Disclaimer: I own nothing.

AN: This is shorter than usual, sorry for the wait. Just had a writing funk.

This flashback is still narrated by Spencer, it just has a different feel to it, so I would appreciate feedback. The next chapter should be up soon. (I mean it this time).

Chapter 32

10th Grade:

Stacey, Carmen and I had this tradition where the three of us would walk to a small 50s esque diner every Saturday after one of Glen's basketball games. Since my Mom forced me to go and support my brother, the three of us decided to make a routine of meeting at Pop's on Saturday's and hanging out. Glen usually went off with Aiden, Madison and Ashley and my parents wouldn't come for fear of intruding.

I really cherished the few Saturdays in Sophomore and Junior year when the three of us got together and talked about anything and everything. Carmen had this thing where she got into the habit of ordering the same meal every time we went. Chocolate Chip pancakes with a side of bacon and a glass of chocolate milk. Stacey and I would always find it hilarious, and joke with her about trying something new. She never did though, always the same meal. Needless to say Carmen usually got a sugar high by the time we finished breakfast.

I'd always sit on one side of the bright red and plastic booth with Carmen and Stacey on the other. Now, looking back I realize those were probably the first expressions of their feelings for each other. Sitting together, knees brushing and legs touching. I was aware of it, yet not. It's like one of those nagging feelings in the back of your mind that you're not fully conscious of until looking back in retrospect.

Once we were there, hiding from the heat in the diner's air conditioning. It had been Glen's last game of the season. It was also the year I came out to my friends, and the year the rumors about me had been crazy hectic. I had been majorly upset after the game, something small had set me off. Something completely unimportant. But in reality it was a culmination of so much pressure at school, the amount of negative attention I was getting sick and tired of it.

I had ended up crying, I remember that, I was in the girl's bathroom at school crying and my parents had already left. Glen was off with his friends. All I had was Carmen and Stacey, who were beyond understanding. They simply helped me clean off my face and pull myself together before we went to the diner and sat in our booth and ordered. I loved that they knew that they knew me so well that the smallest gesture made the greatest impact.

Carmen and Stacey never brought up the elephant in the room that day, we spent almost two hours just sitting there talking. We joked about nonsense. Carmen threw a napkin at me when I teased her about some non important thing and that started a napkin toss between the three of us. I couldn't be happier that I had such great friends. That they were there for me and made me feel better. Like nothing was too big for us to handle. We were the three musketeers, the golden trio. When everyone else had succumbed to a high school hierarchy, we had stayed the same and grown closer and stronger. We were invincible and nothing would tear us apart.

But it turns out the very thing that made us invincible was our weakness. How did things get so messed up? Is there ever a happy medium? Or do things have to be separated by some invisible entity? Can two opposites collide without a massive eruption or are they meant to be separated for a reason?

Can't I have the people I love and the person I'm falling in love with, or do I have to choose?