A/N: Thanks so much for all of the reviews. I really appreciate them. I hope you all enjoy this (slightly longer) chapter. :)

That Monday morning, the halls of Roosevelt High School were buzzing with rumors about what had happened between Alex and Olivia the day before. There were over a dozen students who knew the truth about what happened, but all it took was one freshman to embellish the story. Squirting ketchup and mustard on Alex wasn't exciting enough for him so he started the rumor that there was hair-pulling involved, but hair-pulling wasn't exciting enough for the sophomore he told, so he told his friends that there was hair-pulling and cursing involved. That rumor spread to another group of students and those students added the two of them slapping each other at the diner. Before the bell had even rang to start first period, students Olivia had never even spoken to before were approaching her and asking if it's true that Alex had slapped her because she pulled her hair and called her a whore. Olivia wanted to ask what they were talking about and who had told them that, but she had bigger problems on her mind. Olivia knew an attack was imminent; she just wasn't sure what kind of attack and that terrified her.

Olivia stayed close to Abbie and Casey that morning, hoping to find safety in numbers, but three wasn't a very large number and it was moments like this one that made Olivia wish she had more than two friends at school. Unlike almost every other student at Roosevelt, the three of them weren't involved in any extracurricular activities nor were they part of any particular category. They definitely weren't preps, they weren't mod, they weren't hippies, and they weren't activists; they were just in a state of being, or so Abbie liked to call it. There were five of them to begin with, but now that Elliot had graduated and Casey's boyfriend Tony had moved to the other side of town and was attending their rival school they were down to three. Casey was respected at their school and she could have been popular if not for her association with Abbie. Abbie was a social pariah, but only because she made herself one. Abbie had been asked to be a Coquette during her freshman year, but she told them to 'go fuck themselves' because she wouldn't 'lower' herself to being a Coquette. She received plenty of attention from boys at school and she found a way to use that to her advantage. Whenever a girl would give her a hard time about something, she'd get her revenge by sleeping with her boyfriend. This had happened twelve times, or at least Olivia had been told about it happening twelve times—she might have lost count. Abbie hated high school and every girl at school hated her except for her two best friends. With Abbie as a best friend, Olivia knew there was no chance of increasing their numbers, but she wouldn't trade Abbie for anyone. She loved her despite her standoffish attitude and her inane desire to sleep with married men and guys with girlfriends.

"Don't be afraid, Benson," Abbie told her as she leaned against the wall by their lockers. "Cabot isn't going to do anything and, if she does, just tell her Thomas cheated on her—end of story. She'll cry like a baby and be even more humiliated than she was at the diner."

"I know it sounds horrible, but I liked seeing Alex cry," Casey pointed out. "It almost makes her seem human."

"Do you think she put something in my locker?" Olivia asked, still hesitant to turn the dial on her lock.

"Like what?" Abbie asked. "Do you want me to open it for you?"

"No, I got it," Olivia responded. When she opened her locker, she was surprised nothing had popped out at her. All of her belongings were in tact and seemed to be untouched.

"She's not going to do anything," Abbie reminded her. "She's too afraid."

"Abbie?"

"What's up, doc?" Abbie asked.

"My diary is gone," Olivia said frantically. "Did you grab it? I left it here over the weekend. Why isn't it here?"

"Relax, Liv," Casey told her. "Maybe you forgot that you took it home over the weekend. It's not like anyone could have stolen it. Nobody knows your combination."

"You're right," Olivia said, relieved, but her relief turned to complete terror when she heard an uproar at the end of the hallway.

No way! Olivia thought as she took off running with Casey and Abbie following closely behind.

It was the perfect revenge or so Alex thought. She knew Olivia kept a diary and would write in it at school instead of conversing with her peers. When Alex told Carol about the diary, she insisted if they were really going to get Olivia they'd have to hit her where it hurts—they'd expose all of her innermost thoughts and feelings to the entire school. Getting Olivia's locker combination was easier than they had assumed. Her friend Beverly's aunt worked in the office and had access to every student's locker combination. All Beverly did was politely ask her aunt and Olivia's combination was theirs. They had to get up half an hour earlier to put their plan into effect before Olivia arrived, but it was worth it and everything had gone according to plan. Alex didn't think Olivia's diary was particularly exciting, but whenever she saw anything related to sex she knew she had to read it aloud.

"I let Donny get to second base last night. What a drag," Alex read to her growing audience. "He kisses okay, but when he touched my breasts I felt like he was tuning a radio."

This senior named Donny was in the audience and Alex could have sworn she could pinpoint the exact moment he started hating Olivia. If she could turn more people against Olivia, this little stunt would be more than worth it for her.

"Read another," Carol urged Alex.

"Gladly," Alex told Carol. She flipped a few pages until she found an entry from Friday. "Oh, this was written in Mr. Vance's class. I'm tired of living a lie. I have everyone fooled with an on again off again relationship with Elliot that the two of us have fabricated to save face. Elliot has a girlfriend at another school, so it works out just fine for me. I have no desire to date guys. Abbie says it's because I don't like high school boys, but I know it has to be more than that. I just don't know what's wrong with me or if anything is wrong with me at all. Maybe this is normal. I just can't stop staring at Al—and that's where I stop reading this."

"Al?" Carol asked in disbelief. "She has a crush on Albert? He's out of her league, not to mention he's already going steady with Jody."

Olivia had written about not being able to stop staring at Alex and Alex had read every word Olivia had written about her cheerleading skirt and how her sweater had hugged her in all of the right places. She could do some damage with this—she could possibly ruin Olivia beyond belief, but she decided against it. She closed the diary and gripped it as tight as she could so nobody could pry it from her.

"Yeah, she has a crush on Albert," Alex said sheepishly.

"Read another one, beautiful," Thomas told her and the rest of the growing crowd started cheering her on.

"No," Alex insisted. "The bell is going to ring soon."

"Come on, babe," Thomas pleaded.

"Shut up," Alex told him and turned around to walk away.

When Olivia approached the crowd, she knew it was too late; the damage had already been done. She didn't know exactly what had been read, but by the judgmental look of her classmates, she knew Alex had exposed her secrets.

She has the audacity to just walk away so calmly after reading my diary to everyone? Not happening.

Olivia didn't know what had come over her, but she took off at full speed toward Alex and knocked her down from behind. Olivia was so enraged that she had no idea what she was going to do next, but she knew she still had to make Alex pay. When Olivia noticed Alex wasn't fighting back, she got off of her and a crying Alex immediately turned around. There were a few drops of blood on the floor and Alex cried even more when she put her fingers to her lips and felt the warm blood quickly pooling at the surface.

"Please don't hurt me," she pleaded with Olivia. She looked so fragile, so helpless. At that moment, Olivia couldn't even dream of hurting her more regardless of what she had done.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Thomas asked Olivia once everyone had caught up to them. He tried to help her up, but Alex pushed him away.

"Don't touch me!" she said angrily. "Stay away from me, Thomas!"

Olivia didn't know what would come of it, but she decided to do what Thomas couldn't—she helped a now hysterical Alex to her feet.

"Everyone, please leave," Alex said, trying to say the least amount of words possible because every movement of her mouth hurt her.

Luckily, the bell cleared the crowd, including Abbie and Casey. Alex and Olivia were left alone and neither of them knew what to do. Alex had calmed down, but she knew something had to be done about her lip. Where is the administration in all of this? She thought. Our principal should have never let it get to this point.

"I'm sorry," Olivia mumbled.

"It's okay," Alex told her.

"No, it's not," Olivia insisted.

"I was a bitch to you, Olivia."

"We can talk later," Olivia told her. "I've noticed the more your mouth moves, the more you bleed. Let's get you to a doctor. I'll drive you. Do you have your keys with you?"

All Alex could do was nod and gesture to her purse. The two of them left the campus completely unnoticed and Olivia was in total disbelief of where her day had taken her. She had arrived on campus that morning afraid of Alex and now she was sitting in the driver's seat of Alex's Mustang on the way to the hospital. They rode there in complete silence because Olivia didn't want to make Alex speak. The pain was increasing and Olivia was torn between feeling bad for her and feeling as if Alex had deserved it for reading her diary aloud. While Alex was getting her lip stitched, Olivia started re-reading everything she had written. Most of it wasn't too interesting until she reached the most recent entry.

Did Alex read this? Please don't tell me she read this. What if she thinks I'm perverted for looking at her? That can't be. If she thought that about me, she wouldn't have gotten in the car with me. But she knows! She knows I was looking at her that day! She knows I think she's beautiful! So what? Everyone thinks she's beautiful. That's why she's so popular, but this is different. She knows this is different.

"I'm finished," Alex whispered as she tried hiding her lip with her hand. Olivia gently grabbed her wrist and moved her hand away from her lip. There she was—the most popular and most beautiful girl in school—with a stitched and swollen lower lip. How was Alex going to explain that to her parents? Homecoming was quickly approaching and Olivia knew Mr. and Mrs. Cabot wouldn't want that to prevent their daughter from winning the title of Homecoming Queen.

"It's not so bad," Olivia said reassuringly.

"I'm ugly," Alex said and started crying.

Olivia wanted to tell her that she could never be ugly no matter what happened to her, but she knew that was out of line. And why would she want to tell her that? She hated Alex or at least she tried hating Alex. This girl read my diary out loud to all of her friends. She doesn't deserve my pity.

"I'm going home," Alex told her, finally feeling capable of driving. "I don't want anyone seeing me like this. Can you keep me company? I don't want to be alone."

"But I'm the one who busted your lip," Olivia pointed out. "Why do you want to spend time with me?"

"We need to talk," Alex insisted. They were four little words that Olivia was afraid of but she decided to go to Alex's house anyway. The two of them had so much to talk about; the diary, Abbie sleeping with Thomas, both of which were dreaded subjects for Olivia and she didn't know which was worse. As they were entering Alex's house, she decided she wasn't going to tell her about Thomas, which only left the diary to talk about. Perhaps it was for the best. The situation with Thomas was none of Olivia's business, she thought, and the diary gave them enough to talk about.