A/N: Well, the feedback I got last chapter was really, really awesome. You guys are amazing, and I'm so happy you all are into it. This story's like my baby and I love it, and I love the fact you guys are so supportive and are enjoying it. I won't keep you waiting—thanks to the girls who were playing Picture to Burn on their phones earlier and I heard it up from my balcony where I write, here's chapter two. :)

Lunch is an interesting affair, especially when Hanna comes prancing towards our table, a happy smile splashed on her face. I give her a look as she sits down, which she immediately takes offense to. "What the hell crawled up your ass?" she retorts.

I roll my eyes. "Well, let's start with the realization that I had during study hall about one of my best friends and her addiction to chat rooms," I say, making sure the last few words come out as sarcastically as I intended. Hanna snorts, dismissing it with the wave of her hand; the Tangerine Tango nails still glowing like floodlights.

"Oh come on, it's just a little guilty pleasure," she explains as she takes the seat in front of me. "Don't you just love the mystery of it? Talking to people who will never know who you really are, making friends with people that they might say they are but really aren't; it's like a really good soap opera."

"Hanna, that's how most girls get kidnapped. Surely you've seen the stories," I drawl, trying to knock some sense into her head verbally before I have to do it physically. "And besides, most things you just said didn't do anything to prove your point. There's no mystery, because apparently you have this little anonymity buster called 'info'." I remember what the Rosewood stranger who I'd talked to for all of seven seconds told me about how he'd seen Hanna's info and was able to tell she was from Rosewood. I'm still not too familiar with the magical world of chat rooms, and I don't plan on getting that familiar any time soon.

"That's if you choose to enable it," Hanna protests in a whiny voice, taking a bite of her apple.

"And you chose to!?"

"Whoa guys, calm down," Aria says as she slides into the seat beside mine. "What are we going on about now? Is this the whole…you know, Toby thing?"

"I still think you guys should just have that angry sex and move on," Hanna interjects nonchalantly as she studies her blinding nails.

"Hanna!" I cry out, enraged that she'd suggest such a thing. Aria immediately throws her hands out across the table, one hand pinning me back in my seat and the other hovering near Hanna, ready to push her back if needed. "Okay short stuff, you heard her! I have rights."

Hanna sighs. "She's just in a mood because I was chatting again and accidentally forgot to close out," she explains, sounding more calm and knowledgeable than she usually is. Aria clucks her tongue. "Plus, you know the whole her and Toby hooking up thing is a good idea." Aria may be tiny, but she's strong enough to keep me from lunging across the table at Hanna.

"You were chatting again? Seriously, Han, this is the fifteenth time this week? I've had to close out of at least seven chat rooms in the past three days, and that's because you told me you were researching something for a class." Then, under her breath, Aria mumbles, "Should have called bullshit on that when it came out of her mouth." I nod, even though Hanna didn't hear the comment.

"Alright, whatever, I'll get off of the chat rooms, I'll go join a group that specializes with a harmless habit that your friends think is the beginning of your downward spiral, I'll get on pills or something. Does that help you sleep better at night?" Hanna snaps, looking up at the two of us. Aria and I smile satisfied, nodding. "Okay then, it's settled."

"What's settled?" Emily asks, coming up behind Hanna and sitting down next to her. She looks back and forth between all of us, a confused look plastered on her face. Hanna rolls her eyes; it's obvious that she'll play it up with Emily since the two of them are extremely close.

"These two are jumping down my throat for getting on another chat room," Hanna explains. Emily frowns in her direction. Hanna immediately recoils, a bewildered look on her face. "Oh, so you're going to side with them now?"

"Well, you are sort of mad and crazy about it," Emily says slowly. Hanna pouts, taking another loud bite of her apple as Emily's head whips to face Aria and I. "Wait, why did the chat room intervention happen now?"

I raise my hand. "Hanna was on my laptop last night, I guess, while I was in the shower before our movie night, and she left the window up. Then, one of her little buddies decided to strike up a conversation with me as well, so the intervention was happening now or we were just going to dump all of her forms of technology in the lake after school," I say. Hanna's suddenly interested in the conversation, and she leans forward. She's got a rather ludicrous grin spreading across her face.

"One of my little buddies?" Hanna asks, clearly entertained by the thought of all this. I shrink back in my seat a little, the heat, from what I'm sure is a growing blush on my face, rising. "Which little buddy? Spencer Hastings, did you send someone nudes?" she shrieks, and I'm immediately kicked out of my embarrassment.

"God! No, Hanna; does your mind stay permanently in the gutter or what?" I shake my head, pushing my hair back out of my face. The three other girls are all leaned forward, identical eager grins on their faces, except for Hanna's slightly disappointed undertone in hers. "I didn't send anyone nudes, I was in study hall. I don't know which one, they were under anonymous guest, and they clearly knew you were from Rosewood because of your info," I say, quoting the stranger.

"Well what happened from there?" Hanna quips, resting her head on her propped up fist. She actually seems intrigued by all of this, which comes as a bit of a shock. It takes a lot to really and truly captivate Hanna and her short attention span.

"We sent each other like two messages apiece. I gave them my email, so maybe we'll hear back from them," I shrug. I'm trying to play the whole affair off, because really, there's not much to it. It's a simple exchange of my email, it isn't like me and this person planned some sort of government heist. Apparently, to Aria, Emily, and especially Hanna, that would be the equivalent.

"Oh my god!"

"Spence!"

"That's so cute!"

Their respective squeals all come out at the same time, and I groan. "You guys, it's not like we're going to connect in magical ways and become a couple; for god's sake, I don't even know if they're a boy or a girl." The other girls almost immediately shake off any of my doubts about this and are hell-bent on making sure it's drilled into my brain that it's some extremely cute guy on the other end.

Clearly, they're not aware of the fact that this is Rosewood, not some Nicholas Sparks novel. Nothing that spectacular or picturesque ever happens here; we're lucky if we even get rainbows after thunderstorms.

. . .

I stumble inside my room, kicking my heels off within two steps in the interior. The hair tie on my wrist is almost instantly up in my hair, holding the locks back in a ponytail. A sigh escapes my lips; the beauty of being in high school, I internally mutter to myself. As I throw my bag into the corner of my room, my laptop emerges out of it and is placed on my bed, opened and turning on. I then begin to stroll around my room, changing out of the extremely itchy jacket I'd been in all day. Fashion comes with its price.

It hasn't been on for more than fifteen seconds when the notification of a new email in my inbox begins going off; a tiny dinging noise. I backtrack through the room, sitting down on the edge of my bed. The laptop is moved closer to me, as I click on the little mail icon. Almost instantaneously, the new email pops up onto my screen.

SUBJECT: Shopaholic_Grll1105?

I'm guessing that this is you, according to the email address you gave me. It's me, the anonymous guest you talked to earlier on today in the chat room. If it isn't…well…ignore this email. I'm just one of those regular spammers that send you junk mail in hopes that you'll click on and retract the virus secretly attached.

I can't help but to laugh to myself, as my fingers position themselves over the keys to type in a response.

SUBJECT: re: Shopaholic_Grll1105?

Congratulations, you found me. Although I'm really hoping that you were kidding about the whole secretly-attached computer virus thing; I don't think my computer would be able to handle it. I suppose if that were the case, however, we'd just have to wait and see if it recovered from the virus. You'd be invited, of course, to watch it fight to survive.

I press the send button, and lean back into my pillows as I wait for a response for just a little bit. I'm beginning to wonder if Hanna's chat room addiction has started some kind of domino effect. I get on, meet a stranger, and now I'm getting the sense that this person and I are already friends. I shake my head, even though there's no one around to see it. Almost five minutes later, after retracting from drifting off into space and watching my ceiling fan go around in circles, the computer makes another noise. Sure enough, there's a response.

SUBJECT: re: re: Shopaholic_Grll1105?

Well, I'd most definitely take you up on that offer. You know, it's never polite to let a stranger assume your name. I'm having a moral dilemma over here, trying to figure out what name I should call you and what would sound less cynical. All I'm picturing is a Juliet, and that may or may not be because I just reread the play for the seventeenth time…

Juliet. To my little chat room buddy, they think of me as a Juliet and not a Spencer. If Hanna were here, she'd be doubled over in laughter, her face a pleasant shade of purple. I can even hear her voice in my mind, clear as a church bell—"Juliet? Juliet? What is this, the 2013 remake of Shakespeare? This is better than cable; you'd better forward me all of the emails! Better yet, can I come live with you so I have twenty-four hour access to 'Spencer Capulet and the Mystery Montague?' Ohmy god!" I shake my head; I don't need a Hanna inside of my head as well as the one in the real world.

I feel like this is one of those growing, overly cliché romance movies that you've seen a thousand times in the cinema, but it just comes along with a different cast, a different name, and a different Hollywood hunk that everyone always swoons over when they have their shirtless scene. What if this was a girl?! Dear god!

I can feel the blood racing through my veins, as I try to sort out what I should say back. The whole name thing has completely thrown me off kilter, because I haven't yet decided if I want to give up my identity or not. Hanna is right in a way; right now, this stranger and I are faceless and nameless. All we know about the other is that we're both from Rosewood, and that whoever's on the other end has taken me for a girl, thanks to Hanna's username. So I wring my hands out, and quickly type out a response that makes a little bit of sense.

SUBJECT: re: re: re: Shopaholic_Grll1105?

Picture me as a Juliet then. I'll just be waiting for you to appear right below my balcony, that is, if you're Romeo. If not, then close out of this email before the virus I attached makes its way to your hard drive.

It takes a bit of nerve, but I finally press send. I'm getting all in a tizzy over an email. We were right; this whole chat room business affects your brain and afterwards, you'd probably need therapy and a serious support group to get through recovery. My phone buzzes next to me, and I pick it up, answering the call that's coming in.

"Hello?" I ask, sinking back into my pillows.

"Spencer?" Emily's voice leaks through the other end, sounding a little worried. "Please tell me you're not busy," she pleads.

"Um, no, I was just going to spend the night here watching movies so Aria would have an alibi," I say slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"Do you think you could meet me at the Apple Rose Grille in about fifteen? I completely bombed one of my French quizzes, and my mom said that I have to stick with it for the semester before I can drop it. Would you give me a crash course in French so I can at least past this upcoming test?" she begs. I sigh, but I know that I can't decline. It's Emily. She sounds like she's about to burst into tears on the other end for some odd reason, which isn't much like Emily.

"Alright, I'll be there in fifteen."

"You're the best. Spencer!" Emily chirps, mostly out of relief. "Hey, one of my classmates needs a little help as well, would you mind tackling two birds with one stone?"

"Sure, why not? The more the merrier."

I had a feeling though, when I hung up with Emily and got in the car to head over to the Apple Rose Grille, I was going to be eating those words very, very shortly.

Well, that was that chapter! I hope that satisfied you until I can update next; it shouldn't be too long. You leave a review, I read your review and more than likely thank you a thousand times over for it, and then bam! New chapter. In other words, review or I'll send you spam emails with viruses in them and not give you a heads up. Just kidding, guys, goodness! But not really. xo