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"Emma! For the millionth time; study!" Sam exclaimed as she argued with her sixteen-year old daughter. "You have a math test in three days and if you don't do well on it you're going to have to take the class again next year, which means you're not going to graduate with the rest of your class!"

"Mom, come on, just let me take a little study break," Emma begged.

"Break?" Sam yelled. "To get a break you actually have to do some work first!"

"I've studied!"

"Yeah, how?" Sam snapped. "Your math book has been downstairs this entire weekend!"

"Oh…" Emma said lamely.

"Emma, are you not getting how important it is for you to pass this class?" Sam said loudly. "You've gotten D's on your last three tests! If you don't get at least a B on this one, you're in real trouble! I'm serious, you're not leaving this house or getting your phone or your laptop back until after this test!"

"Ugh!" Emma moaned. "Since when did you turn into the parent that sucks the fun out of everything?"

"Since now!" Sam replied. "Now go study! Your dad will be home in an hour to help you, and you have a sister, a best friend and a boyfriend who are all doing fine in the class. You have all the tools you need. Now go!"

Emma stormed back out to the other room, where Quincy, Ashton, and Quincy were all sitting and studying.

"Wow, you made mom yell at you about school," Ashton smirked as Emma sat down next to Quincy. "That's something. Usually it's dad you have to worry about."

"Emma, come on, we'll help you study," Clarissa said, pulling her long, brown hair back. "What topics do you need help with?"

"I dunno, the ones with numbers?" Emma sighed.

"See," Quincy said. "This is what happens when you sleep through class and-ow!"

Emma had reached over and punched him in the shoulder.

"Mom's right, Em," Ashton said. "You need to get a B on this test or you'll fail the class. You can do this stuff if you actually focus. So we'll start with the Law of Cosines and then move onto the Law of Sines. Okay?"
"Whatever," Emma mumbled. "I'm too hungry to focus, though."

"Hmm, you know, the three of us have been working for over two hours now," Clarissa said, looking at her phone. "I think it's time for a smoothie break."

"Yeah, let's hit the Groovy smoothie and pick some up," Ashton nodded, getting to her feet as Sam walked into the room.

"Hey mom?" Ashton said. "Can I have some money to go pick up smoothies with Clarissa?"

"Sure," Sam said, reaching into her pocket and handing her some bills.

"What?" Emma frowned. "How come she gets a break?"

"Because she's been studying," Sam said simply.

"We'll bring you back one," Clarissa promised. "You coming, Quince?"

"Nah, I'll stay here with Emma and get her started studying," Quincy said, putting his arm around Emma. "Can you bring me back a Strawberry Zing?"

"Sure thing," Ashton smiled.

Once her and Clarissa left, Emma turned to Quincy. "Nice thinking. Now we can have some time to do this."

She leaned over, about to kiss him, but he pulled away quickly.

"No, Emma," he said. "We're going to study. You think I want you to fail math?"

"Come on! Math is totally unimportant anyway!" Emma argued. "When am I going to use trig in real life?"

"I don't know, but you're going to use a high school diploma in real life, and to get one of those, you need trig," Quincy said firmly. "So until this test is over, no kissing."

"Please? Like you're gonna last three whole days without kissing me," Emma said knowingly.

"Well, um…" Quincy said slowly, clearly having not thought this through entirely. "Okay, how about this? For every full hour of non-stop studying we do. We can take a break and talk or watch a stupid video online or-"

"Make-out?" Emma smirked.

"Make-out, sure," Quincy nodded. "Seriously, though, Em, let's get to work. Alright, let's do these practice problems and see how you do on those."

"Fine," Emma conceded, picking up her notebook. "Let's study."

…..

"Wow, I'm really impressed," Ashton said later that afternoon as Emma continued to work on math problems. "You've been studying for three hours, Emma. Keep this up and you'll ace that test."

"See, studying isn't that bad, is it?" Clarissa asked.

"I want to pull my brain out of my head and stomp on it with my soccer cleats," Emma said miserably.

"That's the spirit, Em," Quincy said, squeezing her shoulder gently.

"Oh, shoot, I forgot I was supposed to get home to help my mom clean out our shoe collection," Clarissa said, getting to her feet. "We both realized we have way to many so we're giving away our old ones to make more for new ones."

"Whoa, really?" Ashton said. "When you say you're 'giving away' your old shoes, do you mean-"

"Yes, you can come take what you want," Clarissa laughed.

"Sweet!" Ashton grinned, getting to her feet. "I'll drive us over."

"Good luck studying, you guys," Clarissa said to Emma and Quincy.

"Alright, well, that's the three-hour mark," Quincy said as the other girls left the house. "You've earned yourself a break."

"Finally," Emma said, slamming her book shut.

"You're gonna be really glad you're doing all this work when you take that test," Quincy promised her, giving her a quick kiss.

"Yeah, yeah," Emma said, rolling her eyes. "As long as I don't have to repeat this math class. Mickey Rollins had to repeat Algebra last year and people laughed at him the whole year."

"I don't think people were laughing at his repeating algebra so much as they were laughing at the weird stuffed parrot he insisted on keeping perched up on his shoulder," Quincy pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Emma smiled. "I forgot about that…yeah, I guess Mickey's weirdness was more the problem. Man, I can't believe I used to have a crush on him."

"Whoa, what?" Quincy frowned. "You had a crush on Mickey?"

"In like, the fourth grade, calm down," Emma said. "He sat next to me and he always gave me gum; it was totally innocent."

"Oh," Quincy nodded.

"Kinda sad that my first crush turned into such a loser," Emma sighed. "Oh well. I guess a lot of people look back on their first crushes and wonder what in the heck they were thinking, right?"

"Um, right," Quincy agreed.

"Hey," Emma said. "Who was your first crush? I mean you know mine now."

"Oh…you-we don't have to-so let's get back to trig!" Quincy said, giving a small chuckle.

"No way, I still have three minutes of break left," Emma frowned. "Come on, just tell me who your first crush was. It's no big deal. What, you think I'm gonna hunt down the girl and beat her up or something?"

"No," Quincy said.

"Then just tell me who she is."

"It doesn't matter; it was a long time ago," Quincy told her. "Why are we talking about this?"

"Because!" Emma said. "Dude, I don't know why you just won't tell me. It was probably some dumb girl from elementary school who doesn't even remember your name anymore.
Quincy looked over at her. "You're not going to drop this, are you?"

"Nope."

"And you promise you won't get mad or anything?"

"What's there to get mad about?" Emma laughed. "It was a crush."

"Okay," Quincy nodded. He took a deep breath. "It was Ashton."

Emma blinked, but said nothing.

"So…um, wow, looks like five minutes are up!" Quincy said. "How about we get back to studying and-"

"Hold on," Emma said slowly. "You're telling me that you had a crush on Ashton? As in my identical twin sister Ashton?"

"Emma, like you said, it was no big deal," Quincy said quickly. "It was just a crush and-"

"When did you like her?" Emma asked softly.

"Emma…"

"When were you in love with my sister?" Emma snapped.

"I wasn't in love with her!" Quincy exclaimed. "It was in the fifth grade and-"

"The fifth grade? That was practically yesterday!"

"See, this is why I never wanted you to find out," Quincy sighed.

"Oh well excuse me for not being all happy and giddy finding out my boyfriend for almost a year used to love my sister!"

"I didn't love her!" Quincy cried. "I just thought she was really nice and pretty and I hung out with her all the time. Besides, it's not like she ever would've liked me back."
"Right," Emma said, grabbing her textbook and notebook. "So you just had to settle for me."

"No!" Quincy said at once. "I didn't settle for you! Emma, me liking you has nothing to do with me having a tiny little crush on Ashton six years ago!"

"Just leave me alone," Emma mumbled, heading for the stairs.

"Emma, wait!" Quincy called after her, but Emma had already run up to her room and slammed the door shut.

….

Later that evening, Emma was laying on her bed, flipping through her math book, though still thinking about what Quincy had told her.

She couldn't believe he had liked Ashton when they were younger. Was she really just supposed to believe that he had moved on from her when he still saw her every day? And she did look just like her…did he ever pretend to himself that she was her sister when they were together?

"Hey, I got you some shoes from Clarissa's I thought you'd like," Ashton said, walking into their room. "They're those flat ones with the cool pattern."

"Whatever," Emma snapped.

She knew Ashton had no idea what had happened, but she could still be a little mad at her, right?

Ashton frowned. "You okay? You need some help with math?"

"No," Emma sighed. "I just kind of want to be by myself…you know, so I can study."

"Oh, okay," Ashton shrugged. "I'll go down and watch T.V. Hopefully dad won't try and force me to watch the sci-fi channel with him again…"

As Ashton left, Emma sighed. I wonder what would've happened if Ashton would've liked Quincy too…would they have gotten together instead? Would I have been jealous of them?

Just then her door swung open again and Sam walked in.

"Emma, how many times do I have to tell you? Study!" Sam said.

Emma held up her math book. "What's it look like I'm doing?"

"Oh…" Sam said. "Didn't expect that. Well, keep up the good work then, kid."

"Okay," Emma mumbled.

Sam turned back around. "You alright, sweetie?"

"Yes," Emma said, though not meeting her mother's gaze.

"Emma," Sam said, walking over to the bed and sitting down. "I didn't mean to stress you out about this test earlier. I just want you do to do good. But I'm sure you'll pull through. Just don't let the pressure-"

"I'm not upset about the math test mom," Emma admitted.

"Then what's bugging you, kiddo?" Sam asked, gently stroking her hair.

"Nothing," Emma said.

"No, nothing wouldn't have you all mopey like this," Sam said. "Come on, what's up?"

Emma looked up at Sam. "I just found out that Quincy used to have a crush on Ashton."

"Really?" Sam said, surprised.

"Yeah," Emma said darkly.

"So you're worried that he only started going out with you because he couldn't get her," Sam said knowingly.

Emma frowned. "Okay…can you read minds?"

Sam smiled. "Did you know that your dad used have a huge crush on your Aunt Carly?"

"Seriously?" Emma exclaimed.

"Yeah, it was real pathetic," Sam nodded. "He used to follow her around and told her he loved her at least five times a day. He was convinced they'd get married one day too. I think he even had names for their kids picked out…"

"Gross," Emma cringed.

"Tell me about it," Sam said. "They even dated for like, a week once."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh, after some big taco truck mishap, but then he realized he was her bacon and they broke up," Sam explained.

"What?"

"It's a long story…"

"But-But didn't you ever feel like-like…you know?"

"Like your dad settled for me because he couldn't get my best friend?" Sam finished. "Yeah, I did. When the two of us first started going out, it bothered me a lot. I always wondered if he'd be happier with Carly if she would actually agree to date him. And it's got to be even tougher for you; Ashton's your identical twin sister."

"Exactly!" Emma said. "How did you deal with that with you and dad and Aunt Carly?"

"Well one day I had a really bad day at school," Sam said. "I had failed a test, I got detention for something stupid and my locker crockpot malfunctioned and got clam chowder all over my backpack. So I had stormed home and was sitting around, hating the world, when your dad came over. He had gone out and picked up a container of my favorite ice cream, a bouquet of roses and the complete DVD set of Girly Cow. He stayed with me that whole night and made me feel like a princess even though he had so many other things he could've been doing. And that's when I realized how much he really loved me. He was dating me because he actually cared about me, not because I was some consolation prize for Carly."

"Oh," Emma said softly.

"You just need to let yourself trust that Quincy really does care about you," Sam said. "Do you think he'd have stuck around with you for a whole year, treating you the way he does, if he didn't?"

"I guess not," Emma admitted.

"Ashton was just a crush for him," Sam told her gently. "You're something more."

….

Several hours later, when Ashton had come up to go to bed and Emma way lying in her own bed, staring at the ceiling, she heard a tiny clinking noise against her window. Kicking back her covers, she walked over to investigate.

As she pushed back her curtains, Emma looked down into the yard and saw Quincy standing underneath her window. He mouthed 'come down' and she nodded and quietly snuck downstairs and went out into the backyard.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "It's two in the morning!"

"I couldn't sleep knowing you were upset with me," Quincy said. "So I snuck over here to talk to you."

"You didn't have to do that," Emma said. "You could've just waited until morning."

"No I couldn't have," Quincy said. "Listen, Em. I didn't start going out with you because of that whole thing with Ashton. I started going out with you because I had feelings, real feelings, for you. I never even thought about Ashton when we started going out, I swear."

Emma gave him a small smile. "I know."

"I love you," Quincy said. "And only you."

Emma's eyes widened. "You-You love me?"

"Well…yeah," Quincy nodded.

Emma grinned and stood on her toes, kissing him gently. "I love you too."