A/N: Heavy trigger warning for hints of bulimia in this chapter and Connor's violent nightmare sequence. His nightmare is all in italics so when you see it, feel free to skip it.

Main POVS: Mo, Connor, and Jake

The first thing Mo did when he entered the school was hang up posters advertising auditions for his new band. As a guy that was into music, he was definitely ready to have a rocking band that was going to play at all of the hottest rock competitions and parties. The only issue was that he didn't have a name for it yet but he was sure it would come to him.

After putting up the latest poster outside the boy's restroom, he turned around to see Imogen suddenly in front of him. He jumped. "Jeez girl, don't scare me like that!" He scolded.

"Aw don't be such a baby," Imogen replied with a pout, "So what are these posters for?" She asked while looking at the poster.

"I'm starting up a new band!" Mo answered enthusiastically.

"Ooh I love that! Can I join?" She asked again more excitedly.

His smile faltered as he struggled to find an answer. If any girls joined his band, they would have to be hot and the issue was that Imogen was more weird than hot. He didn't know if that would be a good look.

"Immy, how should I say this?" He began, already feeling bad for what he was about to say. But he had to be blunt about this. "If I'm going to have any girls in the band, they're going to have to give sex appeal and I don't know if you can provide that," he explained.

"Why not? You don't think I'm pretty?" She questioned in confusion. Mo whacked his brain for the right answer.

"It's not that you aren't pretty but-"

"Nonsense," she cut him off while looking at the sheet of paper, "Auditions are during lunch tomorrow? I'll be right there."

Before he could protest, she turned away from him and skipped off somewhere, humming a happy tune to herself. Mo didn't know what to think. He couldn't exactly turn down his best friend could he? But he didn't even know what Imogen could bring to the table. He had never seen her play any kind of instrument.

He guessed he would have to find out.

After another night of bad dreams, Connor found him barely able to function as he sat in his first class of the day.

His sleep has not been pleasant since the night J.T. Yorke was stabbed. He would either get nightmares or see things in the darkness that weren't there in his state of hypnagogia. It led to him playing video games at a later time than he was supposed to because there was no use in trying to go to sleep on his own. He supposed things could have been worse. J.T. could have actually died and the guilt he was feeling could have been much more severe.

"Connor, we don't have nap time in junior high," Mr. Binns scolded him, and Connor quickly shook himself awake. He didn't even realize that he was dozing off. He looked around the room to see everyone staring at him. He awkwardly diverted his attention to the copybook on his desk. There were barely any notes written in it from today's lesson so far.

"Sorry, Mr. Binns," he apologized and his teacher gave him one final harsh look before going back to teaching. Everyone else in the classroom went back to copying down notes to his relief. He didn't like being the center of attention.

Despite his best efforts to be more alert, he found that his vision was still hazy for the rest of the class.

"So my dad is making us go to this church every Sunday and I'm not going to lie, it's pretty boring," Jake said before biting into his chicken sandwich. The school's chicken sandwiches weren't going to win them any restaurant awards but they were surprisingly not bad.

His girlfriend seemed to be not paying attention. She had her head rested in her fist as she ate her food, which was a big hoagie, a salad, a bag of chips, and a big jug of water. The large amount of food that she was consuming these days was a surprise to him considering that last year she was barely eating anything during lunch. He would say that he was happy that she was actually eating like a normal teenager now, but something about this was off.

"You okay, babe?" He asked her in concern. Katie looked up at him in confusion. "Yeah, why?" She asked back.

"I don't know. It seems like you're in another world," he pointed out as he looked at her, "Or ready to pass out."

Katie was looking a little sickly these days with yellow skin and bloodshot eyes. He wondered if she was coming down with the flu but she said that she already had her shot for the season.

"I'm fine, Jake," she assured him as she finished her food. Then she excused herself to the restroom. That was another recent thing. At the end of every lunch period, Katie would go to the bathroom. While she was gone, he looked at her empty chair, wondering if he was missing out on something.

When she came back, she stumbled a little and grabbed her chair so she would have something to hold onto. "Woah, are you sure you're okay?" He asked as he went to help, helping her sit down.

"I'm fine, Jake," she repeated, "Just tired. I studied all night for our French exam later."

"Well not getting a proper night's sleep isn't going to help you pass it," he replied, "Do you need some water?"

Just before she was about to answer, the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period.

"A quick kiss before we go to our classes?" Katie asked with a pleading smile. Jake smiled back before leaning down and pressing his lips to hers.

The taste of puke on her lips threw him off, along with the foul stench of her breath.

Mo ran into Eli just as he was heading to his final class of the day. "Elijah, boy do I have a proposition for you!" He declared excitedly.

"If it's about your band, I'm not joining. Sorry man," Eli rejected.

"Why not? It's going to be wicked!"

"Well first of all I can't sing so that removes me from the frontman position, and two I have never touched an instrument in my life other than the toy drum set I got for Christmas when I was six…..that had beer stains on it within a week," Eli answered.

"The child of rocker people has to be musically talented in some area. You can be our songwriter!" Mo insisted, feeling desperate at this point. His best friend sighed.

"I need inspiration to do that. Writing doesn't come easily without that," Eli replied just as they walked by Marisol at her locker talking with Dallas. The couple was obviously flirting and Dallas ran his finger along her arm.

His friend looked back at them in surprise, before looking back at him. "…..When did those two start dating?" He questioned.

"Like a few days ago I don't know," Mo answered. He hadn't kept up much with what his ex was doing these days since he stopped being mascot for the cheerleading team.

"Dallas is an asshole, she could do way better than him and yet she's choosing to degrade herself," Eli replied gruffly, and Mo could see how jealous his friend was. He shook his head before an idea came to him.

"I think there's that inspiration you need for a song my friend," he said with a hopeful smile while wrapping his arm around Eli.

Eli had a look of confusion on his friend but said nothing more as they walked to class.

After retrieving his homework for the night, Connor closed up his locker and started walking the hallways. Snake was going to drive him, Emma, and Manny home for the day since Spike was having a busy day at the salon.

As he walked, he tried not to stumble as his vision grew fuzzy. He didn't eat anything today at lunch; He didn't have the stomach for it. He had picked up a burger and when he poured ketchup on it, he noticed it looked like blood. It immediately killed his appetite. Ketchup was the only topping he liked on his burgers, but now he couldn't stand the sight of the condiment.

Admittedly he hadn't had the stomach to eat anything much these days since the stabbing.

When his vision grew black with small dots of color crackling into his sight, he tried his best to lean on the nearest surface without falling. His legs felt weak.

"Connor?" He heard Clare's voice call out to him. "Are you okay?"

"No," he answered numbly and his own voice felt far away.

"Alli, go to the nurse's office! I'm going to stay here with Connor!" Clare ordered, and Connor heard heels rapidly clacking against the floor.

He sank down to the wall while holding his head. Soon he felt a warm embrace wrap around him and he knew it was Clare.

Jake wouldn't say he was in a great mood when he went home today and it was because of lunch.

Katie having puke breath burned in his mind for the rest of the day and Jake's mind was running like a machine trying to come up with a reason for why she would have it. When he and Katie kissed this morning, her breath smelled normal.

'She's probably sick and threw up some mucus,' was what he tried to think. It would make sense since she wasn't looking great these days to say the least. And even with the flu shot, it was possible to still get a little cold. However, a darker thought was simmering in the back of his head, one that he didn't even want to consider.

Katie always went to the bathroom right after eating her lunch every day. He didn't think much of it before today but now he was realizing just how weird it was. And whenever she came back from the bathroom, her eyes were always a little watery. Then there was the way she stumbled around easily these days. Clumsy was the last thing he would use to describe his girlfriend. She was always well composed.

At his computer, Jake typed up all of these symptoms and pressed enter on the Google search bar. When the results came up, he felt his stomach tighten in dread.

"Ten signs someone you know is bulimic" was the first result that popped up, and all of the ones below it were also related to bulimia or anorexia. A preview of images popped up and there were really some fucked up pictures of girls vomiting into toilets or weighing themselves on a scale. He felt himself begin to sweat as he realized something.

Katie always had a weird relationship with food.

"Agent 69, how's that for a band name?" Mo asked with a goofy smile as he and Eli did their history homework. They were at Eli's house and sitting on his bed.

"If you don't want to be taken seriously, sure," Eli answered dryly.

"What about the Moldy Jesuses?"

"Mo, I'm not joining your band if it has a shitty ass name."

"Well what's your suggestion genius?" Mo demanded.

"Something simple yet powerful like Nirvana," Eli answered. "You want something that sums up your band's type of music in simple terms."

There were a million ways they could do that, and Mo didn't have the brain power to go a specific way about this.

"If we don't come up with a cool name by tomorrow, then I'm calling us 'Unnamed'," Mo joked but only a little.

His friend shrugged. "Maybe that could work," he replied just as Cece appeared in the doorway.

"The tacos are ready! And I made special turkey tacos for you, Mo!" She announced cheerfully.

Turkey tacos sounded gross but Mo smiled at her anyway. Eli's mom was always trying to be accommodating whenever he was over for dinner and he appreciated that. His own parents did too.

"Maybe we could call ourselves the Flying Tacos," Mo joked again as Eli rolled his eyes in response.

Connor tossed and turned in his bed as he had a nightmare.

It was the night of Liberty's birthday party and instead of being upstairs in his room, he was outside by J.T. Yorke's car. Everything was eerily quiet when there was just loud music booming from inside the house.

He turned around to go back inside the house when he felt a sharp pain in his back. Then he felt it again. And again. He opened his mouth to scream but no words were coming out. He turned around to see Drake Lempkey, the Lakehurst kid who stabbed J.T. smiling evilly at him. Connor tried to run, but his legs wouldn't move.Drake raised his knife and Connor raised his hands up to defend himself but it was too late. Before he knew it, the knife was suddenly in his gut. His body felt on fire.

"AH!" Connor screamed as he woke up, jumping upright in his bed. He desperately looked around the room, scared that Drake Lempkey was going to jump out from somewhere in the darkness. It took him a few minutes to control his frantic breathing.

There was a knock on his bedroom door. "Connor! Connor? Are you okay?" Spike asked him on the other side, and he heard her trying to open the door to no success. Ever since that fateful party, he had locked his door every night.

He got up out of his bed and opened it for his godmother. She was only in her nightgown and her hair was all over her head. "What happened?" She asked in concern.

"I dreamed about the stabbing again," he answered as he still felt the shadow of a knife stabbing him.

"Oh honey," she replied with worry etched on her face, "I think it's best if you don't go to school tomorrow. First thing in the morning, I'm taking you to a therapy office."

"But what about schoolwork?" He asked. Being absent was an inconvenience due to missing the lessons of the day.

"Your friends can come over and bring whatever notes and homework they have to you, but this is more important. We have to do something about these nightmares," Spike reasoned while reaching up and squeezing his shoulder. Connor was only fourteen but he was towering over her.

"If you say so," he replied, not really enthused about missing school.

But the nightmares and lack of appetite were certainly an inconvenience.

In class the next morning, Jake found himself not being able to take his eyes off of Katie. Every little thing she did, he paid attention to see if there were any more signs of her being bulimic.

The more he came to terms with that possibility, the more scared he got. If she was bulimic, and it worsened, the consequences could result in something serious or deadly. He didn't want to lose another person in his life he deeply cared about.

"May I go to the bathroom?" Katie asked the teacher.

"Sure, let me follow you since I also have to go," the teacher replied as he got up from his desk. He looked at everyone in class. "Don't burn the room down," he ordered as he and Katie left the classroom. Immediately the whole room burst into an explosion of loud chatter.

Jake took this as an opportunity to pick up Katie's journal from her desk. In contrast to Marisol's fuzzy pink diary, Katie's journal was a plain blue composition book with her full name printed on the front. He opened up the book to see if there was anything suspicious in it.

He immediately found an entry dated from last night.

'I only consumed five hundred calories today, not counting the lunch I purged earlier. I felt disgusting even eating it but I don't want Jake or Marisol to suspect anything, especially Marisol. She seems to always know what's going on with me. She would judge me but she doesn't know how easy she has it. She can eat like a pig every day and somehow burn all of that fat off her body but I can't even eat a cookie without feeling like I poisoned my body. Sometimes I hate Marisol because it seems like she can always keep a perfect body no matter what she does to it. She's always getting praised for her looks by boys while I'm worried that Jake will dump me if I gain too much weight.

I have been pleased lately with the weight I'm losing. I checked myself on the scale this morning like always and I have appeared to have lost more pounds than I did last week. My weight is now at ninety eight. The goal is to be at a ninety five by next week. The best thing to do is skip breakfast and only drink water, continue purging my lunch, and only eat a small amount of dinner,' it read.

Jake closed her journal and put it back on her desk, a sick feeling falling over him. His girlfriend was actually bulimic. The evidence was right there and there was no use in coming up with other possibilities as to what was wrong with her lately.

Now he was the one that needed to throw up.

After getting his lunch, Mo headed to the music room for auditions. He was actually really excited for this even though he was dreading Imogen's audition. However she seemed to be running late as there was a line of people outside and she wasn't in it.

Eli sat next to him as a judge while each person came up and either sang or played an instrument. Most of them performed poorly to his great annoyance.

The first promising person came up, and he played the bass without missing a single beat. Mo looked at him, impressed.

"What's your kid?" He asked him.

"Gracie Torres," the kid answered. Mo shared a confused look with Eli.

"Gracie is a weird name for a guy," he replied.

"I'm not a guy, I'm a girl," the kid corrected, and he widened his eyes in surprise.

"Oh," he replied, blinking, "My bad." He could hardly tell she was a girl with the way she was dressed in a dark hoodie, a grey beanie, and baggy jeans. She must be a tomboy. Or a lesbian.

"It's all good!" She reassured him enthusiastically, and there was a thoughtful expression on her face.

After her, there seemed to be no other auditions. Mo was putting his notes into his bag, ready to close up when he heard Imogen's voice. "Is it too late to audition?" She asked, and Mo looked up.

If he was in a cartoon, his jaw would have literally dropped to the floor at the sight of her. Imogen's hair was worn straight down her back and she wore a tight red mini dress with matching red boots and fishnet stockings. Flame-shaped earrings dangled from her ears both her eyeshadow and lipstick was a vibrant orange.

"You said you needed your female band members to look hot and so I spent like twenty minutes getting ready," Imogen explained, "How do I look?"

It was like he swallowed a lemon. Mo found himself not being able to say anything, but fortunately Eli did despite the bad history between him and Imogen.

"Great. Are you singing or playing an instrument?" Eli asked her. Imogen's face brightened in realization.

"Wait! Hold on!" She urged before running back out to the hallway. She then came back in, pushing a table with glass cups and a tambourine on it. "I can play cups, I can play tambourine, I can even sing! I'm the whole package! Let me show you guys!" She declared. Imogen then auditioned, but Mo couldn't find himself paying attention to how good she sounded.

He was more focused on how gorgeous she looked in her own little

After leaving the therapist's office, Spike got him McDonald's afterwards. In all honesty Connor didn't feel like eating any of his meal but he did for his godmother's sake. Spike had enough of worrying about everyone in the household these days and he didn't want to add more by not eating. She would mistake him for having an eating disorder like Emma did last year.

After taking a bite out of his Big Mac, he focused on eating his fries. He liked eating everything in a separate pattern and he didn't like his food to mix in his mouth. So he would take a bite out of his burger, then eat some fries, then drink some of his soda. He would save the ice cream for last.

Someone knocked on the front door and he got up to look in the peephole. When he saw that it was K.C., he immediately opened the door up.

"K.C.! It's a pleasure to see you!" He greeted him while stepping aside to let his friend through. "Did you bring me schoolwork?"

"I did," his friend confirmed as he set his book bag on the table, "And I also came to talk."

"About what?" Connor asked.

"So Clare, Alli, Jenna, and I have been talking and it's pretty obvious that you're suffering from some serious PTSD from what you saw," K.C. began as he sat down at the table. Connor chose to sit across from him. "I never saw a guy get stabbed but I did see some pretty messed up stuff back when I was living with my mom."

Curious, Connor said nothing but he silently urged his friend to continue. K.C. took a deep breath before saying more.

"When I was ten, my mom had one of her 'friends' over, and they were shooting up heroin together. When she left to go to the bathroom, he OD'd and I had to go to call 911. The guy died and child protective services took me away because my mom was deemed unfit to raise me. I had nightmares for weeks even when I started living at the group home and they had to put me in a children's PTSD support group," he explained.

"How did they stop?" Connor questioned.

"I had to take medication," K.C. answered before pulling out a flyer from his bag. There was an image of a basketball on it and it was advertising tryouts for the school basketball team. "And I found ways to cope by distracting myself. I played basketball and football to take my mind off of that guy's body reappearing in my head over and over again." His friend passed him the flyer and Connor looked it over. He never thought of doing sports because he figured that it wasn't meant for "nerds" such as himself.

"You think this would help?" He questioned again, pondering the idea. If anything, he definitely had the height to play basketball.

"It might not but it doesn't hurt to try, right?" K.C. replied with a hopeful look on his face. Connor rubbed his chin.

"I guess not. Thank you K.C. Now let's do homework together," he replied with a smile.

Jake rode over to Katie's house on his bike with dread in his heart. He didn't actually want to confront Katie on this but it was necessary.

He knocked on the doorbell when he arrived. Her little sister Maya opened up the door. "Hi Jake, you're here to hang out with Katie?" She asked.

"Uh, there's um something more important than that," he answered nervously, "Can you go get Katie for me?"

"Sure," the younger Matlin sister answered before leaving. Jake stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The longer he had to wait, the more tense he felt.

Maya walked down the steps with Katie following her, drying her wet hair. She must have just washed her hair.

"Hey babe," Katie greeted him as she walked over and kissed him on the cheek. "What's up?"

"We need to talk right now outside," he urged. His girlfriend looked at him in confusion but he only grabbed her arm and took her outside where no one could hear them.

"Katie, something has been seriously wrong with you and I know why," he began, "You're bulimic."

She blinked at him in confusion before laughing, but the flash of panic in her eyes said it all. "What? What makes you say that?"

"You always look sick, you're constantly drowsy, you always go to the bathroom after eating a big lunch, and yesterday you tasted like puke when we kissed. Katie, please don't deny this," he answered.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You seriously think I would do that Jake? There's nothing wrong with me, I have just been coming down with a cold lately and-"

"I read your journal today. Last night it said right that you threw up your lunch and was aiming to lose several more pounds by next week," he bluntly confessed, deciding that beating around the bush was pointless.

His girlfriend's face contorted in rage and he knew that he was in trouble. "You read my journal?" She asked angrily.

"Yes because as your boyfriend I'm concerned about how you've been acting lately and my fears were validated today!" He argued.

"Well as my ex-boyfriend, hopefully you take this as a lesson to not invade your next girlfriend's privacy because we are DONE!" Katie yelled. He stepped back in shock over her words.

"You're seriously dumping me over this? Katie, I only did this because I care about you!" He tried to reason with her.

"You can go to hell," she replied icily, "You spend your time off from school getting high with burnouts and yet you're trying to judge me?" She questioned.

"I'm not judging you. I'm trying to stop you from hurting yourself. Throwing up your lunch everyday isn't healthy, Katie! You need to get help before you destroy yourself! Please listen to me!" He pleaded desperately.

"Fuck you, Jake," she spat before going back inside her house, slamming the door roughly. He tried to open it back up but she quickly locked it. Jake looked at the door, swallowing anxiously.

Now he had to resort to drastic measures.