A/N- And here is chapter three! Sorry it's taken a while but, y'know, coursework and all that. Super big thanks to Cloudcity'sBookworm, Audrey, Lil-Randomer, Skylar97 and J for reviewing!

Chapter Three- What Is and Has Been

Sixteen Years Ago

"Mommy, Mommy, look!" I cried, pointing out the window. "There's people across the street!"

"Yes, darling, there's always people across the street," Mom said, looking at me from where she was sitting on the sofa, sewing the knee of my big brother Mac's jeans together. "It's summer, people like to go for walks."

"No, Mommy, no!" I insisted, frustrated, jumping down from the window ledge and running over to her. "There's new people across the street! In Mrs Baker's old house! Come see, come see!" I grabbed Mom's hand and dragged her over to the window, pointing again.

A big truck was parked outside Mrs Baker's house. She had died not long ago. Mom and Daddy went to her funeral. Mom and I stood there staring out the window as a woman and a man took two final boxes out of the big truck, paid the driver and waved him off. A little boy suddenly slid out of the car parked in their driveway, running over to his dad, who picked him up and swung him around.

"Mommy, look! A boy!" I cried. "He could be my friend! Oh please, can we go and say hello?"

"Korbyn, they've literally only just moved in, I don't think they want us-"

"Please, Mommy! PLEASE!"

"No, Korbyn, we're not-"

"PLEEEEAAAASE!"

Mom huffed out a sigh. "Okay, fine! Go and find your shoes!"

"Yay!" I scrambled down from the ledge and hurried into the hall, pulling on my purple shoes and jumping up and down a few times in excitement. "New friends! Mommy, this is gonna be so fun!"

"We're going over there for five minutes, Korbie," Mom warned me, slipping my cardigan over my shoulders.

"Yes, Mommy, okay," I said quickly so she would hurry up and open the door. She did so, and I shot out of it, Mom having to grab hold of my arm so I didn't run out in the road. Mac had done that when he was little, and he got hit by a car and broken his leg. Mommy told me this story so I wouldn't do it; I hadn't been born when it happened.

We made sure to check the street from both ways, and then Mommy took my hand and walked me across to the other path, where the new people were looking in the boxes on their grass. The boy was sitting on the front steps with a teddy bear, talking to it.

"Hi there," Mom said, smiling at the new mommy and daddy, who looked up from their boxes and smiled back.

"Hi," the new mommy said.

"I'm Amy Radner," Mom introduced herself, then looked down at me. "And this is my daughter Korbyn. We live across the street. We just wanted to introduce ourselves." She held out her hand to the other mommy.

"Oh, hi! Thank you so much!" the other mommy said, shaking my mommy's hand. "Sorry, it's just a bit of a crazy day, we weren't expecting anyone to be so friendly!" She and Mom both laughed, and the other mommy leaned down to shake my hand too. "Hi there, honey."

I smiled at her, but I had my thumb in my mouth; I was suddenly a bit shy.

"Well, my name's Louise Carter," Other Mommy said. "This is my husband, Simon." She pointed at the daddy before nodding over at the boy on the steps. "And that's our son, Pete."

"Hello, Pete!" my mommy called to him, and he looked up from his teddy bear and waved at us. "How old is he?" she asked Mrs Louise.

"He's five. He's starting elementary school in September."

Mommy looked at me. "Just like you, Korbie. Why don't you go and say hello to him?"

"I...um...I...I won't know what to say," I said quietly, my thumb still in my mouth as I looked stupidly at the ground. I didn't like it when I got shy like this. I was a big girl, I shouldn't be scared.

Mrs Louise patted me on the shoulder. "Go on, sweetheart, it's okay. Pete will like to talk to you. You'll both have a friend to talk to when you start school."

I looked past Mrs Louise and Mr Simon at Pete, who was talking to his teddy bear again, and nodded. "Okay." So as Mommy and Mrs Louise started talking about what the neighborhood was like, I slowly made my way up the garden path.

I stood at the bottom of the porch steps, sucking my thumb and scuffing my shoes on the path. Pete looked up from his teddy and stared at me. "Hello," he said.

"Hello," I replied, my voice funny-sounding from my thumb so it sounded more like, "Heggo."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Korbie. And you're Pete. Your mommy told me."

"Hi Korbie. How old are you?" Pete asked, standing up and coming down the steps to stand next to me. He was taller than I was, which scared me a bit. What if he was a boy who liked to tease girls who were smaller than them?

"Five," I said. "But I will be six in February." I stood up straighter, my head higher.

"Haha! I'm older than you!" he cheered. "I'm going to be six in November!"

"Well...my big brother will be twenty in October!" I said quickly. "So he's older than you! Do you have any brothers?"

"No," Pete said quietly, and I saw that he looked sad. "I don't have any sisters either. It's just me."

"I don't see my brother very often," I told him so he'd feel better. "He goes to a big school now. A uni-ver-sity, Mommy calls it. He only comes home at Christmas. And now, in summer."

"Maybe he doesn't come home because he doesn't want to see you," Pete suggested, and he started laughing. At first, I thought he was being mean. Then I realised he was joking, and I started laughing too.

"He does too want to see me!" I giggled. "He says I'm his perfect princess!" I stuck my tongue out at Pete, who crossed his eyes and stuck his out back.

"But I thought princesses were meant to be pretty?"

"Hey!" I picked up a handful of grass and mud that was lying on the path and threw it at him, and it splattered all over his red t-shirt. "I am so pretty!"

"You throw like a girl!" Pete laughed, and he bent down and threw some mud back at me.

"I am a girl!" I retorted, throwing another handful back. The next thing I knew, Pete and I were hurling lumps of damp mud and grass at each other, hitting each other in the face, the tummy, the hair, laughing as we did so.

"Korbyn! Korbyn Marie Radner, what on Earth are you doing?!"

"Peter Carter, stop that right now! What a way to behave in front of our new neighbors!"

Our mommies started to run up the path, looking completely shocked. My mommy grabbed the back of my cardigan and pulled me away, and Pete's mommy grabbed him around the waist and lifted him up, making him drop the mud in his hand.

"Korbyn, what the hell was that all about?" Mommy demanded, looking very cross with me.

"Peter, honestly! I thought we raised you better than this!" Pete's mommy was just as cross as my mommy.

"Sorry Mommy," Pete and I mumbled at the same time. Then we looked up, and we couldn't stop ourselves; we grinned at each other and started laughing again. It felt like we would never stop.

I. Felt. Sick. Honestly, truly sick. Why. Why the fuck was all this shit happening to me? What the fuck had I done in the past week that warranted me having the piles of shit that had been the last few days? It was because I'd forgotten to hand in the concluding paragraph to my FAMOUS EUROPEAN BUILDINGS OF THE 18TH CENTURY essay, wasn't it?

Mac, Kelly and I stood there on the porch, watching as all the Delta Psi pledges started dragging a ton of furniture out of the back of the moving truck, supervised by Teddy and Pete - the Chief Cunts of the frat - and also Scoonie, the so-called 'big-dicked boy wonder' and Garf, who was actually an alright guy.

"What is this?" muttered Mac. "What are they doing? And what are these kids in the pink shirts?" More Deltas were arriving, on bikes, on scooters, by foot. Tons of them were pledges, too.

Teddy headed up their pathway with a keg on his shoulder, followed by some brothers carrying the Greek house letters. That was when it clicked in Kelly's brain.

"Is that a fraternity?" she exclaimed, horrified.

"Ding, ding, ding," I mumbled. "We have a winner."

"Yeah, they got big Greek letters," Mac added. "Looks like a fraternity." He turned to me. "Korb, is that one of Braxton's?"

I nodded slowly, feeling a serious migraine coming on. "Yup. I hate to say it, but that is the biggest frat on campus. Delta Psi Beta."

"Shit. That was a frat when I was there," Mac groaned, peering at the Delta dudes. "Oh my God, look at that guy!" He'd just spotted Teddy. I could just tell. "That guy's the sexiest guy I've ever seen!"

Well, I wasn't going to disagree with him. However, I did feel that now was an excellent time for me to keep my mouth shut; if I opened it, I would projectile vomit into the nearest bush.

"He looks like someone a gay guy designed in a laboratory!" Mac continued.

"Look at his arms," said Kelly, sounding almost in awe.

"Oh my God, they're like two giant, veiny dicks." Yup. Leave it to Mac to make a charming comment like that. I should start sewing the best ones on cushions, I thought.

"It's like a gun show," Kelly mused.

"They're not that impressive," I mumbled as we watched Teddy pick up his girlfriend, Brooke, and pull her into a kiss.

"Look at the blonde," Kelly murmured.

Mac immediately started looking in the opposite direction to cover up the fact he'd been staring at Brooke since she'd come into eye-shot. "I don't see which one you're..."

"Oh, you don't know who I'm talking about?" teased Kelly.

"That blonde dude with the red sleeves?" Mac questioned innocently. "He's a handsome guy." It only then clicked with me that Mac was talking about Pete; he couldn't even recognize him. Thank fuck for that.

"What do we do?!" Kelly asked shrilly, clearly starting to panic. I didn't blame her. Delta Psi were threatening to break up her near-perfect suburban life.

"I can go over there and kick the shit out of some bitches," I suggested.

"Woah, woah, Korb! No! I'm not letting you get arrested for causing bodily harm, Mom will kill me. Okay, okay. I know what we do," Mac said, attempting to soothe Kelly. "They're gonna be loud, obviously. And they're gonna fucking party a lot."

"Baby, this is a fucking nightmare!" exclaimed Kelly. Man, she was freaking out hardcore. I hadn't even broken to them the fact that Delta Psi tended to have a party every fucking night.

"I agree!" said Mac. "We need to go over there. We need to fucking tell them not to do that! Right now!"

That caught me off guard. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold up! Say what now?!"

"We're going over there and telling them to shut the fuck up!" Mac affirmed. "As soon as they move in, they know this neighborhood doesn't stand for that shit! Ad that, we're fucking grown-ups, we have a baby, and they need to be cool! They need to be cool to us, okay! But...okay, wait. Maybe we don't come on strong, though. Maybe we come on... We act cool. We come on like peers."

"Or we don't come on to them at all! I like that idea! That is a great idea!" I pleaded, though Kelly was agreeing with her husband.

"Totally. We be cool," she said. "We take them a joint."

"Ooh!" Mac made a noise of appreciation. "We roll them a joint!"

"Roll them a spliff."

"Give that to them! Then we seem cool. They're thinking, 'Oh, they're like us. This could be us in a few years!'" Mac was getting looking way too deeply into this.

"Yes, respect!" Kelly agreed.

"They'll want us to like them!" said Mac. "Then we say, 'By the way, keep it down.'"

"Exactly!" Kelly concurred. "Well...we won't say it like that. We'll just...I'll say it. Like, we'll just... You know..." Kelly suddenly threw her head to the side like she was having a minor seizure. "Keep it down."

"What the fuck was that?" I demanded, vaguely disturbed by the head movement.

"Yeah, you're doing it a little weird," Mac told her.

"A little?" I said disbelievingly. "Kel, you looked like you were having a stroke."

"Do it again," said Mac. "Do it normal."

"I'll throw it away," she replied. "Just like, you know-" she did the same head movement again. "If you could just keep it down."

"You did it again!" I exclaimed. "Stop twitching like that!"

"Do it normal!" Mac repeated himself with a laugh.

"I'll get it!" Kelly insisted.

"It's an important, key phrase here!"

"Alright, you do it!" Kelly told him. "You do it!"

"Okay, watch," he said confidently. "I'm just gonna do it like this." That was when my brother made a hand motion that looked like a gay man trying to swat away a mosquito. "Keep it down." He made the motion again. "Keep it down."

My jaw dropped in sheer disbelief. "I didn't think it was possible. But that was even worse. Look, we are looking way too deeply into this! If you want to go over there and tell them to shut the fuck up, then go over there and tell them to shut the fuck up!"

Mac and Kelly looked at each other. "It's not gonna be that simple. We'll look so lame!" said Mac.

"Mac, you are lame," I've informed him. "You've been lame for thirty-five years, you're gonna be lame in thirty-five years, learn to deal with it! Jesus!"

"Okay, fine, you're so smart, so confident, you go fucking tell them to keep it the fuck down!" Mac retorted.

"Yeah!" added Kelly. "They're all your age, Korbie, they'll listen to you!"

"Woah, woah, woah, woah!" I said hastily, raising my arms in a surrendering gesture. "The fuck am I going over there! No! No way!"

"Yeah you are," said Mac. "Kids listen to other kids!"

"Not when they're-" I began heatedly, but I clamped my mouth shut. I'd been about to say, "Not when they're the two of the people I hate most in the world!" but I had a feeling Mac would start asking questions; questions I just didn't want to answer right now. "Urgh! Okay, fine!" I said instead. "Just...give me five minutes!"

I ran back inside the house and up the stairs, going into my room and grabbing a pair of big, dark sunglasses and a beanie hat. If I was going over there, then I was not going to be recognizable. I pulled the hat over my head and stuffed my hair underneath it so not a single tendril poked out - especially none of the blue, that would be a complete giveaway - and shoved the sunglasses over my eyes. They were so big that they took up about 50% of my face.

As I came back down the stairs, Kelly was finishing strapping Stella into her stroller. She too had a pair of sunglasses on, though I was pretty sure she was wearing hers in an attempt to look 'down with the kids.' Mac was also trying this out, by wearing a baseball cap at a stupid angle.

He paused when he saw me. "Er, Korb? Why do you look like you're about to rob a bank?"

"Can we just go?" I sighed. "Please?" So we did. We headed straight over to Delta Psi Beta, Kelly and Mac attempting to look cool by grinning at every frat boy we passed, Mac occasionally throwing up a gang sign. I just trudged along behind them, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

We drew to a stop at the bottom of their porch, where Pete and Teddy were both deep in conversation. Well, there was no turning back now, unless I somehow found a way to just magically disappear from existence. I was actually tempted to go and hide in the back of the moving van.

Then Mac decided to speak. "Wicca-wazzup?"

Kill me.

Pete looked over Teddy's shoulder at us, which in turn caused Teddy to look too. Both of them looked highly confused, not that that was an emotion Teddy was unfamiliar with.

"Hey!" Kelly called.

"How's it going?" added Mac.

"Are you our new neighbors?" Teddy asked.

"We're your new neighbors!" Mac confirmed cheerfully. I have no idea why, but everyone seemed to find this piece of information worthy of cheering, and Pete and Teddy came down from the porch as half the main frat filtered outside from the house.

"I'm Teddy, this is Pete," King Frat Douche introduced them, both of them shaking Kelly and Mac's hands. They then tried for me, but I shoved both hands firmly in my pockets and scowled.

"...Pete? Shit," I heard Mac mutter. I glanced up at him through my sunglasses, and he was looking back. I nodded a single nod that told Mac his thoughts were correct; this was Pete Carter standing in front of us.

"What's going on?" Teddy said good-naturedly. "And who's this little lady?" He and Pete both squatted down to look at Stella, who, being the complete charmer she was, smiled a gummy grin back at them.

"Oh, that's so sweet," said Kelly. "No one ever knows she's a girl."

"What?" Now it was Pete's turn to speak. "Of course she is!" He pulled a face at Stella. "Because you're a little princess, aren't you? You're a little princess!" He grinned at Kelly and Mac. "She just scrunched her little nose!"

All the false happiness going on right now made me want to throw up. How the fuck were Mac and Kelly buying any of this bullshit?!

"What's her name?" asked Teddy.

"Stella," replied Kelly.

"That's so cute," Teddy said.

"Best name ever, are you kidding?" agreed Pete, and the entire posse behind him made varying noises of agreement.

"She's a little flirt," Kelly said, but the tone she used was softened with love.

"Like her mom, I bet," Teddy said, a comment that seemed to ruffle a few of Mac's feathers.

"Mm," was all he said, before changing the subject. "And this is my sister, Kor-" I quickly cleared my throat in a way that clearly meant DO NOT TELL THEM MY NAME. "Kor- K- Ka- Kaitlyn. My sister...Kaitlyn."

"Yeah? What's up, Kaitlyn?" Teddy said smoothly, winking at me.

I shrugged at him and nodded. If I spoke, game over. Game over for me being an immature twat.

"Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know that in this neighborhood, we don't keep off the grass." Mac opened up the tin he kept his joints in and offered it to Teddy. "You know what I'm sayin'?" Every single person on the porch started cheering as Teddy took the joint out of the tin and lit it.

"A joint?" he said almost graciously. "Thank you, guys."

"Also, if you could maybe just sometimes-" Mac began.

"Keep it down!" Kelly shouted over the top of him. I face-palmed so hard it felt like my palm was going to crack through my skull.

Mac looked just so awkward. "Alright," was all he said.

"Well, I mean, if you guys ever need anything, or we get too noisy," Teddy offered. "Just talk to me, or talk to Pete. We'll take care of it."

"Hey, same with us," joked Mac. "I mean, we get pretty loud over there. Game of Thrones, we get loud. When Khaleesi comes on, I'm like-" and he and Kelly both started making the weirdest shouting noises that caused me to deliver a sharp blow to Mac's ribs that signified he needed to shut the fuck up, now.

The frat clearly thoughts so too, as they let out the world's most uncomfortable laughs. Well, it was nice to know there was one thing we could agree on. A highly awkward silence followed this, with no one really knowing what to do or say. I rocked back and forth on my heels, praying to God that it wouldn't fall on me to break the silence.

Luckily, Mac got in there first. "Alrighty. Dope." On second thoughts, I would have preferred the awkward silence, I thought. Everyone started trying to talk at the same time, saying bye to Stella as Kelly and Mac said their own goodbyes, so I took this opportune moment to attempt to just quietly slip away. But as I turned around...

"Oh my God, Korbyn?" Brooke spoke up in her typical girlish voice. "Korbyn Radner, is that you?"

I froze. Shit. How did she-? I raised a hand to the back of my neck; some of my hair had fallen out of the back of my beanie hat. My very blue, very me, very significant streaks were on full display to every single person on the porch. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

I slowly turned back around, pulling the hat off my head and fluffing my hair out, my mouth set into a grin that bordered on unstable-looking. Fuck the Reigns t-shirt. The way I must look now, I'd be better suited to Dean Ambrose.

"Hi Brooke," I said, my voice strained. "How's it going?"

"Oh. My. God." That came from Pete. Of course it did. "Radner? No fucking way. You live next door too?"

I pushed my sunglasses on top of my head for the sole reason of scowling at him. "Looks that way, doesn't it? Fucking lucky us. Maybe we can carpool."

Pete started laughing, bent over, clapping like a dying seal. "This is too fucking good. Oh man. What was it you were saying in class? How much you pity our new neighbors? How ironic."

"Shut up. You laugh like you're choking on a dick," I snapped.

"Come on, neighbor, don't be like that," Teddy decided to chip in there. "You be cool with us, we'll be cool with you."

"Oh, fuck off, Teddy. You could not be any less involved in this conversation if you tried," I snarled.

"Hey, hey, chill," Mac said quickly, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. I only now realized that I'd slowly been advancing on Pete and Teddy, my fist clenched so hard that my nails were digging into my palms.

"Yeah, Kaitlyn, chill out," mocked Pete. "A false name? I have to admit, I didn't think you'd get much weirder than you are, but hey, kudos for trying."

"I'll break your fucking legs, Carter," I warned him. "You stupid, ignorant fuck."

"Okaaay, I think we're good here." Mac pulled me back even farther, so forcefully this time that I actually stumbled. "I'm sorry about her, she's been like this since she was like, three," he apologized. "Not so good at the friend thing, are you, Korb?"

"Mac!" I gasped, incensed. "For fuck sake, man, who's side are you on here?!"

"Look, Korbyn, calm the fuck down!" he said, placing a hand in front of me to stop me moving forward and smacking some bitches. "Right, we're going. It was great to meet you guys." And with that, he and Kelly both turned and started to walk back towards our house, waving at the frat, as Mac dragged me along beside him.

"Bye Stella!" the frat were calling, waving at her. "Bye Mac, bye Kelly."

"Bye, Psycho Bitch!" added Pete, and I turned around so sharply that I almost dislocated my arm in Mac's steel grip.

"Go and fuck yourself, Pete!" I screamed, pointing at him and, struggling against Mac, who just kept pulling me back to the house. "Sleep with one fucking eye open!"

"Korbyn!" Mac grunted, also struggling against my strength. "Jesus Christ! Just get in the fucking house!" By this point, he had managed to get me to the foot of our porch steps.

"This is the worst fucking day of my life!" I yelled in his face, pushing past him and Kelly and into the house, storming up the stairs and into my bedroom. I slammed the door shut and pulled open the bottom drawer in my chest of drawers: my memory drawer. On the top of the photo albums and certificates and postcards was a picture I'd had for five years.

It was me and Pete at our high school graduation. We were in our gowns and graduation caps with our arms around each other. A couple of other friends were in the background, but Pete and I were grinning like we only had eyes for each other.

I scrunched the picture up in my fist and threw myself down on my bed, stuffing the covers into my mouth and screaming. And screaming. And screaming.

It felt like I was never going to stop.

A/N- Well, there you have it! I really hope you enjoyed chapter three, I'm still loving the feedback I'm getting! So please review, let me know what you thought! Love and kisses, and talk soon! Xx Gee xX

PS- Now, references. I feel I should make a point before I get any shade for this. I'm setting this fic when the movie came out, IE, April 2014 and onwards. As a result, I'll be making references that will appear kinda out of date. For example, one of Korbie's favourite things is WWE, so when I mention that The Shield in WWE are still together, it's because at the time this is set, they were. I'm not entirely stupid. Just things like that. I swear I'm doing it deliberately and not just being ignorant. :)

PPS- Speaking of, any WWE fans reading? On my profile, you'll find a trailer for a Roman Reigns/OC fic I'm going to be writing soon called Speared Through The Heart. I'd love it if you gave it a look-see and maybe a comment? Thanks guys, I love you all!