After reconciling with my dad, who was making tons of promises to be more of a family and doing things to make sure that he was still a father to me, like resurrecting 'Homemade Pizza Fridays', I resolved with my dad and Eddie that I would go to school on Wednesday.

It was a bit of a horrifying thought at first, because I had trashed so many of the people there on the internet.

First of all, it's the internet. The large void of useless information, strange edits, illegal downloads, and lots of people with lots of time who literally love drama. Which is sorta creepy except for the fact that I'm totally one of those people. So this will never die. I can't erase those mean or embarrassing things. But the real issue is school.

School's the kind of place that you really don't want all of your thoughts and opinions to be open, because it could affect you and others... a lot.

For instance: I called someone I never talked to, Jason, attractive, by saying, and I quote, he was "hella cute. 9.5/10 would bang" since I had seen a post on instagram that said that, and why not? So now everyone knows my crush. Damn.

How would Jason react? Would people bring it up? Would someone say that awful combination name Jasper that was trending in the comments of my subscribers? (the fact I even have subscribers is insane. Like someone actually wants to hear me rant? Why?) All those days eating ice cream I had wracked my brain trying to come up with answers that didn't want to make me fake my death and move to Canada.

But to be honest, I was actually more worried about my bullies.

Percy had contacted me, which was strange since he called my house phone from the phone book, and it was a really uncomfortable endeavour in general, but he told me that Drew, Reyna and many other girls I'd talked about were getting a lot of hate. Reyna hadn't been to school almost as long as I had.

And I did comment a lot on the video to stop the hating on them because no one deserves to hear some of the things people were saying about them. "Kill yourself" is absolutely unacceptable. No matter what they did to me, the words some people said about them were worse.

Time passed really fast. Like scary fast.

The night before, I was panicked. Like deep breathing while blasting intense music and screaming into a pillow panicked.

I had actually stopped by Sally's that day, which had caused me to see Jason Grace. So that was one less thing to worry about. Basically, we stared at each other for a good 11 seconds before he got off the couch next to Percy, shoved his feet into his beat up sneakers (on the wrong feet I noticed) and smiled quickly at me while mumbling under his breath about going to get something from the store. He fumbled the doorknob and basically sprinted out.

So...that was that.

But the rest of my time there was really fun.

Like, at first I was just standing there and Percy awkwardly motioned for me to sit while staring at me like I had come out as a vampire, but we started small talk that managed to get better. I'm honestly kinda proud of how I didn't say something stupid like I usually do.

Sally was supportive and cool. I mean, she was the ideal mother, but was still someone I could think of as a friend. Like Molly Weasley but chill and young and completely understanding of teenage life. Being 35 did help her case too, because she wasn't completely out of it yet.

I talked to her quietly after talking to Percy, rambling to her endlessly. I told her my fears of what could go wrong, and she soothed me, gave advice, and made me laugh. She was like a female Percy, who could make even the most hopeless seeming conversation enjoyable. Love her.

After our heart to heart, me Percy and Jason (who returned, and was being super awkward and blushy and cute and stuff) all played Super Smash Bros. which I failed horrendously at, dying at a record speed. It took out the awkwardness, and by the end of it, me and Jason had teamed up and kicked Percy's ass and we jokingly chest bumped, which wasn't uncomfortable socially (it hurt physically 'cause I have boobs but I managed).

But the interaction with the tiny, adorable family helped with my nerves. Also, I wasn't as worried about Jason's reaction, because at the worst point all he did was look at me, blush, try to say something, and then either fumble a sentence or low key hide behind Percy and then when we got more comfortable, he was able to talk and shout and laugh and wow. This is really new for me. Like whoa. But he would smile a lot when I spoke. He had a nice smile.

Okay, sorry, now's not the time to get involved with someone, because at the moment I am the Titanic approaching the iceberg: School.

I had dinner with the Jackson's, which was really fun because Jason loosened up even more and was able to actually flirt with me (Yay Piper! *Is my own cheering squad*) and Percy and Sally were hilarious. Tyson, their adopted brother, came home from his special ed school, and I met the adorable clutz who, at 11, was taller than me and the sweetest kid I'd ever met. He was autistic, adopted, a really big kid in general, and blind in one eye, but he was loved and treated as an equal all the same. I thought that was amazing. Also, he greeted me with a hug and a compliment, which was both adorable and needed, so basically I love him.

It was 9:30 when I left, and Sally forced me to bring cookies (which she had put blue food coloring in for some reason that really amused Percy) as well as a bit of the food from dinner. It stunk to go home, because I knew I would be nervous with nothing to get my mind off the day ahead.

I was right.

I went to bed late that night, after watching some TV shows (the Flash! It's great watch it) and then tossing and turning until I drifted off.

The next morning was rough. My alarms, all eight, had been shut off because of my missed days, so I woke up to the sound of Eddie yelling to me from the mudroom that I have to be leaving.

Nevermind make-up, I barely brushed my hair after I threw on a t shirt and skinny jeans. I ran through the house just to stop in front of the door when my backpack, having not been zipped all the way, allowed all of it's contents to spill out. And I'm not really organized, so everything that I had shoved into the pockets of binders exploded everywhere. Yay.

Eddie rushed me the entire time, and the cook, Eliza, was shouting at me in French to take my breakfast and lunch.

Somehow I managed to get to school with a few minutes to spare.

Little thing about my school in the mornings: everyone just hangs out in clumps in the lobby. Sometimes you have to shove your way through to get to doorways, making rough paths. But today, that didn't happen.

It was like parting of the Red Sea. Everyone stood a good 3 feet away and was ogling at me. It was like someone had dyed me purple, I had so many odd looks. Many disapproving, some admiring, most just curious to see the drama that will without a doubt take place. I could almost feel their eyes on me. It was like I was tingling and my throat was closing. Also I noticed I was sweating. Great. What's one more thing on the 'Piper's screwed List'?

The first person to approach me wasn't who I'd expect. In fact I had never even thought about this petite girl. But Hazel Levesque saw me and pushed her way through the gathered crowd with multiple impatient 'Excuse me!"'s which turned into sweet little shouts of "Move!" as the line ignored her requests. But she bounded up to me with an unreadable look on her face.

One thing about Hazel is this: her appearance was downright charming. She had her cinnamon colored hair in large curls that housed a white bow headband, she wore a printed pink dress with a cardigan on top, and she had navy flats. Preppy and pretty, she usually never wore anything on her face but a grin, but not even that was worn today.

"Piper, I apologize." She said solemnly. She looked like she was expecting some mean retort back. But why? I thought back to how I described her in my video.

Oh. Uh oh. "The Wicked Bitch of the Best's crony. She's like an adorable flying monkey that only sometimes had a mind of her own." Not a particularly great moment. But she really didn't deserve that.

I widened my eyes. "No! I should be apologizing to you! I was so rude and" I started, but she cut me off, leaving me kind of miffed.

"No, Piper, I knew. I might not have recognized it at first, but I know that bullying is terrible, having felt it myself, and I know what it does to people. I recognised the expression of pain, self deprecation... hatred" She said this so bitterly I made a little note in my head to find who had dared to bully her and pray they stub their toes or something because I'm so not looking for confrontation right now but they deserve something bad. Step on a Lego. There we go.

She gave a sigh and put her shoulders back. "I promise that now I'm going to have a mind of my own more often." She said, and I nodded when she looked at me for approval. I was about to turn away when she spoke again. "Also... I was wondering if maybe we could hang out some time, without having other people's thoughts shoved into my head." I nodded again, but this time I felt myself smile.

"Sure, I'd like that."

Everyone in the vicinity watched it carefully, out of the corner of their eyes.

Once she left, it was like the dam broke. Everyone approached me. People whose last names I didn't know came up to be and gave me a piece of their minds. I barely knew all of their first names, but they felt comfortable, apparently. People had mixed opinions, but they were willing to say them, which I thought was a small victory.

There isn't one emotion that would sum up my feelings. Confusion would probably be the closest. Within about 10 minutes, I got apologies from people I didn't know, comments about me being attention seeking, people calling me judgemental, a few people congratulating me on standing up, and so many people asking for my dad to sign stuff I don't want to talk. But Hazel was the first of multiple oddities.

Gwen also approached me, apologizing only slightly about her actions. But she was prideful and loyal to her friends, so she didn't renounce her friendship to Reyna, and that was alright. I didn't even expect a little apology. She, in her mind, and actually in mine as well, has done nothing other than befriend a two-faced person.

When Percy came in, he gave me this big grin and went to my side.

"Nice shirt. Didn't know you liked Van Halen?" He commented, ignoring the stares that people were giving him. See, he was usually glanced at by a lot of the female population, but when his hero complex got him attention on my video, he had gained the love of thousands of girls who thought that was amazing. Well, they weren't wrong, he was amazing. And about the talking normally thing I wasn't able to do, I was now, after hanging with him and his family for a day, able to talk with him like friends, which was pretty cool. We actually had similar interests.

Jason followed Percy and stood next to me, and even more people were staring at him. Or, well, us. They were waiting for a reaction, how he would respond to being called hot by a girl he didn't know in front of millions of people. But he just smiled a smile that made my cheeks flame, and stood on my other side.

"Yeah, they're cool. It's really comfy, so I wear it a lot." I told him, and he nodded in approval.

"At the moment I'm trying to get Jason out of a country phase, so you might be able to help me." He said. I grimaced. Country could be fun, but the minute a pickup truck was mentioned, I was done.

"Country is cool!" Jason protested.

Percy and I gave matching looks to him, and he sighed.

"Okay, I'd be willing to something next time we all hang out, but since I live with you, you can't force me to listen to anything." He said to Percy, who raised an eyebrow.

"Wanna bet?" He said challengingly.

They continued on a while, and I added a couple of comments, but otherwise, it was just them arguing.

Okay, can I just say that their banter was extremely sassy and had they not been related and (from what I can tell) straight could easily pass as flirting?

Either way, the attention left us pretty much, and suddenly it all felt alright. Like, I had friends!

Well, I had two people who I've hung out with once, but still! Friends!

But when Drew Tanaka walked through the glass doors of our shabby high school, I felt that things might have changed more than I had expected.

See, usually Drew is goals.

Her hair is actually perfect, with no split ends, stray hairs, frizzy parts, nothing, and it goes to her lower back. Her makeup is usually on fleek, sometimes a bit heavy, but still looked gorgeous, and her outfits looked like she had her own fashion designer in her room each morning. That good.

But today, I saw the true mess she'd become.

Yesterday's mascara had made a residue under her droopy, slightly red eyes, and her eyebags were prominent. She had a bit of color on her lips, but the rest looked like she'd gotten pneumonia. Or rabies. That was mean, sorry. She wore a sweatshirt that boasted her older brother's college, but somehow, Harvard seemed like a mocking thing to wear when she looked so down and out. With stained jeans and pair of flats completing the look, I was horrified.

See, it wasn't really that she looked bad. Naturally, she was a very pretty girl, so she didn't look awful, but it was just the fact that she was so not herself that made it eye-openingly awful.

I had done that to her.

Or, well, it was just that I had publicized her actions to a large number of people, but still, this wasn't right. Yes, she was a straight up bully and she needed something to make her stop, but she just looked so beaten down that I felt more pity in me than anything else. No more animosity. Well, actually… less animosity. But still.

She didn't have her cronies around her anymore, and so she didn't hold back when marching right up to me. She stared at me for a second, so close I could see a freckle of hers that she usually covered up.

"I'm not sorry." She said. Her voice was tired and blunt. "But you won't have to worry about me. That okay Mclean?" She said my last name icily, over pronouncing and somehow making it an insult.

My mind split into two.

Part one: Hold up. She isn't sorry? She made some days hurt to wake up because she was emotionally scarring me. I hated myself and her. And she didn't apologize? Not even when so many people were calling her out?

But the other side was a bit stronger.

Part two: Okay, so this is the girl that made my life hell for about 5 years, and she has officially given up? Yesssssssssssssssssss. *cue the embarrassing fist pump*

So I met her eyes and nodded, proud of myself although I was in mental turmoil, deciding between jumping for joy and cursing her out.

She seemed to accept this, and began to walk away, before saying something that I'd literally never dreamed of in my entire existence.

"Piper, I…" She said softly, staring at her tan flats on her feet. They were peep toe, and I just have to say her pedicure was totally perfect. Damn. "I want to let you know, sticking up for me in the comments, that was... good. Good of you. You didn't have to do that, but you did. So… thanks." She said, before walking away at a much faster pace, leaving me, Percy and Jason in shock.

"Whoa." Jason offered.

"Yeah. Whoa is right." Percy muttered.

Reyna skipped school that day. And the day before that. And the day before that.

And there was a feeling settling in my stomach. A dropping, heartbeat slowing kind of feeling. I knew it was guilt.

Before I go on, I want to tell you one of my favorite outcomes that happened from this video. Even thinking about it now, I still get a smile on my face. Because it was real change for the better. So I'll tell you about a really fucking cool reaction that I wouldn't have even dreamed of that happened, and it almost made me cry when I saw this.

Now, I'm a sucker for love. My parents used to tease me about it, and I always denied it, but still, every time there's a movie, I love the happy endings where they end up together and everything just clicks into place. Those are the things that make me smile, and I haven't changed from when I was five when watching Cinderella to now.

Now, before I continue this story, you need to know our school isn't exactly homophobic. There are, of course, the assholes who are like "No homo brah" and "That's gay" and other shit to make themselves feel better in some strange way. But there are also lots of people who are like "Yes homo!" which is great. They support gay relationships.

That is, if we had one. I bet 60% of these people have never interacted closely with some who was gay, and there's never been a gay kid in our high school's history.

So when Nico Di Angelo, the brooding Italian Sophomore who wore dark clothes and listened to music so loud you could hear guitar riffs from three seats over came in hand in hand with Will Solace, the bright and cheery Junior valedictorian who was already accepted to Dartmouth for his undergrad, the school's population was awestruck. It was a message, it was a middle finger in the face of social norms, and it was a really cute couple.

People whispered at a rudely loud level, but it was mostly just surprise. Because of who they were personality-wise, what they were gender-wise, and the fact tht Nico Di Angelo was actually really cute when he smiled were all highly talked-about topics that buzzed around the school. But Percy and Jason hadn't mentioned anything until Nico came up to us quietly. He used to be really, super short, but he had a growth spurt so now he's about my height, but he's super quiet when he walks. And when he talks. And just generally. But he came up to us and smiled! I shit you not, he actually looked pleased to see us.

"Hey Percy, Jase. Oh! Hey! Piper Mclean, right?" He said, and I felt a bit shell shocked. He was in my French Class because he moved up, and so sometimes he would pair up with me because there was no one else to go with (which is really sad now that I put it like that, but it wasn't bad. We would just look around the room before making eye contact and nodding when she mentioned partners) but we wouldn't talk.

Jason smiled teasingly. "Where's Mr. Sunshine?"

At that moment I had no idea what was going on. Because not everything happens on one day, people! They came out a couple days into my absence, so I had no clue what was happening. So, I did what felt natural. "Hey, Nico." With a polite smile. Done. Please don't talk to me.

Nico nodded. "Will is doing some AP Anatomy project thingy that I wanted no part of. Why?"

Will?

Percy smirked. "Just wondering." Jason matched his mischievous expression.

Nico raised an eyebrow, and I felt myself do the same in my head. ? was all I was thinking. Why were they so close with Nico? And who is Mr. Sunshine?

Jason looked over and laughed. "Oh, I forgot you didn't know. See lover boy over here is dating Will Solace. And they're cuuuuuuutttteee." He said teasingly to Nico, who swatted him while furiously blushing.

"Well. Yeah. SO this has been humiliating. Thank you my dear cousins for that. Oh, and thanks for speaking out Piper, we weren't really sure if we would be accepted, but if people were chill with you bitching on Youtube, they'd be cool with Will and I dating. So you helped. I guess." He said while turning and rushing off to join Lou Ellen, a theater girl in his grade.

So that's that story. Kinda indirect, but really cute.

Classes went okay. I don't mean to generalize and time skip like that, but okay is a pretty accurate description for most of the day. Like, once the bell rang it was time for classes we had three minutes between each bell to go to the different wings, rooms, and even buildings. So nothing happened then, and since I take Honors and AP classes, the teachers don't allow much talking. French we had a sub, which was good. Nico and I just talked about how he and Will got together (they volunteered together at the Hospital, got coffee together after a long day, and clicked) but that was it.

But the part that made me really happy was seeing them as I walked to the car: Nico was leaning with Will as a backrest, reading, as Will absentmindedly held his hand. As I passed, Will made eye contact with me, and smiled. I literally went to kindergarten with this kid, and I have never seen him so happy. So that's it. That's the story. My screw up made someone really, really happy.

And I was starting to wonder if it would work out similarly for me. Maybe less drastic, but… there's still hope. Things were turning my way.

But when I got home, after pillaging the pantry for whatever junk food I could find (simultaneously giving Eliza a heart attack with the amount of food I planned on consuming), I raced to my room. Honestly, it's my lair, and I treat it as such. I jump onto my bed with the chips and chocolate covered pretzels I found, and I check the various social media things, as well as finally reading the 54 messages from the two group chats I was in. Percy, Jason and Nico had one that they added me to (I hadn't known Nico was their cousin before today, awkwardly enough) and Annabeth and Leo.

I scrolled through. Percy and Nico were mostly just talking. Homework questions, complaining about the rain that had started halfway through English, nothing, nothing, nothing. There were other things too, such as really super formal emails from news stations asking for interviews for small stories, or notifications that there have been even more comments written on my video, but I looked past those. Scrolled by. Instead I went back to the silly messages and replied to Leo's pick up line of the day, to Nico's stressed questions about Chemistry and if the teacher had a soul (the answer is no), because it was a new and exciting thing. To have messages. To have people that cared enough to be texting me throughout their days. And wow, I had friends!

I felt myself smile as I ate another chip. Things really didn't turn out as bad as I expected.