I nervously walked down the hallway with Cole by my side. Almost every person in school greets him and whenever they do, I can't help but notice the way they look at me. When we finally reached my locker, Cole turned to face me, his face flushed.

"So, what do you think of Gilbert High?" he asks me, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Fine, I guess," I reply shortly. I open my locker which was empty. I check the locker beside mine. There has a lock on it, it has an owner. This was supposed to be Chelsea's. I place my hand on the door and I can feel Cole's gaze on me.

I remove my hand away and start to fill my locker with school stuff and random stuff. I close it and put on the lock before facing Cole. He was still staring at me and I just clear my throat. At this, he finally comes to his senses and laughs awkwardly.

"Wanna go to our first class?" he offers. Out of the seven classes, we have every day, Cole and I only have three classes together. The first one is English, then History, and Math.

"Uhm, sure. But I think your fans are waiting for you to notice them over there," I say, gesturing to a group of girls who won't stop looking at Cole's back profile. Cole turns around to look at them and that's when they looked away.

"I don't think they're my fans," Cole chuckles and I just roll my eyes.

"Yeah, right," I mumble.

"What?" he says, turning to face me once again.

"Nothing," I say and he just scrunches his face. "Let's just go to the first period," I suggest and he immediately drops off the subject.

We were walking to our first class when a girl suddenly approached us.

"Cole!" she exclaims, throwing her arms around his neck. I can clearly see that Cole was surprised but he gained his composure right away.

"Hey, Paula," he says, his voice still sounding surprised. He places one of his arms around her waist lightly. The girl pulls away and Cole removes his arm around her as well.

"Let's skip the first class," the girl says and Cole just laughs at this. "Hey, I'm serious, though!" the girl pouts and I cringe. The girl looks at me and furrows her eyebrows. "Who are you?" she asks.

When I don't say anything, Cole introduces me.

"Her name is Amelia, Amelia Young," he says and the girl's face lights up.

"I know you!" she says, clapping her hands. "Oh, wait, you're not the Young I know. You're the sister," she says. She mentions the 'sister' like it was a curse.

"You know her sister?" Cole asks. I look from him to the girl nervously. I wish the earth just swallows me whole right now.

"Yeah, but I heard—" the girl stops looking at me considerately. "Wait, I think I heard someone call me," she says. If only I weren't so nervous, I would've given her a smile but I can feel how fast my heartbeat is going. She turns around after saying goodbye.

Cole looks at me and I didn't bother to look back, instead, I walk to my first class, having no idea where it was. Cole catches up with me.

"Do you know Paula?" he asks me and I just shake my head. "She knows your sister, though, why is that?" he continues and I just shrug my shoulders. He places his hand on one of my shoulders and stops me from walking. I turn around to face him.

"What?" I say, my patience running out.

"Are you hiding something from me?" he says.

"Who are you for me to not keep secrets from?" I snap and his eyes widen.

"Okay. I'm sorry," he mutters. I turn to my heel and start walking. "It's this way," Cole says when I just walked straight. I turned to go where he was pointing at without saying anything to him.

I sat on one of the vacant chairs on the back and hung my backpack on the back of the chair in front of me. To my surprise, Cole sits down beside me.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he says and I feel guilty.

"I-it's fine," I mumble. "I'm sorry, too," I add and he just smiles at me.

The door opens and when I look at the person who came in, I clench my jaw right away. I met his eyes and he smiles at me. I look away instantly.

He goes to the vacant seat next to me and seats himself.

"Morning, Amelia," he greets and I just look at him. "What a coincidence we're in the same class," he says and I just narrow my eyes at him. He ruffles my hair and I flick his hand away. "Grumpy old cat," he comments and I ignore this.

Cole notices this and looks from me to Avery.

"What's up, Beckett," Avery says.

"Hey," Cole simply says. "I didn't notice you here the past few months," he adds and Avery just brushes this off.

"You're such a Mr. Popular after all," he says and Cole's jaw drops at this. "You've seen it, right, Amelia?" He looks at me and I don't know why I replied.

"Yeah, he sure is Mr. Popular," I say. Cole gives me a dirty look while Avery beams at me.

At lunch break, a lot of guys and girls invited Cole to have lunch with them. Cole turned down all of them and instead, invited me to eat lunch with him. Before going to the cafeteria, I told him I'd come to the washroom first.

When I entered the girl's washroom, I stumbled upon the girl whose name was Paula.

"Hey, Chelsea's sister," she says as I wash my hands.

"Hi," I say.

"Not much of a talker, huh?" she says, walking closer to me. "You're definitely Chelsea's opposite," she comments.

"Yeah," I say.

"You look exactly like her, though," she adds, examining my face through the mirror.

"I don't think so," I object. "She's way prettier."

"What? I think you're even prettier than her, don't tell her, though," she says and I look at her with wide eyes.

Doesn't she know?

"So, is it true?" she suddenly says as I remove my hands from under the faucet.

"What's true?" I ask and she just sighs.

"That she died last summer?" she says and I can feel my vision becoming blurry. "I mean, I only knew her when summer started. There was this one time we went to different parties in three days," she tells me. "So, is it true?" she repeats.

"Where did you get that information?" I say, my voice was quite trembling.

"I heard it from her boyfriend. What was his name again? Everest?" she says, completely clueless. I almost laughed at how she got his name wrong but I can't bring myself to do so.

"Avery," I correct her and she starts laughing so hard. She stops when she realizes she was the only one laughing.

"Yeah, right, that Avery guy," she says, wiping tears that escaped from her eyes because of laughing. "I remember how I can't believe that they were dating," she adds. "They honestly don't look good together."

I agree with that.

"Hey, you're not answering my question, Chelsea's sister," she says.

"What question?" I ask, acting innocent.

"Is it true that Chelsea's dead?" she repeats.

"Y-yes," I finally say and she gasps, putting her hand over her mouth.

"I'm s-sorry. I thought it was just some shit I heard from Avery because they broke up or something," she says.

"Well, it's not," I say, trying to keep my voice calm and steady.

"I truly am sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for forcing it out of you. It's just because I heard Avery say "Chelsea is already gone" one time and I thought they just stopped dating," she adds.

"It's fine, it's not your fault," I say, even though I can feel my legs quivering.

"You can talk to me if you want. I'm Paula by the way," she says, extending her hand.

"Amelia," I say, taking her hand and shaking it.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Chelsea's sister, I mean, Amelia," she says and adds, "Chelsea had been flexing you to us ever since we met. "She's the prettiest girl I ever met", I remember her say," she stops and flashes me a smile.

"She's not mistaken, though," she says before leaving the washroom.

Chelsea actually said that?

I look at myself in the mirror.

"I don't think so, Chelsea," I whisper to myself. When someone suddenly flushes the toilet, I immediately walk out of the washroom.

Shit, someone was there. She might have heard our conversation.