Two weeks passed. Lil still avoided her old friends, everyone except Kimi and Phil. She knew that Tommy didn't tell anybody about what had happened between them. He would have been two embarrassed and ashamed. Lil certainly knew that he didn't tell anyone about her "job".

"Lillian Deville, please report to the guidance office immediately. Thank you."

Lil was in second period when she heard the announcement. She rolled her eyes and stood up with her backpack in hand.

"Will we be expecting you back, Miss Deville?" Her teacher asked.

Lil shrugged. "I know as much as you do."

Lil left the classroom and made her way to the guidance office, clueless as to why she was being called down there.

"Hello, Lillian." Her guidance counselor greeted her with a fake smile.

"Hey." Lillian returned the false smile.

Mrs. Morrow, which was her name, gestured for Lil to follow her in her office. Mrs. Morrow sat herself behind her desk while Lil sat on her couch.

"So, Lillian, there seems to be a matter that I was asked to take up with you."

Lil looked at her expectantly.

"An anonymous source had come to me with concerns about you."

Lil gulped but kept her cool.

"Lil, I'm just gonna cut to the chase. This source has a reason to believe that you are taking diet pills."

Lil couldn't help but laugh.

"Do you find harming yourself humorous?"

Lil shook her head. "Who told you that?"

"An anonymous source, I told you. I am not at liberty to say."

Lil stood up, still chuckling. "Well, your 'anonymous source' should get their facts straight. There's no way I'm taking diet pills." As Lil was about to leave, her guidance counselor stopped her.

"Then what are these?" She asked her.

Lil turned around and froze at the sight. Mrs. Morrow was holding up a bottle of pills.

"How do you even know those are mine?" Lil challenged.

"I read the label. It's prescribed in your name. I don't know how you were able to get these, Lil, without a doctor's note, but whoever gave these to you should know better."

"Where did you get those?" Lil shouted.

"Does it matter? The real concern at hand is how you're harming yourself."

"Who cares?" Lil shouted, her voice cracking. "Nobody cares! My parents care more about Phil than me! My friends could give a rat's ass about me as well! Who else is there to care? Nobody!"

At that moment a small voice spoke up.

"I care, Lil."

Lil spun around and looked to see Kimi standing there. With her stood Phil, Angelica, Suzie, and Chuckie.

"We all care about you, Lil. That's why when Kimi told us that she thought you were taking diet pills, we all decided to try and get you some help." Phil told her.

"Lil, you have to get some help. You could end up in the hospital. And if it gets really bad, then you could-"

Suzie interrupted Angelica.

"What matters, Lil, is that we care about you and we don't want to see you get hurt."

Lil pulled her hands through her hair.

"I cannot believe this!" She shouted. "So, you all turned against me? Is that the case? Well, you know what, I don't need any of you! I was doing just fine without you guys for the past two months and I'll keep doing fine!"

The guidance counselor was quiet for most of the time. She assumed that this was something that they needed to work out themselves. She whispered to Kimi:

"If you need me I'll be out in the lobby. Maybe Lil doesn't want me to hear some of this."

Kimi nodded.

"You'll do fine by yourself?" Phil questioned in anger. "You mean prostituting with Leslie and Diane and selling yourself? You don't know how much you put us all through, Lil! Tommy was in tears when he told us that, and we all know damn well that's not something he does often."

Phil's anger was out of control so Angelica took over.

"You really had us fooled for a while, Lil. Thinking that you had changed and that the cause of your hostility towards us was because you were raped. I'll bet you weren't though. I'll bet it was just a set up for you to get attention."

Lil protested in anger. "I really was raped! Who are you to make me feel like I-"

"Excuse me?" Angelica interrupted her. "Who am I? Who the hell are you to make my cousin fall for you and then go ahead and use him for profit? News flash, Lil. Tommy hasn't felt this way about you for just the past couple of months. He's practically been in love with you since the sixth grade! I don't know how-"

Suzie interrupted Angelica once more.

"You're right, Angelica, but this isn't the best place to talk about this. What we came here for was to talk to Mrs. Morrow about some type of substance abuse program for Lil. That's our main objective this second." Suzie's words were warming, but her voice was cold.

"I don't have a drug problem." Lil said simply.

"Lil, I saw the bottle of pills on your desk. We can all see you now. You're too skinny. It doesn't even look attractive." Kimi spoke up, not wanting to damage her relationship any farther, but feeling as though she should say something.

"Kimi! You're the one who did this! You turned against me! You're nothing but a two-timing, lying, bitch who can't-"

"STOP!" Phil shouted at his sister. "Just shut up! You direct those comments at Kimi, but really you should be directing them to yourself."

"Once again, you all bring up very good points, but this is not the issue. The issue at hand is to get Lil some help." Suzie commented. "Lil, it's up to you if you want to get yourself some help. If you need us, we'll be around. But, we're not going to wait forever."

The four of them left, leaving Lil alone in the guidance office. Lil snagged her pills and walked out, bumping Mrs. Morrow as she left.

"Lil!" She shouted. "LIL!"

Lil kept on walking, ignoring anything that tried to get into her way.

She passed Leslie on her way to her next period.

"We still on for tonight, girl?" Leslie asked her.

Lil nodded. "I'll meet you there. How much we goin' for tonight?"

"Fifty. As usual."

"See you there."

Lillian skipped the rest of her periods that day. She walked off to the park and sat on the bench to think. She thought about what her old friends had just said.

'Do they really care?' Lil asked herself as a tear streamed down her face.

'Do they really care about me or are they just acting?'

Lil sat there for hours. She looked down at her watch finally.

"Crap! It's three-o-clock!" Lil jumped up. She raced home and barely made it inside her house before the bus stopped at the corner. She saw Phil, Kimi, Angelica, Suzie, Harold, Tommy, and Dil get off the bus. She watched them all walk over to Tommy's house next door. She felt a pang of guilt sweep over her. She missed hanging out with her friends and deep down she knew that they missed her, especially Kimi.

Lil shook her head and ran upstairs to her room. She was the only one home. She didn't know where her parents were, but she assumed they were at the Java Lava. Lil curled up on her bed. She was supposed to meet Leslie, Diane, and Britni at the corner at seven-o-clock that night. Lil closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Lil woke up to the sound of her brother waking her up.

"LIL! Wake up!" He yelled at her as he shook her.

"What!" She said groggily. She glanced at her clock, which read eight-o-seven.

"Crap! Why didn't you wake me up!" She shouted.

"First of all, I am waking you up right now. Second of all, if it's for your prostituting job, you can kill me before I help you out on that one. Anyway, the only reason I'm waking you up in the first place is because mom and dad want to talk to us. Hurry up."

Lil got up from her bed and reluctantly followed her brother downstairs. Her parents were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for them. Lil noticed that her mother looked incredibly tired and sick. She also had a brace around her neck.

Lil and Phil sat at the table with their parents.

"Lilly. Phil. There's something we have to tell you." Howard said in a shaky voice.

Phil and Lil looked at each other.

"Um... This is going to be so hard to tell you pups..." Betty told them. She started to cry and Howard squeezed her hand. "Um...Lil. Phil. I have a type of spinal cancer. It's, um, not that serious yet, but the doctor said that it could be. They said that if they caught it earlier there may have been a chance, but they didn't."

Lil started to cry with her mother. Phil just sat there with his mouth open.

"But, it'll be okay pups. I mean, it's not like he sat me down and told me how long I have to live." Betty gave a reassuring laugh. Nobody laughed with her, though.

"When did you find out?" Lil managed to choke.

"Um...We actually found out about three weeks ago." Howard told them.

Phil nodded. "I have homework to do. Thanks for the information."

Phil ran upstairs and slammed his door.

"I'll go upstairs and talk to him." Lil told her parents as she gave them both a kiss.

"I'm so sorry." She cried out.

Lil knocked on Phil's door. He had his music playing to the deafening level. She opened his door.

"It doesn't look like your doing your homework." Lil said softly.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Phil shouted at her.

"I just wanted to know why you were so cold to mom. She just told you she had cancer."

"You think she could've waited any longer to tell us that?" Phil asked her.

"I think they were both trying to ease the pain a little, Phil. I mean, think about it. Mom has cancer. Mom. The one person in the world who could walk through fire and walk on water. She's the invincible, Phil. And she has cancer. Phil, our mom has cancer!" Lil was gasping for breath, she was crying so hard.

The stereo was now turned off. The twins cried together in silence. They were both able to forget about their anger while they hugged each other and cry.

"Oh my god, Lil." Phil whispered. "Mom's got cancer."