I'm Baack! Thanks once again to my three awesome reviewers! CrazyKitten2112 actually go the answer right, so yay! Congrats, and as for the others who guessed, good guessing, but you just fell short of the mark.

So! Scores!

CrazyKitten2112: 183 pts

Breeze xxx: 183 pts

Jennifer Adams: 30 pts

Now! Every seemed pretty on board with the flashback idea, so I'll be continuing with that. This one here is sort of ironic, which I think you'll all understand when you read it.

Also, the scene where Weston cornered Dekka at the vending machines, which are turning out to the be universal pinning spot(a joke that you'll understand by the end of this chapter.), got the most votes for favorite, so yay!

Okay, I'm done talking!

I own everything! (Wait a second...)

~The Most Important Part~

It was mornings like this, when someone decided that knocking at their door at the break of dawn was appropriate, not rude, like most normal people considered it to be, that Chris wished she was like Shaena. She swore that the dark-skinned girl could sleep through a car crash.

Thump! Thump! Thump! The knocking was becoming incessant, and getting louder ever time. Just ignore them, she told herself, nestling farther into her blankets.

Thump, thump, thump, thump! Whoever they were, they were insistent. The last time someone had been so set on getting in, it had been her grandmother, right after her mother lost full custody and she went to live with her instead. She had been convinced that Chris had left in the night to go to her mother's, especially when she found Chris's door locked, and received no reply from knocking, because she knew there was no way the girl was sleeping though it, Chris had always been a mostly light sleeper, except on the occasions that she was dead tired, in which case, waking her became like normally waking Shaena, and waking Shaena became all but impossible.

Needless to say, Chris had not been the only angry one when the door had been kicked down by a neighbor whom her grandmother had dragged over to help.

Chris sighed and decided that it would be best to just answer them, then have them go find someone to open the door for them.

She found herself taken aback when the door swung open, and she was staring at her girlfriend, of two weeks.

"Um...Good morning?"

"I called you last night," Rose snapped at her, shoving her way into the room.

Chris frowned, knitting her brow. "Well, I was at the game most of last night."

"So? Lots of people were at the game last night, but they still answered their phones."

"Yeah, well, Burkly makes us turn our phones off in the band stand, so.."

"So? You have you're phone on in class all the time."

"Yeah, but in class I'm sitting in the back of the room, with a desk to hide it. In the band stand I'm in the very front row, right in front of him, with nothing in front of me to hide it."

"That's not an excuse."

"Really? I thought it was." Chris winced, realizing too late sarcasm was probably not going to help this situation.

She was right, because Rose crossed her arms angrily. "You're not funny!"

"That wasn't me being funny that was me pointing out the stupidity of what you said." Chris wished someone would shoving a sock in her mouth, because the thing was acting without permission from her brain.

Rose threw up her hands, looking scandalized. "Really? So now I'm stupid."

"No! That's not what I said!"

This was definitely not going in her favor...

~The Most Important Part~

The next morning Dekka awoke to shouting. She opened her eyes reluctantly, and sat up in bed, yawning. The muffled voices were coming from the hallway, not far from their door. She noticed Jasami was standing by the door, ear pressed agianst the surface, listening.

A soft knock at the door caused the small girl to jump, then twist the handle hurriedly, opening the door just enough for Lilah to slip in. She was still dressed in a pair of black, silk night pants, and a matching, button up night shirt made of the same material, left open over a dark red tank-top.. Dekka noted that her dark hair was up in a neat ponytail, as though she had taken the time to fix her hair, but hadn't bothered changing out of her night cloths.

She eased the door closed, muffling the voices once again, but not before Dekka managed to make out Chris's voice, then she leaned against it, hand behind her back, and mouth at Laurne, brown eyes wide, Oh my God!

"What's wrong this time?" Lauren, still sitting in bed, half-covered by her comforter, with her arms resting lazily on her knees, asked in a hushed voice.

Lilah crossed the room on socked feet, and climbed into her bed, slipping under the blankets, before replying, "Chris's phone was turned off last night."

"Chris didn't do that," Jasamin whispered, still standing by the door.

"Yeah, Lauren agreed, "That was Dumb and Dumber."

Dekka remember that. Before Nick and Austin had left the day before, Nick had snatched Chris's phone, telling her that she wasn't getting I back until she made Rose stop using them as delivery boys. Chris had warned them that Rose would not be happy if Chris's phone wasn't on her, but they had waved her off, saying they'd make sure Rose knew the circumstances.

Dekka supposed they hadn't.

"Besides that, Burkley makes us turn our phones off when the games is going. Rose knows that."

"You think Chris ever does that?"

"That's not the point. For all she knows, Burkly caught her and took up her phone."

"Since when does logic matter to Rose?" Lilah yawned. She noticed Dekka, looking around uncertainly, eyes still bleary, and smiled. "Good morning, Sunshine. Didn't you love the wake up call?"

"Did you just call me sunshine?"

"Yeah. What's wrong? You don't don't like your new nick name?" Dekka just stared at the girl, which made her pout teasingly. "Oh! But it fits you so well!"

"Oh, that was just cold," Jasamin commented quietly from the door at the same time that Lauren smacked her friend's arm, saying:

"Would you leave her alone!"

"What?" Lilah whined indignantly. "She knows I'm only kidding, right, Sunshine?"

Dekka opened her mouth to respond, but a particularly loud shout from outside caused her retort to change into a question. "How often does this happen?"

Lilah thought a moment. "At least once a grading period...sometimes more."

"Sounds like they have some issues."

"Yeah, the issue being Rose is a jealous-" Lilah cut off abruptly as the door opened, casuing Jasamin to yelp and leap back in surprise. Shaena gave a muttered apology as she came in, and shut the door behind her. In answer to the expectant stares, she blew out a long huff of air, and shook her head.

"How bad is it?"

"Right no, a seven, and Rose hasn't even found a way to fault me yet, so I think we're looking at ten, nine at the least."

Lilah groaned. "I hate when it's a ten! Especially now since my usual hide out has been occupied."

"You can stay with me if you need," Jasamin offered.

"Yeah, stay with Jazz."

"I'm staying with Jazz," Shaena informed, taking a seat ont eh foot of Dekka's bed. She looked over at the other girl and asked, "Do you mind?" gesturing to her new seat.

Dekka leaned against her head board and crossed her arms. "Well, you didn't give me much of a choice, now did you?"

Shaena blinked, and though a moment. "Okay, it's way to early in the morning for me to follow smart-ass comments," she told her, shaking her head.

Dekka smiled. "I don't care if you sit there."

"Anyways," Shaena went on after giving another nod at Dekka. "I always tay with Jazz when this happens."

"You can stay with your sister. Didn't you hear? Caylee moved out of country, so Shaela's in a room all by herself."

"Yeah, I heard," Shaena grumbled. "But there's a reason we haven't shared a room in nearly eight years."

"You can both stay in my room. I mean, if one of you doesn't mind sleeping on a cot, or you could share the other bed." The little girl made her way across the room, abandoning her post by the door, and stretched out on her stomach across the foot of Lauren's bed.

"Is it winding down?" Lilah wondered looking hopeful.

Jasamin gave her head a disdainful shake. "Actually, it sounded like it was getting worse."

"I told you it would," Shaena commented bordly, leaning back on her hands.

"A girl can hope," Lilah sighed, sittling into Lauren's bed and turning on her side.

"Go ahead, Lih, make yourself comfortable. It's not like it's my bed or anything."

"Thanks, Fish. I didn't get any sleep last night, thanks to Drama Queen," Lilah, who had tucked one arm under a pillow and closed her eyes as though to sleep, said.

Lauren sighed, unable to argue with that, and said, "If you start kick I'm gonna kick you out."

"I'm not a rough sleeper!" Lilah objected, sounding as though this was an argument they'd had many times. This point was exaggerated by the other three girls retorting:

"Yeah you are."

"Whatever."

It wasn't long before Lilah was asleep, and Lauren had veered the conversation away from the argument happening outside, although on occasion, the voices would grow louder and everyone's eyes would wander to the door. As it turned out, Lauren and Noah shared in their talent with recreating voices and sounds, which, Dekka learned, was why she was on scholarship in the first place. So Lauren lightened the mood in the same manner that Noah would have, had be been there, and eventually they had nearly forgotten about Chris and Rose.

Then, there was a knock at the door, and Dekka realized that the yelling outside had stopped. Shaena stood, slowly, raising an eyebrow at Lauren, who shrugged. She opened the door to Chris, who, like herself, was still wearing her band shirt and jeans. She looked ready of murder, a feeling that Dekka figured was not being helped by Julie, who came in behind her, grumbling irritably about waking everyone else up. Unlike the rest of he girls who had taken refuge in Lauren and Dekka's room, Julie was not dressed in her sleep cloths. She was wearing basketball short, and a black t-shirt, with her coal-colored hair in it's typical messy bun.

Two other figures scampered past them, and took up positions on Dekka's bed, Weslie sitting herself cross-legged, while Weston sat at the edge, feet swinging over the side. They, too, had changed out of their night cloths, and into identical black shorts and t-shirts sporting the Headline Academy emblem, and their names underneath over the year, 2012-13, however, Weslie's was a dark shade of blue, while Weston's was an equally dark shade of red.

"You went and got Julie?" Jasamin raised an eyebrow.

Weston crossed her arms. "Well, Lauren and Julie are the only two who can make Rose chill, and Lauren clearly wasn't going to do anything."

"I find it best to just let it all blow over." Lauren shrugged.

"We did wait!" Weslie defended. "But after a couple of hours, waiting for the storm to blow over gets tiresome, and when you have a way to stop it, shouldn't you take that opportunity?"

Lauren shrugged. "I suppose."

"Rose needs to figure out that he rest of the dorm doesn't care to hear about her relationship issues. This thing where she stomps up to your door first thing in the morning and starts yelling right there in the middle of the hallway is just childish," Julie was growling as she paced over to the window. She ran a hand over the black material covering it, almost fascinatedly, then pulled her hand into a fist and spun around, pacing back across the room. "I really wish you would get rid of that, it looks awful," she said half-heartedly.

"You wanna know the worst part about it?" Shaena was saying, causing Julie's comment to be mostly drown out. "The first day we were back, she was missing all day, without any explanation, with her phone off, and Chris didn't cause a big commotion."

Chris, who had taken a seat beside her friend and allowed her face to fade from murderous to mildly irritated, winced. "She means well." Not even she could make that sound convincing.

However, everyone's resolve to argue that point shriveled at the pained look on the girl's face. So instead, they fell into an awkward silence.

Finally, the silence was broken by a knock at the door. Julie, who had come back to the door in her pacing, pulled it open. The sandy-haired boy who stood on the other side, staggered back, blue eyes full of surprise, when he realized who had answered. "Hey, James," Julie greeted casually, raising an eyebrow at his reaction.

"Hi, um...Julie...er, I was...uh...I had a reason for coming, I did." He scratched the back of his head nervously.

James was a saxophone player, and another of The Nerds. Dekka had become accostumed to the confidence in his speech, like everything he said had been carefully thought through and he knew that he was 100% correct, and chances were this was true, because he had yet to be wrong. Lauren had onc said that James was the kind of guy that could turn a vegan back to eating meat just by saying that it was good.

However, now, all of that confidence and sureness seemed to have escaped him. He glanced frantically around, looking anywhere but at Julie, and stammered uncertainly. At first, Dekka couldn't figure out what was causing the drastic change of character. Sure, saying something wrong in front of Julie would most definitely result in getting a smart allec comment, followed by a correction, but Julie wasn't just plain cruel. Besides, James had a similar habit of correcting people constantly.

It finally clicked in Dekka's mind as Julie gave her trademark huff, as though he was just being difficult, and said, "Well, that doesn't help me. I have a photographic memory, not telepathy."

"Right...uh, I was...um..Looking for Jasamin. Someone told me I could find her...uh...here."

"Well, someone told you right," Julie replied, stepping aside to let him in. "I need to go. I promised Brooklyn I would help her with her history." And then she slipped through the door silently.

Dekka didn't miss the fact that James relaxed considerably. "Hey, Jazz, I was wondering if you picked up my music last night by accident, when you picked yours up from the stand." He had fallen back into his easy confidence as if someone had flipped a switch.

Jasamin shrugged. "I might have. Come on, we can go check." She slid off of the bed and exited the room, closely followed by James. "I'll be back," she announced, swinging the door shut behind her.

As soon as it clicked, confirming it was closed, Dekka laughed. "Wow, that poor kids got it bad."

That sent the rest of the room into their own laughter, which, amazingly, didn't wake Lilah, only made her stir in her sleep.

When she'd calmed down enough to speak, Chris said, "They've both go it pretty bad. I mean, you noticed she left as son as he got her, didn't you? Or did you actually believe that story about history?"

Dekka, honestly, hadn't thought about it. She'd been too focused on the results of her leaving to wonder what had really caused her departure, but she wasn't going to tell anyone that.

"Olive and I have teamed up," Lauren was saying. "We're going to make them go to homecoming together if it's the last thing we do!"

"Yeah?" Chris snorted. "Just getting Julie to go to that dance at all would be a feat. Getting her to go with a date?"

"You'd be better off trying to convince Rose o take me," Shaena laughed, then, suddenly, winced, realizing her mistake. "Sorry."

Lauren quickly re-routed the conversation. "You know who else we're coupling for Homecoming? Reggie and Shaela. They would be adorable together!"

"That's a terrible idea!" Shaena objected.

"Why?"

"Because! I don't like Reggie!"

"So? He's not dating you!"

"So, whoever my sister ends up dating, I have to deal with. Duh!"

"Well, excuse me! I'm not exactly familiar with multi-sibling dating policies," Lauren huffed.

"Ouch," Chris winced as Shaena did the same.

"Sorry, my bad...So, who are you going with this year? Going with Noah."

"Unless something changes between now and homecoming." Lauren shrugged. "Why, you wanna third wheel again?"

Shaena crossed her arms, huffing indiganantly. "I have a date this year, belief it of not."

"Seriously?" Lauren raised an eyebrow. "Since when?"

"Oh! Didn't I tell you?" Chris laughed. "I thought I did...well, she and Andre are talking." then she jumped up and said, "I'll be right back!"

She was out the door before what she was up to registered in Shaena's mine. The girl leapt to her feet, shouting, "Don't even think about it!" before pursuing her friend.

They could be heard down the hallway, Shaena demanding for Chris to give something back, while Chris laughed and replied, "No!" Then, they cam stumbling back into the room. Shaena had Chis's shirt balled in her fist, trying to use it to hold her back, while she stretched in an attempt to snatch a small piece of paper other hand, which Chris had held out as far away as possibly. Unfortunately for Shaena, Chris's arms were longer, and she managed to keep the small paper out of reach.

Weston hopped to her feet and zipped across the room, plucking the paper from Chris's hand and returning to her spot beside her sister. She unfolded the small paper, frowning. "It's just a homecoming ticket," Weston pouted, waving the paper disappointedly.

Chris tried to say something, but Shaena clapped a hand over her mouth and snapped, "No!" then she held out the other to the twins. "Give it back."

Weston refused stubbornly, and instead, put it in the hand that Dekka had stretched out silently. She looked it over, and Weston was right. It was just a slip of paper, printed with the words: Headline Academy Homecoming: High School Level. She turned it over habitually, and raised an eyebrow. "Found it."

Written across the back, in blocky letters and what appeared to black ink, were the words: Be my date?

"Really?" Weston leaned over to see and grinned. "Oh!"

She snatched the paper back and held it up to examine closer, with Weslie looking over her shoulder.

"What is it?" Lauren wondered when neither of the twins elaborated on their, or rather, her, find.

Weston flipped it around and held it out for her to see. Lauren frowned, squinting at it. "I can't read it from here!"

The younger girl huffed, and crossed the room, handing over the ticket. It took possibly a whole of five seconds for Lauren to take in the words, and crack a smile. "That's adorable! Who is this again?"

Shaena, who had given up on getting the paper back upon Dekka's find, crossed her arms stubbornly, forgetting why she didn't have them like that in the first place.

"Andre Gauge," Chris told her, voice no longer being muffled by her friend's hand.

"No way!" Lauren laughed. "You mean wicked quint player, Andre Gauge?"

"No, she was talking about the other Andre Gauge." Shaena rolled her eyes. "Why so surprised? Didn't think I could score that high?"

"Well, I mean, he's so nice, and you're so...erm..." She hesitated, obviously trying to select her next words carefully, but in the end, it was not her who finished the sentence.

"Dark and Twisty," Lilah finished, not opening her eyes, so that she still appeared to be asleep. Dekka wondered how long she had actually been awake and listening. The girl opened her dark brown eyes at last, sitting up and climbing to her feet. "I have volleyball practice. Can I borrow some cloths?"

"Only if you promise to give them back," Lauren replied, still examining the ticket.

Lilah laughed. "Well, if I don't, it's not like you can't come take them back. I mean, I am just around the corner," with that, she proceeded to cross the room, and dig an outfit from Lauren's drawer. "Congrats, by the way, for scoring Andre," she went on casually, slipping off her top shirt, but not bothering with her tank top. "I think the two of you will be cute together."

"Kiss up," Lauren pouted. Lilah gave another laugh, tugging a t-shirt over her head. Wordlessly, she made her way towards the door.

"Don't you think you're forgetting something?" Chris reminded, gesturing at her night pants.

Lilah shook her head. "I'll change out of my pants when I get to the gym."

"Well, then what as the point in changing your shirt?" Chris huffed.

Lilah looked as though she was going to give a logical answer, but then a look of mischief took over her features. "Why? You didn't like the view? I figured you would. I have been told I have a nice body."

"Aww," Shaena winced, burying her face in her hand and plopping down on Lauren's bed, muttering, "Bad images!"

But Lauren had already started her retort. "No, she was hoping to get the full view."

Shaena jumped up and decided, "That's it! I'm leaving!"

"Aw! Now look what you've done!" Chris gestured exasperatedly. "You made her leave."

"Oh! No! Shaena! Shaena, don't leave! Shaena! Come back!" Lauren giggled. "Oops."

"You're such a ham." Chris rolled her eyes, and stood. "I'm leaving."

"Bye!" Lauren called after her, as she disappeared, followed by Lilah.

"Thy forgot their thing," Lauren said, as though on an after thought, waving the ticket.

"We'll take it to them," Weston offered, taking back the small paper, and hurring for the door, pausing to grab Weslie. "Come on!"

Weslie had to take a moment to get her feet back under her, but managed, and the next second, they were gone. "And then there were two," Lauren said, throwing off her blankets. She stood taking a moment to stretch, and yawn, then said, "Wanna study for the English test Monday? Julie loaned me her flash cards."

"Why does Julie have flashcards for tenth grade English?"

"She made them for Allie Jai last year. Have yo always questioned everything, or is this just a new habit that you've recently picked up?"

"Hilarious." Dekka rolled her eyes. Lauren laughed, pulling an old shoe box out from under her bed, and from it, producing a stack of cards, with small handwriting decorating their surface.

"You wanna take the first test run, or do you want me to do it?" Lauren asked, shoving the box back under he bed with a foot.

If she tried to say that she knew what Lauren had meant by "test run" then she would have been lying. She had yet to fully comprehend the meaning of every thing that Lauren, or any other Headline kid for that matter, said. So she did the only thing she could think to do. She held out her hand, and replied, "I'll hold the cards up for you."

A smile told her that she had at least come close to giving the sort of answer Lauren had been expecting, and the girl handed over the stack, wrapped with a yellow rubber band marked in pen with the words, "English: Unit 1".

Dekka almost laughed, because one thing that she had learned about the dark-haired girl int eh three weeks that she had known her, was that Julie was far from organized. Her attitude was that anything she lost she could just recite, or write back down, word-for-word.

Dekka, personally, thought that she was putting far too much faith in her gift. She had seen the consequences of lacking in the organization field, and, despite the fact that it probably wouldn't cause something extreme, like nearly starving an entire population, it could have other draw backs. Like in the work force, for example. Getting a job would prove to be very difficult without any organization skills.

"Julie didn't do this did she?"

"No." Lauren snorted. "We all know Julie would just have left them shuffled around in the box. That was Allie Jai. She's not quite as up to par as Rose in the organizing category, but she does like to keep things looking pretty."

~The Most Important Part~

Chris had no desire to go to the band room, where the band booster club and Mr. Burkly often served meals for the band. Sure most schools wouldn't have allowed that, but, in retrospect, most schools also wouldn't have allowed members of the staff to pick up groceries for the students to stock up the mini-fridges disguised as nightstands, which most wouldn't of allowed them to have in the first place. Most schools wouldn't allow kids to roam around campus when their teacher was NIA, or allow their students to sleep in another student's room on bad nights. Most schools wouldn't have the owners of it adopt a student having trouble with foster care, and allow her to live on campus, raised by the staff.

But Headline Academy was not most schools.

So the band team served their people dinner every night, Lunch most days, and, on only rare occasions, breakfast.

Normally, Chris loved any time spent in the band room. That wasn't just a class room to her, or anyone for that matter, it was home, and the rest of the band was family. They hated each other to come extent, Andrew being a prime example, but when push came to shove, not a kid in the band would stand aside and let one of their own go down. Picking a fight with a band kid meant picking a fight with the whole lot. In fact, someone had managed to create a large banner reading: "Mess with one Band Geek and you mess with all Band Geeks!"

Chris was just glad that that had become as thing after the Rose had finished the t-shirts.

But on days like today, even the band room was not an easy place to be. Chris didn't have the patience to go try and deal with the concerned stares, and careful conversations, everyone trying to gauge her mood to determine if it was okay to ask questions.

And, of course, the cafeteria was never an option. That place was not a good place to be no matter what kind of mood you're in.

So instead, Shaena had agreed to steal away with some of the band room food and sneak it back to their room, if Chris collected snacks and drinks from the vending machines. As far as fights go, this morning hadn't been all that bad, not on Chris's part anyways. She could handle Rose's accusation and insults, and almost anything else that Rose could throw at her, but when she started dragging Shaena in, saying nasty, and irrelevant things about her, well, that was when Chris completely lost her patience, and what resulted was her being in a rotten mood for days. Normally, this lead to Shaena taking up refuge in Jasamin's room. Chris didn't blame her, she was well aware that her rotten moods were horrific, at best, but it still only served to worsen. Often, she had wondered who she was mad at when this happened: Shaena, for not sticking it out, or Rose, for making her so horrible that not even Shaena, who had more patience for her best friend than Chris deserved, could stand to be around her.

At any rate, Julie had stormed up, spitting like an angry cat, and broken up their fight before Rose managed to take the argument that far. So Chris's mood was considerably better than normal, and Shaena would not be leaving her alone tonight.

She was carrying out her part of the agreement, and raiding the vending machines, when the puppy walked up.

"Hey Dekka," she greeted, pressing in for a bag of chips.

The dark-skinned girl glanced at the box at her feet, bottom lined with candy bars and packages of poptarts, then back up at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Shouldn't you be at the band room getting lunch or something?" Chris wasn't in the mood to try and explain herself.

"I could ask you the same thing." Chris cursed mentally. She's forgotten about Dekka quick tongue, which normally Chris had a high respect for, anyone who could last more than a few seconds in a come-back battle with Julie deserved respect, but today it was only going to prove to be a pain.

"Touche."

"You stocking up for the winter?" The other girl wondered, turning away to another of the machines.

"No, just for the week. Typically, Rose gets over herself after a week, and we can make friendly."

"If this happens so much that you can gauge how long it will take to make up, then why are the two of you still together? Doesn't sound like it's a very good relationship to me."

Chris sighed. This conversation had gone in precisely the direction she had been hoping to avoid. "It's not that simple."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not simple-minded."

Chris took a moment to try to find a way out of it, but she could think of none. The exit was behind Dekka, so she couldn't just walk away, and she couldn't stay silent, since that would just cause Dekka to ask again.

"A lot of people think we fight so much because we are so different. I mean, Rose is the girl that most parents point out and say, 'Why can't you be more like her?'. I'm the girl that they point at and say, 'If you ever get like her I'll lock you in your room until you're thrity!'. Rose has the looks most girls would kill for, I have the looks that most girls wouldn't be caught dead with. Rose has a rich family, my family can barely pay the electric bill." Chris paused wondering why she was saying so much more than she had originally been intending. "Anyways, we're not all that different. We do have one thing in common. The most important thing."

"What's that?"

"Abandonment."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Chris laughed half-heartedly, trying, and failing, to lighten the mood. "Abandonment issues are painful. When I was younger and I had them, I couldn't sleep in a room by myself some nights, I refused to go to school, and I freaked out if I was left alone in a room, because I was scared to death that I was going to loose someone else important in my life." She shrugged uncomfortably, wondering once again why she was telling this girl this, and slipped the last of the money she had brought down into the machine. "If it wasn't for the little bit of consistency that I had in Shaena, who I still got to have play dates with, and share crayons with in school and all, I probably would never have gotten over it. The point is, Rose didn't go through the abandonment until a little over a year ago, so she's still trying to adjust, get past the hard part you know. She's still in that stage where she's convinced that everyone is going to just up and leave her, or shut her out. What she needs right now is consistency. So, if I remain a constant in her life, then I'm hoping that she'll get better. Then, maybe we won't fight so much, and people will stop feeling the need to ask why I put up with it."

"What if it doesn't?" Dekka asked. "Get better I mean. Some people never get over abandonment issues."

Chris stared at her uncomprehendingly. She had never thought of that, had no answer to that.

"It has too."

Done!

Okay, so this chapter had a little bit of plot development, but mostly, it was for character development.

It is my hope that my writing pretty much speaks for itself, so, I'm just gonna skip straight to the fun part!

Questions!

1. Okay, I told myself when I started this that I was not going to ask the same question two chapters in a row, but I really love answers to this question, so I think it's probably going to become a consistent question. What was your favorite part of this chapter? 15 points!

2. How do we all like Dekka's new nickname? I wanted to have Andrew come up with it, since, as you've all probably noticed, he's the one that comes up with most of that stuff at Headline, but I couldn't pass up such a perfect opportunity! Anyways, 10 points!

3. We learn more and more about the characters as we go, but there's still a lot to be revealed. Which character do you feel you've figured out the most?(10 points) Which do you feel you still have a lot to learn about?(10 points)

Challenges! (There's two this time, because I'm an overachiever! XD)

1. Okay, so, twice now in the story, I have used the term NIA, once by Lilah, and once from Chris's character focus. This is not a typo, I actually mean NIA, it is yet another of Headline's notorious slang, so who can guess what it stands for? 1) 20 points 2) 10 points and 3) 5 points

2. So, in this chapter, Shaena mentions that Rose was gone all day the day they arrived back on campus. In an earlier chapter, this was mentioned briefly. So, what was Rose's excuse? 30 points! (I told you I didn't put anything in the story that didn't have a purpose!)

Thanks for making it this far, and don't forget to drop off a review! :)