A:N Wow. I have gotten an amazing reaction to this story. To everyone who reviewed, favorited (so not a word), and added this to their alerts, THANKYOUSOEFFINGMUCH!

Two chapters today. :D I'm really happy with how this chapter turned out. If you've read my other stories, you may have noticed that I have a tendency to rush things. I've tried not to do that with this story. Hopefully I've succeeded. :D

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While the short shouting match outside had been going on, the girls had failed to realize that they had woken Artie up. Eyes still groggy from sleep, he put on his glasses and was very surprised to see Rachel, Mercedes, and Tina standing outside his window. Mercedes looked like she was trying to open the window. What the hell? He thought he heard Tina say, "I'm not doing a B & E!" Luckily, Artie's bed was near the window with the curtains partially closed. He pulled himself off his bed and onto the window seat his parents had installed for him when he was ten. Out of the glass window, he saw his former best-friend and her two companions. Tina looked stressed, really stressed. Once Rachel and Mercedes had noticed that he was awake, they began glaring at him. And not the sort of half-assed glaring that some girls did. This was the glaring like if-you-don't-right-the-wrong-you-did-to-our-girl-we-are-going-to-kill-you. He had not idea how they could muster up that much anger, but he was ever so slightly scared.

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Artie was sitting at the window staring at me. It felt like my heart had stopped, and then jumped back into action going at a mile a minute. Shit. Standing behind me was Rachel and Mercedes, hands on their hips and glaring through the window at Artie. Mercedes saw that I wasn't about to do anything of my own accord to talk to him, so she stepped forward, gave him a look that would be comical had it not been in context. He looked at her confused, so she said, "Boy, you better open this window and let our girl Tina in, or else I will cut you. This ain't no joke." Artie just looked confused, but at the same time a little angry. I looked down at my feet, only to notice that I had lost both of my shoes. What?! How the hell did I lose my shoes with noticing?! I only just noticed at this point that my feet were hurting a lot. They were bleeding and they had a lot of dirt on them.

"Just let her in!" Rachel came forward with her typical Rachel voice which wasn't actually that typical of Rachel. That was another thing I had learned about Rachel tonight. She really wasn't as annoying as she seemed at school.

Artie looked over to me as I looked up at him. I didn't see any of the shine that I used to see in his eyes when we were best friends. It was gone. All I saw there now was anger and sadness. I was dead to him now. I was just another faceless normal. I had to show him I wasn't. I had to show him that I wasn't. I wasn't just some girl who was normal and didn't care about him. I trusted him enough to tell him about my stutter (or lack there of) and he needed to accept that. And so with these thoughts I put on a brave face and said to him as strongly as I could, "Please open it Artie. I really need to talk to you, please." After saying this, my brave face fell again and I looked down at my hideous feet. I felt tears come to my eyes and I wiped them away as quickly as I could. I couldn't be crying, not yet. His eyes never left my face. Finally after what felt like hours, I heard the squeak of the window being pulled up. My spirits lifted slightly. Maybe he still does care.

"Come in quickly, Tina." He hadn't called me Tina in awhile. He usually called me Tee. This made my hope drop about three billion points.

"We'll just stay out here," Rachel said and Mercedes agreed. I quickly scrambled into the room that I knew so well. I had been in here countless times, doing homework, reading, listening to music, laughing at whatever. I miss those days. I sat down near him on the window seat and watched him close the window on a fairly merry looking Rachel and a miffed Mercedes.

"What's going on? Why are you at my house in the middle of the night?" He didn't ask me how I was and he didn't give me the chance to ask him how he was. He just cut to the chase.

"I was at Rachel's house for a sleepover and we-we were talking about you." I finished lamely.

"And?"

"And I told them about our date," The minute I said this he looked at me with more anger than I had ever seen on him ever.

"Why?! That was private I thought!"

"They peer pressured me into it, and I couldn't hold it in any longer. I couldn't Artie, I'm sorry!" I almost broke down crying, but I managed to hold myself together, just by a thread.

He was silent.

"I told them about what I said, and what you said, then Mercedes pulled us outside and we walked to your house." I looked back down at my bloody feet. I quickly moved them off of the seat. I didn't want to get dirt or blood, or both onto his window seat cover. "I'm so sorry Artie. I didn't want to hurt you so badly. I didn't know it was so important to you that I had a stutter. If I had known and if I had more courage, then I would've told you earlier. But I don't have courage. Not any."

"You do have courage."

I looked up at him, surprised to hear concern in his voice. I shook my head at him. "No I don't. It was on a whim that I told you. I never would've if I'd known what would happen. That's why I have no courage. I'm a coward. But I couldn't lie to you anymore because I-." I stopped myself before I finished with the statement dreaded by all teenaged boys.

"Because you what?" He asked. I looked up at him. I think he knew what I very nearly said.

"No. It was nothing." I silently prayed that he wouldn't ask any further questions on the matter. Apparently God doesn't like me.

"No, tell me." Damn him. I couldn't tell him what I so dearly wanted to. He didn't feel the same way, at least not anymore.

"I care about you too much." Sweet, good save Tina. *internal high five*

He didn't anything for a minute. I looked up at him through my hair. He was thinking, a lot. I just then remembered something. I was in my pajamas, which did not contain much, just a pair of black leggings and a black tank top. That's awkward.

"That still doesn't explain why you're at my house. Why did Mercedes make you come?"

"She wanted me to talk to you," I told him. "She wanted us to sort through…this. She may have threatened you a couple times too." He chuckled at this. At the sound of his laugh I swooned slightly and also felt like someone had just stabbed me with a knife right in my gut. He looked down at me (he was taller than I was sitting down) with a bit of a smile.

"What happened to your feet?" His smile disappeared as soon as it had come.

"Oh, um, I lost my shoes on the way here. We ran for a bit of it. I dunno where they are," I looked sheepishly at him.

"Do they hurt?" He asked, obviously concerned for my well being.

"No, no it's fine. I didn't even notice I'd lost my shoes until we got here. Sorry for waking you up by the way.

"You can go wash them off in the bathroom," He didn't say anything about the last part. I walked out of his room into the bathroom across the hall.

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He watched her leave the room and once she had closed the door to the bathroom, he turned to the two girls outside and opened the window.

"What were you thinking?"

"What?" Rachel and Mercedes stood up to face him.

"Didn't you even think about how this is for me? She's the one who lied to me and pretended to be somebody she wasn't!"

"What is your problem?! Have you not looked at her at all since she told you? She's a mess! And don't give me that crap about her pretending to be somebody she wasn't. That's bull. She's still Tina! It's not like the stutter made her who she is. She's still the fabulous singing Goth we all love. You need to accept the fact that she is still who you though she was, just without a stutter. And why does that matter to you so much anyway, cracker-boy?" Mercedes was very, very good at standing up for the people she cared about.

"She's normal. There's nothing wrong with her now. She can be anything now, but I'll always be the wheelchair kid. She can be normal, but I can't. She put up a disability and can take it down when ever she wants. I can't do that." He looked at Mercedes straight in the eye during this speech.

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I heard the whole thing through the bathroom door. Every single thing.