The next Monday at school, Sebastian was blissful— there were no rumors circulating around about the party, and as it hadn't been one of the wilder bouts, no one reminiscing too loudly in the hallway. They'd spent the better half of Sunday cleaning out the housing, swearing Abigail to silence (though she would have never mentioned anything anyway) and finishing homework that should've been done a day earlier. It was a good weekend, a typical one for times when neither of the boys had particular obligations, and someone's parents were out of town. They were, starkly, less likely to stage an entire festivity at Sebastian's house, however.

He drove to school coolly, expecting the same as usual– four monotonous classes, tennis practice after school and a quiet drive home. He remembered that he hadn't talked to Mercedes in a while, so he made a mental note to call her that evening.

Sebastian made a direct route to his locker to retrieve his books and materials for the day. He felt the imprint of a small hand on his lower back and turned slowly to look over his shoulder. Quinn stood behind him, a demure smile on her face and stood on her tiptoes.

A question in her eyes was met with acquiescence in his, and he tilted his head as she leaned forward to give him a pleasant but minor kiss.

"I had fun,' Quinn said.

"Good,' he responded, curtly. Turning back to his locker, he closed the door and looked back at the girl.

"You're tense,' Quinn replied, pulling her hand away and gripping her books. She searched his eyes. "What's the matter?"

Sebastian unclenched whatever had been locked up in him. He shook his head. "Did you tell anybody?"

Quinn furrowed her eyebrows, the sudden flow of her conversation with Sebastian on Saturday night coming forward in her mind. "No,' she began, biting her lips. "It's the boys who kiss and tell, not us."

"Okay,' he said, looking away and towards the class he was heading towards. "Just… call me soon, we can catch up."

And she knew that meant the opposite of what he had said.

Quinn watched him walk away absentmindedly.

He phased from class to class and mind-numbing conversation to mind-numbing conversation, only aware of how cold it was growing while walking from class to class and how hungry he was after missing breakfast.

On the way to his fourth period, as he usually did, Sebastian caught sight of Mercedes and attempted to catch her eye contact, so that he could give notice about his impending call that evening. After a time of trying to get close to her in the hallway, she finally turned in his direction, and he gave her a small wave. Instead of smiling or stopping, she turned back in the proper direction and continued her trek to class.

Furrowing his eyebrows, he thought about what he could have done to upset her, but knew that, apart from being more or less distant in the past few days, he hadn't done anything to offend her. He considered it a simple mistake, perhaps she hadn't fully seen him. Burrowing his unsupported doubts, Sebastian went about his day without much noise.

In the afternoon, he showered after tennis and met his parents for dinner at a popular restaurant of their choosing. The event went over without much fuss: they asked about tennis, school and then dined to the sound of utensils hitting the plate. Emmett tipped heftily, cracked a few haughty jokes with the waiter, and then the trio went home. Sebastian flirted with the idea of doing his homework, choosing instead to copy off of a classmate in the morning.

Tierney knocked on his door, peeking her head inside before he could respond. "Your father and I will be out of town this weekend, business thing… will you be at Hunter's?"

He shook his head. "They're going to Washington for a thing, a party...dedication,' he rambled.

"Oh,' his mother replied, her fingernails tapping on the door handle. "That is right. Some religious coalition. It slipped my mind."

Sebastian nodded, standing and beginning to tidy things in his room. He felt his mother still hovering at the door, perhaps deciding if there was more to say to her son.

"Keep the house clean,' she said after a few moments, an indirect of 'no parties'.

Sebastian promised, and the woman shut the door behind him.

His room wasn't messy, a white-walled and dark-wood interpretation of most bedrooms. His walls were bare, his bed sheets were blue, and the floor was mainly littered with shoes, school supplies, tennis rackets and gym clothes. He had begun cleaning it up as Tierney scrutinized behind the cracked door, but gave the pastime away after she left. It wasn't terrible, but it could look better. Sebastian assumed the maid that came weekly would see to that.

He returned to his bed, picked up his room's landline and dialed Mercedes's number, which he had remembered. The phone rang twice, came off the hook and dropped immediately. In curiosity, and convinced there was something wrong, Sebastian called back immediately to no avail: the same procedure took place. He reasoned that either someone on the other side of the line had picked up and hung up instantly or there was a technical problem— either way, he would give it some time before calling back. He dialed another number.

"McCartney residence, how can I help you?"

"Hi, sorry to call this late,' he feigned niceties. "Is Madison there?"

"Yeah,' a woman's voice replied. "Can I ask who's calling?"

"Sebastian Smythe."

"Okay, Sebastian. Give me one second."

He heard a shuffle of feet, a brief amount of yelling orders and then the clearing of a voice.

"What can I do for you, Sebby?"

"How about never, ever call me that again?"

"Oh,' Madison cleared her voice. "I forgot how serious you like to keep things, forgive me,' her tone changed. "What can I do for you, kind sir?"

"If no one has ever given you this, feel free to take it: you're consistent, if nothing else. No way you're this annoying all day long."

"I'm trying to be like you,' she said exaggeratedly. "I don't know anybody else who manages to be a dick from sun up to sun down."

He gave a heavy, irritated sigh. "Everyone has a lot of nerve nowadays."

Madison was eating behind her phone, her loud chews traveling over the line. "I don't know, you should hear what everyone's saying about you…"

"Fucking finish the sentence, Madison."

Sebastian felt her shrug. "Just that you're acting different, is all."

He raised his eyebrows. "Different how?"

"I dunno,' she replied. "Just like, aloof, kinda. I don't know. You don't come around as much anymore, and when you do, you're just quiet, or, like, unnecessarily hostile. And not in, like, the funny 'oh-he's a dick' way, but, like, in the 'oh-this-isn't-funny-anymore' way. You know what I mean? … I mean, I'm not the one saying it, but I've heard it."

Pulling the phone away from his ear, he couldn't decide if he was simply angry or confrontational. Either way, he didn't want to face either of those emotions with Madison. That wasn't why he had called her.

"... I'm not concerned with what any of those two-brain-cell football players and the three cheerleaders they pass around have to say about me, especially when they're saying it behind my back to the ditsiest junior at McKinley and her baby Liberace brother."

"No need to get defensive."

"No one's being defensive, Madison. I work my ass off every fucking day, if I don't want to talk about stupid shit, the stupidest shit ever, at lunch, then that's my call. No one questions me, none of you have the audacity to question me, because you can barely string together a sentence much less a diatribe that's going to do anything other than break every convention of standard English syntax,' he sighed. "It's a fucking hive-mind with you people. One person says one thing, and it's proof. Who has a problem with me?"

"I don't,' Madison stuttered. "I don't think it's my place to say."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Sebastian— don't hate me, okay? I have friends too,' Madison pleaded. "I have to go. I have homework."

He heard the line click, his cheeks flushed on the other end. Dropping the phone back onto the receiver, he fell back onto his bed, his hands on his chest and released a heavy, guttural sigh.

He had called to ask her what her plans for that weekend, Halloween, were. But without knowing where the mutiny in his friend group resided, Sebastian didn't feel comfortable ringing anyone else or asking anyone what their plans were. He figured the actual reason his parents were going out of town was because they were heartless and hated most shows of outward communalism if they couldn't get a tax credit for it. They were, conveniently, out of town for most Halloweens following Sebastian's age out of customary trick-or-treating. The Smythes lived in the biggest gated community in the Lima metropolitan area, and if there was a vehicle outside, there would be kids at the front door, whether their porch light was on or not. So, he sighed and figured that if things didn't turn around entirely in the next four days, he would be riding around town alone or passing out candy to children who still believe in Santa Claus.

He had vowed not to try Mercedes's line again for another hour, but after the call with Madison, he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts. He rang Mercedes again, this time, the phone only ringing once before being picked up and placed back down. The irregularity was enough to prove to him that it was intentional, a further stone on his chest.

Downtrodden, truly, for the first time in a long time, he turned off his bedroom light and took a few pills that would aid in sleep before turning his alarm clock on.

The sharp trill of his alarm clock woke him up quickly. Sebastian reached out a hand from his bed, hitting the top of the clock and silencing the annoying, repetitive noise. He took another shower, as he usually did before school, packed his backpack and then a duffel bag for tennis. Instead of stopping for breakfast, he grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and made a bowl of cereal. He passed his father in the kitchen, but said nothing, simply nodding his head and going about his day. He knew his mother wouldn't rise until closer to midday and made no attempt to interact with the woman before he left.

He looked at himself in the mirror: jeans, white tennis shoes, a tucked white shirt and a gray sweater from a skiing trip. It was casual wear, but the $4,000 watch on his wrist wrapped it together. He pushed his hair behind his ears, reminding himself to get a haircut soon, as his long dark strands were close to his shoulders, mirroring some of the less popular, edgier classmates of his. If he played guitar and skipped class, he would buy-in, but Sebastian didn't think he could handle even one insult, especially about his physical appearance, which had always been fool-proof. He would get a haircut that day.

Unable to decide what he was more adamant about repairing, his relationship with Mercedes or his status among his friends, he idled before picking up both bags and leaving the house. Frowning, he knew the truth: he was in a fragile place socially. While he had been daring about his friendship with Mercedes priorly, he knew that now wasn't a good time to boast her so boldly. Whereas a more ambitious version of himself would have waited for her as her school bus rolled in, he knew that after his conversation with Madison, his best choice was to talk to her on the phone or visit her house; but, she hadn't picked up his calls, and he hadn't spoken to her in a week. He didn't know if showing up to her house unexpectedly would be a good idea, and he also didn't know what reason she had to ignore him. He decided he would talk to Hunter first and move on from there.

Sebastian threw both bags into the passenger seat of his car and drove to school. Nothing felt uncomfortable or necessarily different which unnerved him more. He went to lunch and attempted to engage normally, trying to prove to himself that he was still projecting the appropriate image to his classmates— popular, smart, irrevocable.

Perfect.

When he felt himself getting irritated, perhaps patronizing, he would laugh instead. He smiled so irregularly that day.

"You're in a good mood today,' one of the boys at the table said, directed to Sebastian.

He smiled.

"Yeah… turns out your mom's a better lay than I expected."

Laughs across the table.

He didn't see Hunter until their third period: weight training. Sebastian opted for cardio, a run around the track and implored Hunter to follow him there. The latter gave in as Sebastian was the only person he primarily associated with in the class.

"Not doing enough running on the tennis court?"

Sebastian shrugged, they were only jogging. "There were too many people in the weight room."

"You got something to talk about?"

Sebastian cut his eyes over to Hunter before continuing. "I talked to Madison on the phone last night, she said there was some shit flying around about me. Have you heard about that?"

"We don't really have the same friends, Sebastian."

"We have enough of the same friends, don't bullshit me. What have you heard?"

"I mean,' Hunter sighed.

Hunter, in a few ways, was much more mature than Sebastian. He didn't play into the gossip and theatrics of their classmates. Most of his friends were on the wrestling team, a group of athletes that took their sport more seriously than any other team at school. He was popular, but even more inaccessible than Sebastian, a lot quieter and even more cold. While Sebastian reveled in showing and telling, Hunter just was: that was enough. The difference between them was, perhaps, bronze and brains, and while there was love between them, more than enough, it was, at times, obvious that Hunter didn't think highly of Sebastian. His actions were frivolous and petty to him, and one too many times Hunter had to get him out of a bind because of his mouth, but, somehow, he was always a step beneath the entire Smythe clan.

Everyone was.

"It's the girls, some of the guys. They all act the same to me. You ruffled their feathers when you brought that girl to the football game— I don't need to tell you how anyone at this school is. I know you're busy with tennis, so you haven't been around. It's the combination of not feeling the need to explain that to any of them, but when you do come around, you're saying or doing something off-the-wall… Apparently, Quinn's pissed with the way you've been talking to her. They,' he stopped, catching his breath. "They rally. You created that horde. If you're done with them, be done with them."

"She was my partner for a project, I said that clearly."

"You've fucked half of the girls in that group, led them on, and then flaunted some fat, black girl in their face."

Sebastian stopped jogging, giving a squinted, agitated look at Hunter.

Hunter stopped and raised his hands in retreat. "Not my words."

Sebastian ran his thumb across his nose before putting his hand over his face. He breathed out heavily. "What the fuck?"

Hunter took a second to catch his breath entirely before continuing. "I'm happy you're having a developmental crisis, whatever, don't drag me into the middle of it… those kids, these kids, are your friends. We've known them since we were kids. If you really feel like that's what you want to do,' he said, alluding to the 'fat, black girl'. "My hat's off to you, but you know who you are. You know who your parents are. You know who the kids we grew up with are… you need to grow up."

Shaking his head, Sebastian backed away from the boy and into the center green of the track. He returned to the locker room, took a shower and sat on a bench, idling between what to do next. Eventually, he dressed, and when the bell rang, he rushed out of the locker room and the gym into the hallway. Walking swiftly, he saw Mercedes at her locker just as students began to fill the hallways.

He was, clearly, closer to unhinged than his regular pristine self. "I need to talk to you."

Looking over at the boy, she saw the near-panic in his eyes, but she was used to that. Almost every time they met at her locker, he was in the midst of some turmoil.

Mercedes rolled her eyes.

"What? You don't have someone else you can run to?"

"If I had someone else to run to, do you think I'd really be standing at your locker right now?"

Mercedes backed away, and Sebastian could tell the conversation was going to turn into an argument he couldn't afford to have.

"You really have some—,'

"Save it,' he cut her off. "I really don't have time for the hoot-and-hollerin' sermon you're about to disrupt my eardrums with— I'm going to come over after school, if that's going to be a problem, because of your mom or what-the-fuck-ever you need to let me know."

She stared at the boy angrily. "Whatever, whenever, Sebastian,' Mercedes whispered before turning back to her locker. His heart sunk, but he walked away to head towards his next class before anyone could see the two together again.