Okay, I definitely meant to write and upload this wayyyyy sooner than this, but I got somewhat thrown into the deep end of my job and I'm only just emerging from that now. The good news is I think I've finally established a schedule and figured out free time a bit better, so here's hoping the next chapter doesn't take as long!


A week after Mal tells Natara about his parents, he invites her to a party. Or, he sort of invites her to a party.

Okay, so it's really Blaise who brings it up. He and Natara are having a movie night again when Blaise shows up at his house, spitting mad because of a fight with her mom. Natara thankfully doesn't question it when she flops down on the sofa on the other side of Mal and only offers her the bowl of popcorn. Blaise takes it without a word, and they all settle in to enjoy the rest of the movie together.

Or at least, for about three seconds they do. But then Blaise stands up abruptly and begins pacing, with Mal only barely catching the bowl of popcorn before it hits the ground.

"Careful," he warns without malice. Blaise shoots him a look.

"Sorry," she says, sounding not sorry at all.

"Are you okay?" Natara asks. Her eyes track Blaise as she continues to pace around Mal's living room.

"Yeah," she replies. "No. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Blaise practically snarls at her.

"Okay," Natara says meekly. She and Mal watch Blaise pace for a few more seconds before exchanging glances.

Mal raises his eyebrows at Natara, and she frowns back. Obviously she doesn't know what to say to Blaise. She doesn't even really know what's wrong. She looks pointedly at her and then back to Mal. Blaise is his friend. He's known her for longer than she has, plus she's not convinced that Blaise actually likes her. He should be the one figuring this out.

To his credit, Mal does open his mouth like he's about to say something. Blaise just beats him to it.

"Let's get out of here," she says. "I need to be doing something, I don't know."

"Well, what did you have in mind?" Mal asks. He glances at Natara again, but she only shrugs in response.

"I think I heard something about a party at Eric Drimmer's place tonight," she says, her face suddenly alight. "Heather said she was gonna go. And you know he always throws the best parties."

Mal nods, but Natara only stares at the two of them. She didn't know that Eric Drimmer threw the best parties. In fact, she didn't even know who Eric Drimmer was. And she definitely didn't want to go to a party.

"Well?" Blaise prompts.

"I'm in," Mal says without hesitation. "It's been a while since I went to any parties." He stands while Blaise celebrates her small victory. Then, she turns to Natara.

"What about you, Book Smarts?" Mal turns to her with a small half smile.

Natara feels her face flush at the strange nickname. "I'm good." She stands too, and stretches her arms a bit. "I think I'll just go home, you two have fun."

Blaise shrugs one shoulder. "Suit yourself. Come on, Mal."

"Well, wait," Mal says, reaching out to Natara. "We don't have to go. There's gotta be something that all three of us can agree on. What do you want to do, Natara?"

Blaise coughs, and it sounds suspiciously like the word "whipped", and Natara doesn't want to think about what that means. So instead she shakes her head and takes a step toward the door.

"I'm fine, really. I should go anyway," she insists. "I promised my mom we'd go shopping for college stuff tomorrow, and she usually likes to go early. Less crowded, that way."

"Natara-"

"No really. It's fine. I'll see you guys later." And she doesn't give either of them a chance to say anything else before she's out the door and in her car. She pulls out of Mal's driveway and onto the street.

She doesn't go home immediately, though. She knows her parents will wonder if she comes home too soon, and she doesn't want to deal with their questions. So instead she resigns herself to driving around for a while, until it's a reasonable time for her to get home from hanging out with Mal.

Thankfully when she does go home and walk inside, her parents have apparently been dealing with Neha's chaos and have no energy left to ask her what she and Mal did. Plus she suspects they know that 9 times out of 10, she and Mal just watch a movie and have stopped being curious about it.

It's not super late when she slips into her room and changes into her pajamas. Truth be told she's not even sort of tired. But she doesn't want to deal with thinking anymore, so she curls up in her bed anyway, turns the lights off, and closes her eyes.

She feels silly. Not only lying there in the dark, wide awake with her eyes closed. Because that is silly. But so is being so hung up on being ditched by Mal. It's silly and stupid. She doesn't have a monopoly over Mal's time and attention. It would be ridiculous to think that. Mal is free to make his own decisions and hang out with whoever he wants and do whatever he wants. And if he wants to go to a party with Blaise, then let him.

So why does it sting?

It's not the worst hurt in the world. She herself has had worse. But it does chafe a bit, and damn if she can't shake it. She huffs out a sigh.

It doesn't make any logical sense.

And she hates things that don't make any logical sense.

Her door slowly creaks open and light from the hall leaks in. It's probably just her mom checking in on her, so she rolls on her side and tries to even out her breathing. She's sure that by this point her parents can see right through it when she pretends to be asleep, but so far they haven't bothered her on the rare occasions she does it.

"Natara? Are you awake?"

It's not her mom's voice in the doorway, but her sister's. She sits up and looks over. Neha is silhouetted in the doorway, and even in the semi-darkness she can see her sister shifting from foot to foot.

"What are you doing up?" she asks.

Neha jumps onto her bed and scoots close to her. "Mommy said you're going to college soon. She said you have to go far away."

"Yeah, I do," Natara says. "You'll go to college too, eventually."

"No, I'm gonna go to college with you," Neha says resolutely. She lays down on Natara's bed and pulls the blanket up to her chin. Natara rolls her eyes but lays down as well.

"I don't know if that's allowed," she says. She doesn't want Neha to think she doesn't want her to come with her. She knows how her sister gets. But she also knows how incredibly stubborn she is, and she doesn't particularly want to deal with one of her tantrums right now. Neha's silent for a second, and Natara's pretty sure she's making a face.

"But I wanna go," she insists.

"Yeah, but what about all your friends?" Natara asks. "You'd miss them. Plus, Kindergarten is really fun, you don't want to miss out on that, do you?"

"I don't care," Neha pouts. "I wanna go with you."

"Yeah, well you'll have to take that up with Mom and Dad," Natara says. She smiles a bit smugly to herself. She knows they'll tell Neha not to be ridiculous, and she doesn't have to be the bad guy. Neha, however, scoffs.

"As if they could stop me," she says with more sass than Natara could ever hope to possess.

"Whatever you say," Natara laughs lightly. "Now go to sleep, I'm tired."