Chapter 3. Now, for all the people who are reading my story but not reviewing, please review. It makes me happy. And I've got 43 hits so far, so I know people are reading.

Special Thanks goes to Rochelleteentitan and Quoth.

And, as always, a thank you to by beta, Neilie.

Here we go.

"speaking"

thinking

Kory's P.O.V.

I trudged home alone. Karen offered to wait for me, but I didn't want her to miss her date with her boyfriend, Mal. They really needed to work things out. Karen and Mal had been having a hard time ever since her parents had gotten divorced. I guess she demanded more than he could give her. Boy, do I know that well.

But Karen might be able to patch things up with Mal. He's a good guy.

Maybe.

If she's lucky.

I've had my own guy problems. Patching up is never easy. It doesn't work.

I know.

I've tried.

This line of thought was rather rudely interrupted when I ran into a couple in front of me who were kissing.

Accidentally running into them, of course.

"Watch where you're going, dude!" Garfield Logan, my best friend, yelled at me. Well, not know it was me until he said, "Oh…Kory…"

I was disgusted at he and his girlfriend's PDA. "Oh, God, Gar, get a room!"

He looked sheepish. "This…isn't what it looks like, Kor." His girlfriend looked affronted. "Wait. What do you mean, "it isn't?" Tara Markov looked rather sad, but I could feel a wave of anger coming from her.

Gar looked slightly scared, meaning that he felt the angry wave too. "Tara, not now." Tara sighed. "Well that's…great." Another sigh. "Call me when you decide this is what it looks like." She left us.

Woah, wasn't expecting that. It was time for apologetic Kory to come out.. "Wow. Sorry."

Gar wasn't mad at me. He doesn't get mad at me often, 'cause he knows I can kick his ass. "Never mind. I'll talk to her later. So, what's up?"

"Nothing much. Well…Okay, ew, peer counseling with Rachel Roth," I said, and decided to tell him about my peer counseling adventure.

Gar looked shocked. "She's counseling YOU?"

How could he even think that? I'm not the one with the issues. "No…I'm counseling her."

Gar looked relieved, then his face fell. "Well, that's not much better. Ummm…she didn't mention me, right?"

I was confused. "Uh…no. Why would she?"

Gar looked at the ground. "Well, uh…" I would need to encourage him.

"What? Did you, like, sleep with her?" He looked scared. Oh my God. He didn't—did he?

"Shmyfrst," he mumbled.

He sighed and looked at me. "She was my first."

"Oh…oh…oh…" I was shocked. "You and…Oh my God." This was a revelation. A big one.

We began to walk towards my house. Gar's was farther away.

"Yah. So…are we going out to the Spot tonight?" asked Gar. I thought about the piles of homework I had to do. Going to a club-like place, however, like the Spot, was much more appealing.

"Sure." Stupid mouth.

Maybe Robin would be there.

The thing about small towns is that there is only one thing to do at night. That meant that everyone was at the Spot. Including Robin. Including Rachel.

"…so I had to sneak out." I heard her say to some girl with bubblegum pink hair, who was smoking something that I'm pretty sure was illegal. What's her name, what's her name? Jennifer? Jenny? Jennica! Jennica, right.

I decided to put my two-cents in, 'cause, hey, Rachel's not my friend.

"You snuck out? That's pathetic," I smirked at Rachel as she whipped around to look at me. Her reflexes were almost as good as mine.

I could almost feel the anger radiating off her. "Oh, 'cause you're such the golden girl, Kory. Robin told me about all those times you snuck out to see him." She had an evil little smile on her face that I wanted to rip right off. "Oh, and there he is now. Come on, Jenn, let's go."

She and the girl departed in the direction of the door, just as Robin walked in. I saw him greet Rachel and Jennica, and Rachel led him onto the dance floor while Jennica stayed behind to talk to a boy with red hair, who I knew as Wally West, a guy I sometimes hung out with. Rachel and Robin were dancing together on the dance floor. Their dance style was very risqué, but they still managed to talk while they were doing it.

I had to stop it. I knew she was just doing this to bug me. What right did she have to make me feel miserable? I hadn't done anything to her.

I made my way across the dance floor until I was near them.

"What are you doing with her?" I asked him, practically yelling over the music.

Robin paused for a second, then looked at me and shrugged. "I'm allowed to hang out with whoever I want to."

And then he and Rachel went back to dancing.

I left the club, seething.

-end-

Good, bad? Review please!

I'm sick of stories where Kory is a) a total air-head, or b) a foreign student, or c) a total sex machine. So here she's a regular person, with regular problems.