Holy crap, people! I didn't expect to get so much traffic to this. I checked my email this morning and the first two pages were alerts from fanfiction. I guess I'll add another chapter :) This chapter issss about…Alli/Drew. Also Adam/Clare/Eli. BTW: I'm trying my best to base this off of the preview of season 10 part 2 if you couldn't tell. If you haven't seen that yet, you should. Go to youtube.

Stand There and Watch Me Burn: Part 2:

I hate him. I love him. I can't stand him. I can't stand not being with him. He makes me sick. He gives me chills. Beautiful mess. I need revenge. I tried that already. My revenge plans always backfire and blow up in my face. Then I'm left feeling worthless. Like with Johnny. Jenna was supposed to get him to admit his secret to the whole school but it just ended up in him saying he loved me. Then I left him again. Feeling good but heartbroken. I'm in that place again.

I stood with my back against the wall in line. I hated this. I didn't want to have to wear a stupid ID badge so that people would know who I was. Alli Bhandari. Whore. Just like Drew's mother called me. That woman needed to die. I pressed my lips together in anger, arms crossed and hands in fists. I felt the presence of someone next to me, leaning up to the wall beside me.

"Still pissed at him?" I heard. Clare. Saint Clare. She was going to tell me how awful he is and how I should move on with my life. Drew is a scuzball and I'm better off without him. Five…four…three…two… "I'm really sorry about what happened, Alli." I looked to my friend and just stared. That was it? No lecture? No bashing? No…nothing? "What's your plan?"

I sighed. Plan. I always had a plan. "I have no plan. He had oral sex with Bianca in the boiler room, Clare. Then his stupid mother called me a whore. What am I supposed to do? Forgive him and have him lie to me again? I want to trust him, Clare. I want him to lie to me and tell me that it's not as bad as I think and I want to forgive him just like before. But I can't." I felt tears welling up in my eyes and shook my head. I couldn't give in again. I couldn't stand there and accept his lies again and again. I did that with Johnny and it broke me. "What am I supposed to do?"

Clare gave me a quick hug and looked into my eyes, sympathetically. "Talk about it maybe? You need to tell him how you feel. It helps, trust me. You need to tell him that what he did was it for you and you can't put up with it anymore. You don't deserve to be lied to, Alli. You're better than that. He cheated on you. Then lied about it. Tell him that."

As much as I hated it when she was right…she was right. It's what I did with Johnny and it worked. I told him off. Kind of. And I had to end this with Drew. How could I trust him again after what he did? I had to look him in the eyes, show him my pain and tell him to stay the hell out of my way. And frankly, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Seeing the look on his face. Seeing the pain of realizing you're about to lose the one you really, really liked. Like the look I saw on his face the night of the dance when he left to go find Adam. Perfect revenge.

I stood up straight and brushed my pants a little, straightening out my jacket. I wiped the water from under my eyes and stood with confidence. Because that's all I could do right now. When I spoke with Drew I had to have confidence. Show no pain. Show no regret. Make him feel regret. This was all his fault anyway. Make him really, truly feel the burn. I smiled and walked up to the photographer, taking my seat in front of the camera and waited for the flash. Waited for the blinding light. Because after the flash comes the relief. I could close my eyes, take in a breath and walk away.

"So…what you're saying is he dumped you…and walked away?"

I gritted my teeth at the harsh words and leaned up against the lockers. Dumped. I hated that word. K.C. dumped me. Eli more…excused me? I don't know. "If you want to put it bluntly, yes. Have you spoken with him at all since the dance? He's so…not Eli. It's weird. Like the life was completely drained out of him."

Adam shrugged his backpack up on his shoulder and pulled his beanie down over his forehead. "The last time I said anything to him, he was, like, going crazy trying to find you at the dance. He said he didn't want to hear you chew him out again and he was going to talk to you about what Fitz said he wanted to do to you. He told you about that, right?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Yes, Adam. He told me. But he was just saying that to piss Eli off. I talked to Fitz about it. He didn't want to do anything." I paused and blinked. "Well…he wasn't going to try anything…"

"He's a real ass, Clare. I can't believe you felt sorry for him." I dropped my shoulders and gaped at the boy in front of me. I tried to come up with some defense for my…stupid actions but Adam beat me to it. "Felt. You felt sorry for him. I know you don't now. And if you did I'd wonder what the hell was wrong with you. I'm having trouble finding sympathy for anyone right now."

Adam had a really good point. He was a lone soldier in this whole mess. The middle player. Somehow he was involved in a lot of crap between me, Eli and Fitz. And he was partially a major player in the stink bomb incident, considering I set it off to stop Fitz from beating the crap out of him, but he never actually really did anything. He was just always put in the middle of it.

"I'm not asking for sympathy," I shot at him, on the rude side. I scratched through my curls and let my arm drop down. "I just…I hate seeing him like this. And the worst part is I don't even know how to talk to him. I don't know what to say. I'm usually pretty good at that, you know?"

The boy laughed. I glared. Adam raised his hands in defense. "Sorry, Clare, but you haven't exactly been the word queen in the situations with Eli. Remember when he asked what was going on about the dance? Tell me again; who told Eli you were going with Fitz?"

Ohhhh kaayyyy. Wrong topic. "And WHO wasn't supposed to say a word? Yeah. That was you. Now can we just focus on what I'm supposed to do before I go completely insane?"

"Too late for that," Adam scoffed. I felt like punching him. But he was right. I was going off the edge. "Maybe you need to give it more time. I know you want to talk to him and blah, blah but have you ever considered that you're not ready yet? Have you forgiven him for what he did? You're too pushy."

I shook my head and stared at my shoes. Pushy? Maybe. Yes. Fine. I was really pushy. I hated waiting. Patience isn't really one of my strong points. But, again, Adam was right. Maybe it was really me who wasn't ready. If Eli wasn't ready he would have just ignored me. Distanced himself. That's what happened last time. So maybe I should practice that tactic. I mean, I shouldn't go over the edge with it or anything, but give myself more time to go over what happened that night. And instead of fearing and becoming angry at the situation all over again, I should think about what I was to do next. Where this brought us. Stop giving advice I can't take myself.

I smiled and looked back up. "Thanks, Adam."

He smiled and shrugged. "Whatever. Just don't pull me farther into something I don't need to be pulled into. This is between you and Eli. Don't do anything stupid." What?

Adam patted my shoulder and walked away. Something stupid? I was keeping my distance and thinking about what I was supposed to do. And there was no way I was going to screw this up even more than it already was. There was no possible way it could get worse. Right?