"He still an ass hat?" I asked Mikey, trying to keep my voice from shaking as I stared in the Fenton's direction.

Despite the fact that I wanted to turn my back on him, pretend that I hadn't even noticed his entrance, I couldn't help but stare. He had Jazz on his arm, swatting half-annoyed at his father, who was laughing loudly about something – Jazz looked annoyed with Jack as well, but Maddie was laughing along with her husband. He looked perfectly happy and, somehow, that twisted my insides.

He had destroyed me from the inside out and he had the nerve to be happy?

"'Course," Mikey grunted in response to my question. "Not as much though, so I guess some progress is better than no progress."

"Not as much?" I prompted.

Mikey shrugged. "Well, Tuck came back from the dark side and I guess Danny kinda followed him. I mean, he wasn't shunned by the popular people when he broke up with Paullina – I guess it's 'cause she went nuts and Dash disappeared so he's the leader now or something – so he still hangs out with them but he didn't bully anyone all of second semester. I was kind of impressed."

"Huh," I murmured, not quite sure what to make of this information.

Instead, I leaned heavily on the balcony railing and watched as he made his way down to the dock – greeting Kwan with a loud exclamation.

I shook my head at myself and quickly derailed my train of thought, anticipating where it was leading to. I wasn't about to tumble down a path of 'what-ifs'.

"Mikey!" Came a shout, "and Sam!"

Mikey and I both turned at the same time to see Tucker come out of the sliding balcony doors, smiling brightly at the two of us.

"Mike, I know it's your family thing but Sam, how in the hell did you end up here?"

"Mother loves her social events," I grumbled, though with a smile. I gladly accepted his hug when he offered one. "You?"

"Can't really pass up a party," Tucker smiled. "Also Danny wanted me to come in case Kwan didn't show."

I flinched at the name and he pretended not to notice.

"They're both down at the dock," Mikey supplied helpfully.

"Awesome," Tucker said with a nod. "But, I hear they're serving the buffet as we speak and you know my motto – friends are good; food is better."

I laughed. "How do you have friends at all?" I joked.

He fixed me with a look. "My charm, of course."

"Of course," I said with an eye roll.

"Come on," Mikey said, hustling us back inside. "We'll get first chance at the food."

"Good," I drawled. "As an ultra-recyclo vegetarian, it's hard enough finding food let alone searching after a hundred other people have gotten theirs."

"Vegetarians," Tucker groaned with a shake of his head.

"Well a meat-atarian isn't a real thing!" I exclaimed back at him, bringing up one of our old text conversations.

"A person can't live off of grass," Tucker scorned me.

I snorted. "Then it's a really good thing I don't eat grass!"

Tucker dramatically rolled his eyes at me, although he had no rebuttal. I grinned smugly at him as we made our way to the food line – Mikey leading the way.

"You're in luck, Sam," Mikey called back to me.

"Why?"

"My aunt is a vegetarian. You'll have a lot of choices."

"For once!" I exclaimed happily, taking a spoonful of the seaweed salad I immediately spotted.

Tucker, who saw me take it, pretended to retch. "That smells disg-intense," he said, changing his word choice at the last moment, probably so he wouldn't offend me.

"It just makes me more excited to eat it," I retorted, though I agreed with his second word choice. The smell of the sesame oil that was in the seaweed salad was definitely intense.

With food piled high on our plates, we sat down to eat.

"So, Sam," Tucker said through the leg of a turkey, "What are you plans, now that you're back in Amity?"

I shrugged. "I'll probably just be spending a lot of time with my parents … And the two of you, of course," I laughed.

"No summer romances?" Tucker asked.

I shot him a look.

"Not like … that," Tucker explained, tone apologetic. "I just … I want to see you happy."

"That's sweet of you, but I'm not unhappy, Tucker. And I don't need a guy in order for my life to be good. Besides," I added, "I'm going to university soon and there's bound to be hotter guys in New York than in Amity."

"Having never been guy scoping, let alone in New York, I can't really attest to how hot they are," Tucker chuckled. "But good luck with that."

"Wait," Mikey interrupted. "Sam, what happened to your boyfriend?"

My heart began to sink in my chest at Mikey's innocent question. What had happened to him? He had turned out to being a lying bastard that didn't just break my heart; he had shattered it. I had spent the last few months of my life trying to put my pain behind me and I wasn't about to let my hurt leak out now. I forced a smile onto my face.

"It just didn't work out," I replied simply. "You know how those things are."

"That sucks," Mikey commented. "Whenever you talked about him to me, you really seemed to love him."

I averted my eyes. "I did," I admitted, my honesty making my flare of pain that much more raw, "but sometimes you love people more than they love you."

"That really sucks," Mikey enunciated. "Ah well. There's better people than him out there, right?"

I put in a lot of effort into smiling at him. "For sure," I lifted my glass of lemonade. "Cheers to that!"

Mikey clinked his glass against mine but it didn't escape my notice that Tucker didn't. Sometimes I forgot how close Fenton and Tucker were; they were best friends, practically brothers, from the way Tucker described their relationship. I liked talking to Tucker; I liked having him as a friend. I didn't want to push him away just because I would make a snide comment about Fenton from time to time (though I tried not to mention him at all) but I couldn't help how I felt about Fenton just like he couldn't help how he felt about Fenton.

I took a sip of my lemonade and, over the top of the glass, I saw Fenton. He was just entering the dining room with a plate of food clutched in his hand. I knew, without a doubt, that the moment he saw Tucker that he would head to our table. So, I did the only logical thing left for me to do.

I jumped to my feet, blurted, "I have to pee," and headed down the hallway that Mikey silently pointed me toward. Heart hammering, I shuffled down the hallway, taking a left when I saw a sink. I slammed the door shut behind me, locking it for good measure. I took a deep breath and put my hands down on the sink counter to steady myself.

I was never going to get used to being around him again. He hadn't even been within ten feet of me and I started panicking and hyperventilating! If Mother insisted on dragging me to social events this summer, I was going to die. I was just seriously going to keel over and die from the sheer stress of it all. I didn't want Fenton to be able to affect me in any way, shape, or form but, unfortunately, he did affect me. He'd hurt me and, as much as I wanted to claim that I was okay, I knew that I wasn't. I knew that I was still trying to put my broken heart back together. He had lied to me about every aspect of who he was and I'd been foolish enough to buy it. You just don't get over being deceived by the first person you loved.

Despite the fact that I couldn't just push it to the side and make it go away, I still couldn't let what he had done to me run my life. I couldn't go running from a table of friends every time that he popped into the room because Amity Park was a small town, I was going to see him whether or I wanted to or not. Not to mention the fact that he was friendly with the people I was friendly with. I wasn't going to go out of my way to talk to him but I was going to have to get a grip on myself and figure out how to deal with being in the same room.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and asked myself if I were going to be able to stick to that resolution. Was I going to be able to see Fenton and not be struck with the pain of that night in January when he told me the truth of his dual identities? Honestly, I doubted it. I shouldn't have to feel pain when I was just trying to spend a quiet month with my family before I went to university but I did, and it was all because of him.

Finally, I just splashed some water on my face and said to heck with it all. I'd figure things out as they came around but, one thing was for certain, I would not consent to speak one word to the filth that was Daniel Fenton.

Feeling somewhat better, I left the washroom.

And immediately crashed into someone.

In the quick shuffle of bodies to get ourselves sorted out, I only saw a few flashes of the stranger: white hair, green eyes, long limbs. For a moment, I thought that it was Fenton, turned into Phantom, come to haunt me. But when the stranger and I had ourselves sorted out, I took a properly look at him and realized that he actually looked nothing like Fenton/Phantom at all. Yes, he had green eyes and white hair but the white looked more of a pale blond than stark white and the green was more of a pea shade than that of a glow stick. He was also taller and thinner with a longer face.

"Sorry about that," he drawled in an accident I didn't recognize. "Are you all right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sorry. That was my fault. I was a little … preoccupied."

"Not a boy I hope," the stranger said instantly.

I frowned at him. "Why?"

Why would he care if I was thinking about a boy or not? I mean, I was but it hardly seemed something that a literal stranger would care about.

"Because," the stranger explained, "after I learn your name I think I'm going to ask you out on a date."

My jaw dropped. "You … what? We just met."

The stranger grinned at me and it was captivating.

"I know, but that makes it more fun, doesn't it? Besides, you're a beautiful girl and something tells me that you're an interesting girl."

I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. "You don't know anything about me."

He shrugged. "That's fair." He stepped off to the side of the hallway and I went to walk by him.

I had just passed him when he said something that made me turn around and look at him again.

"To be fair," the stranger called, "you don't know anything about me either."

I sized him up again.

"So tell me something," I challenged.

"I'm from Hungary."

"Too simple," I dismissed and raised the stakes. "Tell me something personal."

"I still sleep with my stuffed rabbit," the stranger revealed. "My grandma made it for me the day I was born. I've never spent a night without it."

The mention of his grandmother made a piece of my heart melt; grandmothers always did. I had lost my Grandma Manson not too long ago and I missed her with every day that passed. She was a special person in my life, the one thing that I could turn to when I had nothing else – not even parents. When she had died, I'd been a complete wreck.

"I'm Sam," I finally told him.

"I'm Gregor … Would you like to go out with me?"

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.

~TLL~