Happy Monday, lovelies! It's time for the first part of the Halloween chapter! I went kind of overboard, so the Halloweeny stuff will happen next chapter (hopefully). Also, if anyone's interested, I started a kind of prequel story to this. I don't know if I'll write more of it, but check it out if you're interested. See you again on Thursday, and don't be afraid to review! ~Shaymie

Lorin's POV

"I'm not going to school like this!" Alex's voice was slightly muffled by the bathroom door. I sighed. It was Halloween, a few days after John's birthday party, and everyone was in costume, because Herc would kill us if we didn't dress up. I was dressed as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, Herc was Disney's Hercules, John was a zombie (real original), Eliza was Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Peggy was a princess, Angelica was Susan B. Anthony, and Gil was Lancelot (complete with an actual suit of armor, which was going to be hell to wear around school). That left only Alex in need of a costume, which was how he ended up having his face painted by Darcy so he could be the cowardly lion.

"Alex, I'm sure it's fine," I said, as Gil murmured something threateningly in French. I sighed. I hated when Alex and Gil spoke French around each other. It made me feel left out. I regret taking Spanish as an elective instead of French. I had done it just to annoy Gil (and to have a class that John could give me answers in), but that only made him more determined to speak French around me more to annoy me.

"Stop being so dramatic," Darcy sighed, rolling her eyes as she texted her girlfriend, who I still hadn't met. She wasn't in costume yet since she was waiting until tonight to change into it. She was going to be Tinkerbell, saying that she wanted to put the last of the blonde in her hair to use before she had to dye it again. Her hair was like mine, a sandy brown, but she had dyed it blonde. I had suggested that she dye it an ombre, going from brown to blonde. She was considering it. "I did a good job. You look like a pretty cute lion."

"...Fine. But if anyone laughs at me, I'm taking the makeup off." I smiled and took a step back as I heard the lock click. Alex stepped out of the bathroom, running a hand through his hair, which wasn't in a ponytail for once. Darcy must have made him wear it down in order to sell the lion look more. I bit back a laugh. Darcy had done a good job with the limited amount of supplies (most of the makeup had been used on John) and time she had. Alex really did look like a lion, albeit a kind of sloppily put together one.

"You're lucky I love you, Lo."

School went on as usual, with everyone talking about what I had done with James and Maria. And maybe some gossip about Aaron Burr, the new kid. I had quickly learned to block them out, with some help from Maddie and his iPod. Herc and Alex managed to keep people away from me. I was sure that everyone would stop talking about me eventually.

I had been paired with Aaron to work on a project in English, an essay where we diagnosed a character in Macbeth with a mental disorder. Thankfully, I was actually able to talk to him. Group projects in the past had been awkward when I couldn't talk to my partners. Alex and Thomas spent a good five minutes trying to convince Mr. Conway to let them switch partners (Alex wanted to work with me, and Thomas wanted to work with Maddie, who was across the room, stuck with Samuel Seabury of all people) but our teacher denied their request. Which was how I ended up sitting next to a bickering Thomas and Alex, trying to get at least some work done with Aaron. Key word: trying. I had to keep breaking up their arguments, leaving Aaron to read by himself.

"If you two are going to keep arguing the half hour we have left of class, I swear to fucking Christ, you're both getting kicked out of the trick-or-treating party tonight," I glared at them as I shoved Maddie's iPod in my pocket. Mr. Conway was fine with us listening to music when we were working on stuff alone, but it was strictly prohibited for group work.

"But Lo, Jefferson-"

"Lorin, Hamilton-"

I slammed my hands on the desk as they started talking over each other and glanced over at Aaron, who was flipping through his textbook silently, his jaw set in irritation. If he had something to say, he clearly wasn't saying it. I gestured wildly to him. Why couldn't they be quiet like him?

"If you two idiots don't shut up and start reading quietly like Aaron, I will find a way to kick both your asses to Dunsinane. Sit down and read like good little boys! What could you have possibly started arguing about already, anyway?" They shared a glance at each other and shrugged. I raised an eyebrow. Now they decided to be quiet, after they had already caused a commotion in class? My face quickly grew scarlet as I realized that everyone was staring at us. Even Mr. Conway was staring, his hand hovering over the phone on his desk as he debated whether or not to call security.

"...We didn't know who should start reading." Thomas' voice was quiet as he looked down at his desk. Alex looked away too, his face reddening underneath the makeup. They had to be kidding. They were making all that noise because they couldn't decide who should be the first one to start reading? Were they planning on acting out the whole play? This was an English class, not theater!

"You are incorrigible." I huffed as I leaned back in my chair and started scanning my textbook. I couldn't wait for our class trip to the library. At least there, they couldn't yell at each other. Angelica would make sure of that.

"I don't know the meaning of the word," Thomas grinned as he opened his textbook and started reading the opening lines of the play. Alex grumbled angrily in Spanish (just how many languages did he speak?!) as he started scribbling their names on top of the paper. I only understood a few words (and they weren't pretty) and sighed as I found the correct page in the textbook. I had already read Macbeth (and most of Shakespeare's works) because Angelica had bought me a collection of Shakespeare's plays for my birthday last year. Not the most exciting of presents, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

I sighed again as Alex broke the lead of his mechanical pencil and flicked it at Thomas, getting it tangled in his hair. This was going to be a long two weeks.

"Where's Alex?" Eliza asked as she sat down at our lunch table. She smoothed down her blue dress and looked around the table. Everyone who had second lunch was here-me, her, Peggy, and Herc-except for him. I shrugged. He was probably off doing some unnecessary extra credit work. There was rarely a time when he wasn't writing or doing homework or something.

Peggy hummed and started to play with the ribbon on one of my pigtails. I took a few bites of food, doing my best to force it down my throat since Herc was here. When he had brought my costume over the other day, he was complaining about how much he had to adjust it because of how much weight I had lost. For the past few days, Herc or Alex had been watching over me, making sure that I ate.

"You shouldn't starve yourself to lose weight," Herc said as he started pulling in the edges of my dress. "You're not fat by any means, Rin. If anything, it's good that you have some meat on you."

"I'm not starving myself." Herc snorted and rolled his eyes. My voice was probably anything but convincing. But I really wasn't starving myself. Starving myself would mean that I wasn't eating anything. I just happened to have less of an appetite lately. I couldn't eat as much as I used to without James' voice popping into my head.

"Is Alex calling you fat? Just because the guy's a twig doesn't mean-"

"No, no! It's not him. If anything, he's been trying to get me to eat more. I just… Haven't felt like eating much lately. I can feel myself getting bigger with every bite I take. It's… It's James. Sometimes I can still hear his voice talking to me, telling me that I shouldn't eat so much." My voice was practically non-existent at this point. I hated telling my friends about James because then they'd get mad. I knew they weren't mad at me. But as a part of my so-called "therapy" (thanks to Angelica), I was supposed to tell them if I remembered anything he had done to me.

Like I could forget. I wasn't a damn amnesiac. I remembered everything James and Maria had done to me. How could I not, when there were marks all over my body as proof? I remembered all of it on a nightly basis when I was wracked with nightmares. Even Alex couldn't keep all of the nightmares away, and he spent almost every night with me, talking about random crap until I fell asleep. Not that I could sleep much. I only slept for a couple hours at a time until I woke up screaming. I hated being a bother to everyone, waking them up every few hours or going into yet another stupid panic attack. Which was why I started locking Alex out. I couldn't keep bothering him like that. He had to be done with me.

"I'll take better care of myself. I promise," I whispered as Herc finished with my costume. The apprehensive look on his face as he helped me step down from the stool told me that he didn't believe me. I didn't even know if I believed me. The last time I had said those words were to John when he was trying to convince me to break up with James.

John… According to Mattie, he didn't remember the end of his birthday party. Which meant that he didn't remember what he had said to me. He didn't remember telling me that he liked me. Everyone was telling me to just act like nothing had changed until he was ready to tell me his feelings while he was sober. I couldn't help but feel like some part of it was wrong. Shouldn't I let him down sooner rather than later?

I looked up as Peggy knocked on the table in front of me and found myself looking into the dark, angry eyes of my boyfriend, who had a new bruise forming on his face. Aaron was standing next to him, awkwardly looking away. I sighed. What kind of trouble had Alex gotten himself into? Couldn't he go one day without getting into a fight?

"Before you say anything, Seabury started it," Alex said angrily, shoving his hands into his pockets. He huffed and brushed some hair from his face. I frowned. I thought I had told him to leave Seabury-and everyone-alone. I didn't want him to get into anymore fights. He'd end up getting himself suspended or something! "He wouldn't shut up and I wanted to wipe that stupid grin off his face."

"I had to pull him away before he did anything too bad. I figured you'd be the only person who could talk some sense into him," Aaron sighed, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here. Then again, he always looked like that. I hadn't seen him talk to anyone else willingly. He was quiet, probably even quieter than me. He always sat on the sidelines in English class as Thomas and Alex got into heated debates. Alex had called him irritating, saying that he never spoke his mind in debate club and just went along with the winning side.

"Alexander, what have I told you about getting into fights?" He flinched at the use of his full name. I hadn't called him that since before we started dating.

"...You said that they're dumb and immature," he murmured, the fire dissipating from his eyes as he looked at me. He squeezed in between me and Eliza and wrapped an arm around me. I sighed as I leaned into his comforting touch. "I'm sorry, Lo. I've been trying not to get in anymore fights, but then he talked about you and I lost it."

"I don't want you getting hurt trying to defend my honor, Alex. I'm fine. It doesn't bother me as much as it did a few days ago-"

"Hamilton!" There was a collective groan across the table (and even Aaron winced) as George King (the third) approached us, dragging behind a slightly beaten up Samuel Seabury. Well, at least he wasn't anywhere near as bad as Lee, who refused to look anyone in the face. Alex grinned cockily at Seabury, but quickly sobered up when I nudged him. Now wasn't the time to do anything that could instigate another fight. "What is the meaning of this? How could you attack my poor Sammy? You're lucky he's decided to not tell the principal-who's my father, by the way."

"He was talking about my girlfriend," Alex said calmly, his arm on me tightening slightly. I looked away from King's condescending grin. Besides Lee, he was one of the people who talked about me the most. It was a miracle Alex or Herc hadn't killed him yet. I was surprised it wasn't him Alex hadn't tried to fight.

"My Sammy would never do anything like that!" King spoke with a mock-offended tone, but the glint in his eyes said that he was anything but. If anything, he seemed like a proud father, commending his child on a job well done as he patted Seabury on the back. "Right, Sammy?"

"Your Sammy seems keen on doing whatever you do," Herc muttered into his can of soda. I noticed that King and Seabury were dressed almost identical, albeit with inverted colors. Did they call each other to plan their outfits or something? It was a bit creepy. I noticed a flash of anger spread across Alex's face and tore a blank piece of paper from Peggy's open notebook, waving a hand dismissively at her scoff. It was just one page, no big deal. I grabbed the pen from Alex's ear and scribbled out a quick message.

Let it go, Alex. Let other people be cynical. You don't have to bring a gun to a knife fight. Let them say what they want. They're idiots. Just apologize and move on. I slid the note into his hand and watched his face as he read it. He seemed to go through a variety of emotions before looking down at me with nothing but sadness in his eyes. I leaned forward and kissed his bruised cheek.

"Lo-"

"Please." It took everything I had to force out the word in front of Seabury and King, who I had never spoken in front of before. My anxiety was at an all-time high. What if he didn't listen to me and fought King anyway? He could get suspended, or even worse expelled, considering that King's dad was the principal. I didn't think I'd be able to handle school without him.

"I'm… sorry, Samuel. I shouldn't have punched you… Or tackled you to the ground… Or kicked you in the nuts." Alex's voice was stiff as he spoke and there was just a glimmer of unrestrained hate in his eyes as he looked at Seabury, who was grinning down at him. There was a tense silence before he sighed dramatically and grudgingly accepted Alex's apology. I breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away with King.

"Thank you for being the bigger man." I kissed Alex again and looked over at Aaron, who was walking off in the opposite direction of King and Seabury. I'd have to thank him later. I was pretty sure that if it wasn't for him, Seabury would have ended up far worse and told the principal or a teacher. Then again, maybe not. He would hate to admit that he had gotten beaten up just like Lee.

"I'm pretty sure I'm bigger than him in more ways than one," Alex smirked, winking down at me. I blushed furiously and buried my face in his side.