Wednesday morning did come, no matter how much I'd been hoping to just stay asleep forever. Somehow, I arrived at school before the first bell. It had taken me a while to force myself to get out of bed and go on with my life. I'd made it out of the house without having to say a single word to either one of my parents.

Now came the hard part.

The hallways were almost empty by the time I climbed up the stairs to the second floor of the building. Posters for the Sadie Hawkins dance next Saturday night-the twentieth of November already-adorned the walls, reminding me of just another thing I didn't have to look forward to. There was someone I wanted to ask, sure, but there was no way I'd actually go through with it. I didn't have the guts. And I doubted he'd even want to take me.

I set my backpack on the floor by my homeroom desk and took my seat next to Marcia. "Thought you'd never show up," she remarked, a grin on her face. "You alright? You look tired."

I sighed. "Yeah, thanks. I didn't sleep well last night. My parents found my report card. They're real mad at me."

Her smile quickly turned to a look of concern. "You aren't in trouble, are you? I was wondering if we could do something this weekend. I'm free."

"I don't think so," I answered. "What were you thinking we'd do? I should be free then, too."

"We could go to the movies," Marcia suggested. "The three of us. See what's showing at the Dingo, just like we used to."

I had really been starting to dislike hanging out with both her and Randy. Of course, I wasn't going to tell either of them that. Marcia was trying her hardest, and I appreciated it. But sometimes I missed spending time with my best friend-and just my best friend. Not her boyfriend, too.

I hated the whole situation-me tagging along on what both of them probably wished were dates, and Randy being invited to spend time with the two of us when I had hoped to only see her. It sounded selfish. It was. But I was longing for the Saturdays we'd used to spend together at the mall, and the double dates we'd had with boys who'd ended up breaking our hearts, and the conversations we'd shared at sleepovers far past our bedtimes, all while she was trying to balance a best friend with a boyfriend she was worried about a lot more than she let on. I could tell. I could always tell. But I couldn't help it. She'd stood by my side for so long-almost five years-and I wasn't aiming to lose her now.

We were far too young to have worries like these.

"I'll let my parents know," I replied, staring off into the distance. I saw from across the classroom Susan had moved away from Mike, and was sitting near another girl I knew from my art class. He had a lonely look in his eyes, and I felt sorry for him. Most of his friends were in the grade above us. I wanted to talk to him. I really did. We had third period together, and sat in the same row of desks, near the center of the room. But I just couldn't, not after what had happened yesterday. He'd noticed it, too. "Guess I'll have to talk to them sooner or later."

"I'm sure it'll be alright," Marcia reassured me. She'd always been good at that. "And if it isn't, well, we'll just have to drown our sorrows in milkshakes afterwards."

I smiled at her, and she grinned back. She'd always had a nice smile-teeth perfectly white and straightened from the braces she'd had back in middle school, back when we'd first met and how we looked was the most important thing on our minds. It was still pretty far up there, up with boys (which had come not too long afterwards) and clothes and money, too. She'd hated them, but I'd always thought they'd looked cute on her. I wished I'd told her that before.

"Well," Marcia continued after a long pause. "You coming to the Sadie Hawkins next Saturday?"

My smile faded. "I'm not sure. What's the point of it, really? I'll just be standing against the wall all night long. There's nothing for me to look forward to."

"Oh, don't say that," Marcia replied. "It won't be any fun without you."

I could tell she was just trying to be nice. "You and Randy should go. I'll just stay home. It's just a school dance."

"You don't want to miss it, do you?" Marcia furrowed her eyebrows and scooted her chair a little closer to where I sat. "Come on, I know you've always loved goin' to dances, and you came with me to the last one."

"That was just a fundraiser," I said. "And we were getting in for free, and it never even happened. You and Randy have a nice time at the dance. I'll be just fine by myself. Don't sweat it."

"Oh, forget Randy," Marcia remarked bluntly. I squinted at her. "I want my best friend there with me. I've known you for much, much longer, and I know you far better than I've ever known Randy. I care about him, but I want to make time for you, too. Randy's got Mike again. I've got you, and him, and you're just as important to me as he is, if not more. Just"-she forced out a laugh-"don't tell him that."

I looked her in the eyes. "That's not like you, Marcia," I told her. "Come on. What's the point of a Sadie Hawkins, anyways? You'll have fun without me."

Marcia sighed, drumming her manicured fingers on the worn wooden top of her desk. "I want you there," she said. "Alright? Would you please just be there with me?"

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" It was really more of a statement than a question. I had always been good at reading people. "What's wrong? Is it something with Randy?"

She didn't reply for a while. "Everything's alright," she finally told me. "You think it could just be the two of us Saturday night? I mean, I guess I love Randy, but it hasn't been just the two of us for such a long time now. And I've really, really missed you."

"You guess?" I asked. "I mean, you've been together for a year. Shouldn't you know already?"

Marcia crossed her arms. "I do," she replied, feigning confidence. I wasn't going to pester her anymore with my questions. It seemed pretty personal to me. But that scared me-I didn't want to have to choose between my last two friends, because I knew I'd stay with Marcia, and I couldn't leave Randy behind. He couldn't lose another friend. "I know I do. I just want to spend some time just with you."

I put a hand on her shoulder. "In that case," I said, smiling as best I could. "Count me in. I'll be there Saturday night, and I'll think about the Sadie Hawkins."

"Thanks," she said, her voice brightening. "Thanks a lot. Hey, don't worry about anything. The boyfriend and I are just fine."

I laughed in spite of myself. "The boyfriend? I haven't heard you call him that in a while."

Marcia had a habit of referring to Randy as "the boyfriend." It had always annoyed him, but the two of us lost our minds laughing whenever she did it, and he sometimes joined in. It was one of the things I missed-finding even the smallest things she said hilarious, and laughing with her like we'd never stop. I wished we hadn't ever stopped.

Marcia smiled back. "Figured I should start again."

The bell for first period rang, and the two of us got up to head to history. It was one of those rainy mornings, rare where I lived, when the water droplets rested on the classroom windows, slowly drifting towards the pane as more and more collided with the glass. I was tired-sort of foggy-and I hadn't bothered to cover up the dark circles under my eyes with any makeup. My head ached, too, which happened whenever I hadn't slept the night before. And now I had even more to worry about.

I'd never seen Marcia so upset before. I knew it hadn't been much, but things like that were unusual for her. She never stopped smiling or cracking jokes, not on a regular day, at least. And she never got that sentimental-that was what I did. I took things to heart, while she brushed them off and bounced right back. She'd accepted the Coke that night from Dallas Winston, while I'd thrown it in his face and told him to get lost. Maybe she'd been faking it this entire time. Maybe I was a bad friend for not noticing earlier. She had always been there for me. It was the least I could do to be a better friend to her, even if I was only starting now.

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I'd spent the entire morning dreading third period-this time for reasons other than disliking math. I'd never really liked it-only history, English, French, and art class, obviously, since it was an elective. Math had never been kind to me, or science, for that matter. Besides, I liked hearing stories about people-whether they were real or not-and seeing what I could learn from the experiences they'd had. Math and science would stay true forever. The entire universe was built around them. But they were cold, hard fact-I couldn't read into them any more beyond the pages of my textbooks. To me, there was no fun in that.

I'd never hated pre-calculus more than I did when I saw Mike Foster, though, sitting in the desk next to mine, eyes focused on me from halfway across the classroom. I couldn't ignore him anymore.

I set my books down on my desk. "Hey, Cherry," he greeted me, smiling slightly. I nodded back.

"It's nice to see you, Mike," I replied. My heart fluttered. I hated the feeling. I couldn't fall for another guy, especially not now. Especially not Mike.

I searched for words just to continue speaking to him. The truth was, I'd never really spoken to him before yesterday. Sure, we'd exchanged small talk in the hallways, and sometimes at parties, but he'd never been my friend. Come to think of it, I wasn't sure who had ever been my friend.

"How's school been?" I finally asked him.

"Good," he replied. "I had an English test earlier that I think went well. What about you?"

"I'm alright, thanks," I said, wishing class would hurry up and start. The bell was set to ring any second now. Almost instinctively, I asked, "How's Kathleen?"

"She's fine," Mike answered. "You know she'd love to hear from you again. You should give her a call."

"Maybe I will," I told him. Both of us knew that meant I probably wouldn't. "Look, I'll get around to talking it out with her soon enough. Right now I need some space. And an apology would be nice, too."

"Won't you give her a second chance?" Mike pleaded me. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him. "For me?"

I was about to tell him it wasn't that easy, that I'd already given everyone in that group a million second chances, and that I'd really been hurt by her, but to my relief, the bell rang, and our conversation came to an end.

Marcia had Spanish for third period, so I was pretty much on my own. Nancy, despite being a junior, was in the same class as Randy, A.P. Calculus, and Kathleen and Susan both had different math periods than I did. I barely even knew Mike, despite having learned a lot about him over the past few weeks. He wasn't the guy I'd thought he'd been before all of this. He had good intentions. He was just as lost as I was, if not more. But I couldn't start liking him now-as a friend, or as even more than that. I had always tried to listen to my heart much more than my head. I just didn't want to ruin it this time, not like I'd ruined everything else. Part of me wanted so badly to ask him if he'd be busy next Saturday night, but I knew I had to listen to the part that was telling me to keep my mouth shut. I had never been much for using my head, and I figured now was the time to start.

The rest of the morning went surprisingly smoothly. I'd had English next, and we'd just finished Hamlet. I'd scored pretty well on the unit test last week-my parents had been pressuring me to study even more than I usually did, and it had paid off, as much as I hated to admit it.

Well, it had all been going smoothly, until lunchtime arrived.

I'd been thinking about what Marcia had told me in homeroom all morning long, and I knew it wasn't about to get any easier for me when I saw the look on her face, thinly veiled by her trademark grin. But I could tell she wasn't happy. She didn't have the familiar glint in her eyes I saw whenever I knew she really was smiling, and she smiled so often it was easy for me to notice when she wasn't. I sat down at our usual table-we could call it that after a whole month-opposite from her. I saw Randy sitting by her side, looking withdrawn, just as he'd usually been lately.

"Hey," Marcia greeted me as cheerfully as she could.

"Hi," I replied, setting my tray down in front of me. "How's your morning been?"

"Boring," she said. "Per usual. Hey, does Saturday night work for you? I've got a test Monday morning I totally forgot about."

Randy looked up from his ham sandwich-the special on Wednesdays. "What's Saturday night?"

"Oh, I was thinking the three of us could catch a movie together," Marcia answered.

I cut her off. "Saturday night works for me-that is, if my parents haven't grounded me."

"I've got plans," he replied. "I was gonna head over to Mike's so we could lift weights together. Cherry, what do you mean? You haven't been grounded a day in your life."

Marcia and I exchanged looks, and then I sighed. "My parents found it," I told him, without having to specify what it was. "I haven't said a word to either of them since last night. My old man's never yelled like that before."

"Jesus," Randy muttered. Marcia raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry. But all that over a couple bad grades? I hope you aren't in too much trouble."

"I don't think I am," I reassured him. "I just needed to cool off, that's all."

"It's good you and Mike are friends again," Marcia remarked. "What about next weekend? Say, what lucky girl's taking you to the Sadie Hawkins?"

"Oh, I'm still waiting to be asked out," Randy replied, smirking slightly. Marcia laughed. Feeling left out, I turned to face the other direction.

The lunchroom was like another world when you were at the edge of it and not the epicenter. I was used to that world revolving around me. My friends and I had always been the sun, together surrounded by stars and planets and moons and the whole great unknown. Now I felt like an alien-a strange creature, someone who had taken the place of my old self. An imposter, almost.

The only difference now was that Susan, the brightest star of them all, was now an outcast, too.

She was a couple tables away from us now, talking to Lisa and her friends, but I could tell it wasn't working for her. Lisa was mean to everyone-even her fellow bullies. She left no stone unturned in her strive to be on top of everybody else. I couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for her, but I quickly stopped when I remembered Susan was the same way. She just hid it better.

Nancy and Kathleen still sat together at our old table. It looked much more empty now that there were two, and not the usual five, girls sitting there. Even one of us made a huge difference. And it wasn't our group if someone was missing from it. Marcia had the best sense of humor, and was easy to talk to. You were the one thing she took seriously. Nancy, angry as I was with her, was sharp as a whip and helpful, too. Kathleen-she always knew how to cheer you up. She was sweet and optimistic and had somehow heard every rumor in school as soon as it hit the hallways. As Marcia used to put it-who needed a gossip column when you were friends with Kathleen Foster? And Susan, even Susan, who hated every bone in my body, had her merits. She stuck up for herself, and was as assertive as I had once been. She was persistent and passionate and determined to get what she wanted-no matter what that thing was.

The only person without a role in our group, now that I really thought about it, was me. I knew I was important to Marcia, at least, but why? I was easy to talk to, but bad at giving comfort, though I tried my hardest to be as supportive as I could be. I had a sense of humor, too, but I knew I couldn't match hers. I'd always heard I was smart in the past, but I no longer felt like that was the case, and despite trying my best to find hope in every situation, I definitely wasn't an optimist. And, like Susan, I was assertive, but that was overwhelmed by my temper-and everyone viewing me as bossy when I was just standing up for myself when I needed to. So what did that make me?

"Earth to Cherry." I heard Marcia's voice after a while, and turned my head towards her.

"Yeah?" I asked.

She smiled, and I could tell it was just as fake as the last one had been. Something was weighing on her, and it pained me not to know what it was. "There you are. I've got to head to physics. See you in art class. Meet up after practice."

I got up to return my tray. "I'd better get going, too. I've got French in a few minutes."

I started up the stairs to my locker, which was on the second floor. I usually carried my backpack around all day long, but I didn't like having it with me at lunch. The hallways were so crowded with people coming from the cafeteria, I almost didn't notice when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Kathleen, hands on her hips and blue eyes ablaze.

"I need to talk to you," she said with desperation from the bottom of the staircase. Sighing, I headed back down to follow her. She opened the door to a bathroom, and the two of us stepped inside.

The tiles on the floor were chipped, the grout in between them faded, and I saw some graffiti scrawled on the doors to the stalls in handwriting I didn't want to recognize as Susan's. Nobody really used this one-it was where the smokers sat during lunch-but surely Susan had known somebody would see it. There were messages written about me, which I tried not to care too much about, as well as a few scribbled about some of the girls I knew-or at least knew of. I scanned through them, finding one name I had hoped not to see, followed by a word I'd heard come out of Susan's mouth a thousand times.

Sandy Fleming is a-

I didn't want to fill in the blanks after that. It was something too many of us said, and I didn't want to repeat it anymore than it had already been. It was awful. A girl could make a mistake and get hell for it while nobody cared to talk about the boy who had made the same one. That was how girls fought. The boys beat each other up in rumbles every other weekend, but us girls used our words. Words like that one, whispered in the hallways or written on notes passed back and forth between desks or even scratched on stall doors. Susan had been a cheater too, anyways. I didn't see how calling Sandy Fleming names was going to change that.

"Come on, Cherry," Kathleen began. I turned back to her. "Won't you just talk to me? I can't do this anymore."

I crossed my arms. "What do you want from me?"

"I want us to be friends again," she replied. "Nancy and I-we're done with Susan. I'm going to assume you know what she did by now. It's all over the school. And we really miss you and Marcia. What we all had was good. I don't want our friendship to fall apart."

"That ship has already sailed," I retorted. "I can't trust either of you anymore, even if you are done with Susan. You stopped being her friend when what she did affected you. What about all the things you saw her do to me? There isn't a single name she hasn't called me behind my back. And you never stopped her. I'm not as naïve as you think I am."

"You think I'm not sorry for that?" Kathleen scoffed. "You think I liked being friends with Susan? She's a bitch. Both of us know that."

"I can't believe you, Kathy," I replied. We'd stopped calling her that when we'd started high school, since she'd wanted to sound more mature. She'd long since become more fickle-and so fake she was almost plastic. Kathy was gone now. I no longer knew the girl who'd used to braid my hair into pigtails at slumber parties, who I'd once let copy off my homework in return for a candy bar she'd swiped from Mike, and who'd shared her potato chips with all the rest of us at lunchtime. She wasn't the same girl anymore-she was simply a distortion of the Kathy I'd taken for granted. "I miss you, too. In fact, I've missed you for the last three years. But until you understand how much you've hurt me"-I gestured towards the mirror-"you'd better be careful who you use that word with."

I felt sorry for what I had said to her as soon as I had said it, but by then it was too late for me to take the words back. I'd heard them about myself more times than I could count on two hands, and I had never been one for repeating them-not like Susan did. That wasn't me. I hadn't been myself for two whole months, but I'd never been so shocked at anything I'd ever said before. I'd always had a temper-and I usually ended up with regret at what I'd said in an argument. I thought I'd learned from that by now.

I guessed I hadn't.

Kathleen crossed her arms. "That isn't fair. You know that isn't fair. I would never do anything like what she did. Mike-he's really upset about all this. Susan was the first girl he ever went out with, and she went and did that to him. How do you think that feels?"

"How do you think it feels to be lied to for that long by your best friend?" I asked her, raising my voice and knowing there was no way this was going to end well. She started to back away from me. "Was that really the final straw? You heard everything she said about me and God only knows who else. And don't tell me you didn't see what she wrote about Sandy Fleming over on that stall door-"

"Sandy hasn't got to do with any of this," Kathleen interjected.

"Oh, you think people are going to be writing stuff like that about Susan?" I exclaimed. "They won't be, and you know that. Come tomorrow, nobody's going to be calling Susan anything like that. Like it or not, she's still pretty and rich and powerful. You can't say that about Susan and just get away with it. She always fights back. And she always wins, too."

Kathleen looked stunned. She hesitated, her blue eyes wide with shock, before speaking again. "I'm sorry, Cherry. I don't know what more you want from me."

"You aren't sorry for what you did," I told her, looking her dead in the eyes. "You're sorry because you got caught doing it. I want some space. The least you can do is give that to me. You've already gotten far too many second chances. Just let me be, would you?"

With that, I left the bathroom. I was already late for French. Kathleen pushed past me, running out into the hallway. I could've sworn I saw her wiping her eyes, and instantly I felt even worse.

That really wasn't me.

I somehow got through the rest of the day-I only had three classes left, and they were the easiest ones. It was harder seeing Kathleen at cheerleading practice knowing that now she had a reason to be upset with me. I had no idea what was to become of our friendship-because, to be honest, it seemed like a lost cause to me. I hated knowing it was over between us and not being able to repair it.

God only knew what was to become of the little group we'd once shared.

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A/N: TL;DR at the bottom (don't worry there's nothing wrong). Okay, I feel like this needs to be said. I don't live in Oklahoma. I don't know a thing about the weather there. I live in Virginia, which is a boring state with a very moderate climate (hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and absolutely freezing right now because January is the worst month). Sorry for any inaccuracies. The storm a few chapters ago (quite honestly I did not really make it clear if it was a tornado or not, and even I don't know) was solely a plot convenience, something you will be seeing a lot of in this story. I'm a beginner writer-I can't help it.

I have also discovered a historical inaccuracy. Yale did not admit women until 1969. I looked it up. That's on Yale, and not me, lol. I should go back and change it. I will not. Please just pretend this didn't happen. It's been too important for the story to go back and change it now.

Alright, and one more thing. I actually do not know anything about sports, even though I do track. Sorry if I'm not accurate with like practice lengths and meets and stuff. I ran for my elementary school from third to fifth grade, and we only had two meets a year. That's how I know all the fancy sports terms. I don't even remember it at all. Accuracy is difficult. School is difficult. Life is difficult. I also didn't know that Will Rogers was a senior high school in 1965 and not just a four-year one. I guess I messed that up, too.

TL;DR: I don't know anything about Oklahoma. Or its climate. Or Yale, and when they started admitting women. Or sports. Or Will Rogers High School. I'm lazy. I'm doing my best. Goodbye.