THIS is the nice long chapter. Ok. Very long. Here we go now. And by the way, there is more to the story after this.

Nico and I went to his dormitory to work on our project that day, and it was incredibly uncomfortable. He refused to look at me, and we talked only about the project, acting as if we were complete strangers. He made me leave 5 minutes early, and left the room before I could try to talk to him. "Dammit Nico." I whispered when he left.

Nate kept his promise to date me and only me. One day we were talking between classes by his locker. He left to go to his next class, clumsily shutting his locker. I caught the door right before it shut, and as he walked away I looked through it. Our boarding school has a certain plain notebook that we have to use for classes, so when I saw a colorful notebook I took it. I looked through it. Each different page had a name of a different person. I saw a bunch of names of people that had been labeled nerds or fat-asses. Then there was one Indian guy, Nico, a stalker girl, and this really short guy. Under the names were a bunch of lame insults. WTF?

The next Friday, Nico ignored me again in class. I was in a pretty nasty mood, not only because of Nico but because I hadn't slept last night, and the shower I took this morning was cold. Anyway, I was not a happy camper. So when I saw Nate standing by Nico's locker I wasn't in the mood to put up with him. Nate's friends were watching, laughing. "Your jeans look really tight. How about you slip into something more comfortable? A coma sound good?" Taylor was walking next to me, and scoffed. I rolled my eyes. That was in Nate's little book of insults. He was going down. "Hey, Kaitlin!"

NDA:

As Nate stood there insulting me, I got more furious than usual. "Hey Kaitlin!" He said as Kaitlin and Taylor walked down the hall. He grabbed her jean back pocket and brought her next to him, his arm around her, his hand lying on her ass. Perfect. Now she could tell everyone I kissed her, which would make my day. Maybe I should just ditch school and spend full time with my dad in the Underworld. "Keep your hands to yourself Nate." Kaitlin growled, pulling away. I watched nervously as more people gathered, wondering where this was going. "Hey everyone, want to hear something hilarious about Nate?" She said cheerily. I thought back to when she had talked to Taylor on the phone, how her voice had stayed cheerful but her face was board. Right now as I looked at her, I saw her grin didn't reach her eyes, and that her eyes were burning. She stepped away from Nate, taking out a notebook from under her schoolbooks. "No! Where did you find that!" Nate yelled, trying to grab it. Kaitlin hid it behind her back. Some guys blocked Nate from her. She opened the notebook and began to read.

"Kathy Peeps." Kathy was a really fat girl at our school, being made fun of every day. "Insult #1, The world is full go home. Insult #2, When your in the shower your feet don't get wet, do they? Insult #3, Look! Someone's footprint in the concrete! Must be Kathy's." Nate tried to grab the book but some guys held him back. Kaitlin turned the page. "Thomas Paine" Thomas was an Indian guy at our school. He was really weird and tried to sit with a bunch of girls every lunch. "Insult #1 You must have been born on the Highway. That's where most accidents happen." And so on. When she came to my page, she read the same insult that Nate had just said to me. That I should go in a coma. I saw more on there, but she didn't read it. Kaitlin closed the page. Everyone was laughing, but Taylor was laughing the hardest. "Wow. I don't know about you guys, but I have better things to do in my free time than to figure out how to insult people." Kaitlin looked up at Nate. "Were over Nate. I don't like people with no lives." She turned to leave but he grabbed her hand. "Kaitlin! Wait, please, I love you." She regarded him coldly. "Sorry, I don't mix well with assholes. Besides didn't you say that to Silvia before you got her pregnant and forced her into an abortion?" I gapped. Silvia was pregnant? What? Nate gasped. "How did you find out about that!" He shouted. "Holly shit he kills babies!" Someone yelled. "Next time you're at Starbucks, be a little more careful." Taylor said gleefully. She was smirking and Nate was gapping, unable to comprehend that people were being mean to him instead of the other way around. Kaitlin and Taylor walked away.

After school I had to go to Kaitlin's house. Her dad answered the door and told me to go right up. I entered the room and Kaitlin was looking through the photos on her desk that I had looked through the first time I was here. "Kaitlin?" I said gently, coming up behind her. She didn't turn around or acknowledge me, and at first I thought she was ignoring me. She came to the picture of her and a boy. I remembered seeing it. "That's Mike." She said. "Even though he was younger he was taller than me." "He looks like you." I said. And he did. Their brown hair was similar, their eyes both were dark, their skin similar, their lips the same. She flipped through some pictures and came up with one of her and a bunch of others. "Sarah, Nia, Laila and Renee." She said pointing to a each girl in the photo. They were all at a restaurant, laughing. They were all from our school, but Kaitlin never talked to them. "I didn't know you guys were friends." I said. "Yea well we were." She said, putting the photos down. "Do you want to start the project?" She asked. "Why did you do that?" I blurted out. She looked at me questioningly. "Why did you do that to Nate?" I asked. She shrugged. "Why shouldn't I have?" "It was...mean. He was your boyfriend." She sighed. "He's mean. Nico, he insults you every day. Why do you care so much if I insult him? Give him a taste of his own medicine?" She asked. "Ok my fault. I was wrong about you." I said vaguely. Her eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?" I shrugged. "I just thought you were better than him. Than all your friends. I was wrong. Do you want to start the project?" Her eyes burned and I wanted to take it all back. "No. YOUR the one who doesn't understand. I thought you might." She snapped. "He deserves it. He hates on people every day, breaks every girl's heart. You know that as well as I do." "So what! Since he's mean you can do the same to him?" I asked. "Yes! You know what, forget it." She grabbed her laptop and came to sit by me on the floor. She tried to open the document for our project, but I pushed the laptop away and grabbed her arms. "No. I don't understand. But your gonna explain it to me." I told her. She glared at me, and I wanted to back down and leave. I looked away, refusing to look at her eyes. "Why do you hate Nate so much?" I asked. She sighed. "It's not Nate I hate." "Than who?" I persuaded. "All of them. Nate, Taylor, Silvia, Linda, Kathy, Melinda, Sara, Jason, Thome." She said, listing a bunch of popular people. "Kaitlin, half these people are your best friends. If you hate them why are you friends with them." I looked at her and she looked down. "I was friends with Sarah, Nia, Laila and Renee." That explained the pictures. "People started called me Emo, just because I wore grey half the time." She looked at me and her eyes glinted. "So I changed to the perfect person they all wanted me to be, and I befriended the people I'm friends with now." Her eyes burned, but she wasn't looking at me. "During the Spring Fling, Nate one year made a huge deal how I'd never get a date." The Spring Fling was a dance at the beginning of spring. Basically our own little prom. "So I proved him wrong and got a date, and then slowly he started liking me." She said. Her eyes were sad, her voice turned from hard to soft. "And I got back at him today. And Silvia. The others are next." I let go of her arms. "Does that help you? What else is so utterly important that you MUST know about me?" She meant it to sound harsh, but it didn't come out that way. Um,nowthatyoumentionit,whydidMikegotothementalinstitute?I wanted to ask, but didn't. I tilted her face toward mine. "Why do you have to get back at them? Why cant you just... let it go?" She shook her head. "I don't know. It's...hard to explain. I just have this burning pit in my stomach, if I don't get revenge on a person that hurt me it gets bigger and bigger and consumes my thoughts." She sighed "Does that make any sense?" I nodded, though I wasn't really sure. "So you act like them. You dress like them, act like them." She nodded. "So you insult everyone too. There your no better." She opened her mouth, gapping but smiling. "Wait I don't insult people!" I rolled my eyes. "Yes you do." "No I don't!" She protested. "Come on, when was the last time I said anything mean to you?" She asked me. I opened my mouth to tell her one of the many things, but I couldn't think of anything. She smiled. "Um, oh! You...wait never mind that was Taylor." I tried. She laughed. "I'd never insult you." She said grinning at me. I was suddenly very aware of how close she was to me. I leaned back, surprised, but she just went over me. She laid one hand on my chest and my arm snapped. Before I could catch myself she had kissed me, and I fell to the ground.

I came to my senses with her lying on top of me, pulling away and playing with my hair. I couldn't think and I felt myself breathing heavily. She giggled. "Your so cute." She buried her head on my neck, placing her lips to my throat. She moved them up my jaw, then to my ear. I couldn't think. Uncertainly I pulled my arms around her waist. She moved her forehead on mine, our noses touching. "You have no idea." She kissed me, then pulled away. "How much." Another kiss. "I wanted to kiss you after you kissed me." She pressed her lips into mine, her lips running over mine. I felt dizzy I wasn't getting any air.

She pulled away again and I asked her "Why didn't you?" She frowned. "I was stupid. Really stupid. I knew I either had to have you or Taylor and everyone else." She smirked. "And besides, you didn't really give me a chance to kiss you back." She pulled closer and I grinned. "Yea...I, um..." She pulled closer, her lips just touching mine. "Please forgive me. Please." It was kind of hard to say no. "I realized I loved you more than I hated them." She finished.

We started kissing again, and I ran my hands down her body, to her thighs. She had one hand on the floor by my neck. Her other was on my chest which moved up to stroke my face and hair, then it went back down. I pulled away. "Wait." I tried to collect my thoughts and figure out how to breathe. "You love me?" She smiled, stroking my face. She pressed her lips on my throat. "Yea. Yea I do." She laid her head on my chest. "Your heart's beating. Good news, your alive." She murmured. I laughed. I thought it over, then kissed Kaitlin's head. "I love you too."

KM:

Nico and I finally broke away. We'd spent hours together and we hadn't done any of our work. I laid my head on his chest. The whole time his heart had been thumping wildly and his breathes got farther apart and heavier. "I can't feel my knees. Is that normal?" He asked. I found it so bizarre I burst out laughing. "Sometimes." I got out. I turned my head so my lips touched his neck. "Promise me one thing if were gonna date." I told him. He looked at me seriously, worry in his eyes. "I get to sit with you at lunch." I said, tapping my finger against his jaw twice. He laughed. "Of course." He ran his fingers through my hair. His other hand was on my thigh, below my ass. "Kaitlin." he said. His voice was serious. I looked up. uh-oh. "I, don't want to tell anyone were dating." I blinked, not sure if I heard him right. "Wait, what! Why?" "Well, if on Monday we walk in and all of a sudden were dating, that's gonna cause a lot of drama. And well, I kind of like my life right now. It's as good as it's gonna get." He told me. I thought about it. "Makes sense." I said slowly. "Are you sure?" He nodded. I touched my lips to his, not quiet kissing him. He grinned. I looked at him. His eyes were dark and sad, his hair was long and black, his skin olive. He was perfect in his own way.