A/N: sorry, shorter chapter this time, but v. necessary (hurray! becka is getting smarter!). once again, all of you wonderful reviews rock.

schizoidmastermind: of course there will be a dance scene! just wait… mwhahahaha.

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"And this new girlfriend he's got—oh my word, she's absolutely horrid. Horrid, Jen. All she does is talk about herself and how great she is and you know how she tries to pull it off? She'll be like, 'Well, I don't think I'm that great, but my friends all say I'm totally awesome.' It's disgusting."

Jen and I are driving back from the mall after some shopping therapy (we both needed it). All day I've been going off about how much I hate Amy—partly because I do really hate her, and partly because it's probably nice for Jen to hear how awful she is. You always like to hear bad things about he competition. Especially if they've won.

"So you know what I did?" I ask, finally coming to the part that I haven't been able to come to yet. "I invited them to the Halloween party," I admit, a little sheepishly.

Jen looks at me all horrified. "Becka!" she cries. "Why did you do that?!"

"I had to!" I defend myself. "If I didn't, everyone would've seen right away how much I hate her. Besides, they probably would've come anyway. And it's not like I want them there either. Maybe we'll get lucky and they won't show."

"Whatever." Jen is frowning. I am frowning. Elton and Amy are a real pain.

Suddenly the car bumps and jerks like we hit something. "Crap!" Jen yells, pulling over to the side of the road. We get out of the car and examine the damage. Her front right tire is shredded. And smoking, actually.

"What did you hit?" I ask, a little amazed by the tire's complete mutilation.

"I dunno," says Jen.

Neither do I. I'm looking back at the road, and it appears to be pretty clear. Maybe we went off the road. Who knows. It doesn't really matter, I suppose.

Sighing, I sit down on the curb, and Jen sits down beside me. "Who can we call?" I ask rhetorically, as I pull out my cell phone and begin scrolling through the long list of names in my phone book.

"Christian?" says Jen, which pisses me off. Because she knows Christian and I have had our sort-of falling out. I ignore the suggestion and keeping looking at my phone.

"We could call… Jeremy. But he's working. West maybe? I'll try him," I say, pressing 'send.' I'm still waiting for West to pick up when a car pulls over behind ours. So I'm not paying attention until the person who's stepped out of the car says, "Ladies." Then I look up, and a smile slowly spreads across my face.

"Right on time, Chase Everhart," I say, grinning and putting down the cell phone. Beside me, Jen is beaming up at him too. Our hero. The man who is going to change our tire.

I raise my hands to him and he pulls me up and into a hug. "How was New Hampshire?" I ask, as he releases me from the embrace.

"Boring as hell."

"Did you miss me terribly?" I tease.

"Of course," he answers. "How was the half-birthday gig?"

"About the same as New Hampshire. So you are going to change our tire, right?"

He laughs. "You're telling me that neither of you," he looks from me to Jen, "knows how to do that?"

I look at Jen who looks at me, then we both laugh. "Yeah, pretty much," says Jen.

"But we're more than happy to watch you work," I add, sitting back down beside Jen.

Chase grumbles something, and then he starts working. I let him talk to Jen mostly while he changes the tire. I've got a few things to think about, so I'm happy to take a backseat in the conversation. First of all, the lonely feeling has been dispelled, at least temporarily, upon seeing Chase. Which is exactly what I expected. It means I was right. Apparently this here is what I need. Chase.

Once he's done he follows us to Firestone to get a real tire on Jen's car. They tell us it will take somewhere in between two to three hours. Since we're already down town we decide to see a movie while we wait. The three of us pile into Chase car. I'm riding shotgun, and for the moment, I'm happy.

But gradually as I'm sitting beside him in the movie, and then across the table from him at Panara Bread afterwards, I begin to loose that state of euphoria. The high that kicked in upon seeing Chase wears off way too quickly. Our usual repartee, our flirting, our mutual attraction—none of it is adding up to anything substantial today. I try harder and harder to be happy and normal and into him. I begin overcompensating. I tell him about the Halloween party and we even make it a sort of date.

But it's not working. Why isn't it working? The lonely feeling is back and it's stronger than ever.

That's when I realize it. It's not Chase I've been missing.

It's Christian.

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Ring. Ring. Ring.

No. No! He can't not be there. Not now. Come on, pick up.

Hey, this is Christian, his voicemail kicks in.

Shit. I don't want a leave a message. I don't know what to say. But if I hang up he'll know I'll called anyway. So maybe I should leave a message (?!!). Or maybe—

I still haven't decided what to do when the leave-a-message-after-the-beep beep goes off. I have to say something. I rush head long into this:

"Hey Christian!"

My voice is almost frighteningly cheerful.

"So, you know Halloween is this Saturday and you know that means you've got to don some ridiculous costume and come to the party, right? I've kind of already accidentally got a date, but who says a girl can't have two? And, you know, it's not really a date thing, so—"

I realize I'm speaking completely at random and probably not making much sense. And I can't keep up the happy pretext anymore. I drop the act.

"Just come," I sigh into the phone. "Or give me a call, at least. I…miss you. I need to talk to you. So come, okay? Please?"

I'm not sure how to end this off.

"Well, I'll…see you around. I guess." Pause. "Okay, bye."

I hang up the phone and then I stare at it for a minute. That was very likely the worst message I've ever left someone.

But it was something like a first step.