Disclaimer: I do not own Descendants or its characters. This also applies to chapter one, since I forgot about it in that one. And it will also apply to future chapters as well.

Chapter Two: This Too Shall Pass

The noise of the school halls buzzed like flies in her ears. People seemed to blur as they walked and pushed by her, ignoring how she stood in the middle of the school lobby like a statue. Junior year had finally come around the corner, and although that meant only one more year of this hell, Mal couldn't help but feel slightly discouraged. Another semester had come around and she was down another member in her circle of friends. Freshman year had been the best; all her friends were with her from middle school and she even managed to make some new ones. However, for some reason or another, her best friend-now former best friend- had decided to join the cheer squad in their sophomore year. Mal assumed that Evie's mother had put her up to it and knowing Evie, she liked to avoid conflict with her family. At first, Mal thought that things between them wouldn't change, but Evie seemed to become a much meaner version of herself when she was with the rest of the clone squad.
It didn't sit well with her.

And now this year, Ben had left for the year over seas on some exchange program and wouldn't be back until late April. He had sprung it on her last minute too, which still had Mal fuming at the thought of her boyfriend being in a different country, separated by an ocean, giving him plenty of opportunity to make connections with other girls. Mal forced the thought to the back of her mind though; she should trust Ben, not doubt him.
"Are you going to move or not," a voice snapped, drawing Mal from her thoughts.

Harriet was a nuisance, to say the slightest, and had been since Mal had met the girl. Her brother and sister weren't much better, but more tolerable, to some extent; it really depended on the mood she was in. But with Harriet, Mal had had a strong feeling of dislike as soon as she had met the girl; it hadn't helped that she had been the one to scare Mal into a koi pond at a family friendly Halloween party, leaving her soaked from head to toe and smelling like pond water.

"Go around if I'm bothering you so much," Mal snapped back.
"Well how about you stop playing statue games in the middle of the fracking room?" Harriet retorted, taking a step closer. Both of them were almost nose to nose, glaring angrily at each other, vivid green to baby blue. Mal could feel the tension between them, building so fast. In the back of her head, she knew that it wasn't a big issue, but Harriet just rubbed her the wrong way, it was almost impossible to not take the bait and egg her on.
"Woah, woah, ladies," Jay said, running up next to Mal and stepping in between them. "Let's not fight. It's only the first week of school."

Jay slung an arm around her casually, pulling her away from Harriet, who stormed off in the opposite direction to join her gaggle of friends. Mal allowed Jay to lead her through the maze of halls to their lockers located near the fire exit on the east side of the building, which was farthest away from the central hub of the school. Carlos sat against the lockers, focused on the laptop in front of him.

"You're cutting it close," he said, not glancing up from whatever he was typing.
"She was trying to pick a fight with Harriet." Jay exclaimed.
"Seriously, Mal," Carlos said, sounding exasperated. He glanced up from the laptop, a somewhat concerned expression on his face. "Is this because Ben is gone?"
"Why do you think that," Mal asked, trying best to not sound nasty. She hated it when either of them brought up Ben being miles away. She wondered how Carlos felt with Jane being on the same exchange program, since it didn't seem, not outwardly anyway, to effect him negatively as it was her.

"How do you deal with it, Carlos," she asked, throwing her bag to the ground before dropping down beside him. Carlos shut the laptop, his eyes staring off down the hall, in a moment of deep thought.
"Well, there are ways you can still communicate with him," Carlos said, "Skype, email, texting if-"
Mal nodded her head impatiently. "Yeah, we've been doing that since he left at the end of August. What I mean though is...don't you feel lonely?"
Carlos stared at Jay for a moment, who shrugged, before turning back to Mal.
"So, it's not Ben that's the problem, it's Evie?" he asked. "Or is it both?"
"Stop trying to play psychiatrist," Mal grumbled. "I just can't shake the feeling. I don't know when it appeared."

She honestly didn't know when the she finally agreed with what her mind was telling her- that she was indeed experiencing what it felt like to be lonely. It was as though this darkness had emerged from somewhere deep within and began to eat away at her insides, leaving her empty, just a shell. It was there when Ben left, but Mal was pretty sure that it had appeared when Evie started to ignore all three of them, as though they didn't exist anymore.
She had known Evie since preschool, so she could understand why the dark feeling of loneliness would have appeared when her best friend had cast her aside like clothing gone out of style.

"I just want it to go away," she muttered, drawing her knees up to her chest. Mal felt Jay sit down on her free side, pressed close against her body. She felt him wrap an arm around her shoulders in attempt to comfort.
"You know how that saying goes," Jay said. "'This too shall pass.' It'll pass Mal, maybe not right away, but it will, and you'll feel a lot better. Just hold on, like that other saying-I think it was the Churchill guy that said it: 'If you're going through hell, keep going.'"

Jay and Mal lived within blocks of each other, so they liked to walk home together whenever it was possible. Lately though, Mal had tried to stay in her house as much as possible, leaving for school at the latest possible minute so she'd still be on time if she'd hurry. School had never really been anything special to her, but with Ben gone and Evie transformed into a clone, the place felt less friendly and she couldn't help but feel isolated. And although staying in meant that she was all the more isolated, she didn't feel like socializing with people she didn't know or didn't want to know.

Of course, she had Jay and Carlos, but she could never see herself being intimate with either of them, and she didn't want to hinder them by discussing girl problems. And, both of them seemed rather consumed with something lately. Mal had no idea what it was, but she assumed it was a big secret since it had been going on since the middle of last year. And although she was a stickler for being the odd man out, Mal let them be, because she knew they'd tell her if they thought it was necessary; she wasn't going to pry. So, instead of walking home with Jay, Mal walked home alone while Jay and Carlos stayed late after school, doing who knows what on the computer.

It was a quiet walk home; Mal lived in a neighbour hood that housed mostly aging and elderly couples, the kids that lived around her were all close to her age and didn't cause too much of a commotion. Normally, silences bothered Mal, especially the awkward ones, but this silence was peaceful; it allowed her to take in all her surroundings, analyzing the details she'd normally miss if she'd been with Jay or in some hurry. The summer heat had not yet faded, but she could sense in the slight breeze that autumn was going to be pushing its way in soon. She hoped not too soon though; she quite enjoyed the summer weather, and as soon as fall became official, winter came in like a bat out of hell- fast and furious. She hated the cold and snow, and honestly wished that she could hibernate like a bear until spring rolled around.

As she crossed the street, Mal caught a glance of someone flying by on a bike. She turned her head, her eyebrows rising in surprise at realizing Uma peddling past her. Even though Mal and Uma weren't friends, she knew that Uma didn't live anywhere close by, so she didn't have any real reason to be in the neighborhood, unless she was visiting someone, which Mal didn't think was likely. But, it didn't seem like she wasn't being a bother to someone else or planning on being a bother to her, so Mal let it go. As Jay had mentioned, it was only the first week of school-fights could wait until midway through the first semester.

Although Mal had been pushed into a koi pond when she was four or five, Uma had had a bucket of bad shrimp tossed on her when they'd been in the second grade, courtesy of Harriet Hook, of course. And although there were many people there to witness Mal falling into the pond as well as Uma being covered in shrimp, more people seemed to have memory of Uma's embarrassment; so it was win for her in that sense. There was still a small itch of curiosity of where Uma might be heading, but Mal didn't have enough interest to further pursue Uma's whereabouts; why should she care? It didn't seem to concern her.

Being home was lonely, whether she was home alone or not. Her mother wasn't home normally until late at night; that was the routine workaholic in her . She seemed to care more about her job than about her own daughter, at least that was in Mal's opinion. She obviously cared more about her work then her marriage since that had disintegrated by the time Mal was four, and sadly, her mother had gotten full custody. Now, every once in a blue moon, she might get a call or a letter from her father. There were times that she wished that her father would be more aggressive in wanting to be a part of her life, but she knew that the limited contact was probably her mother's doing. But with only the two of them in the house, and barely any conversations between each other, she thought that a father figure would be greatly appreciated.

Mal climbed the stairs to her room, which had great view of the backyard, although her mother had replaced most of the lawn with gravel or mulch and bizarre statues. Tossing her bag onto her bed and kicking off her shoes, Mal flopped down onto her bed with a heavy sizing. Her room was an explosion of purple and green, all different shades, clashing against one another for dominance. Her bedroom was probably the only place that Mal felt truly comfortable in her home. Her mother wasn't one to invade personal privacy since she was often too busy making phones calls, but having locks on the door helped too. Compared to the rest of the house, which was cold and modern, Mal's room held a warmth that welcomed someone to take a seat without fear of leaving a butt dent on the bed or cushions.

The only thing she did not currently like about her room was the collage of pictures she had made several years ago hanging over her desk like a large art mural in a gallery. It was a reminder, a painful one at that. There were so many good memories captured in pixels, and many of them had Evie in it. Sometimes, she wished that Evie leaving her, Jay and Carlos for the cheer squad was all just one, long bad dream.
If only that were true.

She missed Evie, but couldn't find herself to try and confront the girl about their broken relationship. It seemed that with becoming a cheerleader, you had to move in packs, like wolves, and that intimidated Mal, though she hated to admit itl. She didn't want to approach Evie as part of a whole, but she never saw her at school anymore where she was alone. If fate offered the opportunity, she'd take it by the horns and see if she could get her friend back. She hoped that opportunity came soon, and she would be able to win Evie back to her side, because she really didn't want to look for someone to replace Evie, since Mal knew deep down, that the search would be endless.

"This too shall pass."

A/N: Firstly, I want to thank those that left comments, it means a lot to me. Secondly, before anyone comments about the whole shrimp incident, yes I have read the books and seen the movies, but I'm changing it in this story because why not. Thirdly, I hope that there are no major typos; I was more awake while editing this chapter than the first. And lastly, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. I hope to update again at least once more before I leave on vacation, but no promises because life can get crazy sometimes.

~dendragon14