Author's Note: Thank you so much to ZashleyTroypayislove, writerchick786, and Golden-Mist for reading and leaving such nice reviews! Anyways, here goes another chapter, and be sure to read my note at the bottom!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, basically. That makes me sad.
"Well that wasn't very nice," Jason huffed after his friends had finished telling Tess off. They glared at him in disgust, shaking their heads slowly.
"Maybe Jason's right," Caitlyn voiced timidly, her old best friend instincts kicking in again slightly. "We were pretty hard on her."
"She deserved it," Shane muttered grudgingly, but he didn't seem quite sure of himself anymore. Mitchie, Ella, Peggy, and Nate nodded in agreement, but only half-heartedly.
"Maybe... maybe we should you know, check to see if she's ok?" Caitlyn suggested hesitantly, but it came out more as a question. Her friends' guilty consciences thanked her, but all the emotion they dared to show as they agreed was reluctance. The group walked towards the direction where Tess had ran off to, but stopped and quickly hid behind a set of props when they heard an angry voice.
"And what do you do after you mess up? You run offstage like a coward, instead of facing your stupid mistake! I raised you better than this!" It sounded a lot like TJ Tyler.
"I was dumb to believe that you could ever do anything right!" she continued furiously. Why did I even come here in the first place? You sicken me!"
"Please mom, I didn't mean to..." Tess's voice whispered, cracking with pain.
"Oh don't give me that crap! You blew it Tess, you failed, as usual. What do you have to say for yourself?" It was silent as TJ Tyler waited impatiently for an answer.
"Well?" she yelled, but Tess still did not reply. "AN. SWER. ME." she screamed, slapping Tess's cheek with each syllable. Shane, Nate, Jason, Mitchie, Caitlyn, Ella, and Peggy winced after each sharp crack. It sounded really painful.
"Mom please, I'm so sorry..." Tess sobbed, but was cut off by her mother.
"Sorry doesn't cut it Tess!" The group hidden behind the props cringed at the similarity of the hateful words they had hurled at Tess and the stinging remarks her mother was throwing at her now. "I would rather disown you than have a daughter who can't do anything correctly!"
"I'm sorry mom! I didn't-" Tess feebly tried again.
"I am so disappointed in you!" TJ Tyler screamed, and stormed out of the room, narrowly missing the kids huddled behind the props. Tess fell in a heap onto the floor, sobbing as if her heart had been ripped apart.
"No mom, please, don't do this to me, please!" Tess whimpered desperately. The hidden group stood awkwardly, trying to decide what to do. None of them had ever seemed Tess cry before. Well, one of them had, but that had been so long ago, back when they were friends... but to the rest it was strange, shocking, and virtually impossible, and for what reason? Simply because she was the Tess Tyler.
"Are you ok?" Jason blurted out loudly, causing everybody to glare at him for revealing their presence. Mitchie, Shane, Jason, Peggy, and Ella stood and quickly crept away, but Caitlyn and Nate stayed, not knowing what was really compelling them to be this idiotic. Caitlyn thought of it as a past impulse from when they were still friends, and Nate... well to Nate it was something even he could not comprehend. All they knew was that they were simply pressing themselves further out of Tess's vision, hoping she had not heard him. This was, of course, nothing more than wishful thinking.
"Who- whose there?" Tess asked, trying and failing to sound like she had not been crying. The pair remained quiet, hoping she would just give up her search, but the sound of her shoes clicking on the ground was clearly perceptible as she stood up and started walking towards the props.
"AHHHHHH!!" the kids screamed, including Tess, as she abruptly stuck her head over the cardboard prop they were scrunched behind. Caitlyn and Nate looked like little kids with their hands caught in a cookie jar.
"W-what are you doing here?" Tess asked irritably, trying to regain her composure and wiping away the tears on her face.
"We um, well uh, we," Caitlyn stammered, trying to buy time to think of a good excuse as to why they were hunched in cramped space behind a cardboard cutout. Tess's bloodshot eyes suddenly widened as realization hit her.
"You were eavesdropping weren't you?" she accused in shock, her cheeks suddenly turning a dark pink from embarrassment and anger. Her voice quickly rose with fury. "How much did you hear?"
"Not much..." Nate said unconvincingly as Tess's glare bore into him. "Well ok, maybe a little more than you would have liked us to hear... ok a lot, are you satisfied now?" Tess simply stared at them in disbelief.
"Tess, look, we didn't mean to," Caitlyn started, but Tess was still angry.
"You just had to listen to my mom yelling at me didn't you? What did you plan to do with the stuff you heard, record it and put it on the Internet? Blackmail me with it? I can't believe you guys, didn't you already get even with me when you told me off earlier?" Tess yelled.
"Tess, wait, you don't understand."
"Oh, I understand plenty," she snapped, her eyes glowing dangerously and her anger overpowering her rationality. "You were just looking for more revenge, like the stupid, immature, evil, bratty jerks you are! I hate you!" Nate and Caitlyn, who were at one point ready to apologize, now were far from it. They glared at Tess, not so much as for insulting them than for her unjustly accusing them when they had only come over to help.
"You know what Tess, we originally came over here to help, but we can see now that you're just fine since you're back to your old self. And call us what you want, but we're better people than you'll ever be," Caitlyn spat at her maliciously. "And at least we've got something that you could never even dream of having."
"Oh yeah?" Tess questioned sarcastically. "And what might that be?"
"People who actually care about us. We have friends, and a family that pays attention to us more than their jobs. Which is a lot more than we could ever say for you."
And as Tess glared their retreating backs, possibly the backs of the only people that might have cared about her if she hadn't driven them away, she couldn't push away the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that they were right.
Author's Note: Ok, I know that writerchick786 wanted this to be a Tess/someone story, and that's coming up so don't fret, but I didn't think it would be very Tess-like if she didn't yell at them for listening in, so sorry about another chapter dedicated to Tess being mean, but she's only doing it cuz she's been hurt so much and she's suspicious, it'll all work out eventually. Oh, and I'm going to Myrtle Beach (WHOOT!!) for a dance competition Wednesday morning... like at 4:30 am tomorrow morning (bleh) and won't be back until Tuesday morning, so don't expect any updates, sorry! I'll see if I can squeeze in another chapter today, but other than that I have to wait until Tuesday to write again :(. Review!!
