I have been on the longest hiatus EVER! I'm so sorry, but college is taking up all my free time. I'm writing this chapter and possibly one for my other story in hopes that you all are still reading.

There's something in this chapter that makes the wait kinda worth it, but I'm not gonna say what just yet...

The three of us sat there for ten minutes before Audrey finally spoke. "We just leaked a video of Emma losing her virginity to Will…"

"We didn't just leak it, we leaked it to the entire high school," I said, still staring at Noah's desktop. "Oh my god, the entire high school has a video of Emma losing her virginity and it's our fault!"

"This is so bad! So, so, so bad!" Noah said, trying to backspace even if it wasn't doing anything. "I swear I didn't mean to do that, it uploaded on its own."

"Yeah, we all saw it. Emma's gonna be devastated," I said, looking at the two of them finally. "We just singlehandedly ruined her life, oh my god. There's no going back from this."

After we realized there was nothing we could do, we loaded into Noah's car. He continued to rant about how impossible it was, but Audrey and I ignored him. I wasn't really friends with Emma, but I would hate to lost my virginity and have a video of it streamed to every kid with a cellphone and internet access.

After he dropped off Audrey, Noah just drove around with me in the passenger seat. We didn't talk, we just listened to the music playing quietly in the background. We were both thinking of everything happening in Lakewood right now, too much for anyone to handle.

"I know you probably don't want to, but you can always talk to me about Riley," I sighed, chewing on my lip. "I totally understand if you don't want to, it's pretty intense stuff. I'm also probably not the best person to talk to about grieving, but… I'll still listen."

"No, it's okay. You're my best friend, I can talk to you," he said, brushing his hair out of his face absentmindedly. "I really liked her, but the more I think about it the more I realize it was more of an infatuation than genuine feelings. I know that's bad to say after what happened, but it's true."

"I get it, she payed attention to you and you mistook that for affection. I do the same thing sometimes," I told him honestly.

"I guess that was it, I just kind of feel bad," he said, glancing over at me. "I mean, we almost had sex and I didn't have genuine feelings for her. I'm basically in league with Jake."

"You are not, dork," I argued, turning to look at him seriously. "You're the sweetest boy I've ever met, you would do anything for your friends and that is so rare. I'm also almost positive you wouldn't have done anything with Riley when it came down to it. You're too nice, you probably would've thought you were taking advantage of her."

"I'm so glad you're in my life, Gwen," he said, looking at me with flushed cheeks.

I felt my eyebrows knit together in confusion; that was really weird, even for Noah.

Jackson drove me to school the next morning and all he could talk about was Emma's leaked video. I put in my earbuds after I heard him say "tits" four times because the only other option was to throw myself out of the moving car. I picked the earbuds because dad would probably be mad if I got a medical bill of that size.

I ran into school as soon as the car stopped and saw Noah waiting for me by my locker, but Audrey wasn't in sight. I looked at Noah with my eyebrows raised and he pointed to the end of the hall. Audrey was talking with Emma, probably telling her we released the video by accident and apologizing. I bet she was even making yet another joke about how she was a viral star a few days ago.

"Wow, everyone's talking about the video. We're the worst," I sighed as I opened my locker to get my books. "I still can't believe Nina was smart enough to encrypt that file with whatever made it leak."

"Did you just use the word encrypt in a sentence?" Noah asked with raised brows.

"Maybe... What about it?" I asked, pursing my lips flirtatiously at him.

Audrey walked up to us and immediately felt the tension between us. "What did I just walk into?"

"Nothing, how's Emma?" Noah asked, shaking his head briefly before looking down at Audrey. "Is she going to ignore us for the rest of our lives?"

"No, she's more upset that the video was taken. She's looking for Will to see if he had any idea it existed," Audrey explained, but her eyebrows were still raised. "Why is there so much tension between the two of you right now?"

"He's a nerd and I know big, fancy, techy words," I replied, flipping my hair over my shoulder and strutting down the hallway. I stopped a couple feet away and looked behind me, "Are you coming to class, virgin?"

Audrey nodded her head in approval, I guess my flirting was getting better. Noah, on the other hand, almost fell over himself in his hurry to catch up with me. Maybe I wasn't the only one that had developed a crush in this friendship. And I wasn't talking about Bi-Curious and the Virgin…

Mr. Branson's room was tense to say the least when Noah and I walked in. Brooke was yelling at some poor girl that tried to sit in Riley's seat. I kind of agreed when she said that seat belong to her forever. It was wrong for anyone else to sit there, the girl hadn't even been dead a semester yet.

"Hey, Emma, again, I am just so exponentially sorry about that video," Noah said, opening his mouth and inserting his foot without realizing it. "I had no idea that it was gonna just mutate and spread like this crazy zombie sex virus."

"Wow, I apologize for how that came out," I said, placing my hand on Noah's arm and smiling at Emma. "We are super sorry, though. It's shitty that it happened to you, no one deserves that."

"It's cool, guys," she said, then realized she was lying. "I mean, it's not okay, but… you guys couldn't have known what was going to happen."

Mr. Branson walked into the classroom and cleared his throat, drawing the class' attention to him. "Okay, everybody, I know we're still reeling from Riley's death, but we do have learning to do."

The class all found their seats and turned to face the front of the room. I tried to ignore how many empty seats were in the classroom. Okay, there were only three, but the people that sat in them were now in a graveyard and that was too cryptic to imagine.

"Noah, I know you and Riley were scene partners," Mr. Branson continued.

"Uh, yeah, I-I think I'm just gonna sit this one out," Noah said sadly, rubbing the back of his neck when everyone looked at him. "If that's okay…"

"I understand, that's fine, but the rest of us will resume our scene work next week," Mr. Branson replied. "Let's get back to Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. It's a classic tale of hypocrisy, misogyny, and female oppression."

That was basically still the world today and it left a nasty taste in my mouth. 165 years later and those were still three words to describe the world.

"Mr. Branson, seriously? With all the cyber-bullying and GIFs and mayhem going down…" Jake interjected. "Who cares?"

My phone vibrated in the pocket of my backpack, but I didn't reach to get it. I wanted to see how Mr. Branson handed Jake's ass to him this time. It was always pretty entertaining to watch.

"Actually, Jake, it's very relevant," he replied, smiling jovially as he leaned back against his desk with his arms crossed. "See, the birth of Hester Prynne's illegitimate child led to her being essentially outed and cyber-bullied, Puritan style. It just takes nine months instead of nine seconds."

"Exactly," Jake smirked, checking his phone screen and glancing back at Emma and Will. "Or three minutes, right?"

Will jumped up from his desk in a pure testosterone fueled rage and grabbed Jake's collar. "I swear to God, if you don't shut the hell up, I'm going to make you."

"Will, stop! It's enough," Emma shrieked as the class watched the scene unfolding.

I glanced over at Noah to see if he was enjoying this as much as I was and saw him look away quickly. What the heck was happening in that boy's head recently? It wasn't like our usual friendship and I wasn't too sure if I liked it or not.

"Emma, are you okay?" Mr. Branson asked after he broke up the fight and sent the boys back to their seats.

"No, uhm, I'm not okay," she replied shakily. "I know that our thoughts are all with the friends that we've lost. I just wanted to remind everyone that there's a candlelight vigil downtown tonight at seven o'clock. I hope that all of you will make it."

Class dismissed pretty soon after that and everyone made a beeline for the door. I stayed back and linked arms with Noah. Audrey was already gone and I figured she was dealing with her own drama so I didn't pry.

"I feel like we're in a shitty TV show with crazy unrealistic plot twists to keep people watching," I said, walking into the cafeteria.

"That is very true, my friend," he amended, taking his tray and following me over to our usual table. "So, do you want to be my date to the vigil tonight? I can't skip out on another one."

"Did you seriously just ask me to be your date to your ex-girlfriend's candlelight vigil?" I asked, eyeing him over my yogurt cup.

His face largely resembled a tomato when he covered it with his hands in embarrassment. "That's totally what I just did. Oh my God, just when I think my lame-dom has hit rock-bottom, I find a pick axe and dig deeper."

"This vigil is going to be so sucky," Audrey said, sitting down at the table and making both of us jump. "Okay, what's up? I've scared both of you twice today and it's only lunch time."

Noah and I looked at each other and immediately looked away. "There's nothing wrong, we're being normal. Maybe you're the one that's being weird, Audrey."

I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd done something to ruin mine and Noah's friendship. Sitting on his lap and looking at him seductively ruined everything. I took advantage of him in his heightened emotional state and now he didn't know how to act around me. Oh my God, I was freakin' Jake Fitzgerald!

"Dude, what's happening right now in Gwen-Land?" Audrey asked, snapping her fingers in front of my face and making me jump. "The bell rang and you didn't move…"

"I'm fine, I was just thinking about the lit project. Will and I have zero percent done," I made up on the spot. "My bad, I'm just a little scattered right now."

I stood up and headed back into the school, tossing out my trash as I went. Maybe geography would help me focus my mind. Or maybe I would have an epiphany about the Noah situation. I don't know, I'm just grasping at straws at this point.

As soon as classes were over, I went to my locker to stash my books inside like usual. Noah was standing in front of it, wringing his hands nervously. Dammit, this couldn't be good for either of us.

"I'm driving you home," he told me, not leaving much room for me to argue with him.

"Uhm, okay?" I replied, shoving all my things including my backpack inside of it and shutting it.

The walk to the parking lot was really stiff and awkward, something the two of us never were when we were together. I severely ruined everything between us, there was no coming back from me attacking him in the floor of the comic book store.

"Gah!" he groaned, hitting his head against his hands that were resting on the steering wheel. "Why are we so awkward? What happened? I don't understand. Am I missing something?"

To heck with it, I'm just gonna dive in head first. "I figured it was because I attacked you at the store when you were in a heightened emotional state. It wasn't very fair of me."

I was staring out the windshield instead of looking at Noah. The thought of looking at him AND saying that made me want to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. A girl could only do so much before she spontaneously combusted in front of her best friend and the object of her affection. Especially if her feelings weren't returned.

"You attacked me? That's not exactly how I remembered it," he replied, also studying the road instead of looking at me. "I remember it like you coming over, making me laugh, and being a good friend."

Friend. Wow, even if I didn't believe in the implication of the term "friend zone" this sucked royally.

"Good, I was worried it was making things weird between us so I made things weird between us. I'm just a weird person," I said, pulling my knees up and sitting my chin on them. "I'm sorry for making things weird."

"Is there a world record for the amount of times someone said the word 'weird' in a sentence? If there is, I think you may have just won," he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye and smirking. "I like that you're weird, I'm weird too."

My dad and stepmom didn't question where I was going when I left the house in all black. They just said to remember curfew. That basically sums up our entire relationship at this point, it was probably too late for me to extend the olive branch now. I'd already made them think I didn't want to be a part of their family… and I still wasn't sure I did.

"Do you ever not wear green?" Noah asked, pinching my scarf and raising his brows. "I mean, it's a nice color and all, but it's the only color you ever wear."

"Olive green is a very nice complimentary color. It also looks good with my winter tone," I replied sassily, knocking his hand away with the back of mine. "You're wearing a printed t-shirt with a hoodie to a vigil. Why am I the one getting the third degree, fashion police?"

"There's the Gwen that I know and love. I missed her," he sassed back, signaling as he turned into Audrey's driveway.

The vigil had most of Lakewood's residents in attendance, but the three of us found a place to stand pretty easily. Emma and Brooke were walking around with boxes of candles, giving the three of us ours without saying a word. The entire situation was silent in a grieving kind of way that a funeral home was during a service. Funeral homes made me shiver, they also made me thinking of breaking vases and podiums…

"Hey, are you okay? You've got that look of pre-meltdown," Noah whispered, leaning in closer to me.

"Yeah, he's right," Audrey agreed, wrapping her arm around my waist.

I shook my head and righted my hat for something to do with my shaking hands. "I'm okay, tonight isn't about me and my baggage. It's about remembering kids that died way too young."

"Riley was six when her family moved to Lakewood. She was super tiny and completely silent," Emma's voice rang through the group and made everyone turn to look at her. "For the first couple days in our class, I was convinced that she didn't speak English, so this one day I tried speaking to her very loudly, thinking in my six year old brain that maybe that would help. And then this one day, she just… turned to me and she said…"

Emma's eyes were wild as she scanned the crowd of mourners. Something told me this wasn't a grief thing. She looked like she was seeing something the rest of us weren't and I craned my neck to see if I could see it too. I chewed my bottom lip when I realized there was nothing there, she was seeing something completely on her own.

Noah slipped away from the two of us and took Emma's place at the podium. "Uh, I think Emma's point was Riley got over her shyness. I mean, I know that I would never had had the nerve to go up to someone as beautiful as her. But I'm so damn glad that she came up."

After that I stopped listening to him. I know it's awful and selfish and I'm probably going to hell because of it, but I couldn't listen to him talk about how beautiful another girl was. I leaned against Audrey, acting like I was listening to him anyway.

"So I figure you two talked?" she asked, picking up on my discomfort almost instantly. "Judging by his eulogy, I'm assuming you didn't tell him you're in love with him."

"I don't think that's ever going to happen," I replied, skipping the denial because I knew it was pointless. "He sees me as a friend and there's nothing I can do to change that."

"That's not necessarily true, G," she said, trying to be subtle and not give anything away. "If you're really in love with him, don't give up. People aren't around forever, nothing is."

Damn, there goes Audrey dropping truth bombs that put everything into perspective. No day was guaranteed, especially here in the teen murder capital of the world. Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but I'm sure it got my point across.

"Superman wears a turtle neck now, there are no rules when it comes to movie-comic book adaptions," I said, walking with Audrey from class.

"Ugh, don't even get me started!" she replied, equally as disgusted as I was. "I mean, if they ever put the Hulk in bike shorts, I'm officially done."

"But they're so stretchy!" I giggled, making Audrey burst into peals of laughter along with me.

Noah appeared out of nowhere and grabbed both of our arms. He drug us into an empty hallway before he let us go. I'm sure my face was full of confusion and annoyance because he quickly started explaining himself.

"Audrey, take out your phone," he instructed. "Now download the language arts homework from the school server."

"Why?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in suspicion.

"Just trust me," he replied, pushing his fingers through his hair and eyeing me. "Just wait, I'm going to blow your minds."

"What the what? You're in the NSA?" she asked a couple seconds later. "This is crazy."

"What's crazy? What's happening?" I cried, eager to be let in on the situation. "Was there more homework I didn't do? I have a super-flaky partner, I can't get any zeros because I'm going to fail that project."

Both of them ignored my rant and Noah quickly started explaining what Audrey found. "That video of Emma looked like it was from a webcam, so I Tron-ed my way into the root directory and I found some pretty nasty malware.

"Lets you access webcams, security systems, phones…" he trailed off, waiting for the two of us to catch up.

"And it's attached to our language arts homework?" Audrey asked.

"Mr. Branson's the one killing everyone?" I gasped, placing all the pieces together.

"Not necessarily, but I do think he's a pawn," Noah replied, eager to explain what he'd thought about all night instead of sleeping. "I think Nina was using him, that he's innocent of doing things other than sleeping with underage students… but that's just a hunch."

"That's an unholy alliance if I've ever heard of one," Audrey quipped, making me nod my head in agreement.

"Exactly, and I want to go check his room out," Noah said, heading down the hall and giving us no choice but to follow.

"You two go ahead, I have to go deal with something," Audrey said, going the other way down the hall suspiciously.

I nodded before jogging after Noah, rolling my eyes when he actually stopped outside the door instead of going in. "You're brave enough to hack into a server but doors render you immobile? Found you Kryptonite, Superman."

I walked into the room and looked around, but nothing looked any different than it did when we were in class. Then I looked at the desk and saw Mr. Branson's laptop sitting on it: JACKPOT! I hurried over and opened it, clicking around a bit until it woke up.

"Gwen! You can't just invade a man's laptop!"

"Oh, please! He's invading everybody's everything," I shrieked, brushing off his chiding.

"Okay, fine, but let me do it," he said, coming over and standing beside me. "Okay, yeah, here's the malware. Hold on, there are two other IDs. It looks like his student aids also had access."

"Let me guess: Tyler and Nina?" I said, even though I already knew the answer. "And what about this semester…?"

"Riley," he breathed. "Nina, Tyler and Riley."

"Maybe they all knew his dirty little secret and he killed them to keep it under wraps."

I heard footsteps coming down the hallway and knew it had to be Mr. Branson. I mean, who else would it be when you had luck like Noah and I did? I knew I had to think on my feet and made a rash decision.

I maneuvered my body onto the desk and pulled Noah in front of me. Without giving him time to think about what I was doing, I yanked his mouth to mine.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement, so I quickly whispered against his lips. "If you don't play along, it's not going to be very convincing."

He nodded and timidly held my hips so I took control of the kiss. I held the back of his neck and tilted my head, trying to make it look like we were in the middle of an intense make out session. I was probably pushing my boundaries when I moved to deepen the kiss, but Noah let me do in easily.

I had just carded my hands in his hair when someone cleared their throat. Noah bolted back from me and immediately started ruffling his hair. I slipped off the desk and tried to right my t-shirt, anything to make it look like we were embarrassed instead of scared of getting caught.

"Uhm, we were looking for you to talk about Noah's new scene partner," I said, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "I was trying to convince him he needed to do it."

"Well, everybody's paired up already, but I'm sure somebody would be open to a dramatic threesome," Mr. Branson smirked, looking at the two of us.

That made my skin absolutely crawl in disgust. Even if Noah and I were going at it on his desk, he had no right to say that to us as an educator. I stopped liking him that very moment and didn't see that changing any time soon.

"Noah?" he asked, shaking me out of my anger. "Are you up for it? I'm sure Gwen would love to add you to her group."

"Uh, yeah, I'll definitely think on it. Thanks, Mr. B," Noah stammered, making me roll my eyes.

I grabbed his hand and yanked him out of the classroom. I didn't want to be around that creep any longer than I had to be. We made it out to his car before I remembered what I'd done and felt embarrassment filling my stomach.

"I am so sorry about attacking you again! I thought on my feet and that was the first one," I apologized, immediately getting stutter and sweaty.

"Uhm, no, it wasn't an attack. It was a very, uh, smart way to cover our tracks," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking anywhere but at me. "Raspberry?"

I raised my eyebrows and asked, "Huh?"

"Your lip gloss. Is it raspberry?" he asked, finally risking a glance at me and immediately looking away when he caught my eye.

"Uhm, yeah, it's raspberry pomegranate," I replied awkwardly.

"It's nice, very sweet," he cringed. "God, that was terrible. I'm gonna be The Virgin forever."

That made me genuinely laugh and wrap my arm around his shoulders. "It's okay, we're going to be The Virgins forever together."

So am I forgiven for being MIA for so long?