Charlie stood at the food stand, chewing ravenously on a slice of pizza.

"This tastes like cardboard," Jake said.

"I agree," Shay said. She took another huge bite. "But it's ridiculously overpriced and we already bought it. Also, I'm starved!"

"I like a girl with a healthy appetite," Jake said, smiling at Shay.

"It's not so bad," said Charlie.

She shrugged and took another bite. Over Shay's shoulder, her eyes locked onto Tamera. Tamera's thick eyebrows were drawn together. She looked between Jake and Shay, then her face twisted. She ran away before any tears could fall. Nobody seemed to notice her except Charlie. She wanted to be unconcerned, but she felt a little responsible, because Shay was her best friend and it was because of Charlie that Shay was even there. Even if Jake didn't seem to care about her, it had to be tough to see someone you liked flirting with another girl. Also, that feeling was telling Charlie to get out of there anyway, so she decided to follow her.

"Here, Shay," she said, laying her pizza slice on top of Shay's half-eaten slice. "You can have mine. I'll be right back."

"Hey, not out of sight remember?" Shay said.

"I'm just going to the restrooms, no big deal." Charlie said.

Tamera had run straight for the ladies room. It was basically a straight shot, depending on how many people were running around that particular area at the time.

Hesitantly, Charlie opened the door and was met with sobs. One of the three stalls seemed to be crying. A girl with cat colored contacts and a cat nose and mouth painted on in black gave Charlie a strange glare as she walked by. Nervous, Charlie tried to make herself smaller so the cat-girl could pass. Metal cringed as the door clasped together, leaving her alone with the weeping stall.

"Erm..." Charlie began unsure. "Tamera?" She waited a beat. "It's me, Charlie."

"What do you want?" the stall said.

Charlie flinched from the ill-mannered greeting. Geez, you try to be nice to people...she thought.

"I just wanted to come see if you were okay..." she said.

"Really?" the stall said. "Did I look okay? Do I sound okay? What are you, stupid?"

"Hey," said Charlie, mustering up a feisty tone. "You don't have to be mean about it. Last I checked, I'm the only one that cared enough to check on you!"

The stall sighed, then said, "Look, I'm sorry."

Charlie gave in easily enough. "It's okay. I get it. You're sad."

"Sad doesn't even cover it. Why is he so closed in? He won't open up to me, no matter what I do. It's like the more I fight to get him to let me in, the tighter he shuts up. He pushes me away, flirts with other girls even though he knows I would do anything for him...Why does he treat me like this? Why is he so weird?"

Charlie wasn't exactly ready for Tamera to spill so much so fast. She didn't think this far ahead. Her mouth dropped open as if she'd just witnessed a train wreck. But Charlie is an honest person and she won't hide the truth of her thoughts from this girl that's in pain. It's up to her now to find a way to tell the little girl on board the train that her puppy--who was up front--didn't make it.

"Erm...yeah, that's terribly cruel of him," she said. She said words with an air of sympathy. "I think maybe he does it because...he doesn't really care about you..."

Tamera made an odd gasping while sobbing noise. She began shrieking at Charlie. "What a mean thing to say!"

"I'm sorry-" Charlie tried to say, but Tamera was louder. She was like a fire drill shouting over the teacher's lecture, breaking apart thoughts and speech.

"You're a total bitch! You and your friend! I can't believe you would say something like that!"

She kept going, but Charlie wasn't listening anymore. Her face burned like fire, her eyes stung. She never meant to be so harsh, she just wanted to be honest. Didn't it hurt more to carry a delusional idea that will never come true? Or to hear the truth? It seemed that Tamera preferred the delusion, and Charlie had terribly misjudged. Tamera wasn't even giving her a chance to explain.

"I'm sorry!" She cried and she fled from the restroom, bumping into a tall older woman with long, straight black hair and black rimmed eyes. "Sorry, I'm sorry," she sobbed to the woman.

Charlie booked it back to the food court. She had to get to the others and tell them what happened before Tamera came out ranting and shouting. Before Tamera blows her words out of proportion and makes her out to look like the bad person in all of this, when the actual bad person was Jake.

That's right. She thought it. It was all Jake's fault. He had obviously been leading this girl on, toying with her, keeping her at arm's length while maintaining his sense of freedom to use other girls at his leisure. And now he was moving on to Shay. Well, she's got news for him: it wasn't going to happen on her watch.