Laura sat on her bed with her head in her hands. Out of all the nights of her life, this had to be the worst. Even worse then the night she found out that her mom had died. Even worse then when Race told her that he didn't want to see her anymore. Obviously worse then when she had to tell Tom she didn't love him; they both knew that their relationship was going nowhere. It had all started with her being so stupid. Stupid enough to go out with Spot. Stupid enough to think that someone wouldn't see them and tell Mush. Stupid enough to think that Mush wouldn't see them. Laura replayed the exact moment when her life came crashing down around her over and over again in her head, and each time it became worse and worse.

"Laura?"

Laura unattached herself to look into the speaker's eyes. Mush. His eyes looked so confused and astonished, but they quickly turned to anger, so much so that she thought she might have imagined the confused look.

"Mush! I can explain……….." Laura trailed off, knowing that there was nothing to explain.
"Laura, I can't believe you would do this to me. We're obviously over. I never want to look at you again." Mush turned and strode out of the bar that moments ago Laura thought was so secluded.

"Mush, wait!" Laura tried to jump up and follow him, but something held her down. She looked down and noticed Spot's arm still wrapped around her waist. "Let go of me Spot!" she screamed. "I have to go after Mush!" she struggled against his grip, but he stayed firm.

"No way, Laura. I'm not letting you go out there when Mush is still all angry. He might hurt you."

"Mush wouldn't do that!" Laura cried.

"Laura, you have no idea what Mush would or wouldn't do right now. You haven't just seen your girlfriend in someone else's arms. You don't know at all."

"Spot shut up! This is all your fault! How dare you not let me go after him! You're the arms that I'm in! This is just so stupid……….." Laura trailed off, realizing she wasn't making any sense at all.

"Laura, I know its partially my fault Mush is so upset, but I couldn't help myself. Yeah, I'm a big jerk, but what else is new? This is mostly your fault, and you know it."
Those final words continued to play in Laura's head as she walked home, finally struggling free of Spot after she promised not to go after Mush. They still continued to play in her head as she sat on her bed. "This is mostly your fault, and you know it." First in Spot's voice, then in Mush's, then in Race's, then in Tom's, then finally, in her own. She then finally knew it was entirely her fault.

"Oh God. What have I done?" Laura continued to sit on her bed, crying herself to sleep.

Mush sat in almost the same exact position as Laura, but on his own bed, with the other newsboys standing around him. He thought to himself, how could I have let this happen to me again? Then he knew it wasn't all Laura's fault. There is that old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." And Mush knew that some of the shame was on him. He had let another girl break his heart. Again. He obviously just failed at life. "I fail at life." He said out loud.

"No, man, you totally don't fail at life," Jack sighed. He knew that they had gotten to the self hating part of the breaking up process, and he wasn't going to let Mush go through this again. "Mush, you are possibly the coolest, nicest, most awesome guy I know. You just happen to have really bad taste in girls. And kinda sucky friends."

"You guys don't suck." Mush answered glumly."

"Sure we do Mush. You just forget about our suckiness cause we have fun together. We still kinda suck. You think we didn't all notice how hot Laura is? You think we didn't all kinda wanna date her? Well you are mistaken my pal. We're just not sucky enough to go behind your back and steal her."

"Okay, you are kinda sucky. But so I am. I let someone cheat on me again. I'm so dumb!" Mush threw his hat at the wall in frustration.

"Mush, you are not dumb at all. Laura's the dumb one for not realizing how great you are enough to not cheat on you," Daivd. Always the sensible one. But Mush wasn't in the mood for sense. He was in the mood for self pity. And he just wanted to be left alone.

"Can you guys just leave me alone for awhile? I just wanna go to sleep."

"Sure thing Mush." Jack said.

"Night guys."

"Night Mush."

Mush stayed awake for a long time, just thinking in the darkness. Then finally, when the sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon, he was shoved awake, well as much as he could have been, since he had never actually gone to sleep.

Nessa waited in front of her door for Spot. She had forgiven him once more last night when he had shown up at her door. He had looked so stressed, she decided she didn't care about the Laura thing any more. She knew Spot wouldn't do anything too stupid, like let Mush find out, so she decided that it wasn't her business. He had also said last night that he had something very important to tell her, but he could only talk for a second so he would have to tell her tomorrow. She thought that maybe, finally, he was going to tell her that he had feelings for her as more then a friend, and that he had given up on Laura. She was wringing her hands, so nervous that she was afraid once Spot got there she wouldn't even be able to speak. As she saw him coming around the corner, she fought back the urge to jump up and shout his name. She knew that would be too weird.

"Hey Straw," Spot drawled, as he reached her doorstep. "What's going on?"

"Nothin really. Just waiting for you. So what was so important that you just had to tell me?"

"Oh right."

Nessa sat calmly, though on the inside she was freaking out.

"I kinda………went out with Laura last night. And we kissed. And Mush saw."

"What?" Nessa was dumbfounded. This was not what she had expected at all. "Are you kidding me? How could you be so stupid?"

"Hey! Chill out. She was the one who agreed to go with me," Spot said defensively.

"Yes, but Spot, you can be very persuasive sometimes, and you know it."

"Well I am very good looking if that's what you mean."

"Yes Spot, that's exactly what I mean," Nessa said sarcastically.

"What do you want me to do about it Nessa?"

Nessa knew he was mad then. He only used her real name when he was really pissed off. But she wasn't going to back down. She hadn't done anything wrong. She stood up so she was face to face with Spot.

"I want you to stop being such a damn idiot Spot! I want to stop being so smug and thinking your better then everybody else! I want you to stop going after girls that already have boyfriends! I want you to stop thinking that you are god's gift to women! And I want you to stop being so damned irresistible so that you could take two seconds of your time to notice me!" Oops. Slippage once more. Nessa turned away to walk into her house, knowing that Spot would never let her live this down. If she decided to remain friends with him, which she wanst sure she would.

"What the hell, Straw?"

"Shut up Spot, you know what I said. Just deal with it."

"Straw, I'm sorry, but even if you like me like that, I just don't like you that way. We're just friends."

"Yeah, sure. I've heard this enough times. I get it. Just leave me alone and go back to stealing every girl in the whole damn city. See if I care." She turned around and walked back into her house.

"Jesus. Why do our conversations lately keep ending like this?" Spot said to himself.

Nessa overheard him, still being in the hallway. She leaned out the window and said, "Cause you keep acting like a damned idiot, Spot."

He turned around at the sound of her voice, and started to make his way toward the window. Before he could say anything, she slammed it in his face.

Mush walked down the stairs, not wanting to face the day on no sleep, but he knew he had to. Things were over with Laura, and he was just going to have to face it. Maybe he should go back to dating a different girl each night. But he just wasn't sure that that was the best idea. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he noticed that all the other newsboys had already left. He then heard a slight tapping at the door, and figured it was one of the newsboys coming back to make sure he was alright. He went up to the door and threw it open.

"Mush?"

No way. No fucking way.