Thank you to everyone who reviewed, telling me to not delete this story! You've inspired me to write a longer chapter than normal, and I won't delete this as long as I know someone out there wants me to continue.

The next morning, I woke up at the sound of my alarm and didn't even contemplate destroying it. If Lissa had been awake, she would have been proud of me. Or had a heart attack from the shock. Probably both.

Speaking of Lissa, I hadn't had a lot of time with her lately. Yeah, I roomed with her, but pre-training, I'd had down time after classes, too. It was weird. We were so close, but without time together, I had no idea what was going on on Lissa's side of the spectrum. I would have to have a girl talk with her soon.

Actually, I hadn't talked to a lot of my friends in a while. The last time I'd really spoken to Mason had been when he'd asked me about the study group and called Dimitri a god. Never mind Mia, Eddie, Adrian, and Jill. The last time I'd seen Jill was last week in the halls, since she was only a junior. Eddie? I had class with him, but that hardly counted. Adrian didn't have any classes with me. And Mia I'd seen last night at dinner as well, but I only really saw her at mealtimes anymore. It was kind of a shame, since Mia was one of those people you either loved or hated.

Or, in my case, first one and then the other.

Mia had transferred to St. Vlad's about two years ago, and at first, we'd had close to nothing to do with her. It wasn't like we didn't like her. We just didn't really care either way. That had changed once Mia had started dating Aaron Drozdov, Lissa's ex, who still pined after Lissa. It was an eruption waiting to happen.

And it did. Mia began hating Lissa, and then when I'd reacted, I was added to her hit list, and she to mine. She pranked us and tried to spread vicious rumors about us, and we'd (or, really, I'd) retaliated by doing much the same thing. It was probably the most entertainment that the rest of St. Vlad's had had in months. We all assumed it stemmed from jealousy.

And then, one day, Mia had lost control and began attacking her family, who had been killed in a car crash. She had especially insulted Andre, Lissa's brother, whom Lissa had looked up to and loved dearly. Lissa had also, in a rare show of control loss, exploded, demanding to know "What the hell your problem is, bitch!"

Mia responded by shattering Lissa's perfect view of her brother. As it turned out, Andre had dated and dumped Mia in a week; she'd later found out that going out with her was part of a bet to see who could hook her first. She'd really liked Andre, too.

And just like that, we were friends. It's hard to hate someone after finding out something like that.

I got down to the gym in ample time. Dimitri was, as usual, reading and listening to his crap music. He showed no sign of having been affected by last night's events. I was glad.

"Go run," he told me, like he did every morning. By now, I'd stopped complaining. Instead, i quickly stretched out and made my way to the track. To my surprise, he followed me and began jogging with me.

"What are you doing?" I asked. It came out harsher than I'd intended.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Running with you."

"Yeah, but why?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I have to stay in shape, too, you know."

Well, I couldn't argue with that.

We lapsed into a comfortable silence after that. I had been afraid that he would yell at me more today, but it seemed as though he wouldn't. Or, if he was planning on it, he'd do it later.

A few laps in, Mason ran by with Eddie and Adrian; all three were on cross country. He waved, smiling. Eddie threw an impish grin my way, and Adrian smirked and nodded in my direction.

Adrian and I were friends, but our relationship was complicated now. We had dated for some time, but I'd broken it off after I realized that there was no spark, and that we weren't really compatible. I'd figured that he'd move in quickly, and he usually did with girls.

Except he hadn't. He'd genuinely liked me, and I'd broken his heart. he probably knew it wouldn't last forever, but it hurt him all the same. He wouldn't talk to me for months. Eventually, he'd gotten over it, and we'd become friends again, but it wasn't as easy to be around each other as before.

He needed someone to sweep him off his feet. He needed someone that was compatible with him. He needed someone with whom it could work.

He needed someone who could love him for real, and i couldn't give him that. Still, we were good friends with a slightly awkward tinge, which was better than nothing.

I waved back at the three of them, slowing down slightly as I did so. Dimitri frowned.

"Rose, focus," he said, sounding annoyed. I immediately sped up again, not daring to risk any more of his disapproval.

He wasn't finished. "If I can't trust you to run without getting distracted, I don't think I can trust you to focus during training. "

"Sorry," I muttered.

When we got to the gym, I expected him to grab a ball cart and start me setting. But instead, he told me to go set against the wall again. Then, footwork.

"I thought you said we'd start actually playing today, Comrade," I complained.

"We are," he said. I glanced at the clock. Was he kidding?

"It's too late unless you want to skip conditioning," I pointed out.

He smirked. "I said today. I never said if it would be before or after classes."

"I'm assuming it's after, then?" I said, trying not to groan. He nodded.

"But we won't run or dive," he tacked on.

I was good with that.

During English, Jesse came up to me.

"Hey, Rose, are we in trouble?" he asked, looking a little nervous.

I raised both eyebrows. "I was caught in your dorm last night, shirtless and making out. What do you think?"

Actually, we weren't, but I knew that Dimitri was right: boys liked to brag, and Jesse was no exception. If I could keep Jesse from bragging...

He looked even more nervous. "Um, so...what's the punishment?"

I thought for a moment. Jesse looked truly scared, and from experience, he wouldn't keep his mouth shut if I simply asked him to. He wasn't easily persuaded unless he got some kind of benefit from the person. But judging from right now, he was easily intimidated, at least by Dimitri.

"Nervous?" I smirked.

He gulped. "I'm serious, Rose."

I smiled. "I can get you off the hook, but I need your cooperation."

"What? How?"

"Belikov's in charge of my punishment as he sees fit, since he hasn't gone to Kirova yet and he's my mentor. Since he hasn't said anything yet, you're safe for now. He's still thinking about whether he wants to handle you himself or if he wants to go to her. I can convince him to keep his mouth shut and not do anything to you, on one condition," I lied smoothly.

"Okay," he said.

"No one hears about what happened last night. And I mean no one. Not your next 'girlfriend', not Ralf, not even your diary. And believe me, I will find out if you say a word, since gossip spreads like wildfire around here. And if you say something...I might just go to Kirova herself and 'accidentally' let it slip that you've been using your bed for multiple purposes for the past year, and that you tried to force me into the same thing."

His eyes widened. "But I didn't!"

I grinned. "For all Di—Belikov knows, you did. And he likes me better than you. Who's she gonna believe, you or me with Belikov backing me?"

I could seriously be an actress.

Jesse gulped again, and nodded. "Fine."

I actually had the time to eat lunch with my friends today, since the teachers had all coordinated quizzes and I hadn't gotten any homework yet. When I did have homework, I had been forced to stay in the library to complete it so that I wouldn't have to stay up all night.

When I got there, though, I wasn't sure that it would be a good meal. Lissa was staring at me expectantly, an eyebrow raised. Mason was carefully avoiding eye contact with me, something that he hadn't been doing this morning. Eddie and Mia were, curiously, silent. Adrian was trying not to smirk. And a blonde girl with a gold tattoo of a lily on her cheek was watching me with curiosity.

I took a deep breath and sat down.

"So," said Lissa. "How was it?"

I swallowed, unsure of what to say. After all, I didn't want to start with saying that we'd been caught, but then again, I hadn't really enjoyed it enough to be completely unhappy that it'd been stopped.

"He drools too much," I shuddered.

Mia snorted. "You can say that again!"

Although it was sort of disgusting, I was glad that Mia agreed with me. In return for a rumor when she and Lissa were still embroiled in World War III, she had almost slept with Jesse in return for his agreeing to say that he'd slept with Lissa. It hadn't ever really taken effect, but Mia had regretted it ever since. It was nice to know she was viewing her almost-deflowering with lightheartedness, rather than beating herself up after all this time.

Eddie smirked. He and Mia had once dated, but it hadn't worked out. They were more suited to friendship than love. The breakup had come as almost a relief to both of them. Still, they were partners in crime, even now.

"I would say I agree with you two, but I have standards," he drawled.

Adrian snickered. "I would say I agree with you, but I'm straight," he said, directing a look at Eddie, who flushed after realizing his mistake.

Lissa cut in. "Seriously. What happened?"

"We didn't do much," I started, but before I could continue, the blonde girl interrupted me.

"Wait, what are we talking about here?" she looked confused.

"Oh! Rose, this is Sydney; Sydney, this is Rose," said Adrian.

Mia smirked. "You've seen Jesse Zeklos, right?" she asked. Sydney nodded. Mia's smirk become even more pronounced. "We're waiting for her to entertain us about how last night with Jesse went."

"Wait, you like Jesse?" Sydney asked, looking slightly repulsed.

I sat up. "No! God, no! He's...it's complicated. But I definitely do not like him. At all. Ew. My God."

Lissa raised an eyebrow. "So you accidentally agreed to hook up with him?"

"I did not agree to hook up with him! I said no sex, right? And I was tired, so I wasn't thinking straight. Plus, I got to blackmail him after we were busted, so it was all okay in the end...oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to say that."

"You were caught? And you blackmailed him? Wait, start over," said Eddie.

I took a deep breath. "We were only kissing—which, by the way, I would never like to do again—and then Belikov busted in on us. So he yelled at Jesse, who looked like he would crap his pants, and then took me out in the hallway and lectured me on responsibility."

"Yeah, but where did blackmail come from?" said Sydney.

"Wellll..." I drew out, "you know how Jesse likes to brag? I figured that once he got over his fear of getting in major trouble, he's start telling people that he hooked up with me. So I told him that Belikov was debating whether or not to handle his punishment himself or go to Kirova, but that I could get him to let us off, on the condition that no one ever would hear about it."

"Are you sure that that's enough to stop him?" asked Mia dubiously.

I grinned. "I also said that if he decided to start talking, I would 'accidentally' let it slip that he tried to force me into hooking up with him, and that I'd get Belikov to stand by me."

Even Lissa laughed. "I think his brains are located below his belt, since it would take an idiot to actually buy that."

Sydney pursed her lips. "While I usually think that blackmail is wrong," she said, "what you did was pretty funny."

I waited for Adrian to say something about his "little setter" and crime, but he never did. Instead, when I looked at him with both eyebrows raised, he was looking at Sydney with something in his eyes that I hadn't seen since...

Since the moment before I broke his heart.

A familiar wave of guilt crashed over me, but I ignored it. He was clearly attracted to Sydney, and I knew if wouldn't have worked anyway. If I could feel more strongly about Dimitri, who was illegal, than Adrian, who wasn't, then it was bound to happen sometime. And besides, it wasn't like I was unhappy about his moving on—on the contrary, I was relieved. I just felt bad about how it had ended, and how we had never really had the same easygoing relationship ever since.

Besides, it wasn't Adrian who made me feel like I was short of breath whenever he was around. It wasn't Adrian who had the ability to make me want to cry when he was disappointed in me.

"You," said Eddie, laughing, effectively snapping me out of my boy-related musings, "are a genius, Rose."

I laughed and nodded. "It took you that long to figure out, Castile?"

Adrian finally turned to look at me. I smiled lightly at him, then looked at Sydney, and back to him, winking. He blushed slightly.

Yes, it looked like I was.

When I got to the gym that afternoon Dimitri wasn't reading, nor was he playing his country/eighties stuff. Instead, he was sitting on the chair, apparently lost in thought. Well, at least he didn't seem to notice me coming into the gym.

When I got closer, though, I realized that he didn't look thoughtful. He looked sad. Really, really sad.

"Dimitri," I said, and he snapped out of it.

"Rose," he replied.

"Are you okay? You looked sad," I said.

He shook his head. "I'm fine. I just miss my family, that's all."

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he did miss his family. But I doubted he was telling the truth this time.

I gave him a look. "I'm sure you do, but that's not what you were thinking about."

He looked surprised at my refusal to accept his explanation. Clearly, he'd been expecting me to believe whatever he said.

"Of course it was," he sputtered unconvincingly.

"Yeah, and I'm a unicorn," I answered.

He sighed. "Fine. I was thinking about my best friend."

"Wouldn't that make you happy?" I asked, confused.

He paused. "He died in the same car crash that forced me to stop playing."

Oh.

When I didn't respond, he continued. "We had gone out to a party to celebrate graduation. He was the designated driver. He even volunteered for it. I saw him have one drink, but he wasn't a lightweight, so I didn't think it would be too much for him to drive. And it wasn't, until we had to drive through a small road through the woods. A deer darted out in front of the car, and he swerved straight into a tree. He was killed on impact. When the police tested his blood alcohol levels, it turned out that someone had poured grain alcohol into the punch he'd drunk. He wasn't drunk enough for us to notice, but he was definitely not sober enough to be able to think clearly on the road. And while the deer would have been a problem anyway, it would have been safer if he'd been sober."

I still didn't say anything.

Dimitri finally looked up, pain evident in his eyes. "If I had stopped him from drinking—"

I cut him off. "No."

"What?"

"Unless you knew that someone had decided to spike the punch with extra alcohol, there wasn't much you could have done. Don't blame yourself for this."

"But I could have stopped him from drinking."

"Would he have listened?"

Pause.

He sighed, eyes haunted. "Maybe not, but I should have said something."

"We all make mistakes, Dimitri."

He didn't say anything for a moment, looking down again. When he finally met my eyes a minute later, they has a gentleness to them that I hadn't seem until now.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"For not saying you're sorry. For making me talk about it."

I raised both eyebrows at the last comment. "You're saying that you haven't talked about it with anyone other than me?"

He shrugged. "No one realized that I was lying when I said I was fine." His eyes met mine, and something warm coursed through me.

"What was his name?" I suddenly asked, trying to change the subject before something happened.

He paused, seeming unsure of whether or not he should tell me.

"Comrade. Spill."

He sighed. "Ivan. Ivan Zeklos."

Recognition flared within me. "Jesse's a Zeklos," I said stupidly.

He nodded. "I know."

"Does he remind you of Ivan?"

Dimitri didn't respond to that, and I didn't push him. But I was sure that I was right: Jesse reminded him of Ivan. I was sure of it.

"That's why you didn't report what happened last night. Because Jesse and Ivan are similar enough that you'd feel guilty." I didn't bother phrasing it as a question.

Again, he didn't respond for a minute. When he spoke again, it was for an entirely different matter.

"Go stretch, do your wall sets, and do your footwork, Rose."

When I'd finally finished the boring stuff, he grabbed a ball cart.

"I want to see you actually set to a target, so let me get the hoop," he said, before running off again. When he came back, he was dragging a pole that had a metal hoop on the end. He put it a third of the length down the net and adjusted the height before directing me to stand in zone seven, the setter's spot. I did. He dragged another target—a larger hoop with a net at the end—on the left side of the court, almost out of bounds.

"I'm going to toss balls to you, and I want you to set them through the first hoop if they're within a range that you can get it through both. If you can't, then aim for the one with the net. The tosses won't be perfect, so you'll have to adjust."

It sounded easy enough.

Except two hours later, I realized it wasn't. He'd had me set outside, middle, and right side through the hoops, and it was a lot harder than I'd assumed. While the hoops seemed big enough, it was actually really hard to get the ball through even one of them.

Actually, with his tosses, it was a miracle to even touch the ball sometimes.

It didn't help that right after we were done with the hoops, he made me set him. Pressure much? He was versatile, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), so I had to set all three positions with him hitting. Not that the sets were good enough for him to truly smash. And then, of course, there was the conditioning.

When we finally stopped, I gulped down a full water bottle. "Couldn't you have eased me into it?" I asked, panting.

"No time," he said.

"We have six more weeks!"

"And most other players have had two years," he replied quietly. "I won't go easy on you. It won't make you better if I do."

"I'm just rusty." Even as I said it, I knew he was right. While I was letting my skills waste away, other players were honing them. It would be hard to me to build it back up.

"I'll have to extend practices. After today, it's clear that we still need to run and dive."

I groaned. "Do we have to?"

"You have great hands. Unfortunately, your feet aren't as great yet."

Sighing, I acquiesced, seeing as I was fighting a losing battle. "What's the time change, Comrade?"

"Come at 4:30 each morning instead of 5:00 and leave at 7:00 instead of 6:00 after classes. You'll miss dinner, most likely, but so will I. Luckily, the staff mess hall stays open even after they shoo everyone out, so you'll have to eat there with me. I can teach you verbally during mealtimes."

Eating with him sounded good, at least.

"Okay. But what time should I get down for dinner, then?"

"7:45 should be good."

I nodded. I didn't relish the idea of waking up even earlier than I already did, but I was improving. And I got to spend more time with him—

Shut up, Rose. He's your TEACHER, for God's sake.

"Dimitri," I said suddenly. He glanced up, an eyebrow raised.

"About Ivan...if you want to talk, I'll be here." I wasn't sure why I said what I did. But as I spoke, I realized the truth of my words, although I was well aware that I was treading on dangerous waters. You weren't supposed to get too close with teachers. Especially not the ones you had abnormally large crushes on.

But even now, I remembered all too clearly the tingles I felt whenever he was near me. I didn't remember ever feeling like that with other boys that I had liked. And I could distinctly remember how I understood him all too well, already.

All this, I realized, was just the tip of the iceberg. If this much could happen in two weeks, then the next few weeks would only add complications.

I was beginning to feel like Batman. There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.

But as I went to sleep that night, the only thing I could picture was a pair of deep brown eyes, lulling me into oblivion.

That quote is from The Dark Knight Rises, in case you're wondering. And yes, it IS amazing and you should go see it already if you haven't! What are you waiting for? Go!

Next chapter: enter...Christian! To those of you wondering, yes, I AM going to include her friends' separate storylines. However, some things will be different from the books, as you can tell from this chapter. I don't think I can handle certain plotlines, nor do I really want to stick too closely with the book, since I'd like to be somewhat original. Some main things will be the same, but I couldn't see this story covering the Adrian plotline, the Mia plotline, and several others effectively. So if something is different that you really wanted to see the same, sorry! But I really can't handle that much at this moment.

Also, school starts next week. I'll have volleyball every day after school, and when I don't, it'll be because I have a game. I'm also taking all honors classes as a freshman. So if updates become sporadic, sorry. I'll do my best, but I have a lot more time during summers than during the school year, especially during volleyball season.

R&R!