"Clara!" I felt a hand clasp my shoulder, and I grinned at one of my closest friends, Erica Reyes. Her frizzy blonde hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, and she wasn't wearing any makeup. I grinned as we turned into the girls locker room. "Are we still on for tonight?" She asked excitedly.

I nodded, making my way past Lydia and Allison, who were standing right near the door. Allison shot me a quick smile, which I returned. Lydia barely shot me a look, but she nodded at me in acknowledgment. "Absolutely." I told Erica, tossing my backpack into my usual locker. Allison and I sat next to each other in history. I had no classes with Lydia, but I was always invited to her parties, and we always had a fun conversation when we did get around to talking. She wanted me to get together with Adam and was always promising to try and get us on a blind date. "Plus, my brother works all day so we'll have the house to ourselves." Erica grinned, but I could sense her nerves kicking in. "Aw, come on, are you scared of the wall?" I asked jokingly, changing into the black t-shirt with a bat man logo on the front, and some peach colored shorts that would be comfy enough to move around in.

"Says the one who can barely ride elevators without panicking!" She shot back, gathering her clothes in her hand.

"Well I, for one, am determined to make this wall my bitch." I shrugged, following her into the restroom so she could change in a stall. It was true, I had a fear of heights, but that would take a back seat today when I wanted to impress my fellow classmates.

"That makes one of us." She replied quietly. I rolled my eyes, tired of her constantly berating herself. I understood she had low self confidence, but I mean come on. Sometimes it felt like she was trying to bring down my mood with her.

"Look, we just have to get through three more classes, and then we're free to our movie marathon." I heard her sigh, and she opened the stall, a jumble of clothes in her hand.

"It's going to take forever." I shook my head, insistent on being in a good mood.

"Power of positive thinking, babe." I insisted as we made our way into the gym, where Coach Finstock was already relaying the safety rules. I stood next to Erica as Scott McCall and Allison Argent began scaling the wall first, everyone engaged in their own little conversations.

"I think Coach is making me climb with Stiles." Erica whispered beside me. I chanced a look over at the tall brunette, who was watching Scott climb the wall with intensity, making small talk with the guy standing beside him.

"Do you want me to jump in your place?" I asked, recalling Erica's former crush on the spazzy boy.

She shook her head, and I could practically feel nervousness emanating from her. "I might as well face my fears in front of him." I shrugged as the sound of the wire screeching drew our attention back to the wall, where Scott had just fallen several feet. The wire released a last few inches and he smacked into the mat, inciting laughter from the class. Erica tensed beside me, and I reached a comforting hand to her shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. Allison gracefully repelled to the bottom, a successful grin on her face.

"Alright, next two!" Coach Finstock called, standing up from beside Scott, where he'd been laughing. "Stilinski, Erica. Let' go! The wall." I saw Stiles look back at us, before dashing forward to the wall in either excitement or nerves.

"Are you sure you don't want me to go?" I asked again, walking with her to the front.

She stared up at the wall in intimidation, not giving me an answer as she passed. A few moments later and her and Stiles began their ascent. I watched with my thumb between my teeth, standing at the front of the crowd. Scott and Allison stood beside me, cheering Stiles on as he easily climbed. Erica, on the other hand, was struggling to pull herself up, her sweatshirt hanging off of her body.

"Come on, Erica. . ." I muttered, one hand crossed over my stomach in nerves. I felt Scott glance at me, but I didn't remove my stare from my friend. Stiles had made it to the top of the wall easily, and was already beginning to rappel to the ground, but Erica had stopped just over halfway up, casting a glance down. I could hear her hyperventilating from the ground, and I cast a glance at Stiles, who was raising his hands in triumph. A whimper from Erica and the gym grew mostly silent, save for a few people groaning in disappointment.

"Erica!" Finstock called, stepping onto the mat and underneath her. "Dizzy?" He asked, and Stiles too turned to look up at her. "Is it vertigo?" He called out.

"Vertigo is a dysfunction of the vestibular system of the inner ear." Lydia Martin supplied, crossing her arms in front of her. "She's just freaking out." She added, exasperated. I narrowed my eyes at her, not appreciating her nonchalant attitude.

Coach stepped forward again, looking up the wall. I felt a battle going on inside of me, before I swallowed my nerves. I shoved past Lydia and Coach as he called out to Erica again. She replied that she was fine, although it was obvious to everyone that she was definitely not fine.

"Maybe it's not safe, you know she's epileptic." Allison said as I made it to the wall.

"W-w-why doesn't anyone tell me this stuff?" Coach asked, his own frustration growing. "Erica, you're fine." Coach insisted. I politely shouldered Stiles out of my way, setting a hand on the first hand hold. "Clara? What are you doing?" He asked. I glanced back at him only for a moment before I began climbing the wall. Stiles stared at me in confusion for a moment, looking down at his harness and then back at me. "Get back down here!" Coach yelled, making a grab for my ankle. Just as he was about to grab it, I jumped a little higher up, just out of reach. I could hear him grow angry underneath me, yelling that I could have at least put on the harness, but I ignored him as I made it to eye level with Erica.

"Hey." I whispered quietly. She turned to look at me, a death grip on the wall. "You just hanging out?" I asked calmly, a smile on my face. Despite her fear of heights, and danger, and public humiliation, she sent me a nervous smile. "We can go down together." I told her. She nodded, and I reached out a hand to her shoulder, trying not to think about how high we were. I gently helped her let go of one of the rocks, and the safety wire instantly began lowering her slowly to the ground, leaving me up way too high on the rocks to be comfortable. I watched as Erica made her way down, her at first fearful look turning into one of anger. I felt my eyebrows knit together in confusion, before I began my descent, feeling along the wall for footholds as I slowly lowered down. When I had reached the heads of my fellow students, Scott and Stiles both reached their hands up to keep me from falling the last few feet. I made it down safely, turning to face Coach's wrath as he glared at me.

"If anyone tries that, they will be getting detention." He hissed out at the crowd before turning back to face me. "I think your friend ran off." He added under his breath, but I understood that as code for thanks for getting her down, now go find her.

I ignored the stares of my classmates and made my way calmly to the locker rooms. However, I wasn't the only one heading out.

"That was really nice of you." Allison said from my side.

"Dangerous!" Lydia sang, stepping out from beside Allison.

"I think you mean bad ass!" Stiles said from behind me. "Seriously, you were like a little monkey climbing up that wall." He tried to imitate a monkey, reaching above his head for emphasis. I felt a little laugh escape me, although I was mostly nervous. Why were they following me?

"I bet Coach is going to make you run extra laps tomorrow." Allison told me, trying to make me feel at ease.

"I bet he's going to give me detention." I replied as we exited the double doors. We stood outside of the locker rooms for a moment, me hoping that at least Stiles wouldn't follow me in to the locker room. "If you'll excuse me, I think I need to talk to her alone." I told them quietly as I stood at the entrance to the locker room. If she wasn't here, then it would be rough to find her in the school. But, I had hope that she'd at least go for her normal clothes first.

They nodded in reassurance, backing away from the door as I went in, although I guessed that the second I was in they all piled around the door to try and hear what was going on.

"Erica?" I called out, stepping through the rows of lockers. The smell of too much perfume attempting to cover athlete's foot overpowered the air, and I heard a quiet sniffling coming from where I had tossed my bag.

"Just go away!" Erica's hesitant voice called out.

I sighed and followed the sound slowly, my beat up converse making almost no noise on the tiled floor. "I'm not gonna go away." I called out, finally peaking out from behind the row of lockers. Erica huffed at me, wiping her nose with her sweatshirt sleeve. "You wanna talk about it?" I asked as I took a seat across from her, trying hard to appear casual.

"Fine, you want to talk about it?" She asked me threateningly, leaning forward with red eyes. "I am so sick and tired of you trying to swoop in and save the day!" My jaw dropped in shock, whatever I had been expecting, it was not this. "I mean, seriously? Is that why you hang out with me?" She asked, standing up. "So you can make yourself look better?" She scoffed down at me, her hand flying to hit one of the lockers near me. The loud thud from her hand made me jump, but I remained staring at one spot on the floor. "Say something!" She yelled down at me. And yet I stayed frozen, my brain about ten steps behind this moment. "Pathetic." She spat down at me and stormed out of the locker room, not even bothering to grab her things.

Had Erica always felt that way? I mean, I knew that she bottled things up. And I'd been at the receiving end of her explosions before. But it had never felt directed at me before. There was a tiny part of me niggling at the back of my brain. Was she right? Was I just using her to make myself look better?

It's not like I didn't have other friends. I could easily flit among social groups, never pausing long enough to really put down roots like I had with Erica. Maybe I just felt safer with her? Like I knew that she would never abandon me. And yet, here I was, my back resting against the cold lockers with my mouth still agape.

It was only moments between Erica leaving that Allison and Lydia stormed in, either from wanting to attempt to comfort me or just to be able to hear firsthand what tragedy had happened so they could pass it along the gossip train. I halfheartedly insisted I was fine, instead changing back into my outfit.

"Do you want me to sic the soccer players on her?" Lydia asked as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"No, it's fine." I insisted, tugging the black wrap skirt on. "She's just scared." I added, ignoring the way my eyes burned with unshed tears. My maroon tank top paired with the tan leather jacket I was sporting, the cute black suede ankle boots bringing me a few inches taller than I normally was.

"Seriously, it wasn't cool of her to say that stuff to you." Allison told me, waiting for both Lydia and I to finish getting dressed.

"It's really not a problem." I insisted, checking my hair in the mirror. "Do you think I should go after her?" I asked, turning to face both of them.

"Absolutely not."

"No." They said at the same time. I pursed my lips and we made our way into the hallway outside the gym, choosing to sit on a bench across the locker rooms instead of going back into the gym. For the rest of the period, we ignored the topic of Erica, instead making small talk about our incoming midterms.

Coach finally released the rest of our classmates about ten minutes before class ended, flooding the hall with students. Erica, of course, was not among them. I bit back my growing resentment towards her. She could sort this out on her own.

When the hall was almost empty again, we began gathering our bags to head our separate ways when Scott burst out of the boys locker room, still in his gym clothes. He didn't even look at us as he sprinted into the gym, Stiles stumbling after him. Lydia, Allison, and I shot each other a look before we dropped what we were gathering and ran after him. We ran in the doors, just as a body fell from the top of the rock wall. I recognized the hair as Erica's, and a gasp escaped my lips as Scott was suddenly catching her. Her body twitched in his arms.

"She's having a seizure!" I yelled, Allison and I both running forward without hesitation.

"Turn her on her side, turn her on her side!" Allison yelled as she slid on her knees the last few feet. I knew we couldn't do anything for her until she came out of it, only hoping for the best.

I sat beside her dutifully, shivering myself in fear as her body twitched helplessly. Coach was suddenly beside us, instructing someone to call 911. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked next to me to see Stiles offering me a forced smile, attempting to console me as we sat around Erica.

I pursed my lips back at him, laying my own hand on top of his and squeezing before we both dropped our hands. Erica may have been mad at me, and I may be frustrated with her, but that didn't mean that I didn't want her to suffer from a seizure.

Yet, guilt was crawling up the back of my throat. I knew, logically, that it was impossible that I had anything to do with this. But she was still my friend. We were in an argument. It was like my anger had manifested itself in the form of physical torment.

Even as they were wheeling her away to an ambulance, I felt nothing but shock.

Author's note: The official Chapter 1 is now up! Hope you enjoyed it! Please review, and sit tight for the next chapter.