DREW
Seth and Vee broke up. I don't know why, but the news has gone around the school by now that it happened. Of course, there are rumors of why; that Seth cheated, that Vee tried to rape Seth, that Vee cheated. All very dramatic.
   I've started to regret breaking up with Vee in the first place. I never stopped loving him; I just couldn't deal with all that stress. But I think breaking up with him only made his depression— which was why I was stressed over him— worse. He obviously got a little better after that, but any time our eyes met in the halls or in or classes there was pain in his eyes. It pained him inside to see me.  That was the last thing I wanted; to cause Vee any more pain.
   When Vee and Seth has kissed in front of the whole school had pained me. Vee deserves so much better than Seth— and me— yet we are the ones he chose to love. And knowing that Vee was now dating the guy that had bullied us didn't seem right for obvious reasons. I mean, Seth tried to kill Vee! Vee was actually on his deathbed! I guess I was mostly worried that Seth would Turn and attack Vee again.
   And I was jealous of Seth.

OCTAVEUS
Seth and I broke up a couple days after. We just weren't compatible at all for each other's needs. It wasn't exactly a mutual breakup either; I wanted to go my own way, but Seth, and I quote, 'wasn't done experimenting yet'. We got into a big fight over that, and I left.
   Now, though, I don't have to worry about accidentally telling Jessie. But I do have another thing to worry about.
   I want Drew back. I realized that I felt lonely because I missed Drew; he had made me feel more whole, and I loved him more than anybody else. But I didn't know if he wanted me back. I've decided that I'm going to try to talk to him at some point and find out. And yes, I'm a sissy and haven't done that yet.

DREW
I walked into History just as the bell rang. I sat down in the back right by the door— so I didn't have to walk in front of everyone. I noticed Vee was across the room, drawing on his hand with a pen.
   "Okay," our History teacher clapped his hands together. "As I said yesterday, today you will be getting your partners for the research project." I noticed several people turn around and meet eyes with their friends. "And don't even bother, I have them picked already." That resulted in groans.
   I smiled a little in amusement at the groaning.
"Alright," he looked at his computer screen and started reading off the pairs. "Nat and Nathan, Sam and Ashley,—" He listed off several more pairs. "And Drew and—" he pointed at Vee, "Le Fringe."
   'Oh boy.' I glanced at Vee from across the room. That was when he had looked up from drawing on his hand. Our eyes met for a second, just enough for me to see the flash of pain.
Oh, yeah, and our History teacher has started calling him 'Le Fringe' since first quarter. Because of his hair and accent.
   "Okay! There will not be enough time in class for you to finish your projects, so I suggest you meet up with your partner outside of school." Our teacher looked at the clock. "Okay you have fifteen minutes left. Why don't you meet up with your partners for that time."
Everybody started moving around the room. I took a deep breath and was getting ready to get up and move over to Vee when he sat in the chair next to me.
   "Hey," I said awkwardly. He gave me a half smiled in return, then looked at the clock.
   "Ten minutes-ish left." He said, his accent slurring the 'ish' weirdly. "Want to start on this later?"
   "Yeah, that would make more sense." I said. I hesitated. "Want to come over after school to work on it?. . ."
   "Sure," He said, going back to drawing on his hand.
   I nodded. "Okay."

Around five I opened the door for Vee, and we went to my room. I sat on the bed and pulled out my school-issued computer, and he sat next to me. I had recently gotten a new, bigger bed, so we could both sit on it and not have our knees or legs touching.
After a minute of awkward silence, I sighed. "Look. . . I don't want things to be awkward between us," I said. "I get why it is; I almost regret doing it in the first place. But I don't want us to be in a sort of Cold War because of it."
He looked at me. "What did u say?" He said quietly.
"I don't want us—"
"No, I mean. . . You said you regret doing it."
"Oh," I felt my cheeks grow red. "I regret breaking up with you. . . I was stressed out over you all the time and I thought that doing that would help. But I was just even more stressed when I wasn't with you."
I looked up at him, my face still red. He was watching me in an odd way. He put his hand under my chin and brought my head up. I watched his face; there was no pain in his eyes, but relief.
"So you're saying, you still want to date me?" He asked quietly.
"I never stopped wanting to," I said equally as quietly.
   There was a moment of silence. Then Vee leaned down and our lips connected.