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Chapter 5 – Blunt Force Trauma

Sentimentality was for suckers.

Or at least that's what Gwen had been telling herself lately. It was the life philosophy she had come to live by. The past was the past—no use crying over the things that used to make you happy. There was no point into having all that extraneous stuff hanging around. It was just an echo left there to haunt you—bygone days and faded memories.

No, Gwen had decided to draw a line in the sands of time. Now her life consisted of two distinct parts—a before and after. She rebuilt herself from the ground up, and it wasn't just the slow, excruciating mending of her bones. After she had gotten back from the hospital she had thrown everything out—clothes, posters, jewelry, everything. Out with the old, in with the new. Well, out with everything except the photos. Those she kept. But all in all Gwen had set out to become a completely separate person. There was pushover Gwen, doormat Gwen, Gwen who spent all of her time trying to please everyone all the time, and then there was the cold Gwen. And she had every intention of staying that way.

There was only one problem with Gwen's plan. Sentimentality may, in fact, be for suckers, but Gwen sucked at not being sentimental. She missed her old life. She missed standing on the sidelines of the lacrosse field during a game and screeching her lungs out until she went hoarse. She missed reluctantly allowing herself to be dragged to the parties that came after those games. She missed caring about people. And that was probably why she ended up where she was.

This was stupid. This was beyond stupid. Under no circumstances did it make any sense that she would be sitting alone at school before 7:30 in the morning. Well, actually it did make sense in a technical way. Apparently when Lydia disappeared from the face of the earth the day before, she had missed a test. And, as one of the golden students of Beacon Hills High with a perfect record and even more perfect grades, she was in the good graces of both the administration and the teachers alike, and therefore was allowed to make up the test Mr. Hamilton had set up for the juniors. Turns out he did intend to grade it. Fun.

Yes, that explained why Gwen was at school. It was either waking up early with Lydia and waiting around school for over an hour for classes to start or taking the bus, and there was no way in hell she was taking the bus. There were 'other people' on the bus, after all. But it didn't explain why she had picked that particular spot out of all the possible spots available.

The bleachers. If a spot could physically represent the life she left behind, it was the bleachers. She used to sit there for hours while she was on the pep squad, cheering on the teams as they played, but that wasn't what drew her there.

Lacrosse tryouts. The whole thing had become a bit of a tradition for her and Liv, really. A tradition which had been in effect for a couple of years now, ever since the two of them had stopped viewing boys as snot-filled, cooty-bearing monsters and started to realize what all those romantic comedies and love songs had been about in the first place. It was a time of year Liv used to fondly refer to as 'shopping'. The two of them used to sit on the bleachers and scope out the guys, usually with Liv biting her lip in a way that bordered on creepy. Scratch that, it was creepy. And then she would usually catcall them, always making Gwen blush furiously, embarrassment oozing out of every pore. But it usually ended up working out for her though. It's how she and Brett ended up making out on a regular basis. Anyways, the gist of it was that Liv ended up saying a whole lot of inappropriate and very explicit things that could probably get her suspended if any teachers were listening in, and calling dibs on about 75% of the players.

And so here Gwen was, carrying out that same routine and pretending that Liv was sitting next to her, whispering a dirty running commentary about things like the shapes of their asses while Gwen covered her face with her hands and begged the girl to stop. Gwen let out a heavy, sigh and stared out at the lacrosse field as the players darted around, Mason's friend, Blondie—who she should probably stat referring to as Garrett—among them. Now she was left making up the commentary all on her own. Garrett's ass? That thing looked like it was sculpted by Michelangelo himself. Oh, yeah, with that square Captain America jaw line, the blue eyes, and the abs—Liv would have been all over Garrett.

Nibbling on her lip nervously, Gwen scanned the field. It was still a little early in the practice and most of the players still hadn't reached the field yet. Stiles and Scott still weren't there and about half of the players sitting on the bench, waiting around for Coach Finstock to show up. Gwen's eyes were drawn towards the goal. There were about three players standing around it—Garrett among them—each with a small pile of lacrosse balls at their feet and each hurling those balls at the masked goalie, with as much ferocity as possible. None made it through. Not a single one. The lacrosse stick being wielded by the goalie looked more like a blur than anything else as it moved, deftly catching everything sent its direction. The way the goalie moved, it almost seemed like they were defying the laws of physics. And that meant that she knew exactly who was standing at the net.

A few more moments passed and those three players ran out of projectiles to hurl, all of the lacrosse balls sitting uselessly in front of the goal. Gwen narrowed her eyes at the figure standing in the goal. He reached up and grabbed the base of his mask, yanking it off to reveal a smug grin. Yup. It was Liam. As Gwen glowered in his general direction, she realized something. Of all the semesters that she had gone 'shopping', Liv had never called dibs on Liam. Maybe she had seen something in him that made her realize how crappy he could be.

Gwen glared at the goal, trying to light the field on fire with her mind. Which was not at all an overreaction. The only thing that really helped her cope with the loneliness was the bitterness. The bitterness was pretty much the only thing that helped her not to feel—or to feel less—so she was going to embrace it with open arms. For now.

Then, all of the sudden, something shifted. Liam, who had been busy laughing it up with his lacrosse buddies, glanced in her direction. Once he caught sight of her there on the bleachers the laughing abruptly stopped, the smirk falling off his face. The two of them stayed there for a moment, staring at each other across the field. Somehow it felt like he was directly in front of her, wearing that same apologetic look he had on the day before. Gwen shook her head, breaking eye contact, before blinking a few times. Immediately she grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder before stalking away from the seats, passing up a pair of giggling girls as she made her exit.

Gwen marched away from the lacrosse field at a brisk pace, putting as much space between her and her memories as possible. The parking lot was still pretty empty, a few lonely cars pulled up in the choicest parking spot. Sighing to herself, Gwen reached in her pocked and pulled out her iPod, cranking the volume up a few notches before making a beeline for the front doors of the school. The library. That's where she should have gone from the beginning. Nobody ever went to the library anymore. One of the many perks of living in the digital age. You got a quiet place to kill time.

Just as Gwen was about to push her way through the front doors, a minivan swung into the parking lot, barreling past all the empty parking spots until it came to a stop right in front of the school entrance. Gwen paused for a moment, just long enough to see the back door slide open and a figure pop out of the car, a backpack slung over his shoulder and what looked like a black trombone case. Then Gwen saw the face attached to the arm that was attached to that trombone case and she stood straight, shoving her way through the doors as quickly as possible. Though, evidently, it wasn't quickly enough.

"Hey!" she heard Mason calling after her, his voice muffled by the music pumping out of her headphones. "Hey, Gwen!"

Gwen widened her eyes a bit and kept walking, pretending she didn't hear him. A strategy which didn't prove all that effective when Mason suddenly appeared at her shoulder, that patented friendly smile still in place. She was beginning the think he didn't have any other facial expressions. Seeing her headphones were still on, he gave a happy wave. Letting out a quiet sigh, Gwen pulled the headphones off so they hung around her neck and looked at him expectantly. "You're here early," he said brightly.

"Um, yeah," Gwen replied, nodding a bit. "My ride had to take an early makeup test so here I am." She glanced at Mason, looking him up and down quickly. "And here you are. With a trombone."

Mason let out a quick laugh and held up the case, giving her a funny look. "Yeah—good catch. They're holding auditions for the school orchestra this morning. Fingers crossed. You play?"

"Not anymore," Gwen muttered to herself. She took an abrupt left turn down the hall leading to her locker wondering if it would shake him. It didn't. He stayed right next to her the whole time.

"Not anymore," Mason mused, scrunching up his face in contemplation. "You know, you have a real talent for being cryptic and evasive."

"Maybe I am good at being cryptic but I'm definitely not good at being evasive," Gwen grumbled back. "You're still here after all." She glanced up at him curiously out of the corner of her eye. "Why are you still here? Don't you have an audition to get to?"

"It's not for another twenty minutes or so," Mason replied, waving his hand dismissively. "I've got time."

Gwen let out a loud huff and picked up her pace a little. She liked Mason, she really did, but he was Liam's Mason—Liam's best friend. That made things complicated and she had had more than enough complicated for a lifetime. She wasn't sure if that was a door she wanted to open. "Then shouldn't you be practicing or something?" Gwen drawled out, waving a hand in his general direction. "Don't you have anything better to do than follow me through the halls? It's kind of stalker-ish."

Mason let out an offended scoff and raised his eyebrows at her. "You know stalking is an loaded word. I prefer 'persistent' or 'determined' or—"

"You want me to find you a thesaurus?" Gwen deadpanned. Almost immediately a wince covered her face as she regretted inflicting her bitchiness on someone who definitely didn't deserve it. Swearing under her breath, Gwen came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hallway, making Mason almost run into her. She did an about face and spun around to look him head on, her hands tightly gripping the straps of her backpack. "Look, Mason," she said, nodding in his direction. "You're clearly a good guy, so I'm just going to advise you not to waste your time. I'm sure you've got plenty of friends who are not giant pains in the ass who may or may not be crazy. I'm sure Liam's filled you in on that front."

It was Mason's turn to wince, the look of regret etching its way into every line of his face. That look told her pretty much everything she needed to know about that situation. She exhaled sharply and nodded to herself. Liam telling him about what happened would explain why Mason was so dead-set on befriending her. He was a good person, and good people tried to help. They tried to….fix you. "Great," she sighed out, kicking absently at a paper clip that was lying in the middle of the hallway. "That's what I figured."

Gwen took off again, marching down the hall to her locker. It only took a few moments and the sound of sneakers squeaking against laminate tiles before Mason appeared at her shoulder. He opened his mouth to speak, but Gwen interrupted him before he had the chance to get a word out. "You know, this is why I don't talk to people," she snapped. "All those freaking 'get to know you questions' and all people see is some freakish charity case. No thank you. Go ahead and find yourself another project."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Mason said, jumping in front of her and waving his hands kind of frantically. Gwen tried to side-step him, but he dodged in front of her easily, blocking her escape. "That is so not what this about. I seem to recall making friendly overtures before I found out you even knew Liam. You know, because all those super-nice reasons I listed before….interesting, smart, funny…..Is any of this ringing a bell?"

Gwen felt herself unclench a bit, some of that instinctive hostility ebbing away. Man this guy had a way of wearing you down. She let out a snort and rolled her eyes a bit, but when she faced him again the vaguely pissed off expression that typically graced her features these days faded slightly. Apparently Mason had that affect on people—making them not angry. It was really freaking annoying. She pressed her lips together in a thin line and gave him a withering look. "Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar," she replied drolly.

"Both," Mason exclaimed, "so bonus points for you!"

Eyeing him warily, Gwen managed to dodge around Mason and continue on the path to her locker, but, as per usual, Mason continued to follow her. Finally approaching her locker, Gwen slowed to a stop, staring at the lock intently as she dialed in the code. "So," she said as Mason caught up, keeping her voice as casual as possible. "What exactly did Liam tell you about my situation?"

All of the sudden Mason froze up a little. It was the first time Gwen had actually seen him seem anything less than completely at ease. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, opening and closing his mouth a few times before speaking. "You know….about the car crash. About your friend who died. And about how it got kind of hard for you back at Devenford Prep. With the rumors and stuff."

Gwen let out a bitter laugh as she exchanged her books. "Which rumors did he elaborate on? Because there was a really choice selection. I mean some really good ones. There was the one where people claimed that instead of going through physical therapy I was in rehab. Ooh, or the one where people said that I feasted on the remains of petting zoo animals. Or my personal favorite where people said that I was the one that was driving. That I veered off the road and killed my best friend. You mean those rumors?"

Her sudden bluntness took Mason by surprise. He blinked at her and took a small step back, like her words had physically pushed him back. "That, uh, must have been really rough for you."

"Nah," Gwen drawled out, her voice thick with angry sarcasm. "I love being accused of negligent homicide. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy." And then she squeezed her eyes shut, screwing her face up into an apologetic expression. She had gotten really good at being aggressive and bitchy to the assholes, but that was when the only people around her were the assholes. Now she needed to learn to turn that part of her off, seeing as Mason fell squarely in the 'non-asshole' category of people, she should probably start now. "Sorry," she mumbled, shaking her head. "Sorry. It has been brought to my attention by my cousin and the school counselor and….well, everybody, that I tend to lash out unnecessarily. And at the wrong people. Or so it may seem."

And then Mason did something strange. Well not strange for him but strange given the context. He smiled—it was more of a grin, actually—and shook a finger at her. Like he knew something she didn't. "You just apologized to me."

Gwen blinked stupidly and shrugged. "Yeah."

"Voluntarily."

"Yeah," Gwen drawled out. "Do you have a point?"

"You were being nice…..ish," Mason replied as if it was most obvious thing in the world. "That's new. That—" he pointed at her awkwardly "—that is progress."

Gwen stopped for a moment, looking up at the ceiling and blinking into the fluorescent light, considering his words. "Huh," she mused to herself, scrunching up her face into an expression of confusion. "I guess that is new. It's like…it's like something human is trying to claw its way out. I'm not comfortable with that." She shot him what she hoped was a dirty look, but it probably only ended up looking vaguely frustrated. Ugh. All of his aggressive niceness was making her lose her edge. "You are a terrible influence."

Mason cocked his head to the side and gave her a curious look. "So being nicer….that's somehow disappointing to you?"

"It means I'm backsliding, yes," Gwen replied, nodding earnestly.

Mason narrowed his eyes at her and opened and gaped at her a moment before continuing. "Okay, so I don't know that that means and I'm not going to ask," Mason drawled out. "Alright, I'm gonna start over." He gave a long wave. "Hi, I'm Mason. You seem cool. Let's be friends."

Gwen leaned back against the lockers and raised her eyebrows pointedly. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Mason made a face at her and shrugged. "What do you mean?"

"Um, about yay tall," she said, holding a hand up a few inches above her head. "Your best friend Liam, the person I'm currently not speaking to….."

"Okay, what happened between the two of you?" Mason demanded, throwing his hands in the air. "Liam's been super cryptic about the whole feud or whatever the hell it is and I don't like not knowing things."

"What happened between me and Liam is between me and Liam," Gwen replied matter-of-factly, folding her arms across her chest. "If he hasn't told you I'm sure as hell not going to."

Mason let out a groan and rolled his eyes heavily before leveling her with a frustrated look. "Fine—okay, who cares that I'm friends with Liam," he replied. "I can be friends with two people who don't get along at the same time. I'm emotionally evolved like that."

Gwen let out a whine and let her head fall back against the locker with a loud clank. "Do I really have a choice in all this?"

"Not really, no."

"You're just going to keep bugging me, aren't you?"

"It looks that way, yeah."

Wrinkling her nose, Gwen blew out a long breath and pinched at the bridge of her nose in frustration. When she pulled her hand away from her face, Mason was still standing there, trombone case in hand, and staring at her expectantly. "Fine," she acquiesced, pushing herself off of the cold, metal wall and slamming her locker shut.. "I don't hate your face, so you've got that going for you."

Mason made a face and nodded along with her words. "Okay," he mused casually. "I'm going to go ahead and take that as a yes. Hold this."

Gwen opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was talking about but before she had the chance he shoved that trombone into her hands, making her stumble back into the lockers once again. He reached into his bag and yanked out what looked like a small notebook, flipping through it before he got to a page that looked like some sort of list on it. "Alright," he sighed out, grabbing a pen and scribbling on the page with an unnecessary amount of dramatic flare. "Bitchy math genius, check."

"What's that?" Gwen demanded, peering down at the paper.

"Oh, this?" Mason asked, holding up the notebook for her to see. "This right here is my friendship quota. Great idea by the way. Next up I'm angling for either a drag-racer or a competitive eater."

"Don't go with competitive eater," Gwen deadpanned. "They'll eat all your snacks and you can never take them to a barbeque."

Mason let out a laugh and smiled that stupidly genuine smile of his. "You know what—that's a good point. It's reasons like this that I need someone like you around. It gives a new perspective. Drag racer it is."

A reluctant chuckle forced its way out of Gwen's throat and she rolled her eyes so heavily that she felt like they might pop out of her head. "You're an idiot."

"Ah," Mason declared, grabbing his trombone back from her. "But I'm a handsome idiot." With that he draped an arm over Gwen's shoulder and pulled her close to him in a weird, one armed hug. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful, highly dysfunctional friendship."

Gwen let out a loud, resigned sigh and shook her head, staring out into the distance and wondering what the hell was happening right now. Because honestly she wasn't sure. "Don't you have an audition to get to?" she said, looking up at him pointedly.

"Yes I do," he replied cheerfully. With his arm still draped around her shoulder, he began marching down the hallway, dragging her along with him. And for some bizarre reason she was letting him. "So," Mason declared, steering her through the halls, "as my bright and shiny brand new friend, you're going to listen to me practice and tell me what you think."

Stockholm Syndrome. That had to be it. She was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Mason was kidnapping her, and she was starting to sympathize with him anyway. "I hope you're a fan of constructive criticism."

Mason just shrugged and squeezed her shoulder a little tighter. "I'm more partial to blind flattery, but I can deal with constructive criticism. C'mon, Grumpy."

"Dear God, somebody help me."

(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)

By the end of the day, one resounding thought echoed in Gwen's head. This must be what being adopted felt like. All of the sudden you're being steered around by somebody you barely know, teaching you the new rules of the new place you had been dropped in. Jesus, how did Mason actually manage to pull this off? All of her protesting and resisting and somehow he still managed to be the 'Welcome Wagon' of Beacon Hills High. Stupid Mason. His insufferable positivity was almost making her question her complete lack of faith in humanity. Almost. He did end up apologizing to the majority of the people she was introduced to on her behalf. His explanation for her anti-social and weirdass behavior? She was homeschooled.

But regardless of how intentionally and agonizingly awkward she made the whole process, she still ended the day having had the full tour of Beacon Hills High School. And by some miracle, Mason didn't end up hating her by the end of it. No, he had actually insisted that they exchange numbers by the end of it. Her conclusion? The dude was batshit crazy. There was no way a normal person smiled that much. She kinda liked the guy. Really, she did. But that didn't mean that by the end of the day she wasn't darting around corners to avoid bumping into him again. There was only so much she could be around people in a single day. Without her designated 'antisocial' time, she would probably snap and start hurling abuse at random people walking down the hallway.

Gwen made quick work of her getaway. Less than seven minutes passed between hearing that final bell ring and her striding across the parking lot as fast as she could without actually running. She could go home, put on those headphones and pretty much disappear from the world. That alone time was pretty much the only part of the day that made sense to her. Because people be crazy. What she hadn't counted on, though, was having to figure Lydia into that crazy.

"Well, shit."

What was it that merited the hearty swearing? An empty parking spot. On its own that probably seemed pretty insignificant, unless you considered the fact that Lydia's car was supposed to be parked in that spot. And that begged the question, what exactly had happened to it. Did it become sentient like the car from 'Knight Rider' and drive off on its own? Did the Bermuda Triangle temporarily relocate to Beacon Hills and gobble it up? Did one of her classmates hotwire it and go for a joyride? All perfectly valid options, but Occam's Razor held that the most likely explanation was the simplest one. And given her cousin's pointed absence, the most likely explanation was that Lydia forgot her there. Gwen was all for being inconspicuous, but that one kind of stung.

Grumbling to herself, Gwen yanked her phone out of her jacket pocket and quickly dialed Lydia's number. With each ring, she felt herself seethe just a little bit more until she was grinding her teeth. "Come on, Lydia," she growled to herself. "Pick up the damn phone."

But the likelihood of her cousin actually listening to her plea faded with each ring until she was confronted with that voicemail message that somehow managed to be sweet and sassy all at once. "Hello, Lydia," Gwen drawled into the receiver, her voice tinged with more than a small degree of bitterness. "This is Gwendolyn Gilroy speaking. You know, your cousin. With whom you share blood. I am calling from a very empty parking space, and guess what? You're not here. You know what that means? You are condemning me to the bus. Ground zero of that pink eye epidemic people still seem to be talking about. Not cool, Lyd. Very not cool."

Still swearing under her breath, Gwen trudged in the direction of the bus. With each step, though, she became increasingly hesitant, her hands clenching into fists and jaw tightening. Truth time. Yes, she had to call 'truth time' on herself—she had to force herself to be honest, even in the confines of her own skull. Lying to herself was a lot easier than acknowledging feelings she did not want to feel. The whole anti-bus thing? It wasn't really about the 'other people'. It was more about the 'huge vehicle hurtling down the road' thing. She wasn't so fond of those these days.

Slowly, Gwen's path shifted. She looped around the area where they kept the buses, always staying that critical distance away, like there was a force field keeping her at bay. She tried dialing Lydia's number again, but it just rang through to voicemail. And that meant she was going to have to do something she really, really hated doing. She was going to have to ask for a favor. And what made it all so much worse? She was going to have to sit through lacrosse tryouts. Fun.

By the time Gwen made it to the lacrosse field, the tryouts had already begun. Students intermittently littered the bleachers, watching the strapping young men as they vied for the opportunity to reenact immature war games for a mildly enthusiastic crowd. All hail the frigging conquering heroes, right? Except for Scott apparently. For someone who used to be the team captain, he was pretty freaking terrible. She was under the impression that captains were supposed to have something at least vaguely resembling decent aim.

The demographics of the crowd were to be expected. The majority of the viewers were underclassman girls. They typically travelled in groups of two to three—small numbers were crucial for the huddling together and giggling. There was a limiting factor for these types of things. Then there were the grumbling boys—the ones who wanted to be on the team but didn't quite make the cut. They were the ones muttering bitterly to themselves and secretly wishing for all of the guys on the field to face plant in some horrifyingly embarrassing way.

Out of all the 'types' watching the tryouts, there was only one that Gwen didn't find entirely irritating. The friends. The ones who came out to cheer on their comrades whether they were a freaking superhero or they actually did faceplant in some potentially grotesque way. She saw two of them in the front row—Lydia's friends Kira and Malia cheering on Stiles and Scott. She didn't mind those two all that much. Between Kira's enthusiastic clumsiness and Malia's complete and quite spectacular lack of social awareness, she didn't mind their company from time to time. They were interesting. And maybe she could have even gone and sat next to them. But she wasn't going to—at least not today. Because paired with Kira's clumsiness was a sort of irrepressible positivity and Malia's social ineptitude meant that she constantly looking to other for behavioral cues. And that meant that they were both actually going to pay attention to her, which frankly she wasn't eager for at the moment. Plus they were cheering. That was something she definitely was going to be a part of any time soon.

Also, they were juniors and she was a freshman. She wasn't so above the social morays of high school that she couldn't admit that that was just plain weird.

The shadows. When she was a kid, Gwen used to be scared of the shadows. Being in a big house all alone….monsters lurking….it was a whole big thing. Now she kind of liked them. They were a good place to not be seen, and Gwen was kind of embracing the idea of anonymity these days. So when she chose her spot, it was the most obscure one possible. The right back corner—tucked away far from the bathrooms or the vending machines. Sighing loudly to herself, she placed her headphones over her ears, pulled out her book, and rested her feet on the seat in front of her.

Gwen did her best to ignore the tryouts as they progressed. Instead she cranked up the sound of her music and fished out her books, and ran through her homework. The only indication that she wasn't in a freaking library was the occasional shaking of the bleachers as people jumped up and down and the muffled shrieking cutting through the wall of sound she had built up around herself. And it seemed to be working pretty well. At first.

About twenty into the whole process, Gwen felt someone sit down next to her. She felt her muscles tighten instinctively, but she didn't look at whoever it was, instead opting to keep her eyes trained on her books. It was an avoidance strategy that usually proved successful, unless the other party involved was particularly persistent. Or particularly aggressive.

All of a sudden the song Gwen was listening to was abruptly cut off as the headphones were yanked away. Snapping into the sitting position, Gwen wheeled around to spit an angry retort at whoever the hell it was that had popped the little of bubble of solitude she had created for herself, but was caught vaguely off guard when she found herself staring at one of the very limited number of faces she found familiar. A face that had big brown doe eyes and an oddly sly smile.

"Violet, what the hell?" Gwen muttered bitterly, snatching her headphones back from the girl. "That was more than slightly unnecessary."

Violet gave a casual, unapologetic shrug and pursed her lips. "Speak for yourself," she replied easily. "I've been yelling at you for a solid ten minutes, but you couldn't hear me over those things."

"Ten minutes?" Gwen drawled out, raising her eyebrows skeptically. "You sat down literally thirty seconds ago."

"Yeah, well that's something you'll learn about me," Violet shot back. "I tend to exaggerate when it's convenient for my argument."

Gwen scrunched up into her face in a theatrical wince. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's just called lying."

Violet let out a theatrical scoff. "Please. I prefer the term 'embellishing the truth'."

"Kind of ironic seeing as you calling it 'embellishing the truth' is, in fact, 'embellishing the truth'."

"Oh my God," Violet declared, a sarcastic expression of mock awe covering her face. "I think you just inceptioned my tendencies towards casual deceit."

Gwen's lips twitched slightly, a smile almost threatening to form, but the urge faded away just as quickly as it cropped up. She cleared her throat and scratched absently at her forehead before giving Violet an impassive look. "So is there a reason you came to sit next to me, or—"

"You know, I think this is pretty much the last place I expected to see you," Violet interjected, giving Gwen a weird look. "I mean I know that our time together has been short and you have yet to tell me all your deepest, darkest secrets, but you did not strike me as the school spirit type."

"Oh, I'm over flowing with it," Gwen deadpanned. "It's taking every ounce of my free energy to stop myself from grabbing some pompoms and woohooing at the top of my lungs."

Violet chuckled a bit and elbowed Gwen in the side all chummy-like. "Do you like lacrosse?"

"Nope," Gwen replied, popping the 'p'.

"Then why are you here?"

"Waiting for a ride."

Violet pursed her lips and nodded in understanding, unfazed by Gwen's 'speak in the shortest sentences humanly possible' tactic. "Honestly I don't like lacrosse that much either," the girl barreled on, like Gwen was openly inviting conversation. "I actually hate watching sports. It's excruciating. You get pumped up, there's all this adrenaline running through your veins, and you have absolutely nothing to do with it. The whole thing is just one giant tease. I mean, when do I get to hit something?"

"Then why are you here?" Gwen sighed out.

Violet just made a face and shrugged. "Garrett. He's number 17."

The two of them lapsed into silence. An awkward one. Normally Gwen would be completely comfortable with an awkward silence. These days, more often than not, she actively encouraged them, mostly because they made it more likely for people to slowly edge away from her. This awkward silence though…..it was working out a bit differently. Mostly because Violet was staring at her in a studious way that was borderline creepy and pretty damn hard to ignore. Hell, she even . This time she was the one who ended up uncomfortable. Hell, she even resorted to watching the field. Coach had moved past laps and was working on two-on-ones, and from what she could see Stiles and Scott were covering the goal. The two of them were actually doing pretty well. They seemed to be managing about a 74% block rate as the other players hurled themselves at the goal. Apparently Scott put his big boy pants on.

"So here's what I'm thinking," Violet suddenly declared, making Gwen wrench her eyes from the field. "I really don't have any girl friends here. Garrett and I pretty much just moved here and girls just don't seem to like me all that much. I guess I come off as aggressive. Whatever. Most of them make me want to shove and ice pick in my ear when they talk."

"Maybe it's because you say stuff like that," Gwen drawled out, raising her eyebrows pointedly.

"Could be," Violet continued, pausing only for a noncommittal shrug. "Anyways, that's their problem. You seem like a 'take no shit', 'call it like it is' type person, which means I probably won't totally hate being around you. So maybe we should be friends. Just putting it out there. It's up to you."

And then, without another word, Violet simply got to her feet and picked her way down the bleachers, finding another seat closer to the action and leaving Gwen to gape after her. What was it with the people in this town? Between Lydia and her friends and now these new people, everybody seemed to be the slightest bit crazy. Hell, the whole town seemed to be a little crazy. Everything felt slightly off.

Blowing out a long breath, Gwen found her eyes being drawn back to the field. As soon as they were, she let out an internal groan. The timing was practically comical. Just as she happened to glance in the direction of the players, Liam came swaggering to the front of the line to face off with Stiles and Scott. Rolling her eyes to herself, Gwen picked up her book and squinted down at the page. She didn't have to watch the spectacle below to know what was going to happen. Liam throw down some of his super-human lacrosse moves, score an impossible-looking goal, the crowd would go wild, and his ego would get inflated just a little bit more.

But that's the thing—the crowd never cheered. Nope. All she heard was a sickening crunch followed by a collective gasp. Furrowing her brow in confusion, she looked up from the pages. She wasn't sure what it was she expected to see, but it definitely wasn't Liam crumpled on the ground, his leg sticking out at an odd angle. An angle which, according to all biology classes she had ever taken, under normal circumstances the human body should not be able to make.

Gwen's eyes went wide and her breath hitched in her chest, like she had been kicked in the gut. "Shit."

Hey guys, so I hope you liked the chapter. I'm not so sure about it. It's yet another intermediary chapter with a bit of filler. Honestly I got a bit fed up with it in the end, which I guess might be okay since by the end of the chapter GWEN is fed up with everything. Anyway, sorry if it's not the greatest. But the next chapter is set at the hospital (and Gwen and Liam will be forced into a room together for a prolonged period of time) so things will be escalating!

As for Violet, I'm not sure how my interpretation of her came across. Honestly she didn't get all that much air time on the show, so it was a bit difficult to pinpoint her personality, so I went for kind of aggressive and blasé about people (given her profession).

References:

'Feasting on the remains of petting zoo animals' is a reference to Parks and Recreation 3x07.