A/N: Sorry, it's been a little longer than I'd hoped. Let me just say, Senior Term Paper sucks. Especially when it's on James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Especially when you're a procrastinator, and you have a huge meltdown the day before it's due because you're sure you're going to fail, but you don't know how to make it better, and you still need to finish, and you start bawling. Then you finally get it done, take a shower, and go to bed, and you wake up the next morning with puffy eyes, a killer headache, and hair that you have to put back because it looks so bad because you went to bed with it wet the night before. To make matters worse, it's due on Senior Skip Day (although with your strict parents, they'd never let you stay home, even when it would give you an extra two days to get your paper done and perfect) and you have a physics test. Your headache persists, so you go home after lunch and sleep for about four hours. That's about when I decided to work on this to destress.

So, sorry again, both for making you wait, and for ranting like this. It's just been one of those days.


The Stark Megastore grand opening can be described in one word: obnoxious. There were obnoxious girls running around, freaking out about some new singer guy; obnoxiously loud music, coming from the new singer guy; and obnoxious gimmicks to get people to come back.

Oh, yeah, and the obnoxious protesters, shooting paintballs at plasma screens depicting Nikki Howard, some model who works for Stark. She was everywhere. I mean, I really could see their point. I missed the good, cheap, fresh vegetables from Mama's, too. But did you see me going around with a paintball gun, "trying to do something for the greater good" while actually just embarrassing myself? No.

But I stayed anyway, for Em. And for those Stark cookies. They were awesome. I stuffed as many as I could into my pockets to eat later (the Commander doesn't approve of junk food).

Em seemed to forget all about me, though, when she heard that British guy sing. She probably didn't think I saw her, but I did. She was definitely bouncing to the beat. I mean, I guess the music wasn't bad, necessarily. But definitely different from the rock that I listen to. And I saw the way she looked at him. But, really, what could I have said? She wasn't my girlfriend, just my friend (well, "just friends" is pushing it a bit, in my case).

And it wasn't like she was drooling over the guy like Frida was, with her cell phone out and ready to take low-quality pictures to send to her equally low-quality, Walking Dead friends.

In any case, that look went away when the three of us got in line to get him to sign Frida's CD. God, it was awful! It seemed like there were millions of Frida's swarming around us, all wearing the same types of clothes, all screaming, all making me wonder why I was there in the first place. Then I realized that, screaming aside, it reminded me of the Walking Dead at school. Well, that was a fun thought, let me tell you, that I was somewhere as torturous as school on a Friday night… not.

"He's not looking at you," Em told Frida.

She didn't pay any attention to the truth of her sister's words. "Yes, he is." She waved to the guy. "He's looking right at me!"

"No," I argued. "He's looking at her." I pointed to one of the plasma screens that hadn't been shot yet, depicting Nikki Howard in some kind of fancy dress and absolutely ridiculous shoes. "He's probably trying to see if she's got anything on under there." It may have sounded like a joke, but, if I'm being honest, I just wanted Em to stop looking at him like that!

"Gabriel doesn't think of women as sex objects," Frida informed me, not even bothering to look. "I know. I read it in his interview with CosmoGIRL! He respects women with brains."

Yeah. Sure. First of all, where is the proof that Nikki Howard even had a brain? Second, even Gabriel isn't perfect enough to not care about how a girl looks.

Em agreed with me, apparently, if the way she choked on her Stark brand soda was any indication.

"She does!" Frida insisted. "What other seventeen-year-old do you know who's gotten as many modeling and product endorsement contracts as Nikki has? And she started with nothing – nothing. Seriously, how could you not know that? Don't you people do anything but play that stupid video game?"

Okay, much as I may hate the guy, I was okay with the fact that his music was playing just then. It made it a little harder to hear Frida's rant. The noise didn't stop her from talking over it, though.

"Besides, you guys," she said as she took another picture of Gabriel. Seriously! What was the big deal? "Gabriel's deeply spiritual…and intellectual. Just like I am."

Em almost choked again. It was kind of funny, the sisterly argument.

"I am! Just because I'm not a math and science dork like some people…" Harsh, Frida. "Besides, Gabriel says what matters is the size of a woman's heart, not her bra."

Good one.

"Right," said Em, sarcastically. "I'm sure Gabriel'd rather be with a total dog than Nikki Howard."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Besides, I was glad that she wasn't completely caught up in the hype that Gabriel was the best thing in the world. Thank god.

Frida, however, wasn't laughing. She wasn't laughing at all.

"I'm not a total dog."

"Frida." Em gaped at her. "I didn't mean you."

But it was too late; the damage was done.

"Maybe you think of yourself that way. But don't drag me down to your level, Em. At least I make an effort."

I wasn't enjoying the argument anymore. It was getting… well, kind of awkward for me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Em demanded.

"Well, look at you."

Em looked down, and I did, too. I didn't see anything wrong with her jeans, hoodie, and Converse. It was what she always wore; it was Em. I wouldn't want her any other way.

Frida differed from my opinion, though.

"You look like a guy. I mean, maybe you have a figure, but it's not like anybody could ever tell, thanks to how baggy you wear your clothes. And have you ever even tried to do anything with your hair except throw it back in a scrunchie, which by the way is completely 2002? At least I try to look nice."

Wow, Frida. Can you tell us how you really feel, next time?

I could tell by the look on Em's face that her sister's words had cut deep, but she didn't let that keep her from firing back.

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was supposed to conform to some random standard of beauty dictated by some tween queen fashion model."

Do you see why Em is my best friend? I couldn't help but snort out a laugh at that. "Tween queen. Good one. Anyway," I said, though maybe I should have stopped speaking, "I think Em looks fine…"

Fine? I said she looked fine? Great compliment, Christopher. Oh, well. Maybe it's for the best. Although, if I'd known what was about to happen, I would have said something a hell of a lot better than she looked "fine"…

"…and besides, at least she's not some big plastic phony like her," I added, pointing at Nikki.

"Yeah." Em didn't seem too upset about my calling her just "fine." Thank god.

But Frida still didn't care what either of us had to say. She just kept defending her idol. "For your information, Nikki Howard has taken the fashion and beauty industry by storm. She's one of the youngest models ever to have done so. Nikki and her friends–"

Em rolled her eyes, and it was all I could do not to laugh again. "Oh, here we go. Another lesson on the F.O.N.s."

"What's an F.O.N.?" I asked.

"Friend of Nikki's," she explained. "According to last month's CosmoGIRL! she runs with a whole posse of F.F.B.F.s."

"Wait… What's an F.F.B.F?" I was so confused. Why did she have to abbreviate?

"You know. People who are in the media all the time, but they're only Famous for Being Famous. They've never done anything to get famous – they don't actually have any talent? They're usually rich people's kids like Nikki's on again, off again boyfriend Brandon Stark" she switched her tone to mimic a news anchor "nineteen year old son of millionaire Stark Megastore owner, Robert Stark. Or celebutantes, like Tim Collins's seventeen-year-old daughter, Lulu. The Tim Collins. Who directed the Journeyquest movie."

I couldn't help but make a face. "And completely ruined it?"

"That'd be the one. Lulu's an F.O.N."

Frida put her hands on her hips and complained, "Why do you guys have to be so mean? It's like, everything fun, you guys look down on."

As I finished another bag of Stark brand cookies – they might be worth the lack of fresh produce in our neighborhood. The commander doesn't allow junk food, and if they make a habit of giving those things out for free, I'd practically live there, when I wasn't playing Journeyquest with Em, of course – I argued, "That's not true. We don't look down on Journeyquest. Well, the game. The movie freaking sucked."

"Besides that stupid computer game," Frida challenged.

"Music," Em said. I saw the way her gaze went, just for a second, to those speakers. "I like music."

"Oh, right." Frida rolled her eyes. "Name one popular musician you listen to. And don't name any of that horrible metal crap Christopher listens to, either."

Hello, Frida? I'm standing right here!
"One popular musician?" Em asked, an eyebrow raised. "Fine. How about…Tchaikovsky?"

I cracked up. I couldn't help it. I wasn't even upset by the fact that she didn't stick up for my music taste…much. "Nice one. Mahler. He's good, too."

"Too dour," she argued. "Beethoven."

"That dude is rad," I agreed, raising my hand in a rocker's salute. "Beethoven rocks my world!"

"Oh, God," Frida complained, her head in her hands, obviously embarrassed.

"Come on, Free," Em said laughingly, elbowing her sister. "We're not that embarrassing, are we?"

"Yes." Her answer was muffled by her hands. "You are. You really are. Don't you realize that you guys look down on everything normal people like? Like Nikki and her friends–"

That was when I saw Em's mouth drop open. I followed her gaze, and noticed that the very people Frida was talking about were right there, in the Stark Megastore, coming towards us.

"You're always going on about feminism, Em." Frida was still talking, completely oblivious to the fact that Nikki Howard and three F.O.N.s, plus a tiny ball of fur trying quite hard to get into Nikki's dress, were so close to her. "Well, do you really think Nikki would have gotten where she is today – the Face of Stark, currently one of the highest-earning models – if she weren't a feminist?"

"Uh" was all that Em seemed to be able to say. She was still staring at the group of famous people across the room.

"And I don't see how you can even call yourself a feminist, Em, when you are so totally mean to a member of your own sex. I mean, Nikki's just a girl, like you are."

Let me just point out, that is very untrue. Em is… Well, she's Em. But Nikki… Wow. I don't usually like the super-skinny, almost-anorexic looking types, who wear next to nothing. But it totally worked for Nikki. The blonde hair, the dress…

Okay, I'll admit it. I might have been staring. A little. But she was a model.

Frida was still talking, but I wasn't listening. I was transfixed by the girl – woman – running through the store.

I did hear when she realized what we were looking at.

"Omigodomigodomigod," she all but screamed, fanning the tears out of her eyes with the hand that wasn't holding her cell phone. "Omigod, it's her. It's her. It's HER!"

When I looked – tore my eyes – away from Nikki, I happened to notice that the British singer guy was definitely not looking in the direction of Nikki's heart. And I didn't bother to keep it to myself.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Free. That Gabriel guy may be sensitive and all of that. But he is totally staring at her chest."

"Um, he wouldn't be the only one doing that," Em pointed out. It would have been hard to miss the disapproval in her voice, but was that… Was that jealousy underneath of it? Interesting…

I could feel myself turning red, but I just could not look away. Did I mention she's a model?

"Omigod, you guys. Lulu Collins is with her. I have to get their autographs. I have to!" Frida was so excited, it was sickening.

"Frida. Uh, Frida? Frida?"

But it was too late. Great timing, too. She left the line just as we got to the front of it. Then it was Em who talked to him, instead of Frida. Perfect.

"Um…hi," Em said, turning her attention to Gabriel after realizing that he'd finally pried his gaze away from Nikki.

"Hi," the stupid singer said back, giving her a smile. You should have seen the look on Em's face. I almost puked.

Plus, she couldn't seem to stop looking at him. No, not just looking, gaping. I had to turn my gaze away before I actually did throw up.

"What's your name, then?" I heard him ask. Do girls really like that stupid accent?

"Um. Em."

"Em?" I could hear that sickening smile in his voice. "Short for Emily?"

"Um. No…"

"Do you have a CD you'd like me to sign?"

"Hold on. My sister…" She trailed off, turning around to look for Frida, running right into me. And that's when I saw it.

"Uh, Em, look…"

Frida still hadn't made it to Nikki, but she was getting close. That's not what I was so worried about, though. One of the ELF guys who'd gotten past security opened up his trench coat to reveal a paintball gun. I noticed one of the security guys who saw it, too, and he grabbed Nikki to get her out of the way. He shot the plasma screen closest to him – and Frida – with a glob of yellow paint that splattered across Nikki's – the one on the plasma screen – chest. This time, though, instead of it just being a harmless act of vandalism, the force of the paintball had an actual impact on the screen.

A wire popped. Then a second one.

And Frida – my best friend's little sister – was right underneath it.

"Frida! Move!" Em shouted, worried about her sister.

If I'd been thinking, if I'd been a good friend, I would have been the one to push Frida out of the way. Or maybe, I could have just grabbed Em, kept her with me.

But I couldn't move. I was paralyzed by what I knew I'd be about to witness.

Not Em. She ran forward and shoved Frida to safety.

Right as the last wire popped, and the plasma screen came loose.