Logan smashes your headlights.

It's a fairly regular occurrence at this point: He antagonizes you; you put a bong in his locker to be found by the administration; he smashes out your headlights. It's always the same, even when the circumstances are different. Just variations on a theme.

Weevil, however, changes things.

It's not that you don't appreciate the gesture of the PCHers beating up Enemy No. 1. In fact, a little part of you enjoys watching him suffer the way you have.

But the short and long of it is that you can never bear to watch Logan get into a fight. It reminds you too much of the way your life used to be. Weevil throws him to the ground and you see fourteen year old Logan, earning himself a black-eye for defending you against Tom Meyer's usual leer and uncomfortable catcalls. Weevil throws a punch at his stomach and you see worse things: Logan on your porch begging you not to ask question just to sit with him for a while; scars on the delicate part of his wrist; the terrified way he would flinch whenever his father would touch him.

These are things you don't talk about, not anymore, but they are still there, in the back of your mind.

So you say, "Stop it!"

You say, "I don't want his apology."

(You do. Oh, you do. But not for this. This is par for the course. This is all in a day's work. This, in some sick, twisted way you'll never admit, is almost fun.)

He's glaring at you in the hallway the next day. "This doesn't mean we're friends, you know," he sneers, storming away before you can answer.

You grin, just a little.

It sounds like a promise.