Rachel raced home and up into the loft, she quickly changed into some house clothes and tried to look as filthy as possible. She saw Laurel drive off and it was about another twenty minutes before Carol arrived back home with Rose and Jenna.
"Rachel!" Carol yelled into the barn, "Get your but down here!"
"Yes, Carol", Rachel replied with bitterness.
"Where have you been tonight?" Carol asked with a sceptical look on her face.
"I've just been working here, that's all, where do you think I would go looking like this?" Rachel retaliated, glad that she had messed up her hand and wiped subtle amounts of dirt onto her face after removing her make-up and contacts.
"Very well, oh and, can you go see that both my girls have a nice hot chocolate, it's quite cold out tonight", Carol demanded as she walked back to the house.
"Whatever", Rachel mumbled as she grabbed a rake and began to rake out the stall, only then realising the absence of a ring from her finger, "Dammit!"
"Rachel?" Rachel turned around to see Jason standing at the door to the barn.
"Yeah?" Rachel said through her teeth.
"Sorry, I know that you're probably busy but I was wondering if you could help me find Cindy so I can give her her ring back, it must have slipped off her finger when we were dancing", He explained.
"Oh, I can take it and give it to her if you want", Rachel offered when she saw the ring that she held so precious to her in his hand.
"No, I want to give it to her personally I just have no idea what she really looks like because she was wearing contacts and a lot of make up yesterday", he explained
"Yeah, she likes to change her look around, she was even wearing a wig yesterday, she likes to remain invisible", Rachel commented as she wiped
"Why is that?" Jason asked.
"It's just who she is", Rachel replied as she walked towards him, "So, is there anything else I can help you with?"
"No, I'm fine thanks", Jason replied as he walked off, Rachel sighed in frustration as she looked at all the notes that had been exchanged between her and Jason.
/\
"What do you mean, it just slipped off?" Laurel demanded as the two girls walked into the school grounds.
"Does it matter, I'm sure he's probably all over some other girl now, I just want my ring back", Rachel said as they walked down the hall, they noticed girls crowding around in an area and upon closer inspection saw Bianca trying to squeeze the ring onto her finger.
"Look, I'm sorry girls but none of you are the girl I was dancing with the other night", Jason said in an irritable tone.
"Okay, you so have to tell him that it was you he danced with", Laurel said as she jumped up and down, "this is just too cute, he'll put the ring on and see that it fits perfectly and you can live happily ever after in a mansion with twenty-one cute babies because you and him would make just the most beautiful babies and…"
"Laurel!" Rachel said to interrupt her friend's rambling, "I'm not going to tell him."
"And why not?" Laurel said as she put her hands on her hips.
"Because, he's caught up in the fantasy of Cindy being someone that I'm not, the girl that he danced with the other night doesn't exist", Rachel replied flatly as she opened her locker.
"Well then, I'm going to tell Tiffany about this and see what she thinks", Laurel told her friend.
"You wouldn't!" Rachel replied in a pleading voice only to see the nonchalant and proud look on her friend's face before she nodded, "Please, no, we both know that she'll just tell Jason herself, you can't do that!"
"Fine, but only because I'm your friend", Laurel replied somewhat dejectedly as the two walked to class.
/\
"Rachel! Mum needs you in the office, something about college or whatever", Jenna yelled up the stairs into the loft.
"Huh, what?" Rachel questioned as she lifted her sleeping head off the desk, she only just realised that she had fallen asleep during schoolwork.
"Get down here, mum wants to talk to you!" Rose repeated for her step-sister.
"Fine, give me a sec!" Rachel snapped back as she quickly fixed her hair and ruffled clothes before proceeding down the loft and past her sisters to see Carol in the office.
"Yes Carol?" Rachel asked as she arrived in the office and Carol notioned to her to take a seat.
"I just got your applications back from the three riding colleges that you applied for, I'm sorry but your application was rejected, however I applied for you at a regular college, so you could study something you might be good at and stay out of the way of my daughters, and you got accepted", Carol explained.
"But Carol, why would you send in an application for me when you know that I didn't want to go to a regular college", Rachel explained as she felt tears beginning to form in her eyes.
/\
Jenna walked into the loft with Rose, the two decided to snoop around while Rachel was talking to their mother. They weren't sure what they were looking for but they were hoping for something that they might be able to exploit.
"What are we even doing?" Jenna said as she searched through the files on Rachel's computer.
"I told you already, looking for stuff", Rose replied as she looked under the pillow and saw a pile of notes, "Stuff like this."
"What is it?" Jenna asked as she game over to take a look.
"Letters, between her and Jason, oh my God, this is perfect, I could pretend to be C, Jason's mystery girl", Rose said as she clutched the pieces of paper close to her chest.
"That's not fair, I want to be his mystery girl", Jenna pouted as she crossed her arms.
"It's not about who the mystery girl is, Jenna, it's about getting back at Rachel for being with Jason that one time, besides I am the oldest by like a whole three minutes", Rose explained.
"Fine", Jenna said as they grabbed all the notes and exited the room.
/\
Rachel came out of the office just to see Jenna and Rose leaving the barn, she watched their backs as the figures retreated hurriedly into the house. If this was unusual behaviour for the twins she probably would have questioned the way they were acting but shrugged it off as a normality.
"I still can't believe I didn't get in", She said to herself as hot tears streamed down her face.
/\
Yay! It's an update, please don't kill me for taking forever to update (I'm soooo sorry!)
Anyway, hope you all like it, please let me know what you think, still got at least somewhere between 5 and 10 chapters left so it may take a while but I am updating it as fast as I can.
Please read and give me reviews-I looooovve getting reviews-they make me happy!
Yours always
~Toffeelola
