Jack POV

The next day at school found an extra flirty Lizzi, an extra bitchy Natalia, and an extra quiet Jeremy.

"What's wrong?" I asked him in first hour. "You're quiet today."

"Nothing," he replied. "Just kind of tired."

I didn't say anything about it, because, hell, we were all kind of tired. Mrs. Faiter gave us back our homework we had turned in yesterday, and Jeremy's was a big fat zero.

"I thought you wanted to up your work ethic," I said accusingly yet teasingly at the same time.

"Not as easy as it sounds," he replied jokingly.

"Right."

"J, I think Jeremy wants to stop talking to the lowlives of the school, and talk to…I don't know, me?" she said desperately. One can only wonder how she had managed not to get bitch slapped over the course of her whole life. I know I have certainly considered it.

"Uh, I'm fine, thanks," Jeremy said to Lizzi. Jeremy…whatever your last name is…I think I just fell in love with you! Not really. But he is awesome.

Lizzi scoffed at us and turned back to her failed assignment, knowing full well she'd blame me for not being there to help her AKA let her copy off mine.

"Why do you let her talk to you like that?" Jeremy asked me later as we left first hour.

"Like, yelling at me?" I clarified.

"Yeah, like, she treats you like you're hers to control. Maybe it's not my business, but I don't like it."

"Maybe I'm just too much of a pushover, or maybe I've just had too many people talking to me like that my whole life so it doesn't really register in my mind. What I do know is that she's one of the only friends I have, so I'd do well not to screw it up."

"Well, you deserve better friends," he replied. "And if people have been talking to you your whole life like Lizzi talks to you now, I feel very sorry for you."

"Well, not really all the jealous bitching she does, but people have been treating me like I don't matter for the better part of eighteen years."

"Aren't you seventeen?" he asked.

"Yeah. See, the story I was told was that my mom was a prostitute," I said, lowering my voice, "so she wasn't thrilled about getting pregnant with me on the job. She was supposed to be on a pill, but it didn't work…or something. So I'm guessing, though I wasn't there, that my mom just didn't want me. She took a break from her 'job' as she calls it, had me, set me up for adoption, and went right back to her job. Like, right back. No break or anything. I was put in foster home after foster home, and people are under the assumption that all foster kids, especially the ones who have been in foster care almost their whole lives, are problem children. I am not a problem child!" I exclaimed.

"Wow. Some story. Does Lizzi know that?"

"Please. How could I tell her that? Have you seen the way she acts?"

"Yeah, I guess that wouldn't be the best idea."

The bell rang then, and Jeremy and I went off to our separate second hours.

o.O.o

"Hey, bitches, get off our table." Natalia Rayne's voice was the easiest to recognize in the world, and it's her voice that calls to us at lunch.

"Why are we the bitches?" I asked. "And since when is it your table?"

"Since we always sit here," she replied. "And since I don't like you." Her idiot friend Jillian nodded along in agreement.

"What's your problem today?" I asked. "You're even more of a bitch than most days."

"Never you mind," she said, and flipped her hair back and went to sit at a different table.

"This isn't even her table. We got here first," I mumbled.

"And someone else was at ours," Jeremy added. "So it's not our fault."

I watched Natalia from the next table. She was laughing way too loudly and flipping her hair around. I remembered when she hated being a blond and would have given anything to dye her hair like mine. I kept reminding her that my hair wasn't dyed, and she'd ignore me, but it was all in good fun. I remembered once how she forced me to try and dye her hair myself with red Kool-Aid. It worked, but her parents flipped and made her wash the "blood" out of her hair. The next day we tried it with blue Kool-Aid. There was nothing her parents could say about that except, "Go wash your hair." I always told her she should talk to her parents about getting her hair at least dyed brown, but she told me they'd say no in a heartbeat. Well, maybe not her mom, but for some reason Natalia had always been deathly afraid of her dad. No matter how many times she told me I was mad, I knew for a fact she was terrified.

"So by the way," I asked Jeremy, "how did that project thing go with her?"

"She's even more of a slacker than me. And I didn't think that was possible."

"Funny. She never used to be like that."

"When you two were friends, you mean?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied quickly.

"Oh well. Nothing to do about it now," he said. "Hey, you know what? Natalia's older brother is in town, she said, so she can't stay after to work on the project with me. Maybe I could hang out with you and your friend Kol?" he asked. I wondered idly why Natalia was so mean today, if her brother was there. She loved both of her brothers.

"Yeah, I don't know if he can today but I'll ask," I replied, pulling out my phone. I texted Kol and he texted back a few minutes later, saying he was free but his sister wasn't.

"He has a sister too?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah. Her name's Rebekah. They're from England," I said.

"Rebekah," he murmured. "I used to know a Rebekah…."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I think the Rebekah I know is still back in Mystic Falls," he said.

"With a knife in her back?" I teased, but he looked alarmed. "I was kidding. That's just what you implied from your tone," I explained. He relaxed visibly.

"Alright then," he said. "I'll see you later."