I was walking to school that Monday morning when a car stops on me. The window rolls down and before I could see who was inside, I recognized that it was Cole's car right away.

"I tried to call you but you weren't answering," he says. "Hop on in."

"I'd rather walk," I decline but he just frowns.

"Get inside or I'll do it by force," he threatens.

"I'll accuse you of rape," I say and he just smirks.

"You call that rape when Avery actually kissed you a week ago?" he says and I just got inside of his car. "I knew that would make the argument shorter," he mumbles, ever so sure of himself.

"Why are you so popular around school," I ask and he just chuckles.

"I honestly don't know."

What a modest ass.

When we finally arrived, I got out of the car right away and started to walk away but someone suddenly taps me on the shoulder from behind.

"Hey, Chelsea," he says.

"Levi," I blurt, my voice sounding surprised.

"I'm sorry, did I scare you?" he asks and I just shake my head.

"Chelsea? That's Amelia, man!" Cole chimes in, man hugging Levi, the awkward thing guys do where they grab hands and just bump into each other.

"Amelia? Her name's Chelsea," Levi corrects Cole and I can feel Cole's confused gaze at me.

My knees started trembling. What am I supposed to tell them now?

"Chelsea? As in the girl, I told you about before?" Levi tells Cole.

"O-oh, yeah, Chelsea," Cole just says. "So, uhm, what are you guys talking about?" he asks, looking from me to Levi.

"Nothing, really," Levi admits. "I just wanted to invite her to lunch later," he says.

"She's eating lunch with me, bro," Cole says, putting an arm around my shoulders.

"No way! You could eat lunch with your other girls," Levi says and I can feel Cole's arm stiffen.

"I don't have 'other girls'," Cole says.

"Oh, yeah? Then what do you call those girls fangirling over you from far away?" Levi challenges, pointing to a bunch of girls staring at Cole and glaring at me. I pull away from Cole's arm.

"Shut up, Levi, if you want to eat lunch with her, you better eat lunch with me as well," Cole says and Levi just rolls his eyes.

"Whatever," he says before walking away. Cole faces me and furrows his eyebrows.

"Why don't you tell him that your name's Amelia and not Chelsea?" he asks me.

"I was about to tell him before but he didn't bother listening!" I reason out.

"Chelsea's your sister, right?" he asks.

"How do you know her?" I say, swallowing nervously. He was suddenly caught off guard but he immediately regained his composure by laughing.

"Just an instinct," he says. "Was I right?" he asks and I nod. "I think I can already become a fortune-teller," he jokes but instead of laughing, I turn to walk away.

I was blocked by the girl named Paula on my way to my first class.

"I need to tell you something," she whispers before grabbing me to the end of the hallway. When we finally reached the end of the hallway, she turns to face me. "There's a rumor about you and Avery kissing in his car."

I look at her with horror. I can feel my palms sweating so I shakily wipe it against my jeans.

"From whom did you hear it?" I ask her and she thinks about this.

"Just some random girl," she says. "I just overheard," she adds.

"It's not true," I tell her.

"Yeah?" she says.

"Yes," I say.

"Well, I did tell the girl that you weren't the type of girl who would do such thing," she says. "Or at least you seem like that type of girl."

"Thank you," I say and she beams at me.

"Just helping out my dear Chelsea's sister," she winks. "Hey, want to come over at my place today?"

"Uhm—"

"Don't you dare reject my offer. I only ask people I like and I only like about," she counts on her fingers, stating a name on each finger, "seven people." She shows seven fingers to me and I nod.

"O-okay, sure, I'll come over," I say just so that she'd stop talking.

"Good!" she says and gives me a kiss on the cheek. "Let me walk you to your first class."

When classes ended, Paula found me right away. She pulls me to her car and we drove to her place. We arrived at an apartment.

"Do you live alone?" I ask her as we went inside.

"Yes," she says.

"Where are your parents?" I say and she sighs.

"My mom's dead, my dad has another family but he provides my financial needs," she answers.

"I'm sorry," I say and she just nods.

"So, how did you cope up with Chelsea being gone and all that?" this time it was her turn to ask.

"I actually didn't," I admit.

"What do you mean?"

She invites me to her room and I walked inside. Her room was filled with band posters and her bed was unmade.

"I still haven't coped up with it yet," I explain and she nods.

"I know what it feels like. What it feels like to be robbed of the most special person in your life," she says, her voice turning soft.

"How long were you living alone?" I change the subject.

"Ever since my mom died," she says. "Which was a year ago," she informs me. "I knew that my dad had another family or more like I sensed that he had one but he decided to keep it from us. When my mom died, the other family showed up at her funeral. That's when dad told me to join their family but I declined right away."

She jumps on her bed as I sit on the side since there wasn't any other place I could sit on aside from the floor.

"I told him that I'd just live alone as long as he'd pay for everything and he agreed," she continues, hugging a pillow to her chest.

"What does it feel like to live alone?" I ask her.

"It feels nice but sometimes it feels so lonely," she replies. "It's nice when I feel like I just want to be alone but it's lonely when I suddenly remember my mom."

I can hear the sadness in her voice so I place my hand over hers and give her a small smile.

"I understand what you feel," I say and she returns the smile. She sits up and squeezes my cheeks.

"The first time I saw you, I sensed the sadness in your eyes right away," she says. "That's why I decided to talk to you."

She drives me to my house and when I got inside, mom was looking at me with concerned eyes.

"Where were you?" she asks her hands on her hips. "You're supposed to be home at 4! Look at the time!"

I look at my watch, it was already 9. I wasn't able to keep track of the time because of Paula's talkativeness.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Where were you?" mom repeats.

"I was at my friend's place," I tell her.

"Why weren't you answering your phone?" she says and I check my phone.

"I have an empty battery," I say, showing the phone to her. "I'm sorry," I repeat.

"We'll talk about this more tomorrow, for now, get some dinner," she says.

"Where's dad?" I ask.

"He's already asleep," she says.

I got inside the dining room and started to eat dinner. Mom sits across me, drinking a glass of water. She places the glass down.

"Hey," she says. I lift my eyes to meet hers. "I heard something from Avery the other day."

I stared at her, not moving an inch.

"How could you do that to your sister?"