Disclaimer: I don't own it!

Summary: it's the gang's sophomore year of high school, but when Lizzie finds out what Gordo did, she completely changes.

***Reap What You Sow***

The planets must have been aligning in my favor, because I was privy to a huge blowout the next day after school. I was running late, having spent far too much time flirting with Ethan after history class. Did I flirt with Ethan because I was particularly infatuated with Ethan? God, no. I'd long since been over Ethan, ever since I'd seen that there was much better for me out there. Since I'd seen Gordo for who he was.

Now that I was seeing him for *what* he was, however, I was back to Ethan. And let me tell you, my association with Ethan was a thorn in a lot of sides. It bugged the hell out of Kate Sanders, who used to be the name everyone came to associate with Ethan's. I'd insured that that was no longer the case. It *really* irritated Gordo and Miranda, and was somewhat humiliating to Gordo, to boot. Half the cheerleading squad was annoyed with me, the other half was proud and impressed. Ethan was *the* It Boy of the Hillridge High freshman class, was popular enough that even upperclassmen were drooling over him, and would in enough time, own the school.

The same could be said for my rising star, and with Ethan by my side, there would be no stopping me.

We weren't an item, not exactly. We were together often enough that everyone assumed, and Ethan was too stupid and I was too power-hungry to refute it.

As I was saying, though, after I'd conned Ethan into coming with me to Anissa's party that coming Friday, I was running late for practice. I stopped off at my locker to get my duffel bag, and happened to hear a commotion coming from the next room. My curiosity was piqued, and I wondered what I might come across. Maybe someone had been caught cheating. Or maybe some sort of illicit affair was going on. Nothing to put me in good standing with the elite like some juicy gossip.

But what I got was better than either of those. I peered around the corner, seeing but unseen. Miranda and Gordo were in an empty classroom, having a fight.

"You *sold* me *out*, Gordon," Miranda hissed, using his last name like a school bully would, picking on the class nerd. "How could you? Years of friendship, and you're willing to throw that aside so you could get back together with the devil queen?"

'The devil queen?' That was new.

"I've known Lizzie since *birth* Miranda, and she means more to me than you'll ever know." I tried not to let those words affect me, but they did spark something deep within me. That regret, that sorrow, that well of negative emotions that lurked beneath the surface.

"Yeah, if that was true, then why did you kiss me?" she spat in return. "And don't bother lying to me, I was there. *You* kissed *me*, David Gordon."

My heart sank. Which indicated at the very least that I still had one.

Every accusation I'd flung at Gordo was true. He had cheated on me. He'd cheated, he'd lied, he'd broken my damn heart. All my life I'd been putting him up on some kind of pedestal. He was ethical, he was moral, he was intelligent and caring, and now my little idolized version of him crumbled. He was nothing but a ruined statue, the dust floating away in the wind.

"What was it, huh?" Miranda said with that spark that I'd thought for sure she'd lost. It ignited again in his silence. "Was it just that you were bored with Lizzie?"

"It was a *mistake*," Gordo said, and his voice sounded dead. I found myself wishing that he'd rise up to Miranda's accusations, get angry, defend himself, offer some sort of explanation.

I just wanted an explanation. At that precise moment in time, it all came down to me wanting answers. Wanting to know why her, why Miranda. I'd been torturing myself with the thought that I wasn't good enough, and that had spurred this whole cheerleader-devil-queen situation, this overwhelming desire to *be* good enough, to be *better*. All my life, I'd been on the outskirts of things. No particular talent. Gordo had the brains, Miranda had the moxie. They both had confidence in spades, in themselves, and in me, which was what I fed on, considering I had very little for myself. I'd needed them, needed them to reassure me that I wasn't a complete waste of space. That it was Ethan's fault for overlooking me, and not some flaw of my own.

I didn't need them anymore, though. My brain ran in overdrive, tuning out the argument, though instinct told me I should listen in anyway. In their own weird way, they'd accomplished what they'd always been trying; they had set me free from my own insecurities.

I was the queen bee now, the It Girl, the popular one. Hordes of friends and admirers. Did I make a connection with any of these legions of people like I had with Miranda and Gordo? Of course not. They were minions at best. They loved me because they wanted to be me, wanted to rise to my place, wanted me to help them achieve it. They knew nothing about me. They hadn't given me the time of day when I'd been myself.

Now I *was* myself, though. The vindictiveness, the thirst for status, I'd always had that. I'd simply ignored it. Now I was embracing it.

Without waiting to hear the end of the fight, I shouldered my duffel and head off for the girls' locker room. I was already considerably late for practice, and regardless of my popularity, Anissa would throw a fit.

It was, however, only the beginning.