Hello guys. I'm going to make you feel more or less annoyed with Gina for a little while so here's chapter thirteen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It's been almost three weeks, and Gina and Nick are closer than ever. They have been texting each other non-stop. Nick would send her cute text messages in the morning, and their conversation would continue until late at night. He would call her, and they would talk on the phone for hours. He would take her out on dates on Fridays and the weekends, and shower her with gifts and flowers.

Gina can't be any happier. She feels like walking on a cloud all day long. She texts him if she's bored in class. Whenever she's frustrated or sad about something, he's the first person she calls to talk to. On Glee club, she would sing sweet love songs and think about him. If she's not up singing, she'll be busy texting him in the corner. Nick has become some kind of addiction to her; he always gives her the best compliments, always makes her laugh, and always makes her feel special. Whenever she's with Nick, she feels like the luckiest girl in the entire world.

She doesn't even care about her friends' rejection to this relationship anymore. At one point, Mr. Schuester himself finally asked her about Nick. But when she told him that there was nothing illegal about their relationship, Mr. Schue backed off and left the topic alone. Whenever the kids on Glee club starts ranting about how bad of an influence Nick is to her, she just opens one of his messages and she would feel a whole lot better.

Nick is her drug. She wants him. She needs him. And there isn't anyone who's going to stop her.

Gina is giggling over a text Nick has just sent her when Ryder shows up. He leans on the locker next to hers and peeks at the message.

Gina pulls the phone away from his view, cheeks blushing. "What?"

"I see you're still texting Mr. Warbler," he says, clearly disliking this situation.

"You know that I still do, Elmo." Gina scoffs. "What's up?"

A smile appears on Ryder's face. "Guess what? G.I. Joe 2's premiering this weekend. How cool is that? I saw the trailer and all that, and it looks wicked. So I'm thinking, we should go to the premiere, like, get tickets, then we'll buy large tubs of popcorn and it'll be lots of fun, and –"

"Oh, geez, Ryder, I'm sorry," Gina says, a guilty smile on her face. "Um, Nick kind of asked me out this weekend. We're… we're going to see G.I. Joe too."

Ryder's face falls. "Oh," he says dumbly.

"He's got tickets, he knows someone and he's got them, so I couldn't say no," she explains. "And I mean, I want to see it too, so it was good with me." She puts a hand on Ryder's arm. "Maybe we can go together? The three of us? As long as you promise not to kill Nick I think we'll be fine."

"Nah," Ryder shrugs her hand off. "It's cool. You know what they say, right? Three's a crowd." He forces a smile, turns around, and leaves.

When Marley sees Ryder walking down the corridor with his head down, she knows that something is wrong with him. She closes her locker and walks up to him.

"You okay, Ryder?" she asks.

Ryder gives him a bleak smile. "Yup, good. What's up, Marls?"

Marley raises her eyebrows. "You don't look very good," she points out. "Come on, Ryder. Tell me. What's wrong?"

Ryder sighs. "Guess I'm not a very good liar, huh?" he grimaces. "It's Gina." He tells her then, of what had just happened a few minutes ago. Marley listens to his story with a sinking heart. When he's done, he looks at her with his puppy eyes, and Marley feels like she can't breathe. "I'm trying to do what you said, about letting things be, but I'm still not sure about this, Marls. I still can't trust that guy."

Marley bites her lip; it kills her to see Ryder upset like this. That Gina, she thinks. How can she waste someone as good as Ryder?

You did too, Marley Rose. Remember?

Shut up, stupid head.

Say something. You need to say something to make him feel better. "I'm sure you'll get it soon," she finally says, feeling like a complete idiot. "And I think Gina's going to be fine. Things have been going well for them up until now, right?"

Ryder sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I guess," he mumbles. "It's just that she's been missing Glee club recently just to go out with him. She nearly missed the entire week of our guilty pleasure assignments. I'm getting kind of worried."

He looks so cute when he's worried, Marley thinks. I wonder if this is how he looked when I fainted and he was worried about me. "Maybe she just thought that she could skip the guilty pleasure assignment because Mr. Schue didn't even assign it," she tries to reason with him. "I'm sure she'll be back on Glee next week. Mr. Schue will be in tomorrow, so I heard."

"Yeah, l hope so," Ryder says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Um, I got to get to class," he points to the Geography classroom on his left. "I'll see you on PE later, okay, Marley?"

"Yeah, see you later." Marley waves him goodbye. He smiles before disappearing into Geography class.

Marley takes a deep breath before turning around to go to Biology. She'll see Jake there, but she wishes she had taken Geography so she could walk into that class with Ryder.

On her way to class, she pulls out her pink notebook, and starts writing again.