When Lena finally came back to school, I was glad. It was weird not having her around, but I knew it’d be even weirder if she was there and she wasn’t herself. I really hoped that what had happened with Colton did not change her forever.

She looked just the same as she always did as she walked into the first class we had together. Her hair was down, she was wearing makeup, and she was wearing the cute clothes she usually did. But I knew that just because she looked normal didn’t mean she was.

“Lena!” a girl that sat in front of us squeaked when she saw my best friend enter the classroom. “You’re back! I almost thought you left!”

Lena shook her head. “No. I was just sick.”

She’d been gone for almost two weeks, but I didn’t say this. I guess it was possible for someone to be sick for that long, depending on what they had caught. But I knew Lena didn’t want people knowing the real reason why she had been gone for so long.

“Hi,” I smiled at her as she took her seat beside me.

She smiled right back at me, though it seemed forced. “Hi,” she greeted.

I frowned. She’d only said one word to me and I already knew she was different. This whole experience affected her much more than she let on.

“Lena,” I began with a whisper as our teacher began to speak to the whole class. “How are you?”

She didn’t answer me right away; she didn’t even look at me. She continued to stare straight ahead, as if she was listening to what our teacher was saying. But I knew she wasn’t. She was looking at the empty seat in the front of the room where Colton used to sit.

“Lena,” I said again, but she still didn’t look at me. I reached out to shake her, but then thought better and retracted my hand. Obviously she still didn’t want to talk and I wasn’t going to force her into doing something she was uncomfortable with.

I wished she’d talk to me, but there wasn’t anything I could do to make her do that. Hopefully she just wasn’t speaking to me because we were in a public place. Maybe it was too weird to her that Colton had been in this room with us.

She couldn’t stop staring at his seat. I wanted her to stop, because the look on her face was one that I couldn’t read, though I knew it wasn’t a good one. She was hurting herself just by staring at a chair.

I missed the old Lena. This had affected her so much. She was much more frightened of Malicius than I’d thought, and obviously Colton reminded her of it a lot. Not to mention that the whole experience was just scary in itself anyway.

“I have some exciting news to share with you today!” our teacher announced, and it seemed like this had been the first time in months since she hadn’t spoken Spanish. Even with her excited tone, no one in the class changed their bored expressions. “It’s something you’ve all been waiting for.”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, so I knew that it wasn’t something I’d been waiting for. It was most likely something I’d have no interest in, so I didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“The date of the end-of-the-year dance has been announced!” our teacher finally informed us.

I just blinked as girls around me began to chatter about how excited they were. Honestly, I was confused. It was February. School didn’t end for another four months.

The girl sitting on the other side of me seemed to notice that I wasn’t as excited as everyone else was. She leaned over and asked me, “What’s wrong?”

I stared at her, surprised she cared enough to ask. “I just… don’t understand what the big deal is.”

“Oh, yeah,” the girl said. “You were new this year, weren’t you?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I answered. “I don’t really understand what the big deal is.”

“The end-of-the-year dance is kind of like prom for freshman, sophomores, and juniors,” the girl explained, and I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from telling her I didn’t exactly know what prom was either. “There’s also a rumor that the person you go with junior year is the person you’re going to marry.”

I suddenly felt a lump in my throat that was incredibly hard to swallow. “Is that rumor true?”

“I dunno.” The girl simply shrugged and turned back toward our teacher. “I haven’t heard that it’s not true, so that must mean something, right?”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I said nothing else. The rest of the day went by normally, minus Lena acting differently and everyone else talking about the dance as if that was the only thing that mattered.

After school, everyone was still talking about the dance and who they were going to ask. I tried to not let it bother me, but it was hard when that was the only thing I heard come out of everyone’s mouths.

Tom walked me to my meeting spot like he sometimes did, but for some reason, he was quiet. I couldn’t help but feel awkward, so I said nothing back to him. We walked in silence through the hall, trying our hardest to avoid running into people.

When we got to the spot where I met my teammates, I was surprised to see none of them were there. I knew Anthony had track, but the others were usually here before I was. Was I somehow late?

Before I could look at my phone to check what time it was, Tom finally spoke. “So, did you hear about the dance?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

Tom seemed nervous about something, and I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy by it. What was wrong with him? I was almost afraid that he was going to say something that I did not want to hear.

“So, the dance…” he began, fiddling with his hands a little. He let out a breath and rubbed the back of his head. “Wow, I really shouldn’t be so nervous, but I can’t help but be.”

My eyebrows furrowed in concern. “What’s up, Tom?”

He let out another sigh and his hands fell to his sides. “So, um,” he started, looking right at me as if I was the only person in the room. “I was just wondering if you wanted to—”

“She doesn’t.”

At the sound of the new voice, I spun in surprise. I wasn’t very surprised, however, when I saw that it was Dex standing there, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared right at Tom. I glared right back at him.

“How about you let him finish what he has to say, Dex?” I snapped, my hands moving to my hips. “It’s not polite to interrupt.”

Dex rolled his eyes at me. “Since when have I been polite?” he asked.

He had a point, but it wasn’t like I could tell him that. Just because he knew he wasn’t polite didn’t mean that it made it okay. It just meant he was even more impolite.

I kept glaring at Dex, and he kept glaring at me. It felt like hours even though it was only seconds.

“Um,” I finally heard Tom say from beside me. “I’ll see you later, Violet.”

I turned, about to tell Tom not to leave, but it was too late. He had already made his way through the sea of people in the hallway, and I immediately deflated. Tom was about to ask me an important question.

“What is wrong with you?” I spat at Dex, slapping him in the arm. He didn’t even flinch. “Can you not let me have one decent conversation with Tom? Do you have to interrupt everything?”

Dex’s eyes only squinted more in a glare. “Yes,” he answered, as if it was okay.

If only we weren’t in public. If only we weren’t surrounded by a ton of humans. Then I’d let him have it. But then again, fighting him at the DAU had proved itself to not be a very good idea.

It grew silent between us, but that didn’t seem to make anything better. My hands were balled into fists at my sides and we just kept glaring at each other. Why was I so angry?

“So, who do you want to ask to the dance?” I questioned, since I felt like we had to talk about something or I’d explode.

Dex looked away from me and over my head. “No one,” he answered.

I could tell that that wasn’t the truth. So I puffed out my chest and took a step toward him. He looked down at me with a raised eyebrow.

“You know, you don’t look half bad like that,” he smirked, and it took me a moment to realize he was staring down at my chest in its low-cut shirt. I immediately took a step back and crossed my arms. “What? I’m just saying the truth.”

I scowled at him. “You’re a pervert.”

He shook his head. “I tell the truth.”

“Well?” I demanded, tired of this discussion. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“What question?”

“You know what question.”

“I’m afraid I do not.”

I wondered how I had gotten this far without strangling him. It seemed like he could never give me a straight answer, and that was something that really annoyed me about him. I really wished he would just answer what I asked him.

“Who do you want to take to the dance?” I demanded once again.

He looked over my head once again when we suddenly heard a familiar laugh. I wanted to turn to see what he was looking at, but I didn’t tear my gaze away from his face. Even if he wasn’t looking at me.

“You really want to know?” he asked.

I pressed my lips into a straight line and nodded. There wasn’t much else that I could say, so I kept my mouth shut. I was afraid that if I spoke, he’d decide he didn’t want to tell me.

“Well,” he began, still not looking at me, “her name starts with a V.”

It took me a moment to realize what he said. For a moment, I thought that maybe he was talking about me. I mean, it would explain why he didn’t want to tell me. And it would explain why her he wasn’t looking at me. But when I heard that familiar laugh again, I went rigid.

He wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about Vanessa.

I turned around to see that Vanessa was, in fact, standing behind us, laughing at something one of her friends had said. I felt this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach as I looked at her. She was pretty, but why was Dex interested in her? She was also nasty and rude.

Before I could continue yelling at him, however, something else caught my attention. I turned to see my beautiful teammate and my team’s leader making their way over, Aiden visibly angry as Kristie spoke with a few guys by her side.

I rolled my eyes. “How great,” I said out loud to no one in particular. “Now all of us except for Kristie are going to be in a bad mood.”

Dex glared at me as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I wouldn’t be in a bad mood if it wasn’t for you.”

I spun on him and glared right back. “And I wouldn’t be in a bad mood if it wasn’t for you!”

Aiden was in no mood to talk to any of us. He walked right by us and out the front of the school, and the rest of us followed. Kristie continued to talk to different boys all the way until we finally got into the car.

“Someone’s popular,” Dex commented, mostly to get on Aiden’s nerves.

Kristie giggled. “Really? I don’t really think so.”

Aiden grumbled to himself as he kept driving. I said nothing. Dex opened his mouth to speak again, but I kicked the back of his seat to shut him up. He didn’t need to cause any other problems.

Aiden sulked all the way into the DAU, Kristie completely oblivious while Dex was enjoying our leader’s current state. I just couldn’t believe I was actually friends with all of them.

We made our way into the meeting room to see if Hank and Nay needed anything from us. They were there, just like we knew they would be. Nay smiled when she saw us.

“We have nothing planned for you today,” she said, and I was surprised. “Today’s a free day for you guys. No training or anything. Just go do homework or something.”

Kristie seemed to be the only one excited about this. Without a second thought, she skipped out of the room and down the hall to ours. The last thing I wanted to do was homework, so I didn’t budge from my spot.

In the next second, a sudden gush of wind blew by me and Anthony suddenly appeared. Nay gave him a look.

“You ran home?” she asked.

The speedy boy shrugged. “I was fast enough that no one could see me.”

Nay rolled her eyes and turned back toward the paperwork that she and Hank were looking over. Aiden then took the silence as an opportunity to let out a long over dramatic sigh.

“What is your problem, Aiden?” Nay asked the sulking boy. “Besides the usual stuff, of course.”

Aiden glared up at our mentor. “All these guys asked Kristie to the dance and it was just announced today,” he informed her.

Anthony shrugged his shoulders. “So it’s the usual problem, I see.”

“Shut up.” Aiden scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Those guys shouldn’t be asking her to the dance. They don’t even know her.”

“What did you expect?” I drawled with a roll of my eyes. “She’s Kristie.”

“She’s a pretty face, and guys want to go with a hot girl.” Dex didn’t even look up from picking dirt from underneath his nails. “I guarantee they wouldn’t be as interested in her if they knew what she was really like.”

“Hey,” Aiden snapped. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

Anthony rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure you guys had the same exact argument except it was about Violet and the roles were reversed.”

Dex glared at our smarter teammate. “How can you be pretty sure?” he questioned. “You have a photographic memory.”

Anthony merely blinked. “You’re right. I’m not pretty sure. I’m sure.”

“It looks like a lot of guys want to marry Kristie,” was what I said, and this earned such confused looks from my teammates and mentors that I almost laughed at how ridiculous they looked.

Anthony was the one that asked me, “What are you even talking about?”

It seemed like they hadn’t been informed of the rumor that I had been informed of that morning. That was good. Maybe if Dex knew about that, he wouldn’t want to ask Vanessa…

“There’s a rumor that whoever goes to the dance together end up getting married,” I explained simply. “A girl in one of my classes told me that today.”

Aiden sunk down in his seat even more, covering his hands with his face. “Oh, no,” he groaned.

Nay let out a sigh and turned to Hank. “Were we ever that insane?” she asked.

He didn’t look away from us as he answered, “We had to have been. Malicius wouldn’t have betrayed us if we weren’t.”

Nay frowned at the mention of her old teammate, the man her niece feared so much. He’d been out ever since Aiden had hit him with his car, though I was sure he was going to come back. He probably had something planned.

“And that’s another thing!” Aiden nearly howled. “Everyone’s been giving me such a hard time for hitting that bastard!”

“What do you expect?” I asked him. “He’s everyone’s favorite teacher and he’s hurt and no longer at school because of you. Though I don’t understand why at all.”

Aiden just sunk into his seat even more. “Well, everyone hates me!”

“Well, in their defense,” Dex began, and I could already tell it wasn’t going to be something encouraging, “everyone would have hated you eventually even if you didn’t hit Malicius. I mean, you’re you.”

Aiden was so upset that he didn’t even try to fight with Dex like he usually would. This surprised me. Both Kristie being asked to the dance by all these boys and being hated by everyone really upset Aiden.

“Dex, lay off him,” I found myself saying, surprising myself. I wasn’t usually the one sticking up for Aiden. “He really likes Kristie and a lot of guys want to take her to the dance.”

“Who cares?” Dex rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “If he doesn’t have the balls to ask her out before someone else, then she can go with whoever she wants.”

Anthony raised an eyebrow at him. “Really, now? That’s what you believe?”

Dex nodded. “You got it.”

Anthony said nothing to this; he only shook his head. Hank and Nay had stopped partaking in the conversation, mostly because it was teenage drama that they didn’t have to deal with. But all I could think about was how Dex hadn’t said that he wasn’t going to ask Vanessa, even after he found out about the rumor.

He couldn’t have really liked her, right? I knew he found her attractive, but that was different from actually liking her. She just wasn’t… And he was… I didn’t even know how to explain it. They just weren’t right together. They just… weren’t.

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I'm a senior now. Ehhhh.

It's scary to think about the fact that this story doesn't actually have a lot left to it. I think. I'm not entirely sure how many chapters I have planned out. I'm going to have to check the outline later.

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :D