I did not cry. I kept mumbling nothing phrases like, "…finally cracked... I can't believe it... Oh my God..." But tears never came. Your mother can only push you to tears so many times in your life before you just begin to numb yourself to her.

I dialed Claire's cell phone number. Half-asleep, she answered.

"I need to stay at your place tonight," I told her.

"Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine. But I just can't stay at my house tonight."

After Claire and I hung up, I began to think about the last image of my mother I'd seen before walking out the door. She was sitting there, looking miserable, almost too drunk to hold up the weight of her own head. She was probably still there, sobbing to herself, mumbling about how no one loved her. When it was all said and done, she was always the victim. She always expected me to feel sorry for her.

The sad thing was, I did feel sorry for her. It was so easy to be callous to others; I felt no loyalty to anyone and it was nothing to ruin someone else's life for my own benefit. But it was different with my mother. I hated to see her in pain. And she was always in pain. Even when she was happy, you could see in her eyes that she was screaming. I always found myself wishing there was something I could do to make her stop feeling so lousy.

Of course, it was these emotions that gave way to all the anger I felt. I didn't want to love her, but for reasons beyond my control I couldn't help it. There was a constant storm within me, because I had such strong affection for someone I hated so much. Maybe, deep down, I wanted to believe there was still hope of her coming back from the dark side. Or maybe I was afraid to truly hate her, because she was a reflection of myself. She was an image of what I might become. It killed me to look at her, drunk and lonely. Is that what would happen to me? Would I resort to sitting around all day, feeling sorry for myself and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of vodka? Would everyone around me end up hating me?

I would give anything not to become my mother.

I didn't have to knock when I arrived at Claire's house. She opened the door and took me upstairs, where she allowed me to take my pick from her drawers for something to sleep in. It was only after I was dressed and ready to go to bed that she attempted to speak to me.

"So," she said. "What happened?"

"I got in a fight with my mom. She went totally medieval on me and started smacking me. I decided to motor."

Claire's eyes widened. "Oh my God, Kate. Are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

I laughed, but it was weakened with pain. "Of course not. Have you seen how tiny my mother is? Besides, she was miserably drunk. If she had actually hurt me, I would have hit back."

"I always knew your mother was a lunatic. Well, don't worry. You can stay here as long as you need to."

I nodded in thanks. I remembered then what my mother had told me. She knew about Claire and I. It was painful in a way because I didn't want anyone to know about us. Maybe if I truly had feelings for Claire I wouldn't mind; I might even enjoy rubbing it in my mother's face, just to make some kind of statement.

We just sat there. After all that, I wasn't tired anymore. I kept thinking about everything; Penny, my mother... until it all just hurt my head too much.

Claire interrupted my thoughts. "Kate, are you going to Homecoming with Ethan?"

I don't know how long we had been sitting there before she spoke, but it took me a moment to get out of my zone. "Huh? Of course I'm going with Ethan. He's my escort."

"Oh."

I looked at her. "Claire? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just... I thought maybe you and I could go together."

I laughed out loud. I honestly thought she was joking. She had to be. "Yeah, like that would ever happen."

"Why not? Why couldn't it happen?" She stroked my hair. "Are you my girlfriend or not?"

"Claire, you've got to be kidding. You know we could never let people know about us, let alone show up at a dance together. I don't even want to think about what our friends would say!" I giggled, trying to make light of the situation, but Claire's reaction was not quite the same.

She looked away, almost thinking to herself. "If they were really our friends, they would accept us."

Okay, now she HAD to be kidding. "Hello, Claire, where have you been? Do you know our friends? Forget it. It's out of the question. Do you want to slaughter our reputation or what?"

She let out a heavy sigh. "Maybe I'm sick of my reputation, okay? I'm so tired of being a person that I don't want to be! Which is more important, Kate: me or your reputation?"

The question was something of a stab. I knew the answer to it immediately, and it definitely wasn't the answer she was looking for. "Claire, you're being completely unreasonable..."

"Am I?" She looked at me for a moment, her eyes clouded with a mixture of sadness, anger, and uncertainty. "Is it unreasonable for me to want to be honest with who I am and who I love? I fucking sick of playing the popular game."

I rubbed my forehead in frustration. "Please don't do this. It's been a long night and I don't have the patience."

She growled. "Well then get the patience, damn it! I'm trying to have a serious conversation here, and you're totally blowing it off like it's nothing."

"Ah, Christ." I rolled my eyes. "What do you want me say?"

"I want you to tell me you love me."

That was it. She crossed the line and used the "L" word. That was the point at which I absolutely snapped. All the anger and resentment I had been forced to hold back every time Claire touched me was suddenly released.

"Oh, wake up, Claire!" I fumed. "Did you ever actually think that you and I could function as an ordinary couple? Did you suddenly turn stupid and think 'true love' would conquer all or some crap like that?"

"I just--"

"Get real! What, do you want to be gay with me or something? You want us to throw away everything we've worked for and prance around school like freaking Gourda and Esmerelda? Was that the sweet, sappy image you had in your head? Us two, all alone, the proud Hillridge dykes?"

She paused, looking at me with searching eyes. Finally she exhaled and drew her eyes away from me. "I should have known," was all she said. She turned away and crawled into her bed. There was nothing more to be said. With a sigh, I turned off the light and got into bed on the opposite side.

We still weren't talking when morning came. The only thing Claire was willing to say to me was, "Yeah," when I asked to borrow some of her clothes. As I skimmed through her closet, I noticed she had acquired much more black than she used to have. It took me awhile, but eventually I found an outfit that wasn't too goth or too small.

I was more tired than words could describe. I felt like crap and I could barely keep my eyes open. Worst of all, all of my beauty products were at home, so I had to make due with Claire's assortment. I wanted badly to blow off school, but they were taking pictures of the Homecoming Court and I simply couldn't miss that. Claire and I rode to school in cold silence, and as soon as we arrived we parted ways. The tension had been unbearable, and I was relieved to get away from her. I was just ready to meet up with my friends, get the day underway, and slip into the routine that gave me so much comfort.

I noticed something out of the ordinary in the courtyard. There was a fairly large group of Freshman girls accumulated. They were talking and giggling excitedly, focusing all their attention on one girl in particular. It was even more unusual when I spotted Lizzie there, because I knew she didn't hang with a large crowd. I pushed my way through to see what the excitement was about.

"It's hard to describe," Miranda, apparently the center of attention, was saying. She was wearing a boy's letter jacket and grinning from ear to ear. "We were just head banging to the music together and... sparks were flying, I guess."

"Did he kiss you?" Veruca asked eagerly.

Miranda giggled and nodded. "I don't really want to kiss and tell... but it was awesome! Of course, I was so grounded when my parents found out how late we were out. But it was definitely worth it."

The giddy girls continued to throw questions her way. I was awed, wondering who could have possibly swept Sanchez off her feet. I inspected the letter jacket for a moment, and when I noticed a water polo patch on the shoulder, I gasped.

"Sanchez!" I screamed, hushing the chatter of the group. Everyone looked at me with wide eyes, as if noticing me for the first time. "What do you think you're doing in my boyfriend's jacket?!"

Everyone got quiet and looked away, and I got that unsettling feeling in my stomach that they all knew something I didn't.

Miranda tried to act sensitive, but I could see that she was supressing a smile. She was patronizing me. "Well, alot of things happened last night... didn't Ethan tell you?" She sighed with fake guilt. "Gosh, this just feels so awkward."

I could have punched her. But I didn't want to break a nail.

"Um, Kate?" said a voice behind me. I turned my head, along with all the other girls in the circle, and saw Ethan standing there. "We need to talk."

I could feel the excitement bubble up in the girls around me; they were having the time of their teenage lives as they soaked in all the drama. This was normally the sort of excitement I lived for, but the sensation was completely different now that I was on the loser side of the situation.

I marched furiously over to Ethan. He was already wearing his puppy dog face, but its effect on me was less than zilch. "Ethan Donovan Craft, explain yourself right now! Because from the looks of it you've gone temporarily insane and done the stupidest thing you've ever done!"

"It all happened so fast, Kate. It was just like a movie or something..." He got a faraway look in his eyes, lost in the moment, but once he saw the fury in my eyes, he quickly came back to Earth. "Me and Miranda have been, like, talking and stuff lately and, like, she was in the seat right next to me at the concert and, like, we had this outrageous time together. I tried to call you after the concert but your mom said she didn't know where you were..."

"I don't care about the details, Ethan. Tell me what exactly is going on here!"

He shrugged, sighing heavily as a familiar goofy look spread across his face. "Well... I, like, fell in love."

"Ugh! Ethan, I don't have the energy right now to put up with your... retarded-ness! Now get over there, blow off Miss Sanchez, and get to work on extinguishing the rumor that you and I were ever separated, mmkay?"

He placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes with disgusting sincerity. "I'm really sorry about this, Kate. But, like, the ways of love can't be controlled, you know? Me and you just don't have that spark anymore. Besides, I know you have someone else."

"What are talking about?"

"I already know about you and Claire." My eyes grew wide with fear and I opened my mouth to speak, but he kept going. "It's okay, dawg, I totally accept your 'lifestyle'." He made quotation marks with his fingers, the sad truth being that he was actually being sincere. "And I won't tell anybody, coz I know you want to keep it a secret. But we can't go out anymore. I'm in love with Miranda."

He gave me a peck on the forehead and walked away. I was speechless. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I had never been so humiliated in my entire life. I could feel my face turn pink; I felt like every eye in Hillridge High was upon me, judging and scrutinizing me. The combination of anger and mortification I felt was too much. Worst of all, I was alone. Any other day I would have at least had Claire beside me, ready to back me up and insult Sanchez.

Wait. Claire. If Ethan and Miranda met up at the concert, why didn't Claire do anything to stop it? Anger sent my feet in motion, searching the courtyard for Claire. It didn't take long to find her. She was alone, leaning against a wall, and had been watching the whole thing with a smirk on her face.

"You did this, didn't you?" I asked her coldly. Suddenly, it all became painfully clear to me. All those times she had been talking to Ethan and Miranda. She was the go-between; she was working to get the circumstances just right. She had been planning this all along. "You set the two of them up. You gave Miranda your ticket. You ruined everything for me." I shook my head, almost unable to take all of it in. "You're quite the jealous bitch, you know?"

"Yeah, so?" said Claire. "That's nothing new. I would think you'd be a bit more impressed with me. It wasn't easy, you know, getting Ethan to fall for Sanchez. It took me much longer than I thought it would. But, still, the whole thing was brilliant, don't you think? I mean, you never even suspected."

"You're so immature! Does this have to do with what you were saying last night? Have you been, like, planning this whole thing for months or something? Separate Ethan and I so you can move in and sweep me off my feet? God, Claire, how fifth grade."

There was a flicker of pain in her eyes, and I took pleasure in the fact that I had hit a sensitive spot. She pushed it away quickly though, and looked at me with a face of stone. "It's true that I thought without Ethan around, you and I might actually have a chance of growing closer. But I realized last night that that could never happen." She shrugged. "Oh, well. The work I did with Ethan and Miranda wasn't really a waste, was it? It's been extremely entertaining."

I glared daggers at her. I was just about to give her a piece of my mind when the voice of a passerby interrupted me.

"Uh-oh!" someone taunted. It was Nic Barnum. "Looks like the lovebirds are having their first fight."

"What are you talking about, Barnum?" I snapped. Claire said nothing. She just sat there and grinned.

He laughed. "Oh, come on, Kate. The whole school knows. But if you asked me, Ethan was a 'tard to dump you over it. If I was him, I would have kept you around. Who wouldn't want to have a lesbian girlfriend?"

A lump the size of Alaska started to form in my throat. I looked at Claire, who was immensely amused by the whole thing. My head was about to explode. Claire's cocky grin, Nic's laughter, and the chatter of the girls still surrounding Miranda were spinning all around me. I felt sick to my stomach and flustered. So much to think about and deal with, and I was already so exhausted and weighed down with other thoughts.

I fled the scene. I ran from the courtyard, which was brimming with the giggles and juicy conversation of my peers. It seemed like every hushed tone or burst of laughter from the circles of people was because of me. It was almost like I could literally see the rumors and jokes whizzing through the air. My emotions were hurled back to the seventh grade, when the hottest topic was the rumor that Kate Sanders stuffed her bra. I remembered the pain, the paranoia, the desperate need to lash out. That was back when I was new at the whole being perfect and beautiful thing. Back when I still had something of a soul left in me.

But I was older now. Wiser, stronger. Right? I could deal with this, couldn't I? I tried to build my confidence back up as I leaned against the wall in one of the stalls. I took a deep breath and sucked back the tears that were threatening to fall. That's right, I said to myself. I could deal with this. A devilish scheme of as great of caliber as any of my others began to form in my head.

Kate Sanders was not going down without a fight.