"Maybe you should be related to Teddy, you're both crazy," Vern said. Gabby rolled her eyes and looked at Vern.

"It may be crazy, but what choice do we have?" she asked.

"But telling everyone Chris's dead... who's gonna believe that?" Vern continued to whine.

"Everyone," Gordie piped up. He'd been quiet the whole time Gabby told her idea because he was contemplating whether or not it would work. By his calculations, it would.

"Once word gets out that Chris was beaten up so badly that it killed him, they'll believe it because they have no choice.," he explained.

"Who's gonna care anyway?" Chris asked, looking at the floor. Gabby looked at him. As much as she didn't want to believe that, she had to. No one would really care if Chris died or not.

"What about Eyeball?" Vern asked. Gabby turned to him quickly. She'd completely forgotten about Chris's brother, the number one person they had to worry about.

"Oh that's wonderful!" Chris exclaimed. "I'm sure he'll support the idea." Gabby looked at Chris and narrowed her eyes.

"Let me worry about Eyeball," she said. Chris looked at her and saw in her eyes that she had another plan.

"What're you gonna do?" he asked. She smiled.

"My little secret," she said, brushing her finger under his chin. Chris cracked a smile, but he was far from happy. He didn't think Gabby could pull off something this big.

Gabby left and headed down the road to her house. She was afraid to go home, afraid to face Ace, afraid of what he would do to her. He did say she was next and she didn't want to find out what he meant. When she got home, she saw Eyeball sitting on the porch.

"Hey," she said quietly. He looked at her and smiled the saddest smile she'd ever seen on his face. "Where's Ace?" she asked. Eyeball chuckled lightly.

"Hospital," he said.

"Why?"

"He broke a few fingers on Chris." Gabby swallowed hard as she sat next to him.

"Eyeball," she breathed. She looked at him just as he turned to look at her. "Ace could've killed Chris today." Eyeball looked down and thought about it for a minute.

"I know," he said. Despite how tough he acted around Chris and the gang and when he laughed whenever Ace verbally abused Chris, he loved Chris. He was Eyeball's brother first and Ace was only a friend.

"If you were my brother, which you practically are," she started, nudging him with her shoulder causing him to smile. "What would do about me and Chris?"

"I don't know," he answered quickly. He didn't want to lose his tough guy image by telling her he wouldn't have acted the way Ace did.

"Ok, look," Gabby started, turning her whole body toward Eyeball. "I need a favor... a big one." He nodded slowly. "I wanna be with Chris," she said. Eyeball looked at her.

"I know you do. I don't know why, but I know you do," he said.

"I love him Eyeball." Eyeball closed his eyes and wished Gabby had never met Chris.

"What's the favor?" he asked, not wanting to hear anything else.

"I need..." she started. "I need you to swear on my life that you don't know anything."

"About what?"

"About Chris being alive." Eyeball curled his brow and looked at her.

"What are you talkin about?" Gabby took a deep breath and prepared herself for the long explanation.

"The... only way we can be together is if people believed that... Chris is... dead," she said slowly.

"English Gabby," Eyeball demanded.

"I'm gonna tell everyone Chris is dead," she blurted out. Eyeball quickly looked at her.

"What?!" he exclaimed.

"Listen, you and I both know people don't care one way or another if he's dead," she said, trying her best to sound reasonable.

"I care!" Eyeball finally revealed.

"Then you won't tell anybody," Gabby said, on the verge of tears.

"Tell anybody what?"

"That he's alive, are you listening to me?!" she yelled.

"Yeah, but I'm having a real hard time with this, ok?" he said. He got up and started down the sidewalk.

"Eyeball please?!" Gabby cried, falling off the porch and onto her knees on the hard cement. Eyeball stopped, but didn't turn around. He could not believe what Gabby was asking him. He would've done anything to help Gabby in any way, but this was asking a lot. He slowly turned around and looked at her.

"You know I love you Gabby," he said.

"That's why you're gonna help me," she said.

"You're not gonna tell people Ace killed him?"

"No," she shook her head. Eyeball stood for a moment, looking around, thinking.
"I don't believe this," he whispered to himself. He finally returned his gaze to Gabby. "Aright, I'm in," he said quickly. Gabby let out a deep breath and cracked a smile.

"Thank you," she said quietly as he walked away. She didn't know how she was going to pull this off, but she had think of something. She knew there was no way she'd be able to live without Chris and now that she had Eyeball on her side, maybe she had a chance. And she also knew that she had gone completely insane.