After Rex left, I only had about two weeks of calm before someone else decided to come knocking on my door.

When I opened it to see my older brother standing there, I didn't greet him with a warm hug or a smile. I simply slammed the door in his face and made my way back into the living room.

Simon was expecting this, however, and he made his way around to the back of the house and came through the kitchen door. He shot me a flat look as he made his way into the living room, and I merely stuck my tongue out at him.

"What are you doing here?" I complained, completely overwhelmed by his sudden arrival. "Rex just visited a couple weeks ago! I don't think I can handle both of you in such a short period of time."

Simon looked at me as if I was crazy, and I probably sounded that way. "Come one, Eb," he sighed, rolling his eyes as he made his way into the house. "You know Rex and I are completely different people."

He may have been right, but that didn't mean I wasn't completely overwhelmed by both of their presences in such a short period of time. They may have been completely different people, but they had such a big impact on my life that I didn't even know how to react to the fact that they were there so close to one another. If these visits had overlapped with one another, I probably would have imploded in on myself. It would have been too much stress for me.

I loved my brother, but he was a pain in the ass just like Rex was, though to a much lesser extent. It was hard to beat Rex had being a pain in the ass. The only person who I found even more annoying than my cousin was Rex.

He asked me about my time at Neverland, and I found myself ranting about the Lost Boys, Lindsey, Lacey, and any other problem I could think of within a span of three seconds. Simon just sat there and listened, a goofy looking smile on his face.

"What is it?" I finally snapped once the look on his face started to get on my nerves.

Simon laughed, shaking his head. "It's nothing," he waved away. "You just... remind me a lot of Ivy."

My nose crinkled at his words, my eyebrows furrowed. "That's gross. You used to be in love with her."

"Not in that way, idiot," he snapped, glaring at me since I reminded him of his past unrequited feelings for his best friend. "I mean your situations, and just how you both kind of are. You both have to deal with the Lost Boys and their shenanigans."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you really just use the word shenanigan without being ironic?"

Simon shot me a look, and I let out a sigh as I pulled two glasses down from the cupboard. He always hated when I made fun of him for something he said, especially since he was in school to become an English teacher.

Getting back on topic, I simply shrugged. "As much of a pain in the ass as those boys can be, they're still my friends."

And it was true. I did care a lot about each of them, even Quinn, but they did get on my nerves every once in a while; every single one of them except for Luke. He was the only one of the four that always seemed to never make me feel annoyed or angry at him. For obvious reasons.

"Just because our situations are similar doesn't mean we're alike," I reminded my brother, since I still found it a little odd that my brother was comparing me to the girl that he had once been in love with. "Ivy was a lot stronger than I was anyway."

Simon gave me a thoughtful look. "Ivy may have seemed tough, but I think you're stronger than her in a lot of ways."

That seemed impossible to me, but Simon did know her better than I had, since they'd been best friends ever since they were little kids. But none of this was that important, now that I remembered my initial question that I had wanted to ask him as soon as he stepped foot in the house.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

Simon grinned at me, as if he had been waiting for me to ask. "May's birthday is next weekend," he explained. "We decided to hold the party here."

"That's weird," I couldn't help but judge. "You'd think a famous actress would want to have her birthday party where all her famous friends are."

Simon shrugged. "Her parents are here. Mom's here."

Something was up. I'd always been able to see right through my brother, which was the main reason why I was able to tease him so much while we were growing up. It was clear that he was hiding something from me, but I wasn't sure what.

"Make sure to invite Luke," Simon ordered now, changing the subject by mentioning the one thing that would change what I was focusing on. "Obviously May's going to want her cousin to be there, and you might as well invite your friends along with you. It's going to be a huge party."

I didn't expect anything else from the illustrious May Ricketts. Sometimes I couldn't even believe that my brother had been dating an actress, and had been for nearly five years. I'd always seen my brother as a boring, dorky guy, but May loved him. She was even the one to make the first move, for some reason.

Simon handed me five envelopes, each one a light blue with a beautiful decorative design. They were even scented. I wouldn't expect anything less from May.

I shuffled through them to see that each had a name on it. One was for me, while the other four were predictably for Quinn, Luke, Christian, and Keegan. You couldn't leave out the current royalty of the school you used to attend, especially when one of them was your cousin.

"You can bring Skyler and Jake along with you," Simon informed me now. I felt a little relieved that my two best friends were allowed to come, since the last thing I wanted was to be stuck at a party with the Lost Boys and my family all by myself.

Maybe the party wouldn't be so bad. It most likely would have a lot of different famous people there, which was both exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. This didn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.

The next day, when I saw Quinn at his locker after school, I felt like there was no better time than then to give him his invitation. I had already given Christian his earlier on in the day, but I'd yet to be able to give Luke or Keegan theirs.

"What's the long face for?" Quinn questioned as I made my way up to him, not even greeting me or anything.

I hadn't even realized I'd been making a face, but as I tried to relax, I could feel the muscles in my face move to a more comfortable position. Huh. Maybe I had been stressing out a bit without me even noticing.

"Simon's visiting," I informed Quinn, even though it was really none of his business. I just had to invite him to the party; I didn't need to tell him my brother personally gave me the invitations himself. "It's going to be a stressful couple of weeks with him here."

I knew I'd have to help with all the set up for the party, since Simon was hopeless and he'd always praised my organization skills. This just meant I'd get less time to study or see my friends.

Quinn gave me a look. "Having fun?" he asked me, and even though the answer was yes, I couldn't bring myself to answer that right away.

"Why do you even care?" I asked, a little bitchier than I had meant to.

Quinn shrugged. "I care about you," he told me, as if it was the easiest thing for him to say, a very serious look on his face.

It was a little hard for me to believe him. Sure, we were friends, but he never seemed to care about me that much, since he was always joking around.

"Simon compared me to Ivy," I found myself blurting, a little surprised that this was what had come out of my mouth, and not any of my concern for the party. Had this been what I was really stressing about? "He said that we're similar, but I don't see it."

Quinn shot me a look. "You're kidding me."

"Maybe we have a few things in common," I shrugged, since this was something that was pretty obvious and I couldn't deny. "But that doesn't mean that everything with the two of us is the same."

I mean, my brother had been in love with her for most of their lives. That would have been a little weird. And even though she had liked Jack before she started dating Eli, that didn't mean that I would like Luke before someone else necessarily. Other than that, were our situations really that similar? Was it just because we were the person that was closest to the Lost Boys outside of the four of them? That was the only reason I could think of that I'd agree with.

"You seem upset that the two of you are alike," Quinn commented, and it annoyed me that he was able to see through me so easily. "Why's that?"

Honestly, I didn't really know the answer right off the bat. I just knew that it bothered me, for some reason. Beside the obvious fact that my brother had been in love with her, it wasn't like Ivy was a bad person. But she'd gone through a lot of struggles that I had never had to face, and hoped that I'd never have to. It felt a little unfair to compare us like that in any way.

"There's nothing wrong with being like Ivy," Quinn continued, and the more he thought about it, the more it didn't seem like much of an actual issue. "She's cool."

He was right, but I hadn't always liked Ivy. When I was younger and she had babysat me, I initially disliked her because I'd thought that she was stringing my brother along, added to the fact that I thought I was too old to have a babysitter. But then she had taught me how to cook, and treated me like I was her equal. It was too hard to dislike her after that.

Thinking about it more and more, I began to think that was bothering me so much was that Ivy was well known for dating one Lost Boy before going on to date another. That must have been what was bothering me about this so much, like it felt as if people were saying this because they saw something that I didn't. And it really bothered me when people tried to act like they knew me better than I knew myself.

And... I couldn't help but feel a little intimidated. Ivy had always seemed so strong and independent, and I didn't feel like that at all. Being compared to her made me feel inadequate, and like I wasn't as good as she was. But I probably would have looked ridiculous if I ever said that out loud.

Before I could speak up and say that being like Ivy wasn't so bad, loud yelling and cheering grabbed our attentions from down the hall and around the corner. Quinn and I just stood there for a moment, listening. We knew what these sounds were from.

"It's a fight," I commented, stating the obvious. "You don't think it's...?"

Quinn let out a sigh. "Nine out of ten times it is."

We rushed down the hall, stopping around the corner and peeking around it to see just what was going on. It was complete chaos, with our classmates circled around whoever was fighting, hooping and hollering like it was some kind of show. And yet Quinn and I didn't move from our spots, even though he had the power to stop all of them by just uttering a word.

It would have been useless trying to stop the fight anyway, since it took only a few seconds for the hollering of our classmates to finally stop as someone was dragged out of the circle, completely disheveled and beaten to a pulp. I was too far away to see who it was or what kind of shape he was really in, but clearly it wasn't the best since he was being helped away by two other students.

It was easier to see now that the circle was no longer closed tightly around who had been fighting. It was now very clear that the other person who had been apart of this debacle was Keegan, just like Quinn and I had thought.

I let out a sigh and moved back around the corner, leaning up against the wall. Why did he always think that he could solve all his problems from fighting? He wasn't always going to be able to get away with it!

"What the hell is wrong with you?" was the first thing I heard clearly now that no one was cheering anymore, and the voice was so eerily familiar that I froze. Forcing myself to look back around the corner, I could see that it was Skyler who was shouting at Keegan. "Why the hell did you just attack that guy?"

Keegan's face was only slightly bruised, but his nose and lip were bleeding, so I assumed that was where most of his opponent's blows landed. "You didn't see how that guy was looking at you!" he argued back.

"I don't care how he was looking at me!" Skyler was shaking, her hands balled into fists at her side. "Just because you can get away with whatever you want at this school doesn't mean you can just go fight random guys!"

"Actually," Keegan seemed to think out loud, rubbing his bloody chin. "I think it does."

Skyler had clearly had enough of this. "Just leave me alone!" she shouted, turning away and darting off without looking back.

Keegan looked like he wanted to go after her, but thought better of it and stayed put. He then turned to the array of students who had been watching the fight and scowled at them. They all began to scatter, afraid of what may happen if Keegan were to single them out in the crowd. Out of all the Lost Boys, he was the one that no one wanted to get into a fight with the most.

Quinn and I took this opportunity to make our way closer to our friend now that the crowd had dispersed and he was there alone. Quinn had been dealing with this kind of behavior from Keegan for years, so he knew that he could approach him after a fight without having to worry about getting hit. It took me a few years to realize that Keegan considered me a good enough of a friend that I was in no danger of getting hit either.

"Hey," was all Quinn said, obviously having no idea what he was supposed to say.

Keegan nodded at his best friend. "Hey."

He turned away from us slightly to spit blood out onto the ground, but I was disgusted to see that there was more than just blood as one of his molars went with it.

"Keegan!" I gasped, unable to take a second look at the bloody tooth on the ground.

He simply wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "If you think that's bad, you should see the other guy."

I could only imagine. I'd seen Keegan in a lot of fights, and he never came out as bad as whoever he had been in the fight with. If Keegan was spitting out one tooth, whoever he fought was probably spitting out ten.

Quinn let out a sigh from beside me. "This isn't the first tooth of his that's been knocked out."

"I'd say maybe a third of them are fake at this point," the bruised Lost Boy shrugged, seemingly unfazed by it all. I'd always known that Keegan could get violent when he was angry, but I never knew it had gotten to the point that he had fake teeth. "What's is matter, though? I've got the money to fix them."

I felt my eye twitch at his lazy attitude, once again thinking that money would help fix everything. And yet no matter how much money he had, he still couldn't get Skyler to like him. But I'd never dare say that out loud to him.

"You need to calm down, Keeg," I advised, though I knew he hated when anyone tried to talk him out of his violent ways. "Skyler clearly doesn't like it when you act this way, yet you keep doing it anyway."

Keegan hated to hear that Skyler didn't like him the way that he liked her, and if I had been anyone else beside a Lost Boy, I probably would have gotten punched just for saying that. But Keegan only sighed in frustration, running a hand through his sweat-matted hair.

"I'm gonna be in the meeting room," he announced, turning away from us and stalking off to the large, lounge-like room that only the Lost Boys were allowed in, except by invitation. Though the boys had said I was free to come in whenever I pleased, I'd yet to step foot inside. It was weird to think four teenage boys had their own room to hang out in at school.

"I'll catch up to you," Quinn called out to his friend.

Keegan waved over his shoulder at us as he continued to make his way down the hall, not turning back.

Quinn and I just stood there for a moment, silent. I stared down at the carpet below us, stained with the blood of whoever Keegan had fought. I wondered if any of it could have been his, but I highly doubted it. Beside what he'd spit out afterwards, if his opponent even landed any blows, Keegan hardly ever bled during fights.

"He needs to learn to control his temper or Skyler's never going to like him back," I sighed, turning away from the mess so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore. "He's driving her farther and farther away."

Quinn shrugged. "There's nothing we can do. That's just how he is."

"He's one of your best friends," I tried to reason, as if this was information that Quinn somehow forgot. "Can't you tell him to ease up a little bit with the jealousy?"

"I can't really be the one to scold him in that department," Quinn muttered, turning away from the blood stains on the carpet and making his way back toward his locker. I followed after him.

"And why's that?" I asked, unable to help myself. "Are you saying that you're even worse with jealousy than Keegan is?"

Quinn said nothing to this, simply spinning the dial on his locker and opening it, shuffling through the contents inside without really knowing what he was looking for.

"Huh," I blinked. "I never would have thought."

This seemed to strike a nerve with Quinn, who suddenly slammed his locker shut, causing me to jump. "And why not?" he snapped. "I'm a man. It's natural I get jealous."

I guess he was right. I got jealous all the time, and I'd seen plenty of people deal with the unpleasant feeling. I guess it was unfair of me to think that Quinn never suffered from it.

"Are you ever going to tell me who this girl is that you like?" I hadn't really meant to ask it, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. "We're friends, aren't we? Maybe I could help you."

Quinn laughed without humor, turning away. "You'd think so, huh?"

He started off away from me again, and this time I decided not to follow after him. Pressuring him was not going to be the way to get him to come clean about who he liked. But who could it have been? I rarely ever saw him around girls that he seemed interested in.

"Quinn, wait!" I suddenly called out.

He stopped, going rigid. I jogged up to him, rummaging through my backpack before I found what I was supposed to have given him earlier on.

"Here." I handed him the invitation, and he seemed completely dumbfounded by me. "This is an invitation for May's birthday party. It's a big, fancy party. So dress nice."

He rolled his eyes at me, and I felt a little silly for saying that to the richest boy in the entire school. The last thing he needed to worry about was looking good.

He continued away, and this time I didn't stop him, since I had done what I needed to do. I most likely wouldn't have gotten any information out of a conversation with him anyway.

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So I started writing this chapter like... two months ago? I think? I wrote about 1/3 of it and I was basically just so drunk when I did it and it was just a mess and then it sat in my word document for these two months untouched until I finally decided to edit the monstrosity I had created

If you guys are interested in reading my drunk interpretation of this chapter, let me know. Maybe I'll post it on my second account or something lol.

Also the song attached has absolutely nothing to do with anything but I watched Shane's series on Jeffree Star and when they played his music it reminded me of how I'd listen to this song on repeat when writing my old stories like Off to Neverland so I started listening to it again and look, here's a new chapter.

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN!