"I like how confident you were today, Annie. The way you glared at her and moved out of the way before she could do anything to you," Chance says as we both sit on a bench at the back of his house with the sun shining down on us. The sun is really hot, but the little breeze that is blowing helps me to feel a bit cool.

Really? Thanks, I text him and look to my left to find him already looking at me.

He looks at the message, then he looks back to me. "You know what the next step is, right?" he asks, and I nod, remembering the two ways he told me on how to stand up to Sandra.

I look away from him and stare at the trees as the branches and leaves move in the way the breeze is blowing, and I close my eyes as I picture myself without my mask in public.

Memories of me being happy with everything and everyone, flood my mind. I think back to the amazing moments me and my mom had before I started wearing this mask. How we would go to the beach and eat ice-cream, the singing contests we would have with each other almost every Friday night, and how we would look at each other and smile for no reason, but just knowing how happy we are.

My heart aches in my chest as my eyes start to well up. I miss having those kinds of moments with my mom, and I'm sure she misses them, too.

I open my eyes and a small smile forms on my face as I turn to face Chance, who sits next to me silently as I have my moment of thoughts.

I'm ready, I text him, and he looks at the message, then back at me.

His eyes widen not believing what I just texted him. "You know you don't have to do it... I mean, if you want to, you can... I'm not forcing you to go along with it..." Chance rambles, and I can hear in his voice that he really doesn't want me to do it if I don't want to.

I take a deep breath as I text him the next message, I want you to count to three and take off the mask, okay?

A small frown lines his lips as he looks at the text. He then looks up at me and nods his head, fixing himself on the bench to face me, getting ready to do what I said.

I close my eyes as his hands hold the mask on either side of my face. I listen as he counts to three very slowly, probably giving me my last bits of moments behind this mask. But, to be honest, I want him to get over with it quickly.

"One..."

"Two..."

"Three..."

When he says three, I hear as he lets out a breath and slowly pulls the mask off my face.

I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to open them to see the expression Chance may have on his face. I'm afraid to see the look of disgust on his face as he stares at me like everyone else would. But I have to open my eyes and face reality.

I open my eyes to find him looking at me deeply, almost as if I'm an animal he's never seen before, and so he's observing me.

"Woah..." Chance says, his expression turning from observing to surprise.

"I know, I know, I look horrible... with my dark circled eyes and-" I say only to get cut off by him.

"No, no... It's not that," he says, grinning, causing me to look at him in confusion like, what other possible reason he would say 'Woah' for?

"Then, what is it?" I ask.

"Well," Chance starts. "One, because I can't believe I actually took your mask off. Two, because you just spoke to me. And last but not least, three, you're not horrible, but amazing."

I smile as I roll my eyes at him, and then looking down at my hands as I fiddle with my fingers.

"I guess not everyone thinks I'm horrible for once..." I say with a small grin as I look back up to him, and he smiles, taking his phone in his hand.

"Hold that smile, I need to take a picture of your beauty," he says, causing my heart to skip a beat, suddenly, and to try and not show how flattered I am by his comments, I laugh and hit his arm.

"There," he says as he takes the picture. "I'm saving this as your contact photo."

I turn around to now sit straight on the bench, facing the trees, again. "So, what do we do now?" I ask.

Chance scoots over to me, moving an arm around my shoulders. "What we do now is that I help you with your comebacks, such as if Sandra comes back to mess with you again, you know how to stand up to her with that pretty voice of yours," he says, and I turn my head to look at him, now noticing how close his face is to mine.

"Why so many flattering comments?" I ask, not really used to hearing such compliments from other dudes, but my ex-boyfriend.

"Because you're worthy of them," he says this while looking me deep in the eyes. I swallow my saliva hard that if he has some kind of crazy heightened hearing, he would be able to hear me.

"Oh..." I say, my mouth forming into an O-shape as it's all I could muster up to say.

Luckily, I don't blush or else my face would be as red as a tomato right now.

After a long moment of silence, I feel Chance's hand move from around my shoulder and he stands up, getting up from the bench to stand in front of me, holding his hand out. I stare up at him with a look of confusion on my face.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"We're going up to my room so that you could practice more on your confidence and what to say when Sandra makes an appearance again, of course," he says, stretching his hand out further for me to take as one of his eyebrows arch upwards.

With a sigh, I take his hand and let him lead me into his house and up to his room where we'll be staying for quite a long time.

~ ~ ~

"Like I warned you before, stay away from Chance. You don't want your life in high school to be a living mess, right? So do what I say!" Chance says, and I try my best to not laugh at how he just mocked Sandra.

He pretends to flip his imaginary long hair behind his back as he puckers up his lips and then scowls at me. I'm not able to hold my laughter in any longer as I burst out laughing, imagining Sandra doing it the same exact way, but Chance's version of it is way better.

"P-please s-stop. I'm dying over here," I say as I can feel tears line the corners of my eye from laughing too much.

Chance looks at me with a serious expression as he whispers, "Stay in character!" He goes back to fixing his hair and puckering his lips, waiting for me to reply.

I clear my throat and breathe in and out a few times. "You can't tell me what to do," I say with a half serious face and a half dying-with-laughter-on-the-inside face. "Just do yourself a favor and ignore anyone who tells you to be yourself, but that's a bad idea in your case."

"Ugh!!!" Chance screams, flashing me a dead serious glare, but behind all of that, I can see how much he's wanting to laugh just like me.

We're both standing in the middle of his room, so he storms off over to his door, leaving me to stand in the middle of the room by myself. He then turns around to face me as he stops by his bedroom door, smiling.

"That was such a good comeback!" he says, walking back over to me.

"Thanks to you for your help," I say as I smile at him. "You're pretty good at acting."

"I know. Thanks," Chance says in a girly tone as he flips his hair over his shoulder, turning his head to the side, then looks at me from the corner of his eye.

I don't think I'll ever get used to this as I start laughing so hard, it's hard for me to breathe. Chance laughs along with me, seeming to can't control his laughter either.

After a few moments of Chance mocking Sandra and the both of laughing aloud, we hear a loud knock on the door as we go silent.

"Come in," Chance yells as he looks to the door to see Matthew open it and step into his room.

"It's hard to watch a YouTube video while you guys are laughing and talking very loudly next door," Matthew says, rolling his eyes.

"Why don't you just plug in your headphones?" Chance asks, chuckling.

"Becuase they broke, dumb-butt," he answers, and I can't help but giggle quietly at what he just called Chance.

"Whatever," Chance says as he seems to avoid what his little brother said to him. "You can borrow my headphones, but give them back to me by tomorrow morning."

Matthew's eyes light up as a cheeky smile forms on his face. "Thanks, big bro," he says as he walks over to Chance's bookbag that's just laying on the floor carelessly. He seems to know just where the headphones are as he pulls them out without a hassle and heads for the door, only to stop in his tracks.

"Wait..." Matthew says, turning around slowly. "Who are you?"

I watch as he looks at me with furrowed eyebrows, probably trying to figure out if he's seen me in his house before.

"I'm-" I start, but get cut off by him.

"Have you let someone into our house without Mom's permission?" he asks, looking to Chance for an answer, but doesn't wait for him to reply, "Mom has specifically gone over the rules with us a million times. Did you sneak her in here, so that we wouldn't see? If so, you have been caught!"

"I-" Chance starts, but gets cut off.

"What happened to 'The Mask Girl' aka Annie, who was here earlier?" he asks. "I'm going to tell Mom on you! MO-"

Matthew starts to yell, but Chance is in front of him, covering his mouth with his hand.

"Would you just let us talk before you come to conclusions, Matt?" Chance whispers.

They both have an intense staring contest when Matthew sighs, giving up. Chance moves his hand away from his mouth slowly.

"That's Annie," Chance points at me, and I see Matthew's eyes widen. "So, as you can see, I haven't disobeyed Mom's rules."

"W-what?" Matthew stares at me.

"Hi," I say, waving at him awkwardly with a slight smile on my face.

"Woah..." he says, quoting what Chance said earlier-on to me, "You actually took off your mask after so long..."

"Yeah," I say as I laugh a bit.

"Well... uh... I should get going. Bye!" Just as he says the last word, he steps out of the room quickly, slamming the door behind him.

I look to Chance as he gives me a small, sympathetic smile, "You should prepare yourself for when my mom gets up here."

"What? Why?" I ask, looking at him confusedly.

"Well, my little bro is going to tell her everything that just happened, and she's probably going to want to have a talk with you since she has never really spoken, spoken to you before," he says as he walks back over to me. "Let's not think about that now. Let's go back to what we were doing."

* * *

Hey!! I'm so happy! I published a chapter that didn't take me 14 days! Yay!!!

So, yeah... *clears throat* Annie took off her mask... while Chance was there!! *screaming* What do you think of that? Did it happen too quickly or was it the perfect time/moment?

What kind of conversation do you think Annie and Chance's mom would have?

Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate it! Leave a vote on this chapter, and leave your comments for me to read because I love your thoughts!

- Tanya <3

Song: Inside My Head by OTR.