Weeks had passed since Spinel first met Hudson Evans and his group of friends. She was now spending most of her time with him, totally convinced that there was something between them, and ignoring Chloe and Indiana at school. The latter two girls couldn't reach her no matter what, not even on her iPhone 4. They were growing worried not just for her well-being, but also her mental health. They knew that Spinel had been having a hard time processing the deaths of her family and Petunia, but especially Petunia. They could remember when news first broke out about Petunia Diamond's suicide. For weeks, people had done nothing but sing her praises and express their grief with remarks on hindsight and regret. Petunia's older sisters and mother seemed especially remorseful on how poorly they'd treated her when she was alive. Chloe and Indiana hadn't even been all that familiar with Diamond Bright Records at the time, but the way the founder and her remaining daughters had reacted to the death of their own... it helped them forge even stronger parasocial bonds with their fans. Surely, the freshmen girls had been aware of how strong that parasocial bond had been between the Diamonds and Spinel, right?

Well, they tried to get help from Jeremy one night on how they could save his daughter from herself. They cautiously came over to the Reynolds house one evening after lying to their parents about studying at a friend's house, and they hesitantly knocked at the front door.

"What?!" yelled out the unmistakable voice of Jeremy. "What do you want?!"

"Uh, yeah, we were wondering how we could stop Spinel from hurting herself any more," Chloe politely responded. "Could you tell us?"

"Yeah, it's urgent," Indiana chimed in.

The two girls could hear a loud sigh on the other side of the door. "Hell if I know. I stopped giving a damn about what she was up to the minute she stopped caring about anything."

Chloe was somewhat miffed by Jeremy's dismissive tone. "Could you at least try to help us out a little? It's a matter of life or death!"

Jeremy let out a reluctant sigh. "Alright, fine, I'll help." He opened up for the two girls. "Just come on in, please."

Chloe and Indiana proceeded to let themselves in. They looked around as they noticed that the whole interior of the house wasn't exactly in good shape. The couch in particular had many obvious stains on it, most of it from the beer he tended to drink while trying to keep his mind off of his dead family.

"Thanks for letting us in, Mr. Reynolds," Chloe said. "Indiana and I really appreciate it. Now do you have any idea how we could reach out to Spinel when nothing else has worked?"

Jeremy let out another sigh. "Well, there is one thing I managed to grab before I moved out of my ex-wife's house."

"What is it?" Indiana asked curiously.

"Why don't you girls follow me into the bedroom?" Jeremy suggested.

Chloe squinted at him in suspicion. "That better not mean what I'm thinking it means."

Jeremy defensively held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, I didn't mean like that! Just follow me, will ya?"


Once all three of them arrived in his bedroom, Jeremy slowly opened up the closet and started rummaging through his things. Chloe and Indiana just stood there, wondering what exactly Jeremy was looking for that could help them. They watched him push aside clothes hanging from hangers and setting aside shoe boxes and jewel CD cases with blank CD-RW discs inside them. Finally, after what felt like a long time, Jeremy finally found what he was looking for: a small rectangular cardboard box containing a journal, letters, some of Spinel's old toys, and old family photos.

"So..." Jeremy began to speak upon presenting the box to the girls. "This is something I think you should give to Spinel."

"Why?" Chloe asked curiously. "How does this help her exactly?"

"Maybe if she finds out the truth now, about who Kimber really was to her, then it might motivate her to stop what's she doing and go back to being the Spinel we all know and love."

"Wait, are you sure about this?" Indiana asked, doubt permeating her voice. "How do we know this won't push her even further down into a downward spiral?"

Jeremy shook his head. "Unfortunately, we can't know, but it's worth a shot."

Chloe pursed her lips at Jeremy. "So about that 'who Kimber really was to her' comment, what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well, Kimber wasn't actually her big sister. She was her mother."

"Ah." Chloe tried to process this information as best as she could. "That explains a lot."


The next day, Chloe and Indiana managed to break the lock combination on Spinel's locker with little to no effort. They had to hurry up, though. They only had a few minutes before lunch break was supposed to end and they were supposed to go to their next classes. With not much time to fuck this all up, the two freshmen girls quickly shoved the small cardboard box into Spinel's locker and then dashed right off to their respective classes.

Spinel barely even noticed Chloe and Indiana running off as she trudged her way over to her locker. The first thing that caught her attention was the fact that the locker door was ajar and there had been no effort to lock it back up.

"What the hell?" Spinel quietly murmured to herself.

She reached inside her locker and opened up the cardboard box. Greeting her were the box's contents: her big sister Kimber's personal journal, old letters from her parents, some of her old toys, and lastly old family photos. She was tempted to look through them and unlock their secrets. She started by quickly skimming through Kimber's journal. It was nice getting an insight into what her big sister had been like. It only helped to add fuel to the spark of hope she had for Kimber's return. Eventually, she managed to reach the final page of the journal. The date at the top read "September 5th, 2006." If memory served her right, that was the night Petunia had taken her own life and Kimber had gone missing. She read what this last page had to say.

Dear Journal,

I hate that I have to do this, but I have no other choice. According to Dr. Rhodes, this cervical cancer has spread all throughout my body. He told me that I'll be dead by the time the year is over. I can't bear to think about what might happen if I die, and I refuse to let this cancer win. If I'm going to die, it'll be on my own terms. I'm so glad I've got Pearl and Petunia to get me through this. I don't know what I would've done without them. Poor Spinel, though. I'm worried how she could react if she were to find out I died so young and from cancer no less. Honestly, I think it might be better if she didn't know.

Thank you for everything. It's been an honor writing to you. Hopefully, my next life will be better than this one.

The journal entry left Spinel with more questions than answers. Kimber was suffering from cervical cancer this whole time? How and when did she get it? Didn't cervical cancer come about due to the human papillomavirus, something you could only get from having sex? As far as she was aware, Kimber had never had sex with anyone. She decided to put the journal aside for now and rummage through the old letters. Most of them were just letters that expressed the same old platitudes and motivation quotes. One letter, however, stood out from the rest. She only had time to make a brief glance at it, however, before she had to run off to her next class. She folded the letter into her pocket, put the box away into her locker, and then sprinted off to class.