you should tag along. If you don't like it, you can just leave."

"Maybe," she replied quietly.

Victoria's voice was overshadowed by the sudden message tone playing from Toni's phone. She fetched the old flip phone out of her pocket as Victoria went back to her English assignment. The gray phone was a few years old – a hand down from her mother that she had tossed away for Toni to use after it had gone out of style. Oftentimes, Toni would think about how much it looked like a burner and how her mother had probably just given it to her out of spite.

She read the new message but upon seeing what it said, she wished she hadn't. Toni glanced up at Victoria and then back at the phone to reread the text.

"I have to go," was all Toni could say. "Sorry. See you later?"

"Okay, see you..." Victoria responded.

Although the worry wasn't as evident in the words, it was slowly forming on her face. Toni stood up and walked away from the table – disappearing between the bookcases while she furiously tapped the tiny keys on the phone. Before Victoria could say anything else, Toni had left her.

~*~

The hallways were empty of students after school and not a peep was made – well, except for the secretive discussion that was going on by the lockers between two juniors.

They were well known for putting their hands where they didn't belong and digging through stuff they had no business with. Well, business and business... They did make some money from uncovering people's secrets and selling them. At a fair price, of course.

The boy, Max, dealt with the business side while his partner in crime Saige mostly did the digging. You could've asked them what the point of it was, but in truth Max was just a sucker for money and Saige was just an ambitious activist who took the whole thing a bit too seriously.

"I can't believe it," the boy said, stunned at the new scoop that Saige had just uncovered. "How do you think Spencer will react?"

"Badly," Saige responded in a soft voice. Even if the school was probably abandoned at this point in the afternoon, she didn't want to take any risks. "It's amazing that nobody has noticed that Tommy's back."

"He does look different," Max pointed out. He barely recognized him himself. "People probably mistake him for a new freshman."

"You'd think they'd recognize the accent," Saige said – always trying to tie up the loose ends of all the information she got her hands on.

"Maybe he's just laying low," Max proposed and shrugged. He did agree on that there was something fishy going on, though. "We have to keep an eye on him."

"Why?" Saige wondered as she crossed her arms and her long blonde hair followed the motion to fall down over her eye. She reached forward to push it back behind her pierced ear. The hair looked just like something out of the flower power ages, except there weren't actually any daisies or orchids stuck between the straight platinum strands. Saige continued:

"I don't think he'll do anything. Last year was just completely blown out of proportion."

"Did you forget what happened?" Max said now a little too loud for Saige's preferred volume for secret after-school meetings. "It's a miracle that the principal even allowed him back here. Speaking of, why is he still in New York? Exchange students go back after one year, don't they?"

"He has unfinished business, obviously," Saige said. "Clearly he didn't stay for the education. Think he's waiting for an opportunity to apologize to Spencer?"

"As if," Max snorted. "He'll never do that. And even if he did, it would be a piss poor reason for staying in New York for a whole other year. He won't do it, end of story."

"Yes, he will," Saige told him confidently. "He went through something, why else do you think he turned all emo over the summer?"

"I don't freaking know, maybe he listened to too much MCR?"

A stupid grin spread across his face and Saige just watched it with contempt. The feeling was mostly fueled by the fact that this wasn't the first time Max had cracked one of his dumb jokes and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Are you feeling proud of yourself now?" Saige asked him with her flat tone indicating just how unimpressed she was.

"Very," he replied smugly. "Aren't you?"

"Would you please, just for one goddamned minute, stop joking around?"

Max backed down and his grin faded away, now replaced by a frown and him looking like a child who had received a scolding from his mother.

"Fine," Max said. "Do you have any other dirt?"

"Not much," Saige said and thought back on all the stuff she had discovered. Most of it was trash, like Mr. Lee's collection of candy bar wrappers that she'd accidentally stumbled upon in the English classroom yesterday. It was literal trash. "Kyle was late to 5th period today. Looked kind of bewildered."

"I heard from Ace that he got detention," Max said. Saige noticed that the cogs were clearly turning in his little head. "He's hiding something."

"Everybody is hiding something," Saige said. "Doesn't mean it has to be anything important. I think we should focus on Tommy."

"Got it. Spencer will freak out once he hears, won't he?"

~*~

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Clocks with an audible sound were one of the most annoying things on the planet, right after spending New Years at Times Square. That was a mistake that Spencer wouldn't repeat.

The thing that drove him so mad about the clock was the ticking. There wasn't any tocking. A clock should go tick, tock, tick, tock. Everybody knew that, so why hadn't the clock caught on? But then, Spencer supposed it didn't matter because the teacher's snoring covered up the ticking fairly well anyway. Not that he preferred it, mind you.

Spencer wasn't even supposed to be in this classroom wasting precious free time, but he had been unlucky and gotten detention for not even doing anything. So for the time being he was stuck listening to the snoring of the teacher while screaming in his head about how unfair all this was.

His mind was a complete mess – what was he going to do about the audition? If he stayed in detention, he was going to miss it and he'd probably never get the opportunity again. Robin trusted him and he had to be there.

Spencer glanced at the other kid who was the only other person to be in detention with him. He sat with his back slumped on the table; just utterly humiliated over being in detention. Spencer assumed that it was probably his first time. But come to think of it, Spencer recognized him as the well-off guy who had that prissy girlfriend and he had no idea how a kid like him had ended up in detention.

"Kyle, is it?" Spencer asked him quiet enough to not wake the teacher. The boy looked up from the desk.

"Yeah," Kyle said. "What's your name again?"

"Spencer," he replied. He cast another glance at the teacher to make sure he wasn't about to wake up. "Listen, do you think he's knocked out for good? I need to get out of here."

"If he isn't, you'll be in even more trouble."

"That's fine," Spencer said. And he meant it – he would rather be in detention on any other day of the week than this one. "As long as I can bail."

"Where are you going?" Kyle asked him.

"I have an..." he began, the word "audition" lingering on his lips. But if he said that, he'd sound like some silly drama nerd. "A job interview. If I miss it I won't get another chance."

"Why did you even get yourself landed in detention if you knew you had someplace to be after school?" Kyle wondered. He still hunched over his desk and Spencer thought it was really obvious that he didn't care at all. Why would he?

Spencer thought back to what the teacher's reasoning for the detention had been – let's see, he was in class listening to music... And suddenly the teacher freaked out on him, right?

"The music in my ear buds during class was too loud, or some crap like that?" Spencer said out loud. "I didn't do it on purpose. Teachers just love to pick on the dumb ones and praise the pets."

Kyle moved his gaze to the teacher who was still very much asleep, and then back to Spencer. It almost looked like his eyes were begging Kyle for help with their big, dilated pupils almost staring into his soul.

"I guess...," Kyle trailed off. He guessed that he was the only one who truly deserved to be in detention, even though Mr. Lee had been harsher than needed. "I'll cover for you if he wakes up."

"I owe you one," Spencer said as his eyes lit up.

"It's no problem," Kyle told him while thinking stop looking at me like that, it's embarrassing. He had to look away.

"No, really," Spencer said and kept staring at Kyle.

"Just go before the teacher wakes up," Kyle spat at him a little too bitter. "Good luck at the interview."

"Thanks, Kyle," he said before getting up from the desk and sneaking out the door. Kyle could just hear the stupid smile in Spencer's voice.

Spencer darted out through the hallway, skidding across the floor and trying to catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall to see what time it was. He had twenty minutes to get there.

He turned around a corner and slowed down when he saw Saige and Max hanging by the lockers and immediately shutting up once they noticed him. It was rather awkward, as the three of them said nothing and just looked at each other. Spencer reminded himself that he had to get to the audition.

"See you tomorrow, guys," he said and then headed to the exit as fast as his legs could take him.

Nearly slipping down the stairs outside the school, he finally made it to the sidewalk and pulled out the address note that Robin had given him. Manhattan Mini Storage on W 107th street. Oh, right. Robin and his band played in a storage facility. It sounded really inconvenient, but at the same time quite cozy.

Spencer took the shortcut down the dead end to get out on Columbus Avenue. He ran not even really knowing if he was going the right way, and nearly crashed into a woman walking with a stroller. He shouted an apology back at her and then continued running past the store fronts and alongside the buses on the street.

The whole trip was probably about five minutes, but Spencer was so tired when he finally arrived at the brick building with the blue Manhattan Mini Storage sign that he could barely remember it. Good thing it was close to school, at least.

After thinking he had plenty of time to find the storage unit, Spencer had gotten lost more than once and the stupid electronic key card he had borrowed from Robin didn't help at all – until he heard someone say "do you think he's even coming?" behind him.

Spencer followed the voice and sighed with relief once he saw Robin, his two band mates, and another guy who was there to audition. Well, he wasn't really relieved that he had competition, but it was at least a comfort to know that he'd made it in time.

"Sorry I'm late!" he said while still panting heavily from all the running. Sheesh, he really needed to work out more. "Fuck, this place is a maze."

"It's really not," Robin disagreed. "You'll get the hang of it soon enough."

"If he even gets into the band," the guy next to him said. He didn't seem too impressed.

"I'm pretty sure you will," Robin insisted. "Welcome to Mini Storage. It sucks. You're gonna love it!"

"Fucking hell, stop saying that!" the other band mate snapped.

"Why?" Robin wondered and was clearly amused by his buddy's annoyance. "I think we should say it more."

"If you do," the band mate began, "I will rip your tongue out."

"How will you be able to listen to my lovely backing vocals, then?" Robin counterattacked with a clever grin.

"I don't care," his friend continued and looked at Spencer who was still breathing heavily through his mouth. "If this guy is as good as you say he is, then it's no problem."

"I'm flattered that you still trust my opinion."

"Did I ever say that I did?"

"Whatever," Robin grumbled with pursed lips. He turned to Spencer to ask him: "What are you going to sing, anyway?"

"Uh, across the universe?" Spencer replied. He'd been rehearsing it endlessly since Robin had invited him to the audition. And by the way, two days was definitely not enough time to prepare.

"Good," Robin told him. "We know that song, right?"

Spencer zoned out of the conversation when he heard footsteps approaching and echoing through the empty storage hall. He turned around and saw a boy walking toward him, with dyed red hair and a matching flannel shirt.

There was something off about him.

Spencer recognized those green eyes, but he couldn't place his finger on where he had seen them before. As the boy came closer, Spencer spotted the familiar faded freckles on his face. No. It couldn't be.

"Blimey, Spencer," the boy said and smirked. "Didn't think you'd be here."

Song: The Beatles - Across the Universe (1970)

A/N - Thank you for reading! I know this chapter was a little longer than necessary, so I hope I didn't drag it out too much. Here's a picture of Spencer! ...who looks a LOT like Spencer from the Number Days game, I know. Please don't hate me, I just really love the Pacthesis games. <3