"Rena, what's wrong? You've been down all day," Aly said as they reached their lockers. "Did something happen?"

Rena put all her books into her locker and shut the door. Aly raised an eyebrow at how she basically tossed her books in.

"Aly," Rena said, looking down at her hands. "I-I ... do y-you think I'm a bad fr-friend?"

Rena had never been more thankful that basketball practice was starting, so there was no chance of Edward encountering them in the hallway.

"Hey, hey, hey, where exactly did that come from?" Aly finished stacking her books up and closed her own locker door. "You are not a bad friend. Did anyone say that to you? Tell me who it is, and I'll go yell at them for you."

Rena's head snapped up in panic. "No! No, it's not like that ... Y-yesterday, E-Edward a-a-asked me..."

"What did he ask?" The concern on Aly's face would've warmed her heart at any other time, but not today.

Unwelcome tears sprang to Rena's eyes. She fought to keep them from falling, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands.

"Rena..." Aly held her shoulders and peered worriedly at her face. "Do you want to talk about this somewhere else?"

❀

They ended up going to Aly's home.

Yawning, Dani stretched out its body as it lay on Aly's lap. Rena tried to focus on the cuteness of Aly's black cat instead of on the multitude of questions racing through her mind.

"So ... what happened?" Aly broached the topic with a cautious tone.

Aly's consideration for her was something Rena was always thankful for. She was always there for her when she needed it—except for in biology, and who cares since Aly is the one who needs me more in that subject—and never pushed too hard.

"Ed-Edward asked me w-what I l-liked about hi-him," Rena finally choked out after a long lull of silence in the room.

The way Aly's jaw fell would have been comical if Rena hadn't been so broken over her own response to Edward.

"What?"

"I know," Rena said, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue Aly had offered her.

A whole new box of Kleenex sat on the bed in between them.

"It's n-not even the f-first time."

She hated the way her stutter had started to clutter her speech again. Thinking about this matter seemed to have that effect on her.

"What?" Aly's hand froze midair.

Dani meowed and pawed at her hand, trying to will it back into stroking her back.

"And e-every single time I co-couldn't answer," Rena said, swallowing hiccups that intruded unpleasantly upon her lungs.

"You got nervous, didn't you?"

Rena nodded, feeling her shoulders sag in relief at the sympathy in Aly's voice.

"It's only normal," Aly said, nodding sagely. "Even I would freak out if I were put on the spot like that."

The words so of course you would freeze up, Rena remained unspoken but hung uncomfortably in the air.

She kept promising herself to work on actually talking to Edward, but every time he asked her that question, her brain just shut down.

"So he already knew that you like him," Aly said, picking up a pink cat feather toy to distract Dani with. "I wonder how he knew."

"Ma-maybe I was too obvious," Rena said, trying not to choke on her words. "I-I'm always trying to a-approach him, to gi-give him bread, to talk to him ..."

Up until the arcade trip, Edward hadn't shown any real indication of wanting to spend time with her and getting to know her. She had always been the one to make the first move. She shouldn't be surprised if it was glaringly obvious to him, short of neon signage that said SERENA WILTON LIKES CHRISTOPHER EDWARD CARVELLIA.

Aly shook her head. "But who asks questions like that? It's not like he's your boyfriend—yet—or anything like that. Of course it'd become awkward. I didn't expect Edward to ask you something like that."

Rena had been delighted a few days ago that they had made some progress, that her weeks of initiating conversations with him, offering him bread and pastries at lunch, and generally trying to make her presence in his life be known had finally started paying off. They had even been having real conversations, ones which he started and kept going even when she fell into silence. Now, his coldness was back in full force and their conversations had returned to question-and-answer sessions.

Looking at the bracelet on her hand only reminded her of the opportunities she had lost when she failed to answer his intimidating question for the second time.

"I-I should have answered," she said, averting her gaze from the gift he had given her. "W-we're finally friends now. D-do you think I'm a bad friend for not replying?"

It was her chance.

It was her chance to let him know how much she liked him, and all she did was let it slip through her fingers.

"Of course not," Aly said reassuringly, moving around to pat her on the back. "It was an awkward question to begin with. It's not like he asked you out. Wait, did he?"

To Rena's surprise, she realized that she didn't know what she would have answered him if he had. For all that she had been crushing on him since elementary school, she had never thought of a scenario in which Edward would ask her out. The sobering realization that maybe she wasn't ready—they had only just started to get to know each other again as friends—stopped her tears.

"No, no, he didn't," she said. "He just ... asked why I l-liked him, is all."

Aly laughed a little and bumped shoulders with her, mostly to ease the tension in the room. "I'd hope that if Edward asked you out, you would tell me without me having to pry it out of you!"

Chuckling, Rena nodded her head. "Of course. You'll be the first one I tell."

"Honestly, what was he thinking?" Aly put her hands on her hips, the effect of which was lessened by the fact that she was sitting cross-legged on her bed. "I should give him a piece of my mind for making you cry!"

"No, Aly, please don't!" Rena said in horror.

Aly reluctantly relented after a few more moments of Rena's strong emphasis that she had better not do anything of the sort. Part of it, Rena suspected, was also because Aly wanted to spare her any potential embarrassment that could arise from it. The last thing Rena wanted was for anyone else to find out about these awkward moments between her and Edward.

She would never hear the end of it from Naomi and Samantha. She couldn't imagine if Edward happened to overhear them teasing her about it in class or at lunch. Just the idea of it made her face turn hot.

❀

When Rena got home, she went straight up to her room. She pulled the bracelet off her wrist and placed it in her bottom desk drawer. It contained all her childhood memorabilia except for the photo albums. She hardly ever needed to open it.

Out of sight, out of mind, she told herself, forcing herself to inhale deeply and close her eyes.

She could still recall every detail of his face. The blueness of his eye that made her feel like she was falling through the sky whenever they locked eyes, the golden blond of his hair that shone as brightly as rays of sunlight, the entranced expression on his face whenever she offered him a pastry he couldn't resist ... they were all etched deeply into her brain.

Why was it so hard to clear her mind?

"Does love really need a reason?"

---------------------------------------------------------

AN: ok quick disclaimer here alright? Obviously I want Rena/Seb so I need to tweak Rena's thinking a bit. The real Rena apparently thinks nothing of initiating everything between her and Ed BUT I AM NOT SATISFIED WITH THAT. So this is obviously my fan version of Rena and I'm borrowing Aly to speak my thoughts, pls forgive if too OOC or too angsty. Ok that is all ty for reading <3