Nita saw Kit walking towards her in the hallway after lunch the next day. What was he doing here? This was the high school wing of the school. He had to be looking for her. Quickly she ducked into the bathroom. She leaned against the wall, waiting for Kit to pass. She was startled by the sound of crying.

Oh, great, she thought, I've stumbled in on one of the preps' weekly sob sessions because the flavor of the week broke up with them.

But this was different. There was no gaggle of girls surrounding the crier, assuring her that "He's a jerk anyway." Nita slowly made her way over to the girl sitting in the corner with her head rested against her knees. Against her better judgement, Nita asked, "What's wrong?"

The girl looked up. Her hazel eyes were blood-shot and puffy, her blonde hair hung in straggles around her face. A mask of confusion came on her face, and she asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Nita Callahan. Are you okay?"

The girl laughed bitterly. "That'd be the day."

"What's wrong?" Nita repeated, resigning to be the sympathetic ear again, "Anything you want to talk about?"

"He had to pick the worst time, didn't he?" she shook her head.

"Who?" asked Nita.

"My father. We just moved here. Today is my first day here. I don't think he realized what day it is, or if he did, he didn't care."

Nita was puzzled. It was October 15th. She couldn't remember today being anything.

The girl noticed her puzzled look, and said, "My mother died ten years ago on October 15th."

A tremble passed through Nita's body as she remembered how close she'd come to losing her mother last month. How any day now, Nita could wake up and find her mother gone.

It was her greatest fear, greater than that of the Lone Power, that her mother's cancer would return.

The girl took in her silence and said, "I'm sorry. Off loading my problems on complete stranger."

Nita said softly, "My mother is dying." The bell sounded, drowning out her words.

"What?" asked the girl.

Nita repeated, tears welling in her eyes, "My mother is dying. Brain cancer. She's in remission now, but the doctor are sure it's only temporary. They say a year or two, at most."

"I'm so sorry. My mother had a heart attack. They discovered she was a cardiomyopathic too late. I was only four."

"That's terrible." said Nita. The tears were following freely now. Near girl heard the tardy bell rang. "I can hardly imagine losing my mom now. To think of not having her as I grew up..."

"My father was never the best substitute mother, either." said the girl. "He-"

They were interrupted as Dr. Turmen, the assistant superintendent, walked in.

"Girls!" she said sharply, "Why are you not in class? DO you have a pass?"

Nita admitted that neither of them had a pass, and hadn't noticed the bell had rung.

"You both have tardies." she stated plainly.

"Please, Mrs. Turmen," Nita said quietly, "My mother is dying as we speak. Hers died ten years ago today. Please, give us a break."

Dr. Turmen's face softened in a mixture of sympathy and pity. She paused for a moment before saying, "Alright. Only this once. I'll write you passes. I know Nita, but I need to know your name and both of your classes and teacher."

"I'm in English with Hesstle." said Nita.

"Angie—Angela— Zeen. I'm in Algebra I...I can't remember the teacher's name. Wait, it's on my schedule. Sorry," the girl, Angie, apparently, apologized, digging through her bag, "It's my first day here. Here. It's Smith."

"Alright, Nita and Angie. I'll give you fifteen minutes to freshen up, but by five 'til one, I expect you both in class, agreed?"

Both Nita and Angie thanked Dr. Turmen, and she left.

Nita slashed her face with cold water, trying to conceal the fact that she had been crying. It didn't help much.

"Here," said Angie, offering Nita some concealer, after using it herself, "Works wonders."

Nita had never really worn make-up. A little, especially recently on her dates with Ronan, but rarely more than perhaps some lipstick. She also never had had close girlfriends to experiment with make-up with. She'd never stayed up all night at a sleepover, doing makeovers on each other. Kit was really the only friend she'd ever had, and something just didn't apply when your best friend was a guy. If they were even still friends.

So when Nita nodded at Angie, it was a bit of a new experience when, with expert's grace, Angie quickly applied concealer around Nita's eyes.

"There. All better," she said, "No one will figure out that we were both late because we were spilling not only tears, but our problems to a person we'd known not even five minutes. I'm Angie, by the way."

The current Angie, hiding behind a face that concealed so much pain for so long, was a complete one-eighty from the crying girl huddled in the corner of the bathroom ten minutes ago.

"Hi. I'm Nita. Today's your first day, you said?"

"Yes. I moved here from Illinois."

It seemed odd to be talking so casually after their crying session.

"We had better get to class."

"Yeah, we got one pass. I doubt we could wrangle another."

They parted ways, Nita to English, and Angie to Algebra I.

After English, Nita head to Biology, her second last class of the day. There would be Geometry to suffer through after that.

She groaned when she entered the classroom. Spread on the desks, were an array of items and chemicals. She'd forgotten that they would be testing for carbon compounds: carbohydrates, lipids, sugar, and starch, today. It wasn't that Nita disliked labs, it was just that she had a horrible lab partner. A majority of the time, Nita's lab partner was "sick" and when she did come, she wouldn't help, and Nita ended up doing the lab on her own anyway.

But today was different. As soon as Nita sat down and class started, the teacher announced, "We have a new student!" {A/N: Guess who?}

"This is Angela-"

"Angie." said, if you hadn't figured it out, Angie.

"Angie Zeen. Angie, why don't you take a seat by Nita, the third table in the second row."

Needless to say, both girls were thrilled at the prospect. After the teacher explained the lab, they got to work, mincing potatoes and mixing them and everything else—cornstarch, Sweet-n-Low, honey, butter, lettuce, apple juice,oil— with water as well as they could, and then mixing in the chemical agents.

"Was the Sudan Red III for carbohydrates or lipids?" asked Angie.

"I think carbohydrates. The blue stuff is for lipids."

"Which one?" There were two bottles of blue liquid, Beurient (sp) Regent and Benedict's Solution.

"Um... the blue one?" suggested Nita, not very helpful.

Nita and Angie turned in their lab papers, hoping they'd used the right chemicals to tell for the right stuff.

"Nothing blew up, at least." joked Angie, "That's a step forward."

Nita laughed, then said, "If you don't have anything to do after school—"

"Oh, please!" said Angie. "Anything to get away from my father."

"You could come to my house. I'm sure my parents would mind. They'll be tickled at the prospect of me having a new friend." said Nita dryly.

"Are you sure they won't mind?"

"Positive."

"Okay." agreed Angie.

"Meet me at the mascot statue after school and we'll walk to my house."

"The what statue?" asked Angie, puzzled.

"Oh, you wouldn't know that would you... It's bulldog—well, it's supposed to be anyway— it's right outside the front door, a little to the left. It's very hard to miss."

After an extremely long geometry period—the teacher had spent the entire class time reviewed elementary stuff Nita had down pat, for their upcoming test—Nita walked outside, taking care to avoid Kit. Nita was almost to the statue when, who do you think she saw....but Kit.

She thought of the irony of it, and what she had told Ronan.

"Yeah, but its hard to avoid your best friend. Especially when he can get into your mind."

She hadn't even thought of that. Oh, great. He had probably heard every obscenities she had sent his way since last night.

"Hey, Nita!" called Angie. Kit whipped his head around to look at her. Nita purposely didn't look at him, and instead, walked over to Angie, and instantly became deeply engrossed in conversation. She and Angie began walking towards Nita's house.

Kit sighed deeply. This morning, Nita had dodged into a bathroom after she'd seen him. Now, she made a deliberate point of not seeing him, and walking away talking to some girl he'd never seen before. He really needed to talk to Nita. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but he should see if there was anyway in the world she'd forgive him before he tried extremely hard to explain. But how could he talk to her if she kept shirking him? He'd have to catch her so she couldn't get away. He'd get to her house and talk to her when she couldn't run.

"Nita! We have a situation! Look out the window!" called Dairine. Nita looked. Kit was making his way up the driveway.

"Crap!" said Nita out loud. Then, to Dairine,

~"Talk to him. I'm not hear. Got it?"~

~"Right."~ replied Dairine.

"Who is that?" asked Angie.

"My best friend. We're kind of on the outs right now and I really don't want to talk to him yet. Dari will keep him out." Nita explained.

"What happened?" asked Angie, adding, "Just curious."

Nita took a deep breath. Here she was explaining it yet again, "He caught me and boyfriend making out, and chewed me for it, and accused me of sleeping with him."

"Guys can be such jerks at time." Angie commented.

"Oh, you haven't heard the real kicker yet. I was yelling at him for suggesting that, and then he kissed me."

"He what?" asked Angie, shocked.

"Yeah, that was about my reaction. I had to work with him Saturday—we'd promised to help someone out—and I said about ten words to him all day. I've been avoiding him since. I have no clue what to do."

"I may not be the bet person to offer advice in this situation, but I'll try. First of all, do you think of him in that way at all?"

Nita pondered for a minute, then answered, "No. Not in the least bit."

"Okay. Do you still want to be friends with him?"

"Yes." said Nita without hesitation this time. Regardless of everything, he was still Kit. Her Kit. Her first, and really only, close friend.

"Can you get over this? I mean, can you look at him and not always immediately think of the time he kissed you, and how he may feel now, et cetera?"

Nita thought longer this time. Could she? Could she ever think of him the same? Would he ever be "just plain old Kit" or would that lingering memory always be just around the corner. Finally she answered, "Eventually. I mean, we've been through a lot and I wouldn't want to throw it all away, even though it probably will be in the back of my mind, for awhile, at least."

"Well, then, I would let him talk to you. Don't confront him; let him come to you and explain. Give him a chance. Tell him what you told me: That you don't think of him like that, but you want to remain friends, and all that you said about forgetting this."

Nita considered this. It was good advice, she decided.



"Nope. She's busy." Dairine told Kit.

"Oh, come on. I need to talk to Nita. Is she really busy, or did she tell you to tell me that?" asked Kit.

Instead of answering, Dairine said, "What is going on with you two?"

"No fair answering questions with questions. Answer mine and I'll maybe answer yours."

"Answer mine and I'll answer yours." Dairine retorted. "What do you want more, to keep your and Nita's problem—that I may be able to help with— a secret, or find out if Nita's available?"

Kit sighed. Dairine always had a way of getting what she wanted.

"I...kinda caused a problem."

Kit breathed in deeply and spilled to Dairine, who stood with a sightly—was it amused?— look on her face.

"So basically, I've screwed our friendship,as well as partnership, right into the ground. Even if I do apologize and promise we'll only be friends, she'll never forgive me."

"Not necessarily." said Dairine slowly, as if she were concocting this plan on the spot, "I'll get Nita to tell me this, and get her talk on the situation with you. She doesn't have to know I talked to you. Then, I'll tell you what she said and, if the results are favorable, then you can talk to her."

"If she doesn't?" Kit questioned, thinking, which I'm sure she won't.

"Then I try to get her to." Dairine smiled. It was slightly disturbing, "I have my ways."

"It's worth a shot. Will you go talk to her now? I'll wait here, or pop home and then back here, then talk to her."

"No can do. I told you the truth. Nita's busy."

"With who?" Kit muttered under his breath, "Ronan?"

===

Aren't new characters fun? Angie's not very developed yet, because I wanted to end the chapter on this note. (He he he!) But she'll have more depth, promise. Lady Kni— I think I'll just call you LKK. But, actually I already had that chapter written (I actually wrote it before I finished 8 and 9), but I'll be good for you self esteem and say I used your idea. Or perhaps just say Great Minds Think Alike.

I need to go get some more tylonol (I just got spacers and my mouth hurts. Owww...). If you want me to update.....

Review! Review! Review!