sorry this took so long to get out. hopefully it doesn't disappoint.

When Louis finally drives her home Mary doesn't want him to leave, looking up at him with the biggest puppy dog eyes she can muster in order to convince him to stay. Her mother's working another late night, and even if she wasn't, she's always let Mary come home whenever she wanted, as long as Mary woke up for school the next day.

She wraps her arms around his waist, silently pleading, and he relents with a soft laugh. "You know you could sell the ocean a cup of water, don't you?" he says, and she just gives him a cheeky grin. "How could anyone ever possibly say no to you?"

"I don't know," Mary quips, somewhat bitterly while she's unlocking her front door, "ask Francis." She throws him a playful smile over her shoulder to show him the fact that she's joking, even though she's mostly serious.

"Ouch," he grins, poking her side, "remind me to never be on the receiving end of your anger."

"Mmm, not likely. You're just too cute." He looks so genuinely surprised by her comment that she has to kiss him. She just has to, there's no other option. She knows he told her that she could have time to think, but she doesn't want to think. That's all she ever does, think think think. She just wants to feel something besides anger and disappointment, for once. He looks even more surprised by her kiss, and it makes warmth spread through her entire body. Francis never looked surprised when she kissed him. He always seemed to be expecting it, like it was her job.

Mary knows that she should be checking her phone, trying to deal with the situation at hand, but she doesn't care. She sits on the couch with Louis for even longer before he has to leave. They do have school tomorrow, however irrelevant it may seem, and they both need their sleep. They talk about everything, from his brother to his parents to her father to Aylee. She tells him about Princeton and he looks so proud of her for even applying that she wants to cry. He always, always does the right thing and she is so immensely happy to have him in her life.

She really, desperately doesn't want to let him leave, but he does anyway, promising to drive her to school the next morning. She wishes that there was some way that she could protect him, but she knows that having a boy sleep over would definitely be crossing the line, no matter how lax her mother is about their house rules. Still, she knows it won't be easy for him to go back to that house, with Francis and probably the rest of their family up and waiting for him. And she really, really hopes that Francis doesn't decide to do something rash, like asking his parents to kick Louis out. Now that was something she could never forgive him for.

Mary's mother wakes her up the next morning without even a simple "good morning", immediately launching into a speech that starts with the words "Catherine called." Mary barely has time tomorrow let out an annoyed groan before her mother starts defending Francis. And, to be honest, Mary no longer cares. Nothing her mother says will change her mind this time. She's sick of forgiving Francis, of understanding Francis, of feeling sorry for Francis. If he had thought of her before making decisions, and not after, this conversation wouldn't even be happening. She was done.

So she let Marie spout whatever nonsense she wanted, waiting until her mother paused to take a breath before saying, "Are you done?" Her mother actually looks stunned, which is new, considering she's always so confident about her arguments, being a lawyer and all.

"Well, yes," Marie starts, "but—"

"No buts, mom. It's over. I don't care what you say, you can't change my mind."

Her mother looks at her and quirks an eyebrow. "You're serious about this, aren't you?"

"Yes, mom," Mary nods emphatically, as serious as she can be when she's just woken up and it's five-thirty in the morning. "He cheated on me. We can't go back from that. And even if we could I don't… want to. We haven't been good for a while."

"Well, at least tell him that it's over. That he has no hope. You owe him that much, at least." Mary is of the opinion that she doesn't owe Francis anything, but she just nods again and shoos her mother out of her room so that she can get dressed. Her stomach is in knots about seeing Louis again, in the most amazing way. No one has made her feel like this in so long, happy and giddy and excited. It's a nice change.

While she's waiting for him to get to her house, Mary finally turns on her phone, only to be bombarded with almost a hundred texts. Francis' texts start out with "let me explain" and end with her name in all capital letters, as if she's somehow to blame. She rolls her eyes and deletes those. The ones from Lola are frantic and apologetic, and as much as she wants to be mad, she can't be. She knows Lola is less to blame than Francis is — Mary knows firsthand how persuasive Francis can be, and how he could lash out when he's angry. And the thing is, that's not her problem anymore. She doesn't care what Francis does, and if Lola wants to be with him, good luck to her. And if she doesn't, then even better. Because Mary's not sure that Francis even knows how to treat a girl right, let alone one as amazing as Lola. Their friendship isn't worthing risking over a guy, one that Mary knows for sure that she's no longer in love with, and never will be.

Louis pulls up just as Mary's done reading through the rest of her texts, and waits until she puts her phone away to toss her a helmet.

"Now that you and Francis are over," he says, quirking an eyebrow to confirm, which she answers with a nod and soft laugh, "I can tell you how great I think your legs look in that uniform." Mary feels her cheeks heat up and covers up her dorky grin by putting the helmet on. She doesn't want the ride to practice to end, but at some point it does and she has to take her hands off of him. She squeezes his hand before she heads in the direction of the squad and tells him she'll see him later.

The greatest thing about high school, in Mary's opinion, is the fact that work actually gets done there. Not always, but it gets done on occasion. So when Mary feels like avoiding something, or in this case, someone, she has things to focus her energy on. For example, cheer practice — Coach actually praised her instead of yelling this morning, which felt amazing — or the riveting lecture that Narcisse was giving them about Hamlet right after.

Francis keeps trying to get her attention, which she promptly ignores, and laughs a little when Narcisse calls him out in front of the entire class. He shuts up after that.

She's texting Louis through the whole thing, trying to smother her laughter and hiding her phone under her desk. She can see him in the front of the room doing the same, and her skin feels incredibly warm. Greer's giving her weird looks, but she doesn't care. She's happy.

Lunch is weird, to say the least. Everyone at the table is extremely tense, obviously in the know about what happened. Trying to confront it is probably not her best idea, but she does anyway, spouting some nonsense about how everything's fine. What she really wants to do is hold Louis' hand and stick her tongue out at Francis, but she knows that's not mature, no matter how nice it would feel.

What she actually does is try to crack a joke, except Louis is the only one that laughs; which is extremely sweet, actually, but suffice to say it doesn't exactly help the situation.

So, she decides to finally take action.

After school, Mary sends out a group text to the girls, and one to Lola separately, telling them to meet at her house. The text to Lola tells her to come early, so that they can talk, and her friend readily agrees. She sends another text to Louis telling him to wait a few extra minutes for her.

Then she squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, and walks to Francis' car. He's not expecting her, obviously, because he's talking to the General and his eyes widen when she nears his car. He shoos the other boy away, running his hands through his hair — a nervous habit that she used to find endearing, but is now completely unaffected by.

"Hey," he says first, because once she had stopped walking she realized she had no idea what she was going to say. Actually, scratch that. Mary knows exactly what to say. What she realizes while standing there is that she wants an apology. An honest-to-god, realistic, heartfelt apology.

What she gets is Francis.

"Let me explain," he starts, and she's already shaking his head before he can even finish the sentence.

"I don't care," she tells him, and knows that she actually means it. No more wheedling his way out of it, kissing her to distract her, sending in his mother (and hers) to solve his problems for him. None of that. "I want you to know that there's no possibility that we're ever getting back together. So say what you need to say, let it all out, because I'm done. Completely and finally done, Francis, alright?"

"So that's it, then?" He spits, and she jumps back a little bit. She's never seen him this vindictive before. "You run to Louis to forget all of your problems, let him erase your pain, and suddenly we're over?"

Mary doesn't think she's ever been more angry or disgusted in her life, except maybe when she had found him and Lola on his bed. He's completely missed the point, yet again, misinterpreting all of her actions and feelings about the situation, like he did with Princeton, or when her father died.

"Louis doesn't erase my pain," she snaps, "he made me realize that it's worth feeling! That I can't just live my life ignoring it!"

Francis rolls her eyes, and that just angers her even more.

Louis was the first person who asked her what she wanted, like Francis should have done. He's the one who visits Aylee's grave with her, he's the one who helped her when no one else would, and he's the one that listened to her when no one else bothered. He's the one who was her friend, the one who never expected anything of her besides wanting to be around her, wanting to have her in his life, despite Francis.

God, she's been so blind. She loves him. She loves him she loves him she loves him. She loves Louis, not Francis, and she's been so busy trying to convince herself that she could make everyone else happy that she hadn't even seen what was right in front of her. She glances at Francis, who's open mouthed and stunned. Then she turns around to go find Louis.

"Mary! How'd it go?"

Louis' eyes light up when he sees her and she honestly wants to cry. Everything about him is so pure and she can't even answer his question because she's too busy fumbling with his helmet, trying to get it off.

"Mary, what—" he doesn't get the rest of his sentence out, because Mary throws her arms around his neck and kisses him senseless. She loves him. It's an incredible feeling. And looking back on her relationship with Francis, she realizes that this time it's actually real. Now that she has something to compare Francis to, she knows she's made the right choice.

When she finally lets him go he's grinning widely, his eyes searching her own. "I'm assuming it went well, then?"

"Terrible, actually. Which only made everything much more obvious."

His hands are stroking her face and she feels giddy, unable to control the smile lighting up her face.

"Everything? You don't say. And what does 'everything' entail?" He repeats her wording from the elevator, which makes her grin. He's still smiling, but it starts to fade when he notices her face change into a serious expression. Oh, spit it out already, Stuart, he thinks you're dumping him, you idiot, she thinks to herself. It wasn't this hard with Francis, but everything about that was wrong, anyway, she knows now. And she's done comparing them, anyway. She has the best there is; nothing could ever compare to that.

"Louis, I'm… I think I'm in love with you," she blurts, biting her lip, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "And I wasn't sure before, because I was still healing. But I know now. I can give you my heart. My full, strong heart." She doesn't know how she'll take it if he doesn't feel the same way. The pause before he speaks is probably the scariest moment in her life, and the relief she feels after he opens his mouth to speak is like nothing she's ever felt before.

"Mary, I am completely in love with you. When I'm near you, I… am aware of every breath you take. I didn't know I could love anyone this much."

She doesn't know if she's crying or not, but she kisses him again, hoping that it contains even the smallest amount of her feelings for him. He lets out a small breath when she pulls away again, obviously not wanting to let go, and even though she feels the same, she knows they should probably be getting home. Plus, she doesn't want the school's security cameras to have too much of them on tape, either. She wants him all to herself.

Louis drops her off at home with a promise to see her later, and she gives him a long kiss before running inside. Mary waits anxiously for Lola to arrive, pacing back and forth in front of the door. When she sees her friend's car pull up in the driveway she jumps up and answers the door before the dark-haired girl can even knock. She immediately goes in for a hug, hoping that Lola will understand that she is completely over the entire situation.

"Mary, I'm so sor—" Lola begins, but Mary cuts her off with a quick wave of her hand.

"Don't be. I'm not angry, really. You're one of my best friends, Lo, I could never be mad at you."

"Oh, Mary, I'm so glad you aren't. But I just need you to know the truth. I couldn't live with myself if you didn't know, and I kept it to myself. Please just let me get this out."

Mary gestures to the couch and they both sit down. Lola looks nervous, tucking her hair behind her ears. She really shouldn't be, Mary thinks, but doesn't say anything, just sits quietly until Lola starts her story.

"Francis just called me to talk, honest, that's all I thought was going to happen when I got there. He was upset about what was going on with you guys, and I really wanted to help. I've always thought you guys were good together." Mary cringes at that, thinking about all the things her friends didn't see that went on behind closed doors. "But when I got there he was really drunk, and he was super upset, and he just kissed me. I didn't even know what to do, I was so caught up in the moment. And then you walked in and everything just got so out of hand and I thought you'd never want to speak to me again. I'm so sorry, Mary, I really am. You're being way too nice by forgiving me."

"Lola, it's all in the past. All this tells me is that Francis once again didn't think of me while making a decision, and he used you to get back at me. I am definitely not mad at you, okay? Can we just forget this ever happened? I hate not being able to talk to you."

Lola's the one who leans in for a hug this time, and both girls laugh in relief afterwards. It feels like a huge amount of tension has been lifted from the room. Mary gets up and gestures towards the kitchen. "Let's go make popcorn before the girls come, and not think about boys for a good few hours, yeah?"

Lola laughs and follows her.

Mary texts Louis not to come over when she realizes that she needs more than just a few hours with her friends. She needs the entire night with them in order to be able to detox from the huge amount of drama that has been her life lately, and he completely understands.

He'll still be driving her to school, anyway, so it's not such a big loss, even though she'd love to spend as much time with him as possible. Still, she likes the feeling of being able to spend time apart and not having to worry, and loves that Louis is always so supportive of her. He'd become really good friends with Leith recently, which allowed him to get to know Greer, too. He loved her so much that he hung out with her friends, which meant a lot to her, because they were as important to her (even more so, she had to admit), than he was. Her friends had been there for her her entire life, and she was glad that he understood.

Mary, Lola, Greer, and Kenna have a huge movie marathon, ranging from classics like Clueless to new movies like Pacific Rim (she's a huge science fiction nerd, okay?). Kenna loves to make inappropriate jokes, especially about how weirdly incest-y Clueless is.

"They're literally related, you guys, this is so wrong."

"But they're in looooove," Greer sings mockingly.

Halfway through The Amazing Spider-Man, Lola falls asleep, and Kenna sprays her hand with whipped cream, which ends up all over Lola's face. They have a right laugh about that one.

The girls leave at around three AM, which is going to suck the next morning, but it's completely worth it. Mary is so glad their relationship is solid again. She didn't like keeping things from her friends, and was so happy that everything was finally out in the open.

She sends Louis a text goodnight, and he replies "Can't wait to see you tomorrow", which makes her grin unbelievably wide. Even simple things like this made her glad that they were finally together. She couldn't wait to see him, either.

i watched the finale. it was garbage. like i would ever believe that mary would stab louis like 2 episodes after they're declaring their love. okay, sure