This is probs the longest chapter I've written... a contrast to the last one lolz =P

Anyway... dedicated to Candice ma bffl!!! I'm soooooo sorry!!!

Also dedicated to Laura... let's just say... you'll love you!!!

Happy Reading!!! =P

"Trish?" I asked taking my sunglasses out as the sun peeped out from behind a cloud, "Billy?"

Chapter Nineteen: What To Do When Best Friends Hate You

"What the HELL are you doing here?" Trish yelled.

"I'm alive! I can go wherever the bloody hell I like!" I yelled back at her. We had moved into a darkened alleyway so I could take of my sunglasses and we could see each other properly.

"I am NOT being seen out in public with you!" Trish squealed and backed out of the hallway, but Mel sensed that I wasn't done yet and barred her way. "You've got a little friend Anni." Trish sneered.

"Actually Trish, meet my best friend, Mel." I said calmly, "Mel, this is my er... acquaintance, Trish."

"Best friend?" Trish laughed, "You've got to be joking! She looks like a blonde bimbo! You know the ones we used to tease?"

"Ha! Tease! Oh yeah. I'd really tease someone with the same hair colour as me. I mean I know I dyed it, but still! If you call her a blonde bimbo, what am I then?" I sniggered.

"You're a bitch!" Trish spat.

"No Trish. Just for that, you're the bitch. I'd never have thought that you of all people would call me, your ex-best friend, a bitch. Why don't you leave already? I'll come over there and bite you." I laughed.

"Fine! Bite me then! If that's what it takes to get my best friend back!" Trish yelled and crumpled into a ball on the dirty floor and bawled her eyes out like a starving baby in need of food.

I never expected this. I didn't need to read Trish's mind to know what had happened. I'd broken through. It had been hard on Trish for this last week or so, to live without me. I was everything to her. We had been joined at the hip; inseparable. She'd even turned down half the boys in the year, just because I said I wasn't going to the school social (she said she'd have stayed home with me if I hadn't have changed my mind). Trish was going through a rough patch, I mean, who has a vampire friend? Though, how did the vampires expect everyone and everything close to the newborn just suddenly not matter? An arm wrapped around me, "It's okay Anni." Mel soothed, "Let's go home."

"No." I said and I walked over to Trish, "Trish was my life before VH. I can't just leave her here. She's my everything. Everything before you and the twins. Everything before Laura became bad. Everything before Cole." I placed my arm around Trish, "I know how you feel honey."

Trish poked her head out from under her arms, stared at me for a little while, as if judging if I was really telling the truth, and then pulled me into a long hug, "I love you, you know?"

"Love ya too Trish." I replied.

"I gotta get home now. In fact," she glanced at her watch, "Shit!!! I'm gonna be late! New-dad's gonna kill me!"

"New-dad?" I gave her a puzzled look.

"I'll explain on the way. You can come with us right? I mean, we haven't caught up in ages." Trish asked.

"Sure, but I've got a faster way." I said, my eyes twinkling. "Climb on!" I said, indicating my back, "Mel, d'you mind taking Billy?"

Billy had been silent throughout the whole ordeal and at his name, he looked thoroughly terrified, "Sure Anni." Mel replied, relieved that I wasn't mad anymore.

Trish and Billy carried our shopping while Mel and I carried them and we raced off through the busy streets to Trish's house. We got there, two minutes later, not even panting or breaking a sweat.

"That was swee-eet!" Trish said as she handed me the millions of shopping bags that Mel and I had purchased.

"So what did you mean by your new-dad?" I asked.

"Ah... well, a couple of weeks after you left, I was getting quite depressed and...and... my dad he... died." she said shortly. "Mum remarried after a month. I can't believe her! The stupid cow! She should still be upset that dad killed him..." she broke off, clasping her hands to her mouth. "She should still be upset that dad died." she amended.

"It was because of you. Wasn't it?" I asked gravely.

"Yes." she whispered, leaning into my shoulder and sobbing hard until we heard a gruff voice from inside saying, "Oi! Trish! Get inside now!"

"Oh shit. We've been talking for ages." Trish wiped her tears, "Is my face red? New-dad hates when I cry about dad."

"Don't worry about it. I'll come in with you. We can say that it was like you started crying because you saw me." I replied taking her hand and leading her down the driveway to her front door. Trish unlocked the door and led Billy, Mel and I to the kitchen where we took out some chocolate milk and glasses and walked to Trish's room.

"Trish! Where's my dinner?" new-dad hollered.

"It's heating up in the microwave." Trish yelled back.

"So your new dad's name is Horace?" I asked.

"Yeah. How'd you know?" Trish asked, sitting on her beanbag.

I explained, with a little help from Mel, how my life as a baby-vamp had been different to anyone else's. I explained about my mind-reading, my bonds, my super-powers, my friends, and Cole (at this she bushed and fanned herself profusely).

"Awww! Anni, that sounds so sweet! I wish my boyfriend would be like that." Trish said nudging Billy jokingly in the ribs.

"Oh Anni. Why'd you have to bring up your love-life to Trish while I'm here?" Billy teased. It felt good to be here and back to normal.

After a nice afternoon, I looked out of the window and realised with a horrible jolt that the sun was setting a little too rapidly. Mel and I exchanged glances and I said to Trish, "I'm really sorry Trish, but we were meant to be sleeping now. Classes start soon."

"Oh shit! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to keep you so long. I probably should have realised. You should leave." Trish said jumping to her feet and sweeping us out of the house. "Promise you'll come visit me once in a while." she said getting teary.

"I promise." I replied.

"And you're welcome here anytime too." Trish said to Mel, hugging her tightly.

"See ya soon." I said.

"Yeah. See ya." she replied as Mel and I grabbed our shopping and jumped away.

When we got back, we jumped to our roof, went down into our apartment, dumped our shopping in our wardrobe, changed into our pyjamas really fast and jumped into bed, eager to get at least a few hours sleep before lessons started.

"Oi! Get up you two!" a male voice yelled and fists banged on our door.

"Ugh." I groaned.

"Mmhmm." Mel moaned and rolled over to get back to sleep.

"Anni, Mel! Get up now or I'll break down the door." I recognised that it was Cole's voice, so I struggled out of bed and stumbled to the door.

"Hmm?" I asked, opening the door.

"It's almost nine thirty." he replied.

"What'd we miss?" I asked.

"You missed NT." he replied, getting slightly edgy.

"Sorry." I replied yawning, "Mel and I got back really late. We sorta lost track of time."

"It's okay. You only had me. I don't know what you have now though." he said.

"Biology. Annissa'll be fine with it." I said, "I'll go talk to her later."

"Okay. I'll send the twins to wake you up at break." he said retreating from the door.

I shut the door and went back to bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

It felt like almost two minutes later that we were being woken up.

"Yeah. We're up!" I yelled, "Go away."

"We'd like to talk to you both." came Cole's voice from the other side of our door.

"Oh!" Mel said, sitting bolt upright and racing to the door.

"No! Wait! Don't open the door!" I yelled, scrambling under my doona. It was not the fact that I wasn't wearing anything, it was just that I wasn't wearing anything appropriate to be seen walking around in. I'm pretty sure my fluffy socks did not go with my tight black mini-shorts and no one would want to see me in my too-tight, too-small, too-orange singlet with Tigger on it which I'd had since I was about ten. It's not my fault that I still loved Pooh Bear.

"Come on Anni. We've all seen you in worse things. I'm sure." Cole said, glancing through the doorway to stare at me.

"No. You wouldn't understand. You'd laugh at me. It's too embarrassing." I said pulling the doona even further up to my chin.

'You do realise that I can see into your mind too right?' Cole thought.

"Oh for gawd's sake! Shit! You should have told me earlier!" I yelled at him, jumping out of bed, running to my wardrobe and locking the door in a blur so that no one could see me.

'Come out Anni! We all saw you anyway. You know we have impeccable sight. It's sharper than the average human eyesight.' Cole sighed.

"Ah!" I shrieked, "Today is sooo embarrassing."

"Just get changed in there, Anni." Mel said.

"Fine." I replied and I threw on my light, orange cardigan and my black Ugg Boots. I walked out of the wardrobe, checking my reflection in the mirror.

"I saw Walter." Alixx said, cutting to the chase.

"What?!?" Mel and I asked.

"Yeah. Me too. He's come back. You need to get to classes or he could expel you for wagging." Cole said.

"So it seems that he's gone along with our fake story of him taking us out on a mission." I said.

"It seems so." Alixx said.

"Anyway, we came to warn you, just so that you didn't get a shock when you saw her." Cole said.

"Her?" I asked, my senses picking up the change in mood and my keen ears picking up his mistake.

"Umm... Yeah. Her. He had a... a sex change." Alixx said trying to convince us unsuccessfully.

I glared at Cole until he said one word, "Laura."

"L-laura?" I stuttered.

"Yeah, but she's not going to hang out with you anymore. She's hanging out with –" Alixx began, but Cole silenced him with a go-there-and-I'll-kill-you-cause-you've-brought-up-the-past kind of look, but Alixx had said too much and both Mel and I were advancing on Alixx.

"Er... Well, I don't know anything." Alixx said getting defensive.

"Laura's hanging out with Elli and her gang." Cole said heartlessly.

"Oh." all of my hopes fell, along with my heart and my stomach. I felt Mel become unnaturally quiet and her appetite suddenly vanished.

"It's fine." I said monotonically.

"Yeah. Perfectly fine." Mel said in the same monotonous tone.

"Come on. It'll be fine." Alixx said walking around to Mel's side and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

"You'll work it out." Cole said just as reassuringly and came to embrace me.

I didn't realise I was crying silently until I saw tear-streaks on Cole's t-shirt. I hastily wiped my eyes on my sleeve and buried my face in Cole's broad chest.

"Come now," Cole said, "You've gotta go to next class."

"Ugh. Vampire Social History." Mel and I groaned in unison. Alixx and Cole laughed together and we shooed them out the door so we could get changed.

We got into some comfortable clothes and traipsed down the stairs to get some breakfast before we dashed off to history.

History was a drag. The only thing useful that I learnt was that vamps can turn themselves invisible and I made a mental note to ask Annissa about it the next time I had bio. It was the first history lesson I'd had ever and it just so happened that we were learning about the different correlations and we started talking about the abilities vampires get when they're adults; most of which I had already covered with Cole.

"Umm... Anni?" Mel asked tentatively, I assumed it was because she could feel the annoyance in me. I was sadly mistaken.

"What?" I asked irritably.

"We have LOTE next." she said.

"And?" I asked.

"Well, it's our first class with Laura in it and I'm not feeling very well so I'm going to get a slip so I can skip it. Do you think you'd be okay sitting through it by yourself?"

We'd stopped walking and were almost two metres away from the door to LOTE, "Sure." I replied as confidently as possible. The confidence on the outside didn't falter as Mel and I walked into the classroom, but the inside squirmed restlessly.

'It's okay Anni. You'll be okay. I'll talk to you while I'm in the nurse's wing.' Mel thought.

I nodded numbly in response. I'd just spotted Laura. She hadn't noticed me yet, but I hoped that when she did, she didn't talk to me.

Mel walked up to the front of the classroom as I took my seat at the back, the furthest seat away from Laura and Elli and co. Laura turned around and met my gaze steadily before she turned back to her new group of friends and whispered something hurriedly. The whole group cackled –I swear it was an evil cackle – and turned to look at me, Laura's face was full of fake innocence with just the slightest trace of a dead smirk.

'See ya at lunch. I'm sorry I couldn't stay.' Mel thought apologetically. I looked up and faked a smile at her until she'd left the room, when my smile faded to a grimace and then to a flat out grumpy face. I stared at the whiteboard for the rest of the lesson, taking down scarce amounts of notes and copying down the homework hastily before racing out the classroom door with Elli's laughs at my retreating back.

"Hey Anni." Laura said catching up with me. She said Anni as if it was a dirty word.

"What do you want?" I asked with a locked jaw.

"Oh I just wanted to say hi." she said. I looked into her face. Something seemed different about her.

"Yeah, well I don't want to talk right now." I replied and made to turn to the canteen.

"No! Wait!" she cried. It almost sounded pleading. I looked back at her face and any differences that I had noticed before were gone.

"Seriously Laura. You are getting on my nerves." I said through clenched teeth.

"I need your help Anni. Something's wrong with me." Laura said her voice became mystic, like the first time we met her. Then, her eyes did something funny; they flickered and turned a deep shade of purple.

"What do you mean?" I asked, pretending I hadn't noticed her strange eyes.

"What do you mean 'what do I mean'? I mean, piss of you stupid bitch, you're blocking the sidewalk." her mystic voice had died away and the horrible nasal voice that sounded too bitchy for her appearance returned.

"Well sor-ry!" I replied sarcastically and stalked off the sidewalk into the canteen secretly worrying about Laura and her health and mental stability, 'Laura, what is wrong with you?'

OMG!!! WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN!?!?!? What's wrong with Laura? Why's she all purple eyed and hanging out with Elli and co.??? ooh!!! wait and see!!!

R&R guys! I want some plot suggestions!!! I need your love for this story to be expressed in words you write in my reviews =P lotsa smilezz