Okay, let's hear the couple talk.

When it got to the next afternoon, and Gwen and Trent were sitting side by side on her bed, Trent finally spoke up. "So, what was it you wanted to talk about? Have you got an idea about something else you want to do to Courtney?"

"Not exactly," Gwen said, looking at the ground. She'd made sure not to sit particularly close to him, putting a few inches between them so they couldn't even touch accidentally. Suddenly, she raised her head and asked the question she'd meant to ask. "Trent, I want you to tell me this. I mean, you don't have to, but I want to know. What exactly happened to your mom?"

Trent's face dropped its light expression. He looked at the ground too, but he mumbled it all. "It's okay – I'll tell you. It might help you understand what I've been trying to do. It was when I was eight. My dad said it was an accident, but I know she knew what she was doing. One day, Dad was out, you know, blowing up a library, the usual thing. My mom drove me out to see it. She kissed my forehead and said she loved me. Then she walked into the library. I looked up at the window on the third storey long enough to see her wave at me. Then…then it…" he couldn't finish.

Gwen waited for a moment, to see if he said any more. Suddenly, Trent's erratic behaviour and his whole idea of murder being crusades made sense. When your mom's suicide happened right in front of you, just being in the right place at the right time when a building was demolished, maybe one senseless death seemed like it was worth so many more sensible deaths, murders of people who made other people so miserable they would want to die senselessly. Like what Courtney had done just the day before, pushing Lindsay over the edge.

But didn't that make them every bit as bad as everyone else? Courtney wouldn't have dared to treat Lindsay so badly if Heather had been there to keep her in line. She kept Chase and Ripper in line, too. Their deaths hadn't made anyone kill themselves yet, but something in Emma's voice, that day in the bathroom – it was as if, deep down, she still wished she still had Chase as her boyfriend. Like she was kind of hoping, despite everything, that he'd apologize and realize he was wrong and they could get back together and build a proper, safer relationship. She didn't think Emma was going to kill herself just because her ex had supposedly done so, but it still reflected. Chase dying had made her think about him more sympathetically and she'd gone all wistful again. Sensible deaths bred senseless death, and the senseless death of Trent's mom had bred those sensible deaths.

"I see," Gwen said in a low voice, after a minute had passed. "So that's how it was."

"Yes," Trent said, his voice a little stronger than it had been. "You see why I want to make the world better? I can't bring her back. But I'm not going to let the world do that to anyone else I care about. I know why she wanted to leave. She couldn't fight back, but I can. I just want this world to be a decent place for decent people. That's not wrong."

Gwen spoke gently. "I understand. But things have only gotten worse now. And I think we're not working because of it, too."

Trent's gaze immediately dropped. Gwen saw his hand go to his coat, the pocket where he kept the gun. "You…are you saying what I think you are? You're throwing this away? Us? You can't! I love you!"

"Don't tell me that," Gwen said reflexively. It was the worst possible thing he could have said at that point. She knew he meant it, and, deep down, despite it all, she loved him too. But she had to do this.

"I don't want to do this, but I think I have to. The thing is, I'm not just throwing us away like it was nothing. Well, yes, I guess I am. But it's not like I haven't thought about it first. We've been killing people. People who were seventeen, who could have changed and turned out better. Now we'll never know. I can't do that. You promised we could stop, but you keep telling me that you won't let anyone hurt us. And you seem to think we need to kill Courtney too. This needs to end."

Trent looked horrified. Gwen found it hard to look at him, scared she would cave in. "What are you saying?" he finally asked.
Gwen had to say it straight. "It's over," she said quietly. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry. I didn't want to end it. I just don't think it's working out. I think you need to look for support – something I don't think can come from me. And I need to work on paying back all the karma I owe." She stopped. For a moment, she wondered if Trent was just going to pull out the gun she knew he was keeping and shoot her. Or if he was going to cry. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to do both.

But in the end, he didn't do either of those things. He just walked away, out of the room, down the stairs, out the door, almost catatonically. Gwen felt awful, like the worst person ever. It wasn't ever going to be easy. At least, she was sure she'd done the right thing by ending it, even if it felt terrible now. Things would only get worse if she didn't dump him, she knew that much. And now she could try and pay back karma, like she thought.

But she still wasn't sure she'd done the right thing.

Thursday wasn't any easier for Gwen. The only good thing was that, at lunch, Lindsay sat with her and Courtney didn't. They talked together, and Lindsay seemed a lot better, almost back to her old self. She chattered away brightly, smiling and asking Gwen questions occasionally.

Emma was sitting in the corner, on her own. Gwen actually caught her eye once, but Emma looked away as soon as she did so. She was clearly still hurt and wasn't ready to talk again yet. She didn't look towards Gwen's table again for the rest of the time, and again, she sat on her own in History.

The one thing Gwen did was prepare for was accepting her friend back into the fold when she was ready. She asked Lindsay a carefully worded question to see if she could possibly accept a "loser" as one of them. "So, now you know what it's like to be scared of what the school could do to you, can you imagine what it's like for those kids that are afraid of it all the time?"

Lindsay gasped. "I mean, I didn't then, but…omigosh, they feel like that, like, every day, don't they? I only started feeling it after I didn't have Heather. Do they feel the way I felt when Courtney was saying all that to me and stuff?"

Gwen nodded seriously. "A lot of other kids feel all tied up or set adrift. Just like you did. Heather was one of the people that made them feel that way. In a way, she did it to you, even though you were probably the last person she'd want to do that to."

Lindsay nodded. Gwen could almost see the wheels turning in the blonde's head. "Ohhh…I get it! Now that I know what they feel like, I need to start being nice to them! That's fine – I didn't ever get why we couldn't talk to losers."

"You can't call them losers, though," Gwen said warningly. "They won't like that. You know there's Emma, my friend. If we're going to stay friends, you'll have to be nice to her. For one thing, you won't call her Chubster anymore."

"I can do that," Lindsay said with a shrug. "Her name's Emma. Not Chubster. I know that. And I can be nice to every other kid Heather and Courtney and me ever teased."

Gwen didn't correct her grammar, although she wanted to. But part of her was starting to relax. She wasn't worried about what Courtney could do to her anymore. School had stopped being a worry. And she figured that although Emma was hurt, she'd eventually recover.

But her eyes kept going back to Trent all that lunchtime, sitting in the corner as usual, eyes fixed on a book in the corner. Or some kind of manual, Gwen noticed.

Something told her that just because he was leaving her alone now, her troubles with him weren't over.

They aren't, Gwen. They really aren't. Good luck. Oh, and guess what's in that manual Trent was reading?