A/N – Hopefully I'll find the time to finish the last chapters tomorrow. Regardless, it simply must be posted by Monday evening, when you-know-what happens.

Chapter 12

It was Sunday afternoon, her shift only a minute from beginning and still Paige hadn't come to the employee lounge. Alex finally headed to the counter where she found her struggling to fix the butter dispenser.

"It's broken," she said, obviously frustrated.

"Let me look at it," said Alex, grateful for an excuse to be near her. Their bare arms were touching and they smiled at one another, Paige's eyes breaking away from time to time as a blush came over her cheeks.

"Paige!" cried Meeri. "You're off shift. Go!"

The girls rolled their eyes at one another. "I'll call you tonight," they said in unison, and broke into a short laugh.

Work was crappy. It had rained almost nonstop, and it seemed like half of Toronto had taken refuge in the mall, and in particular, at the movie theatre. Alex had barely had a chance to catch her breath during her entire shift, and only managing to sneak away once, under the guise of needing to use the restroom, when in fact she just wanted to call Paige. But her money was lost to the payphone when Paige only had enough time to tell her, "Sorry, hon. Can't talk. Negotiating. I'll call you later, 'kay?"

The prospect of calling Paige and hearing her voice had been the only thing keeping her going as customers belligerently ordered drinks and food and complained about mix-ups and being short-changed. Alex could do this job in her sleep. Why she was fucking up so much, she couldn't say for sure. But her evening certainly went downhill after Paige's brush-off.

She had a shitload of homework still to do before bed, homework that she'd managed to neglect all weekend. There wasn't much time left in the day though. Her mood was thoroughly foul by now, and the prospect of going home to study was unacceptable. She headed over to a coffee shop, and dug up the last of her pocket change to make another call to Paige, letting her know she wouldn't be home till late. But again she was thwarted – she reached Paige's voicemail. Too pissed off to leave a voice message, she merely returned to her table and made a feeble attempt to finish off a page of math problems, before turning to her history book and failing to read Monday's chapter.

She didn't slept well that night. Exhausted from the last few nights, she'd fallen asleep quickly, but had been awoken by her mother and Chad, making a loud, drunkenly entrance around three in the morning with some of Chad's buddies. By five she was still wide awake and almost shaking with anger, so she stalked out of her room, glaring at everyone, and grabbed a beer for herself – sleep aid. She only managed to get a short nap before her alarm went off, and after hitting the snooze bar a half dozen times, she finally managed to pull herself out of bed.

Somehow she put herself together in less than half an hour. And if she could run fast enough, she thought, she might even be able to catch the bus and spend a few minutes with Paige before class started.

She did not expect to find Jay outside her door. He stunk of beer and pot and cigarette smoke, among other things – all the vices the ravine had to offer. His eyes were wild and darting about – he was obviously strung up on something…and obviously not worth her time. She tried to walk past him without indulging in whatever had brought him here, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Alex!"

"I have a bus to catch."

"I just want to talk to you."

"You've talked to me enough."

"I have to keep talking to you until you come back to me."

"That will never happen." She shook off his hand and started a brisk walk down the hall. Jay followed after her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did with all those girls. You're my one and only. See, look." He ran in front of her, holding up his shirt to reveal his tattoo. "I love you, Alex."

"You're retarded. And so's that tattoo. I hope you didn't actually pay anyone for it."

"I did it for you."

"You did it because you're an idiot." She punched the button for the elevator, hating that she was captive for the time being.

"I did it because I love you."

"Jay," she said with great exasperation, "it's over. I. Don't. Love. You."

"Lexi, what's happened to you? What happened to the girl I knew and loved?"

"She grew up. Maybe you should too."

"You're pretending to be someone you're not."

"I like Paige. That's not debatable." The elevator door opened, and unfortunately Jay followed her inside.

"Fine, so you like girls. Whatever. I mean that you're not really like this, you're not like her and her crowd. They live in their silly little world full of money and clothes and everything's always peachy for them. Think about it, Lexi. You're poor, your family's dysfunctional. Remember how we used to have fun? You think you're gonna have fun with Paige? That girl's idea of a perfect evening is going to the mall to pick out the perfect shoes for her new dress. You're better than that. You're more than that."

"So we're different. So we don't have a lot of things in common. But we…" Alex found herself at a loss. "We like each other, ok? Will you shut up already?" she asked, obviously upset at this point.

"You'll never be able to keep her. You know that. When her popularity begins to fall, she'll realize you're dragging her down and she'll latch on to the first boy who crosses her path."

The elevator doors opened and Alex, now actively ignoring Jay, stalked out as fast as she could, half running through the lobby and out the front door.

"You're not like her, you're not so superficial. You would never dump someone just because they were destroying your precious image," Jay said, trying to keep up with her.

"Fuck. That was my bus. You jerkwad. And quit making things up. Paige is risking a lot to date me. She's not going to break up with me any time soon."

"You just wait and see, Lexi. She's not strong, not like you. What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"I'm walking to school since you made me miss my bus."

"Let me give you a ride."

"You know, even if you were sober I wouldn't be stupid enough to accept a ride from you. Will you leave me alone now? You've already ruined my entire day."

"Alright, alright. Just…remember, when she gets tired of you, when she starts to think you're less than her – and you know she'll start to think that soon – I'll still be here for you. I'll be waiting."