(A/n – Sorry if this chapter jumps from place to place a bit, I just really wanted to get to the shopping scene)

Chapter 14: Shopping

(Wanda's POV)

After all the drama at the weekend, and when Mel had stopped pestering me for every detail of what happened - I was happy to spend most of the week at school, or helping out Mel's parents with jobs around the house. Ian called a couple of times and messaged me – I still get butterfly's in the pit of my stomach whenever I see his caller ID flash on my phone…I wonder if I'll ever stop feeling this nervous around him. I had asked him again about the Burn's situation, I felt comfortable talking about it with Ian…he was there after all. But no matter how much I tried to get any clue out of him as to where he knew Burns from he would completely shut down and tell me he had to go...

Saturday came around all too quickly. Most high school kids would kill for the weekend to come sooner but for me it meant lying around the house not doing anything. Jared and Ian were out together today so Mel and I took our usual positions on the couch and flicked aimlessly through the hundreds of TV Channels – Mel's parents were usually busy with either work or home things like grocery shopping, so they mostly let us roam free on the weekends. I'm sure Mel had homework to do but I've given up reminding her to do it.

But just sitting here doing nothing would drive me insane by the end of the day…'Mel, I think I'm going to go take a walk maybe get some food at the diner, wanna join?' in my mind I knew all she'd do was make me tell her about Ian again, or I'd have to hear about Jared, a small part of me hoped she'd say no and I could go alone…

'Nah, I guess I should look at the work I've got to do at some point…you go though, make sure you wear a coat it's getting pretty cold.'

Even though it was a little below 59degrees the sun was shining and I couldn't resist the mint-choc-chip ice cream in the diner, plus they had heating in here so I could at least stay in and eat rather than freeze with it outside.

Once I'd finished and said goodbye to Paul who was working today (thanks to Jared and the amount of times me and Mel come in here, we pretty much know everyone) I headed back out, not really knowing where I wanted to go so I figured I'd just wander round for a bit.

I was walking down the main street of our little town, looking into shop windows looking for something to do - I walked up to the window of our local bookstore and saw a bright yellow Mini reflected in the glass. I remember Ian telling me Kyle's girlfriend owned one and turned to try and see the driver.

I had met Kyle and Jodi briefly when I was round Ian's house last weekend, they were just coming back from some date or something as Ian was about to take me home. She seemed like a nice person – I waved towards the car, now driving up to me, the tinted windows and the sunglasses on the driver made it hard for me to see, but it must be her – not many people I know would want such a bright car.

She must have recognised me too – the car came to a stop at the edge of the road right in front of me, 'Wanda! It's Wanda right?' Jodi had taken off her sunglasses and was now leaning across the car to look out of the open passenger side window.

'Yeah, I met you last weekend – how are you?' I walked up to the car and bent slightly so I could see her.

'Oh I'm great! Hey! Want to hop in? I'm going to lunch and maybe some shopping with a girlfriend - you're more than welcome to join!'

She sounded generally happy that she saw me – I guess I could go get lunch with them? It wouldn't kill me to make a couple of new friend's right?

'Sure, I'd love to!' I hopped in the Mini and was surprised at how luxurious it was inside and the cute outfit Jodi was wearing, which all made me feel worried about the lonely $50 in my purse.

We went to the nearest mall, which was still a 30 minute drive away – Jodi talked all through the drive and I was happy to sit back in the heated leather seat and listen. She talked about Kyle, then about Ian, and lastly about her friend 'Lacey' – they've apparently been friends forever and always see each other whenever they can, which is most weekends lately.

Jodi and I walked around the first floor of the mall for a while before Lacey called arrived… 'Wow! We neeeeeed to go in there!' Jodi pointed to a store that had a row of manikin's wearing flamboyant day-dresses, matched with expensive looking shoes and bags…I internally groaned at the thought of how much they cost, 'erm..Jodi, I don't have much money with me…' she looked across at the worried expression I wore.

'Don't worry about it, me and Lacey normally just window shop and try a few things on anyway' a low buzz starting to come from Jodi's bag, 'ooh! That must be her. Come on the restaurant is on the next floor.'

They saw each other right away and ran to each other like little school children, 'Hey‼ How are you?!' they called to one other. As I stared I realised this is the sort of friendship I've never had in school…maybe me and Mel will be like this one day.

'Lace this is Wanda, Ian's…erm…friend' they both smiled at me as I walked over.

'Lovely to meet you Wanda!' I was surprised at how excited she seemed to be meeting me – maybe Jodi had told her about me? But why would she, I only met her briefly last weekend.

'Great to meet you too' I returned the smile as Jodi started to usher us into the restaurant for lunch.

The restaurant screamed expensive, and I felt very underdressed as I took my coat off to reveal jeans and a plain jumper…they were my best jeans but even these looked like rags compared to what the other diners were wearing. I shrugged and sat down, it's not like I'll be coming again anytime soon.

There were multiple forks, knives and spoons positioned around my place setting, god knows what they were all for…I tried not to think about it and listened to Jodi and Lacey who were now in full chit-chat-mode.

'…So that's where I spotted Wanda and got her to come along! Isn't that great?'

'It's perfect! I've heard so much about you I'm so glad we can go out like this!' I wonder what she's heard about me already!

'Yeah, it's really nice of you to invite me to come along...' A waiter placed a decanter of water on the table and handed us a fancy looking menu each.

We ordered a light lunch and talked until the food arrived, I didn't have much to say so I mostly just listened and answered the questions they asked me, it was nice to be with people other than Mel or Jared for a change – not that I didn't like to hang out with them but change every now and again was always good.

'…I heard about what happened at the stadium, you must have been so creeped out Wanda' I turned towards the sound of my name and tried to remember what Lacey had just said…wait, how do they know about that?!

'Apparently one of the football players saw the whole scene with you and that vile creature, ugh. You're so lucky Ian was there, although I did expect a bigger scene when Ian saw Burns again…' Now she had my full attention…would it be wrong to ask Lacey about Ian? But what could be so bad that Ian had to hide it from me anyway?

'Yeah, I noticed that Ian recognised Burns, what's their story?' Lacey looked at me in shock as if to say you-don't-know?! Whereas Jodi looked at me with concern…if I was worried before, this definitely wasn't making it any easier.

Lacey cleared her throat and started the story, 'Well, back when Ian and Kyle were in the orphanage…' she stopped when I almost fell out of my chair in shock… 'You didn't know? …well you were going to find out sooner or later I suppose, I guess I'll have to tell you the whole story now not the short one.

'Basically me and Jodi went to the same little-school as them and we've been friends since we were really young…anyway, they looked really different back then, always kinda scruffy and thin – nothing like now.

'There were a few 'rich kids' at our school, like there always is - ya'know…bully's who'd pick on the lower classes just because their parents didn't have the same amount of money as theirs…well imagine how much they picked on the two kids who didn't have parents at all.' I think I've lost the ability to breathe…I don't think I could stomach another bite of food so I just listen to Lacey as she tells the story so non-chalantly she could be talking about moving house, not two little boys being bullied…

'This one guy, Bernard, was the worst of them, even though he was a few years younger than us he was still pretty strong even back then and got others to do his bidding too. He always left Kyle and Ian alone though, claiming they were too disgusting to even look at. Until one year he decided to get involved with all the bullying, he became, like, some sort of ring-leader for the bullies, it was terrible.' I looked over at Jodi who was suddenly very focussed on her salad.

'It didn't even matter if they were in school or not, I swear he used to seek out the boys just to hurt them some more. But as we grew up a bit he mostly left Kyle alone – he was getting bigger and tougher even after all of that abuse, so that means Ian was left to take all of it on his own…' I think my throat has been fused shut, I could feel the familiar sting in the back of my eyes as I thought about a scrawny bruised child with Ian's piercing eyes…

'God, then that night – you remember it right Jodi?' Jodi nodded slightly, her head down, I can only imagine to try and hide the tears pooling in her eyes too, 'Jodi and me sneaked Kyle and Ian out of the foster home they were in at the time – we had found this great place right by this farm.' She stopped to take a sip of water.

'So we were there and messing around, there was this little lake we were taking turns to jump into, it was great. Then we heard footsteps and shouts of like 20+ people, we knew it'd be them so we made a run for it – Kyle dragged me and Jodi round behind a little shed, but Ian was still in the lake so by the time he was out and knew what was happening he was almost surrounded by them all…he made a run for it but only got as far as a hay-bale-shed where he tried to hide from them. Well, you can imagine why Bernard got the nickname Burns after that…thank god Kyle managed to get in and pull him out, we all thought he was a goner' I'm going to kill him…

'After Ian had gotten out of hospital and was all recovered they both dropped out of school and Burns started to back off when he didn't see them every day. The next year they ended up getting adopted by a family in the town close to here. When they were both old enough they got the house they're in now and moved here for good. We've never heard of Burns since…'

'God…' I breathed as I relaxed in my seat now the story was over.

'Yeah, pretty brutal.' Jodi had now recovered and was finishing her food – I noticed she kept glancing over at me with sad eyes.

'Anyway – it's all in the past now, but you know what I mean when I said I thought there'd be a bigger blow-out at the football stadium! If I was Ian I'd have whacked his head off!' Lacey giggled as she tried to tense her arms like Ian or Kyle would.

We finished our lunch quickly, I couldn't eat anything else so I just occasionally sipped water – I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. As we went from shop to shop and started talking like before, I noticeably relaxed and started to enjoy the day again…but the image of a child-like Ian stayed at the back of my mind…why couldn't he tell me that? Why did I have to find out from Lacey of all people!? The last thing I wanted was to be mad at Ian…but I couldn't help it – Why did he have to keep the biggest thing in his life from me?! It didn't make any sense…

I exchanged numbers with Jodi and Lacey at the end of the day and they told me to keep in touch and we'll go out again someday…even though I wanted to forget the lunch part of today I enjoyed the two girls company – even if they do talk nonstop and are slight air-heads sometimes.

I waved as Jodi dropped me off at my house, I could see Melanie in her bedroom window looking down at me as I walked up the driveway – I didn't want to talk about Ian just yet…I needed to talk to him about it first.

(A/n – Hope you like this chapter and it hopefully answered some questions, let me know what you think! Next chapter will include what happens between Ian and Wanda when she confronts him)