Taylor was pretty pathetic at gym. It didn't matter if it were the laps she was supposed to run at the start of class (she didn't) or this game of badminton she was supposed to be winning (she wasn't), she was just fucking atrocious. She knew that wasn't her fault, that it was better if she took things slow, but it was definitely humiliating.

It was her and Rachel against Logan and Zach. They'd already lost the set 0-2, but they were losing their third game 6-17 just to fill time. It was Logan's serve, but he was just standing there talking to Zach. Taylor couldn't pretend to be annoyed.
Rachel couldn't pretend not to be.

"I just don't get what she wants me to do," Zach whined. "I mean, nothing happened! I already said 'sorry.'"

"I don't know, dude. Juliet's all about drama, I think-"

"Hey assholes!" Rachel clearly was done listening, shifting from lazy foot-tapping to planting her feet. "It's your serve. Are you too tired from getting your asses kicked?"

Zach and Logan glanced at each other, then Zach said, "Dude, we already won."

Rachel twirled her racket in her hands. "Not this match, you haven't."

The banter on who had or hadn't already won continued for a bit, but Taylor got tired of looking over at the huge football players when she should be looking literally anywhere else. Juliet and Dana were playing their own, apparently much more competitive game of badminton on the other side of the gym. Juliet was way, way more upset about all of this than Zachary was, but she wasn't stopping gym just to talk about it.

A tap on Taylor's shoulder brought her back to the game.

"C'mon T, just 14 consecutive points and we're back in this."
Rachel was always doing this thing where she tried to brush back her hair so it wouldn't cover her earring. However, she put her hair up for gym class, so the tic did nothing - which did nothing to stop Taylor from self-consciously mirroring her.

"I'm actually pretty sure we lost," Taylor replied.

"Thank you," Zach replied, gesturing across the net. Rachel's face pinched in displeasure and Taylor tried to pretend she wasn't disgusted at this praise-punishment pairing.

"Ugh, whatever, just serve already."

"Fine."

Logan served, obviously not trying his hardest, and Rachel launched herself forward, not even really letting the birdie over the net before spiking it back down on the boys' side of the net.

"Oh! What?! Thirteen points left?" Rachel popped her gym shirt. "Easy."

Logan shrugged. "Whatever."

As soon as they were in the locker room, Rachel had questions.

"So, what the fuck was up with Zach today, do you know? He was like 37% bitchier than normal."

Taylor shrugged, tugging off her lock and dropping it in the locker. Rachel always tried to maintain conversation while they were changing, so Taylor would just use the few inches of locker door as a barrier. Rachel never seemed to mind, or even really notice.

"I don't know? Being Zach? He's a bitch."

That, of course, was a lie. Not only did Taylor know exactly why Zach was acting like that, she was instrumental in effecting this increase in bitchiness. It had been her idea, after all, for Victoria to sext Zach - the added step of blaming it on Dana, though, had been all Victoria. Taylor was quick to get her hands dirty, but she wasn't good at it the way Victoria was.

"Well, yeah, like, sure, but he just seemed a little Extra today, you know? And I think Logan said it had something to do with Juliet and - oh hey Danny!"

Rachel's arm waved up above the barrier of the locker, and Taylor spun around. Dana was coming in later than most everyone else, making her way down the outside aisle of the locker. Her face was pinched and her eyes distant, but when she caught sight of Rachel and Taylor, she raised her hand to wave.
At least, until her eyes finally locked with Taylor's. They kept that faraway look, but her mouth twisted into a frown, and slowly, her arm dropped back down. Taylor's heart thudded in her chest in response, in disappointment.

Dana walked on towards her locker in the next row. Taylor finally felt released, finding herself wringing her regular shirt in her hands.

"Huh," Rachel said, resuming changing, "she seems pretty tired. I hope Jule's not giving her a hard time again."

Taylor held her reply until her shirt was on, and she started rubbing her arms for warmth. "Yeah. Me too."

It was always a warning sign when Victoria wanted to have lunch on the steps. It wasn't exactly super comfortable nor super warm, so there was always a reason when they chilled here. Usually, that reason involved catching someone specific going into or out of the dorms. Today, Taylor was pretty certain she knew who that was. Or maybe . . .?

"God, Max is such an entitled bitch. Today, in class, she was sleeping, just fucking conked out, and when she finally wakes up, Jefferson is just like 'Oh, she has a gift.'"
Courtney quirked her eyebrows down in apparently disbelief. It was always pretty impressive - she had the most intensely over-expressive eyebrows Taylor had ever seen, although they mostly seemed to express surprise.
"No, seriously," Victoria replied; "Tay, tell her. Does Max do anything in class?"

It probably wasn't a serious question, but Taylor still took a moment to think back. Max? Not really. "I mean . . . she took a selfie in class yesterday. That's about it."
Victoria had developed a serious case of stick-up-the-ass about Max Caulfield recently. Sure, anyone who rolled with Rachel Amber tended to mocked relentlessly, but Max seemed particularly targeted. Taylor wondered why. She hadn't exactly been making waves.

"Yeah! And she still got praised for it! It's bullshit."

Courtney leaned back against one of the pillars while Taylor fished out a roll of Ritz from her bag. Victoria glanced at the package for a second before looking in her own bag for something to eat. Courtney pulled out a sandwich, Victoria a muffin that looked like it had been nabbed from the cafeteria.
It was a rule: if Taylor ate, the others would eat with her. She appreciated how they remembered.

Courtney hummed for a second after her first bite, but then she said, "Maybe she's fucking him. Jefferson."

"What?" Victoria asked. "Caulfield?" Then she broke out laughing.
Taylor made a point to laugh too, although she really didn't find that funny. She mostly found it really, really gross.

"Oh, god no. No, I don't think Max has that in her - she's not like Rachel. Whatever Mark's fascination is with her, it looks pretty one-sided." Victoria shook her head before biting her muffin. For some reason, she looked genuinely pleased by Courtney's comment.

Courtney picked up on that, too, and it just encouraged her, "Oh, Mr. Jefferson, I'm sorry I couldn't turn in my Everyday Heroes photo, but here's one of me getting double penetrated by Rachel and Chloe. I hope you . . ." Courtney looked Victoria up and down in what Taylor assumed was her best attempt at a seductive glance, leaning forward while Victoria giggled into the back of her hand. ". . . like it," she whispered, and Taylor snorted.

Courtney actually sounded a lot like Max for some reason, so her impression was spot-on. That's what made the scenario way grosser, and apparently what was making Victoria hang her head down as she laughed.

"Is, uh, Chloe the blue one?" Taylor pointed to her hair. "The one always hanging around campus?"

Courtney leaned back against the pillar with a satisfied smirk. "Yeah, that's her. She used to go to a lot of Vortex Club parties up until like a year ago." Courtney took a bite out of her sandwich, and Victoria was finally recovering from laughing. Once her head was back up, though, Victoria's eyes snapped right to someone approaching the steps.

Juliet.

Taylor turned her attention back towards Courtney and said, "Well, I guess Chloe stopped coming because she found out about us."

Courtney's eyes and eyebrows suggested way too much surprise for what Taylor was sure was incidental curiosity, and Vic turned her head away from Juliet, head cocked in question.

Taylor's eyes opened wide and she said, "She figured out . . . that we're a cult."

And Taylor snorted at her own joke the instant it was out, cackling with laughter before the other two joined in.

Juliet paused in front of the dorm steps, waiting quietly while they laughed. There was no way she hadn't heard the joke. Taylor knew that was the point, but there was still a twinge of guilt when she let herself look up at Juliet's face.

It was flat, betraying only the signs of her impatience.

Victoria scooted out of the way. "Oh, sorry Juliet, I didn't mean to get in your way. I'm sure you have a very important article to write about the horrors of being best friends with a slut."

Juliet already had a foot on the first step, but she paused when Victoria went on. The way her feet were planted, Juliet's body faced Victoria with her back to Taylor, but Taylor could still clearly see how her hands tightened into fists, how she hunched over as if she were going to punch Victoria out.

Instead, she spat, "Fuck you, Victoria," and then marched into the dorm room with as much composure as possible.

Taylor and her friends laughed while she retreated into the dorms, but that twinge was morphing into a stabbing pain.

We hurt her. We hurt her a lot.

I hurt her.

When Taylor's laughter died away, she started to bite her nails, although they were long since worn away to nubs.

When lunch ended, Taylor still had to run upstairs to grab her photograph. She had waited until the last second to put something together for the Everyday Heroes contest, and she still hadn't taken the time to print it out. It was shit, anyway. Her only hope is that Max wouldn't turn a photo in at all, so she wouldn't be quite the worst in class.
God only knows she'd be the one to get shit for it, though. Never Max.

Speaking of Max, she was chatting with Rachel, descending the stairway as Taylor ascended. Either they hadn't noticed she was there, or they weren't paying her any mind.

"I honestly don't know what's gotten into Chloe this past cycle," Rachel said, "but it's not just you, I promise. She's been really snappy with Joyce, too. And me."

At this point, the three of them were on the same landing, but Rachel did nothing more than wave. Max didn't even seem to notice Taylor passing.

Max's head was hung low, eyes darting about as if trying to remember an answer. It was the look she always had in class, too. Maybe she was just permanently confused.

"Do you think . . . do you think it's because of me? I know she didn't expect me to come back into her life, especially like this, and I-"

"Oh, shush, Max. There's no one Chloe would rather team up with. She might just be feeling . . ." Max pushed open the steel door for Rachel, holding it open for her even though it was awkward. Taylor only caught the last few words before they were both gone: ". . . a little less special these days."

Max, Chloe, and Rachel. Courtney was right - it looks like they were a little trio. And it looks like they talked about each other behind each other's backs, too. Still, nothing about what they were saying felt particularly slimy, which was how it always felt when Victoria brought up Courtney. They just sounded concerned.

When Taylor emerged from her room a few minutes later, she noticed the door to Dana's room cracked a little. From the hall, she couldn't hear anything but low murmuring. So, naturally, she crept up to the corner of the door, peeking her head in just enough to hear through the crack between the door and its frame.

"I just don't get why I'm being punished! She's the bitch! They're the bullies. But Logan and Josh and all of Zach's friends are being mean to me. Like, what the hell? Why are guys like this?"

Juliet. Of course. She was always coming to Dana for stuff, and she was shit about closing doors.

There was a long sigh, and a sniffle. Dana and Juliet, respectively. Juliet cried so easily.

"I . . . I don't know, hun. That whole group - they're pigs. Bigfoots have big assholes."

There was choked laughter from inside. Taylor could see just a sliver of the room from here, but it was just the right sliver. Juliet was curled on the edge of Dana's bed, resting her head on Dana's shoulder. Dana still had that look in her eyes, beyond Juliet, beyond her room. Where was she? Not here.

"And no one? No one's mad at Victoria. Of course they're not. Nobody ever does shit to her, but she acts like it's time for guerrilla warfare 24/7. What did I even do to her?"

Dana's eyes were still looking past Juliet, but Taylor wasn't convinced they weren't here anymore. They had crept up steadily, peering through Taylor's crack in the door frame, and now Taylor wasn't so sure she was invisible.

Dana's mouth twisted in disgust. Taylor had been seen, but she didn't know how to move.

Dana said, "You didn't do anything. It's her. It's them. They stomp on people." She wasn't looking away, and Taylor wasn't either. "I think they're afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Juliet asked, but Taylor remained uncertain of the reply. She was going to be late for class, so very late for class. She couldn't keep being late.

Jefferson had barely even looked at Taylor's photo when she handed it in. She got a short 'thanks, Taylor' in acknowledgement, and then she was out of class. Victoria stayed behind, probably still in hopes of buttering Jefferson up on her entry (what chance did any of them have to win when Rachel was entering?).

Taylor had had enough of this day. She ducked into the girls' bathroom straight away, glad to find it empty. She didn't normally smoke without Victoria around, but it seemed like every hour just kept getting progressively shittier, and Taylor had made it through all five periods. It was time to check out.

She sat in the far-end stall, trying to think as little as possible. It wasn't working. For the few days that she and Victoria had been working together to write those sexts to Zachary (she would say back-and-forth, but he clearly had no fucking grasp of sex appeal or spelling), it had just seemed fun. Zachary was trash, and they were bagging up the trash. Letting Juliet in on what type of scumbag she was dating was just part of Taylor's eternal motto: dump him. Boys, especially boys like Zach, aren't worth a moment of anyone's time.

It was different when Victoria brought up the second part. Taylor still had no idea if she thought of it in the moment or had known she would do it the whole time. Tell Juliet about the messages, but say they were between Dana and Zach. That would make them look genuine. It would punish Juliet for stepping out of line, for calling out Nathan and Victoria in that stupid fucking article.

If Taylor was being honest with herself, part of her liked that part of the plan. Juliet was annoying. She was always butting into things that weren't her business. She called Max and Rachel 'dykes' as if no one could hear her. She was always crying in Dana's room. She was always so scathing about the drugs at Vortex Club parties, but she always got drunk like everyone else.
Juliet was under the impression that she could see everything, but not for one goddamn second could she seem to see herself.

It was just the other part that Taylor didn't like. The choice of scapegoat. It was obvious why it was the most painful - by having Dana and Zach betray Juliet at the same time, she had no one to go to. No one except the people who had let her in on what was happening, the ones who orchestrated the whole thing: Victoria and Taylor. It was clever. It was clever in a way that Taylor never was.

It almost worked, and Taylor didn't know if she felt sick knowing it could have worked, or that it didn't.

Now, now. Think less, smile more.
Taylor took her second hit, and although she knew it couldn't really be doing anything just yet, she felt better already. It always hit her strong, stronger than it reasonably should, and it made her feel warm, just a little bit dizzy.

She did her best to lean back, eyes closed. She knew it was futile to try and get comfortable on these toilet seats, but it didn't stop her from trying.

The door to the bathroom opened. In days gone by, that would have been enough to make her pull up her legs and hide, but she had long since stopped giving a shit.

Whoever it was, they went straight for the faucet. They turned the water on high, they let the water pool in their hands, and splashed water on their face.

Taylor wanted to take another hit, and then she'd be done. She just didn't want to do it with someone in here, so she rolled the glass a little between her fingers. It was pretty, really, the prettiest one she'd ever had - it was an obvious parody of the Moon Stick, and the glass was all pastel pinks and yellows. Taylor had been trying very hard not to break this one.

The door opened again, and Taylor at first did not think much of it. Not until the first pair of feet jumped, and Taylor realized who it was.

"Jesus, Zach!" Juliet cried. She took a step back, towards the stall Taylor was in.
Then, as the door closed, she spoke more quietly, "What the fuck are you doing in here?"

Now, now it was time for Taylor to pull up her legs. Fuck. She'd never imagined they'd have a confrontation right in front of her. That was much, much too real for her right now. She wasn't even high yet.

"No one, like, ever uses this bathroom."
God, if Zachary sounded dumb normally, he was twice as bad whenever he explained something.
"Besides, I need to talk to you."

Juliet's feet stopped retreating, planting themselves more firmly. "Well I need to not talk to you. Okay? Now get the fuck out."

"No, not okay. You stopped texting me back."

"That's because you cheated on me, asshole, and I had a fight with my best friend. It's a bigger deal for me to make up with her than you."

There was a hollow thud like Zach thumped himself on the chest. "Hey, I did not cheat on you. I would not do that. Besides, no one would sleep with Victoria - it's bad voodoo."

"Oh, well I'm glad that a curse can keep your dick out of Miss Rich Bitch, but excuse me if I don't feel the romance. I'm done, Zach."

Juliet made her way for the exit, but stumbled. Zach grabbed her.

Taylor flinched. Let her go, asshole.

Juliet seemed to be of the same mind: "Let me go, Zach. I'm done with this conversation."

There was nothing she could do, of course. Zach was huge, and Juliet hadn't yet learned that a swift kick to the groin will nullify most size advantages. For Juliet, boys weren't for fighting. At least, not in the same way.

"Hey, no, I'm not done talking to you. You've got to hear me out, all right?"

Taylor didn't like how this was going. Determined as she was to stay out of it, she couldn't stand to hear Zach talking to Juliet like this. It was Taylor and Victoria who had fucked up their relationship - Juliet didn't need to keep struggling. It wasn't her fault.
She stuck her pipe in a plastic baggy and shoved it in her bag, then dropped her feet back onto the tile.

"Zachary, get your hands OFF OF ME."

Taylor unlatched the stall door and stepped out. "You heard her dude, you need to - whoah."

The scene in front of Taylor was wrong, all wrong. Yes, Juliet stood there, arm trapped by hands far, far larger than hers. But where Taylor had expected Zachary to be, she saw only darkness.
Or maybe darkness wasn't quite the right way to describe it - it was like a Jack O'Lantern. There was a shadow that seemed to waver, not quite fitting into the shape of a boy's body. Where his face should have been, there were instead giant holes that flickered like flame, orifices that didn't quite fit where his eyes and mouth should have been. His mouth wasn't really a mouth, just a gash far too wide for his face, and fire danced in it.

Taylor blinked, trying to focus past the hallucination, trying to remember exactly what she was going to say. But even though she was staring right at it, it wasn't going away.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the day she finally met a devil.

Juliet stopped struggling, turning to face back towards Taylor.

"Taylor? What are you doing here?"

Taylor wish she knew what expression Zach was making, whether he was looking at Juliet or her. She wanted to know how afraid she should be, reasonably. But the shade in her hallucination was distracting her, pulling her out of the moment, taking away her will to confront.

"Trying to . . . get Zach to go away, I guess." Taylor blinked, then focused on Juliet.
"Hey, um, Juliet, would you mind telling me if Zach has been replaced by some sort of shadow monster? I think I'm kinda freaking out."

Juliet's face twisted with confusion, eyes darting back to Zachary for just a second. "What the fuck are you talking ab-"

In no way did Taylor expect Zach's other hand to come up, to grasp Juliet's face, so smash the back of her head against the wall. Taylor screamed as Juliet slumped to the floor, unconscious.

"What the FUCK?!"

Zachary was already striding towards her, pieces of his clothing just barely visible underneath the shifting shade that covered his body. His fingers were long and pointed, and although the situation had already given her enough to freak out, that detail was enough to send her over the edge.

"How? How can you see me?" Zach asked, jabbing one of those giant fingers at his own chest.

Taylor had no clue what he was talking about, but she figured it was time to protect herself. She dashed back into the corner of the bathroom with the cleaning supplies to grab the mop, but Zach was right around the corner as soon as she had it in her hand.

"Get AWAY from me, dude," Taylor shouted, jabbing the handle of the mop towards his chest.

And when she did, he froze. The giant, glowing holes where his eyes almost should be stopped shambling towards her, and they looked down.

The mop wasn't a mop anymore. It was not indistinct, like the hallucination - the detail on it was amazing. Extended between them was a long, dark brown staff, intricately carved. She didn't exactly have time to study it, but she could see that thin ridges had been cut all along it, with small lines emerging from them, like the spine of a leaf. At the head of the staff, somehow embedded in it, was a large red stone, unlike anything she had ever seen.

"Um," Taylor said, slowly lowering the mop-staff between them.

"You're . . . a witch," Zachary said, but it sounded less like Zachary now. It sounded lower, garbled. Distorted.

"I'm a what now?" Taylor asked. She sounded dumb. She sounded dumb like Zachary right now.

"A witch," he said again.
Finally, those eyes rose back to meet Taylor's again. He was so close now. She preferred it when they were both staring at the staff.

"You have to-" he started, reaching forward, his hand coming towards her face.

"Back off!" She cried, jabbing the staff forward again.

This time, though, it worked. As if he were an egg fired from a catapult, Zach was launched backwards, smashing into the wall underneath the small window of the bathroom.

"Oh! God . . . shit!" Taylor said, somewhere between whispering and screaming, as Zachary slumped to the floor. She stamped her feet as she tried to figure out what had just happened, but things only got worse from there.

After maybe ten seconds of just lying there, Zach suddenly gasped, his shimmering mouth falling open, so open that Taylor could see the roaring fire inside the darkness. The gasp did not stop, but grew higher and louder until the darkness covering his body began to squirm. There was no other way to describe it - it twisted and shifted around him as if it were struggling to breath. After another moment of this, the darkness pulled away from his body, funneled through the air like someone spinning steam with their hands. The siphon became a fine line, pouring through the air towards Taylor, who couldn't even flinched as it made contact with the stone on her staff.

After a few more seconds, the darkness had been dragged away from Zach's body, and it had all disappeared into the shiny red stone atop Taylor's staff.

Taylor wasn't sure at what point she ended up on the ground, the staff lying next to her as she cried. She had no clue what was going on, but she was terrified. She had two unconscious teenagers in the girls' bathroom with her, she had drugs in her bag, and she was having some sort of nervous breakdown.

It only got worse when she went to check on Juliet. A brief check of her mouth confirmed that she was breathing, and a check of her hair let Taylor know she wasn't bleeding. Taylor had just got it in her mind to leave them there like that when she stood up and looked in the mirror.

And that's where things got even worse, because Taylor realized what she was wearing.

Of course, no, it wasn't the jean jacket and t-shirt she was supposed to be wearing. No, it wasn't her dark pants and flats. It was none of that.
Instead, Taylor was wearing some sort of black dress. It was thick and airy, more like . . . robes? Was she wearing robes?!
And jewelry! She was wearing jewelry! There were golden bangles, inlaid with (fake, right?) tiny gemstones, and and a ring around her left middle finger. Her right hand was wrapped with some sort of lace, like in a fingerless glove that extended up to her forearm.

Taylor was in . . . in . . .
Well she had no idea what it was, but it was way, way too goth for her tastes.

Taylor felt warm. Way, way too warm. She must have a fever. She turned on the faucet, and tried to just use her left hand to pool water. It wasn't extremely effective, but she at least got enough to splash her face with.

And, of course, when she looked back in the mirror, that weird outfit was gone, and her regular clothes were back. A quick check of her hands confirmed that she was, in fact, back in her jean jacket.

"What . . . the fuck . . ." was about all she managed.

"T-Taylor?"
Down next to Taylor's feet, Juliet was waking back up.

Taylor crouched down next to her. "Oh my god, you're okay. Amazing. Okay. Wow."

"Where's . . . Zach?" Juliet asked. Her eyes weren't completely focusing. She might have a concussion or something.

Taylor's eyes slipped past Juliet to Zach's unconscious body some feet behind them. "He, uh, he left. And I'm going to get you back to your room, okay? Come on."

Taylor offered out her hand, and slowly, Juliet took it.
"Did I hit my head?" Juliet asked as Taylor pulled her up. Pulling anything was not Taylor's strong suit, but they both managed to get standing without immediately falling to the ground, so that was something.

"Yeah, Juliet, pretty hard. I'm just gonna walk with you, okay?"

"Okay."

And they stumbled out of the girls' bathroom together, making their way back to the dorms.

They were about halfway up the stairwell when Juliet indicated the door. She could, reasonably, walk on her own at this point, but Taylor had kept an arm around her waist to keep her stable. People had looked as they made their way across the quad, but nobody had asked any questions.

"Huh? Dana's room?"

Juliet nodded. "Yeah I . . . don't want to be alone if Zach's like, freaking out."

"Gotcha."

Dana answered quickly after they knocked, looking surprised before she even saw them there. However, her surprise quickly doubled when she saw Juliet and Taylor standing there, linked together.

"Oh God, Juliet, are you all right?"

Taylor did her best to pass Juliet off, but she didn't budge, even when Dana opened up her arms to grab her.
"I can walk, I can walk. Like, I'm fine, I'm just going to sit down."

And she trudged into the room right past Dana, who stayed in the doorway with Taylor. Dana's eyes followed Juliet back into the room until she plopped down on the bed, although she winced as soon as she did so.

Taylor pointed past Dana as she turned her attention forward, "I, uh, I think she's like not supposed to sleep for 24 hours or something. If she has a concussion."

"A concussion?" Dana took a step forward, nearly closing her door behind her as Taylor retreated into the hall. It was substantially less private, but at least they couldn't see anyone else. "What the hell happened?"

"Zach," Taylor replied, "he, um . . . he . . ."
Got covered in spooky shadows, got super violent, then called me a witch before I ripped out his soul or something.

"Zach did that?" Dana asked.

Taylor nodded. "Yeah, he uh, he grabbed her head and he," she shaped her hand like he had when he'd grabbed Juliet's face, "uh, hit her with a wall. Really hard."

Dana brought her own hand up to her face, resting her forehead in it. "My god, what a piece of shit. I knew he was pissed but I can't believe he'd . . ."

"Assault her?"

Dana nodded. The faraway look in her eyes was gone, replaced with a pinch on her brow and a familiar look of guilt. She'd been trading between these two faces a lot lately. Taylor was worried. She had no way of saying so.

"Don't trust people you can't beat up," Taylor said with a shrug. As if she could beat up anybody.

Dana gave a bit of a snort, but it didn't quite make it to a laugh. "Is that some sort of Victoria motto?"

Taylor shook her head. "No, it's just . . ." but Dana was looking at her right now, and her train of thought got lost. Lost out of this moment, back through the previous times their eyes had met. It reminded her how Dana must see her and Victoria as one and the same - guilty when Victoria was guilty, afraid when Victoria was afraid. It was fair, seeing nothing but Victoria's shadow, but it made Taylor feel small.

Taylor swallowed. "I-I think I owe you an apology."

Dana closed her door entirely this time. These words didn't seem to surprise her - the response was too quick.
Dana looked back at her again once the door was closed and asked, "For what." It wasn't really a question, Taylor thought, but it demanded an answer.

Anxiety made Taylor's body cold. It was basically impossible to rub her arms warm through the jean jacket, but it definitely didn't stop her from trying.

"I . . . well, I was the one who came up with the idea to sext Zachary. So what happened between Zach and Juliet, and between Juliet and you . . . that's my fault."

Dana bit her upper lip while Taylor spoke. When she was done speaking, she took a long, deep breath, like a singer doing exercises. The breath puffed her up like a cat, making her bigger, Taylor smaller. Taylor would like to tell herself it was courage that kept her rooted just inches away, but really, it was fear that rooted her in place - all of her courage had evaporated after everything that happened with Zach.

And Dana breathed out, shakily.

And finally, when she went to speak, Dana's face transformed into something raw, and hurt, and angry, and it twisted Taylor's guts.
"Why?" she asked. "Why would you do that? That was so fucked. You hurt her a lot before Zach did."

Taylor tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. She wanted to look away, but that wasn't her strong suit when stressed.
"I don't know. It was all so petty, I know it was." And Taylor finally managed to break Dana's eye contact, look away just enough to erect a barrier between them. "And I hurt you too. I'm sorry."

Dana looked down both ends of the hall. Taylor had no idea what she was looking for.
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Yeah, you did."

There was a long, quiet moment. Now that Taylor had looked away, she couldn't bring herself to look back at those eyes Dana had. They were so much like Rachel's, pulling you in and trapping you. The difference is, Rachel always knew to look away, to free you after a moment. Dana didn't even seem to realize what she was doing.

"Is there anything I can do?" Taylor asked. "To fix this?"

Dana paused to think for a minute, but when she replied, it almost sounded dismissive.
"Grow up, Taylor," she said.

And then she left Taylor all alone in the hallway.

Her breathing was shallow by the time she got inside her own bedroom. She shouldn't be alone right now, and she knew it. She pulled out her phone.

Taylor: vic, can I take a nap in your room? i'm having a really bad day

Victoria: Sure sweetie
Victoria: But what's up?

Taylor: i'll talk to you about it when you're back
Taylor: when will you be home?

Victoria: In like fifteen. I'll be right there.

Taylor: thanks
Taylor: ily

Victoria: I love you too, sweet-T

Taylor let herself into Victoria's room, crawling underneath her covers. The warmth helped with her anxiety, Victoria knew that, but it was the smell of her and weed and wine that helped Taylor calm down almost instantly.

A few minutes later, Taylor got a message over Messenger.

Dana: Look, thanks for helping Juliet, okay? Zach being an asshole is not your fault. But don't you or victoria fucking ever do that to my friend again, okay?

Taylor only managed a short reply.

Taylor: Okay. I'm sorry.

And then, one more.

Taylor: Zach won't ever touch her again. I promise.

Dana: No, he won't.

And that was enough for Taylor to breathe.