A/N - Okay, this update came EXTREMELY quick, but I have off from work today, so I thought that I'd reward you guys. Well, there's also a downside since this came so quick. You'll see soon enough what I'm talking about ;)

Fauzul got a fan fiction account! He didn't tell me his username yet, though. PM me if you want his MySpace, cuz he's totally rad. REALLY.

I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth and I'm surprised at what I see. I was crying last night, but my eyes weren't swollen. I didn't have deep circles, either. My eyes were simply very, very red. I think that I need a pair of sunglasses today. I grab some big black ones as I walk out the door to my bus stop.

I'm surprised to see Shane's car parked in front of my house. I warily walk up to it, and the window rolls down, revealing Shane. "Uh, you're driving me to school today?" I ask him. "Jason's driving Nicole, so I thought that you wouldn't want to get on that bus alone," he reasons. "Oh, well, thanks," I say as I open the door to the front seat.

"You're pretty lucky that Brian and Paul weren't some of our best players," he tells me. "If they were, I wouldn't just have the entire female population at school against me, I'd have the sports fanatics, too, right?" I ask. He chuckles and nods, "Right."

"Oh yeah, do you know why Nate's hand is messed up?" he questions. I start tensing up, and it takes me a long time just to utter out the word, "No." I can tell even behind his sunglasses that he was doubting my answer, but I refuse to talk to him about that subject, or about yesterday, for the entire ride to the school.

"Thanks for the ride," I tell him before closing the car door and getting my books out of my locker. It's obvious that I've arrived at school a little bit early, thanks to Shane. It's a good thing, really. I don't want people asking me questions about what happened yesterday. I was in the middle of playing games on my calculator when Nate finally sits down next to me.

"Hey, where's everyone else today?" he asks me. "Obviously in the hallway since they're gossip queens and or kings," I answer. "Oh yes, there's quite a bit to gossip about," I continue. "Now you're playing games on your calculator?" he asks. "The result of an uneventful morning," I tell him. I turn off my TI-84 Plus and put it away.

"Or simply because you're a geek," he humors me. "Eh, that makes sense too," I say, laughing. On a more serious note, I ask him, "So, how's your hand?" He lifts up the damaged appendage and inspects it a bit before replying, "Pretty good. Healing up nicely, though you can't see it." I let out of a breath of relief. "That's good. Do me a favor and don't go around punching things anymore," I order him. "Trust me, that won't be a problem," he reassures me.

I hear some girl talking loudly in the hallway, and I grab Nate's uninjured hand and drag him to the door so we could hear. "Jenny was the one who paid Brian and Paul to do it! She wanted to steal Shane from Angela, and now she's trying to get Angela expelled," I hear Morgan telling a large group of people. The look on the people's faces tells me that they're starting to believe her.

She continues, "Oh, and if you don't believe me, Shane's taking her to Homecoming, too." Oh yeah, that reminds me. "Nate, are you still going with Angela to Homecoming?" I quietly ask him. He quickly shakes his head and tells me, "The only reason why I agreed to was because I felt kind of left out of our group. Everyone else had a date, and I'd be stuck at home."

"Oh yeah, Angela's punishment? You wouldn't believe it. She's got in-school suspension for two weeks, which means that she'd be in school, but no classes. She'd be doing boring work, ALONE. She didn't even do anything! And she's banned from going to Homecoming, too. You know, because of Jenny, I wasn't allowed to go to that Grey party the first week of school. She's a freshman who thinks that she can do anything," Morgan goes on. "Who's with me?!" she asks the crowd. Everyone murmurs agreements with her speech.

Great, now everyone hates me because of something that I didn't even do. I wasn't trying to steal Shane! He was the one that started everything. Well, I did, but by accident. Everything he did was on purpose. Nate whispers, "She's lying through her fucking teeth." He's got that mad look on his face again. "Dude, calm down. Stress isn't good for you," I say.

"Aren't you mad about this? Morgan's spreading a bunch of rumors about you!" he yells. Everybody turns in our direction now. "Oh yeah, one more thing guys. She's trying to get Shane, but she's also trying to get a good fuck with Nate. What a whore," Morgan says to the people. Okay, call me whatever you want, but you don't go around being a hypocrite!

"You're fucking lying! I didn't do anything to Shane, he started everything! And Nate's just my friend! I'm not looking for a "good fuck" because I'm a fucking virgin! I haven't even kissed a guy before, you slut!" I scream at her. "You're the one that sleeps around with guys. You're the one that's trying to get in every guy's pants. How many dicks have been in your mouth, huh?!" I go on.

"Oh, and don't get me started about your sense of style. You dress like a whore, simply because you are one. You've got no life, and you butted into my business when it had nothing to do with you. You know nothing about me or Shane or Nate, so stay the fuck away from all of us. And tell Angela that she will never get Shane back. Ever. All he thought of her was his fuck buddy. She was never on girlfriend status."

Morgan's mouth opens and closes before she just flips me off and stomps away. I know that my speech was horrible, but I was so angry! I hate hypocrites. She was a whore, but she was calling me one. I'm anything but that! I had no idea where the whole sense of style thing came up.

Do you guys know those applauses, that starts out with one person doing it really slow, then more people joining in and it gets louder and faster? I'm surprised to find that happening right now. That huge crowd was clapping because of my speech. People were congratulating me on "Putting that slut in her place." The bell rang and the crowd dispersed. Oh great, my next class had Morgan in it.

I drag Nate with me to Ms. Thimm's room instead of heading to gym. I didn't know what Nate's class was next, and I could seriously care less. "Okay, Ms. Thimm, can I hide out in your class please? There's this angry bitch that I need to avoid next period," I tell her as I plop down in one of her seats. It was time for unified arts, so all the basic classrooms were empty this period.

"And why is he here?" she asks me, pointing to Nate. "Because if I'm skipping class and so is he, we should be working on our project," I reason with her. Nate's just sitting there with a dumbfound expression on his face. (A/N - I seriously had a teacher named Ms. Thimm who let me do this. I did it three times, and it was for gym. She actually let me and e-mailed my gym teacher to legally excuse me. How cool is that?!)

"Wait, let me e-mail your teachers first so this would be legal," she says as she goes on typing in her laptop. "Did our History teacher just let us hide out in her room?" Nate asks me, shock evident in his voice. "Yup, now let's get to work on our skit," I tell him. For the next forty minutes, I start telling him everything I knew about our emperor. Every couple minutes, his eyes would go wide and he'd say, "That's fucked up."

"Looks like we should head for our next class," I say as I glance up at the clock. He looks up at it, too, before saying, "Yeah, let's go." I start speed walking to Biology when I feel that my ankle hurts again. I have to limp the rest of the way there. People were giving me weird stares as I limp to class, books in my hand. I see Shane walking towards me, and I stop since I was already at the door to the class.

"Hey, why'd you skip?" he asks me once he was close enough. "Technically, I didn't skip since I was excused," I try explaining. He takes off his sunglasses to show confusion. "Morgan's in our gym class, and I just had this weird confrontation with her, so, I kinda skipped to stay away from stupid shitty drama." He looks like he gets it now. "Oh, okay then. See you at lunch, Jenner," he says before he pinches my cheek and walks away.

Okay, who hates getting their cheeks pinched? I do, I hate it a lot! And he just called me Jenner, too. Only my really close friends call me that, mainly Nicole. "Whoa, I totally saw that dude," I hear Nicole say to me. "Yeah, my cheek hurts," I playfully whine. We laugh as we walk in and separate for class. Why do we have to sit so far away from each other??

XoLAGOHxO

Today, I only bought cookies since I wasn't that hungry. As I walk to Nate and Shane's lunch table, people start giving me high-fives. They're congratulating me for seriously telling off Morgan. Apparently, they don't believe a single thing she says. Something about, "She's been a lying bitch ever since pre-K." We were never in the same grade so I didn't really know.

"Dude, word's out that you verbally kicked Morgan's skinny ass!" Nicole says as she sits down next to me. All of the jocks who used to sit here sit with the cheerleaders now. Totally fine by me. "Psh, damn right I did!" I exclaim as we punch each other's knuckles. "Oww!" I say as I pull my hand back. "Looks like everybody's hurting their hands these days," Nate points out. We all start laughing.

"Guys, I miss middle school. All we had to worry about back then was.. Wow, nothing, really. They had it so easy," I sigh. "Wow, you're talking like we're juniors prepping for the SATs or something," Nicole says. "Oh yeah, that reminds me. SATs, yeah, I was trying to avoid that!" Shane exclaims. "Oh yeah, the study guide. It's bigger than a dictionary," I say, making him feel worse. "Yeah, whatever," Shane mumbles as he eats some fries.

"You know, you're gonna end up being a hobo if you fail the SATs," Fauzul says as he pops up out of nowhere. "Oh, hey, what's up Fizzle?!" Nicole asks him as he sits down next to her. "I was kidding about the whole seatbelt thing a couple days ago. I dunno, some people just might end up being hobos," he says, trying to explain his randomness.

"Eh, it's no biggie," I tell him. "Shane, guess what?" I ask him. "You've known Fauzul for a long time?" he asks. "Whoa, you're good," Fauzul says to him. "Yeah, me and Nicole have known him since like, fourth grade or something? Maybe earlier," I explain. "I'm just awesome at appearing and disappearing, cuz I'm just cool like that," Fauzul tell us. "Fizzle, go back to your other group of friends," I order him. "And I'm gonna disappear again. I am the great Houdini!" he exclaims before, of course, disappearing.

Nate gives me, Shane and Nicole a weird look before Nicole says, "Yeah, don't ask." I finish up a cookie before saying, "The great Houdini? He must be smoking something." Nicole shakes her head before reasoning, "Nope, more like sniffing." I nod my head in agreement. "Is there a difference?" Shane asks us. "Well, kinda, I guess. I really don't know. My friends smoke and sniff narcotics, not me," I reply. Wait, is there really a difference?

"Wait, I know what the difference is!" Nicole yells. "What?" Nate and Shane both ask. "The crack sniffers have long pinkie nails!" she concludes. "So that's why all those weird guys had long pinkie nails!" I say. That makes a lot of sense now. "Wait, what about people who smoke pot?" she asks me. "I know a couple. They're all skateboarders, though," I tell her.

"Why are we talking about drugs?" Nate asks all of us, well, Nicole and I mostly. "You know, I don't wanna know," Shane says before getting up to throw away his trash. "Well, I found out because one guy just randomly told me, and the other guy, I simply asked and he admitted to it, straight up," I inform Nate. He gives me a questioning look. "Seriously?" he asks. I nod my head.

I put my hands over my ears as the fire alarm starts ringing. Oh my God, it's so fucking loud! The teachers on lunch duty yell directions at us to go out onto the football field and stand in straight lines. Pretty vague if you ask me. Within five minutes, every student attending Green Oak is outside on either the front or back field while firefighters barge into the school to take down wherever that fire was.

"I don't think this is a drill," I silently whisper to Nicole. She turns her head since I was behind and says, "I wonder what got burned." I was wondering the same thing, too. I was starting to see some smoke go through the windows that were open. According to the looks of it, the fire was near my locker. Some teachers go out and start asking the students questions. I can't really hear them.

When they get within hearing range, I hear them ask, "Who has locker D-15?!" Holy shit, that was my locker. I raise my hand and scream, "I DO! My locker's D-15!" The teachers rush over to me and say that I have to report to the principal's office. I ask them, "Can I bring my friend along with me?" They shake their heads as they walk me to the principal's office at the front of the school.

Oh no, there was a fire, it was my locker that was being questioned, and now I'm being escorted by a bunch of teachers to the principal's office? I think his name was Mr. McFall or something. Three minutes later, I find myself sitting in a big chair face to face with him.

"Jenny, do you know why you're here?" he asks me in that voice you use when you're questioning a kid who misbehaved.

"No sir, I'm not aware," I politely answer him.

"You are aware that there was a fire just now, correct?" he continues asking me.

"Yes, I am. I'm also aware that it has something to do with my locker," I continue being polite.

"Yes, it does. There was a ring of fires on the 1-20 D section by your homeroom. Yours was labeled the source," he informs me.

All color washes away from my face. "You mean, everything in there's burned down?" I ask him.

"Everything. We want to know, do you know anybody that would do this to you? Anyone with grudges?" he asks.

My face gets into that special glare of mine. I grit out, "Morgan and Angela."