A/N: Hey all! I am SO SORRY for updating so LATE. My computer crashed down and then the internet was down =S but.. here is chapter six, with yet another cliffy =P haha. Well, gotta go... Enjoy! And again, truly sorry =p

CHAPTER 6

During lunch period, as I was working on my combination; twenty-one, the age I'd like to be. Sixteen, the age I am now. Thirty-five, the age I'll be before, well, not before Rob decides I'm mature enough to go out with him since we are going out, after all, but, before I'll be somebody great and actually be able to leave this small town. Anyway, when I opened my locker, a small note was left for me, clearly, somebody had dropped it in my locker, it says:

Meet me at the Willowy during eighth period.

That was it. No telling who, what why or so on. Nothing. Did the person expect me to go there and skip Bio just like that? Doesn't he or she, though my bet would be a he, know that Ms. Wilkinson, the new substitute teacher for eleventh grade Bio never actually give people passes to even go to the girl's room? I was so not going to go and get myself a week of detention anymore, not this year. Last year maybe, but not this year. So I just went straight to the cafeteria and had some taco, the entrée of the day, and then I went and see Ruth, who was talking to a bunch of people I don't recognize at the other end of the cafeteria to show her the note. Okay, so I did recognized them, they were the "influential people" after all.

"Ruth."

She didn't look behind to me. She just kept talking. It seemed that Ruth's dream of being friends with the "influential people" might just come true. The "influential people" were actually the people who were friends with cheerleaders like Tisha Murray or Heather Montrose, who, even after she was kidnapped and almost killed (I'd found her and rescued her, as what I'd often do these days), never seemed to change much, just as bitchy as she had been before that incident, or the Cougars' players, Ernest Pyle High School's football team and who could also make you famous and popular and all that, though why people would actually want to be popular is beyond me, but hey, different people, different dreams to be achieved, right?

Anyway, I called her name a few times more and she completely ignored me, so I had to go to her and simply said to all the others, "sorry, but I really need my best friend at the moment, talk to you guys again later, alright?". As usual, Ruth was not at all impressed with what I'd just done.

"Did you realized what you just did, Jess? Ruining my only chance of ever to be friends with them and joining their group. Thanks a lot, Jess," Ruth snapped, fuming.

"Well, what else could I do? You were to busy to even hear me calling you."

"You could've just waited. I mean, I waited since God-knows-when to actually get an opportunity to talk to them and you blew my chance away."

"Chance of what? Become popular? The popular people are only the jerks and bitches, Ruth. You want to a part of them? Be my guest. But you know what? If something terrible ever happened to me, you had your chance to find out first that I was in danger and you blew it. And this time, it's worst than me blowing your so-called only chance to be popular."

With that, I left her standing alone with the "influential people" watching and all of the other students who had watched and heard. Normally, Ruth won't be like this. True, she had always wanted to be one of the "it", and it's not like she's not cool or anything, she's way cooler than Tisha, even, she also already has a boyfriend, Scott, whom she'd met during Camp Wawasee, she just don't mix with the "right" people and don't seem to have Cindy Crawford's body figure, not that I'm saying she's fat since she'd after all, lost a lot of weight during our summer break in Camp Wawasee and a lot more during Christmas break. In truth, she was just called the wannabes or the nerd, that was why, I guess, she never seemed to have the opportunity to be one of the "it". With her IQ of 167 and her big blue eyes in which was behind a pair of gold wire frames (her parents won't let her wear contacts), and not to mention her curly light-brown hair which is really, not very stylish compared to Lucy Donnavan's, another cheerleader, beautiful, straight and silky blonde hair. It doesn't help either that your twin brother is a total geek and your best friend is a boy-beater or rather, a girl with bad records of beating people for no good reasons. I would guess that Ruth was still in a major shock because I'd practically shouted at her in the middle of the caf with almost the entire student of our high school watching and hearing. But, I was pissed. And I meant that by really pissed. I mean, we'd been best friends since kindergarten and suddenly, popularity was way important to her than her own best friend. Sure, we'd our ups and downs, but nothing like quarreling in the middle of the caf and then just walking away. Whatever happened to my old best friend who was usually funny like hell?

Okay, so during eighth period, I'd gone to the Willowy, even though I'd said I wouldn't, I was determined to find out who exactly had left me the note and why. The Willowy, the new garden of Ernest Pyle High School, complete with benches and shady trees to sit under, and also a fountain and a walking track with flowers at the side, not to mention too, a great large pond with beautiful fishes swimming inside. It wasn't really a bad day since the weather was fine and all, and Ms. Wilkinson had taken a day-off today so I'd gotten the hall pass from Mr. Cheevy, who came to replace Ms. Wilkinson, with no problem.

It wasn't until I'd fell because I'd tripped over a rock and touched the cold pavement to steady myself that I'd felt as though someone had just walked and stepped on this pavement and put the rock there so that that the next person who'd passed here would tripped over the rock.

It was my psychic sense that seemed to show me why I'd tripped. Unluckily though, I didn't exactly get to "feel" the person who'd been so bad to want me to trip. Now thinking about it, I wonder why. Anyhow, the psychic sense I'd gotten just now was the same kind that I'd gotten when I was clutching Claire's sweater during that incident concerning Mark. Just as I was about to get up, my head feeling dizzy so suddenly because of the whole sudden feeling, the statue of a unicorn which had been placed at the left side of the walking track just behind me suddenly seemed to crash down, right where I was, on my knees.

I froze.

A/N: Haha, how about that? Yet another cliffy :) Hope you enjoyed this chapter... just to add up the liveliness of the story, Jess and Ruth are fighting =p Rob fans, fret not.. he'll be in the next chapter! :)

later, nahjan :)