A/N: oooooh... you guys are just so special. i've decided to post two whole chapters in this update. enjoy!

CHAPTER FOUR - Hidden

"...And then, it was like we were all buddy-buddy! Like nothing had ever happened between us! I think even I was starting to believe that." I leaned back against the lockers and groaned. Becca looked at me sympathetically.

"But this is good... isn't it?" she said in an unsure tone. "At least it's better than all the unpleasantness, all the empty stares." Amber shut the door of her locker and I looked at her with a pained look on my face, waiting for her added commentary.

"I just think it's stupid," she said matter-of-factly. I gaped at her, open-mouthed.

"Excuse me?" I asked harshly, totally caught off guard by her response. Amber laughed.

"I'm just saying that I think it's stupid how everyone plays these games. How everyone questions every single itty bitty move they make. I know I don't know the whole story, so take this is as an outsider's view: it's either he's in your life or he's not. Which one is it going to be?"

She was so... blunt. And honest.

"I-I guess in my life," I replied quietly, slightly perplexed.

"So there you have it!" she cried out with a burst of laughter. The three of us started walking down the hallway to our math class. "Things don't need to be planned out. Learn to roll with the punches, Char. You're going to get knocked down sometimes, but you'll learn to stand up again."

"I wish it was that easy," I muttered under my breath. Amber stepped in front of me, blocking the doorway to the classroom. She forced me to look at her squarely in the eye.

"Charlotte. It is that easy," she said confidently. I looked at her with eyebrow raised. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life stressing like you have these past few weeks? Worrying obviously wasn't helping the situation. So how 'bout you try a new approach?"

"I'll think about it," I replied with a small smile, finally giving in. She stepped beside me and draped an arm over my shoulder.

"'Atta girl."

- -

At the end of another long day at school, I found myself standing in front of my locker, propping my messenger bag up on my bent knee as I searched for my daily planner. I was beginning to feel suffocated, already stuck in this tiring daily routine.

I found my planner under my Biology notebook and started skimming the pages, dropping the bag on the floor. The after school crowd was starting to disperse and I was glad to have some quiet time left to myself. I sighed and grabbed my math exercise booklet and the poetry hardcover we were studying in English, stuffing them into my bag.

"Hey Charlotte!" I turned my head and smiled in greeting as Byron jogged towards me down the hall. "I thought you'd be long gone by now. Glad I caught you." He waved a black folder in front of my face. I gave him a questioning look and took it from him.

"Nice," I commented, nodding approvingly. In the folder were the templates we'd worked on last weekend. "I thought they'd look really bad and different than on screen. But hey, they're really good."

"You totally have no confidence in us, do you?" Byron asked, laughing. I gave him a wary look.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"What?!"

"C'mon! As if you really thought we'd pull something really amazing together after -- " I stopped mid-sentence, avoided his eyes and looked down at my feet. I was so afraid of opening old wounds, especially when things were finally okay between us.

"..After everything happened in the summer." He gravely finished my sentence for me. I slowly looked up into the brown eyes that once told me I Love You. Now, seeing them empty of everything I once knew, I finally understood that it was over. For real now. I guess I'd always thought there was that chance that he'd remember what he felt for me. It took that one moment to make me realize I was wrong.

"...Yeah," I replied flatly.

"I-I thought we were past this," Byron said, downhearted. "I mean, last Saturday... you.. you seemed so set in just putting the past behind us and getting down to business. I didn't know it 'til then, but I needed that from you. It made me realize that I was beginning to hate not having you in my life. Even after everything that's happened, I need you here, Charlotte. We've been friends for years and it's been hell pretending I hated you."

"Don't you think it's too soon, Byron? I mean, we both got really hurt and I don't think it's supposed to be this easy."

"I really don't know about that," he admitted, shrugging. He leaned against the lockers, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets. "Maybe... maybe we had to go through everything to know – " He paused and collected his thoughts.

"To know what?" He looked intently at the floor and replied quietly,

"...To know that we were always just meant to be friends."

Deep inside the bottom of my heart, I knew there was a piece of me that didn't believe that. But the last thing I wanted was to pine over some guy who wouldn't return my feelings, so I just nodded, burying that piece of me deeper into my being, keeping it hidden from even myself.

"Charlotte," Byron said gently, breaking me away from my thoughts. He was looking up at me now. "I want you to know that I really didn't mean to hurt you. I'm so— ." I forcibly shut my eyes and stopped him,

"I don't need your apology. Please.... I just want things to be okay now."

"...They will be," he replied after a pause.

We stood in a now calming silence in the empty hallway. We stood as two lone figures scarred by our past. Two wounded players, now weary of playing fate's game.