"So, I didn't see you that much at the party," Gwen asks, playing around with the Chinese food in one of those takeout boxes we ordered about a quarter of an hour ago in her room. Gwen's mom doesn't really like cooking much on Sundays for some weird reason, and we'd both already had pizza, but we were both relevantly hungry.

"Yeah, well," I say, as I suck one of the noodles in slowly, biding time to think of a reasonable answer, "I ended up bumping into Izzy."

'Bumping into Izzy' was a reasonable enough excuse for anyone. Izzy seems to talk for hours and hours, and she says some pretty weird stuff if you care to listen to her. Of course, no one actually does.

"Ahh," Gwen replies, "that doesn't make sense."

Ugh. Gwen has the capability of doing that – acting like it's a good answer, and you think you got away with it – then pouncing on you and telling you it doesn't make any sense at all.

"How? I was with Izzy."

"No, it's just; I was with Izzy the whole night, and she didn't leave my side once. Trent asked me to look after her because he thought she might, like, blow the house up or something," she pauses, "so that wasn't the case."

I pause, eating my Chinese food slowly and trying to avoid her glare.

"And you weren't with Bridge, either. The odds are you weren't with Heather, Lindsay and Beth – you don't' like Eva that much – I and Izzy were together, Leshawna was with Harold…" she continues, "you wouldn't hang out with much of the others…"

"Does it really matter? Like, it's not going to make a big difference, is it?" I ask her quickly.

She sighs and shrugs, "Guess not. Just like knowing, I guess."

"Also, my mum thinks…well, that your parents um…like, got divorced and your brother died."

She nearly chokes on the food.

"Wait, why? Do I have a brother?" Gwen asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, no," I admit, "but my mom wanted to invite Duncan and his mom over, and I needed some kind of excuse to make sure she didn't, so pretending that you were going through a tough time was my best idea."

"Wait, give me a second to catch up, your mom wanted to invite Duncan over? Why?"

"I don't know that well. Well – yeah, my mom liked his mom and then she invited his mom over and my mom made me hang out with Duncan…"

"WOW."

"What?" I reply, rather annoyed.

"You must be close then," she replies.

"No!" I nearly shout.

She pauses.

"You kissed," she mouthed.

"We didn't," I lower my voice.

"Me and Bridge saw."

A sensation feels my mind. They saw?! They saw us. They knew. She sees me looking numb.

"Court-it's just-we…we didn't see it coming at that time. None of us did. It shocked me. It's obviously shocked you," she whispers softly, "like – we knew it would be him. Some stage."

"Don't say that, Gwen," I tell her. "Don't act like that."

"What? Act like we knew? You know at the start of every year since I turned eight, a few of us – not many – usually just me, Trent, Bridge, Geoff, Heather and then later Alejhandro – used to bet whether you'd actually date this year. We just didn't expect at this time…"

"Have you told the others yet?" I demand.

"No."

"Don't. Please. I'll tell them in my own time. I'll visit Bridge later and tell her the same."

"Fine."

There's an awkward silence in the room.

"So –uh…you and Duncan, huh?"

"GWEN!"

"Oh, come on, calm down. How'd it feel? You know – C.I.T and criminal."

I pause for a moment, "Indescribable." I rise to my feet, "Anyway, I gotta go Gwen. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. See ya."

I walk down the stairs, and close the front door quickly as soon as I'm out. I sigh to myself, and walk down the streets to Bridge's. So, in a way they all knew. They all expected, for what – five years? And I never knew.

Friends – does it ever work full time?

Of course it doesn't.

I reach Bridgette's street, and rush up to her house. I knock on the door and Bridgette opens it in seconds, "And you and Duncan had nothing going on, huh?"

"Bridge, you're not allowed to tell anyone else. At all. Okay?"

"Sure," she says, rolling her eyes.

"Great. I'm going to go."

"Like, now? But it's only like 9:56p.m…ah, yeah. You should go."

"Yeah. See you tomorrow in school?"

"'Course. Are we walking?" she asks.

"Sure. Bye!" I say, as I rush home. My curfew's 10p.m, but luckily enough Bridge lives like a minute away from me. We all have the same curfew, except Duncan, who comes and goes as he pleases. And of course Gwen – her curfew's 10:07. (Don't say I didn't point out Gwen's mom is crazy, because I did.)

I look at the time as I enter my house – 9:58. Duncan's probably going to be here around 1:27 (random estimate) so I don't panic.

"Hi, sweetie! How's Gwen?" my mom says as I enter the house.

"Decent. It's really tough for her though," I fake yawn, "You know, I'm really tired. I'm just going to get to bed.

"Sure."

A/N – WOW. So they watched her, huh? Okay, tonight the summary's gonna start to kick in. The first ten chapters were like, a build-up of their relationship. On the eleventh, that's where the summary kicks in.

You may – or may not – have noticed there has been no mention of Chris or Chef Hatchet. There is a reason to this. A sequel is planned, and Chris plays a major role in the sequel. The current idea is shortly after the thing that happens to Courtney and Duncan in the summary, the 'danger', Chris reads about it in a paper, and then you know, get the idea of TDI and tells them and stalks them for the rest of their lives as Schoolers, blahblahblah, making them do crazy challenges in school, etc., etc.

So, if this all goes well, a sequel is planned.

I'm gonna do as much chapters as possible tonight to make up for me not doing any for ages….