Friday morning.

The last day of the week rolled around. Gwen had decided to finally just go and apologize to Emma, face-to-face. She still needed to do that before Emma would even have any chance of forgiving her later on, and she really did feel sorry. There was a pep rally in the early evening, which Gwen was planning to skip, but she didn't think too much about that. Lindsay couldn't skip it with her, since she needed to lead the whole school, along with the rest of the cheer squad, but she didn't mind that Gwen was skipping. She'd never had much pep for sports events, anyway. She almost always skipped them in sophomore and junior year.

However, the day started off bad, and only got worse. She couldn't find Emma anywhere, and at lunch, she confided in Lindsay that she was worried.

"Have you checked the library?" Lindsay asked, putting on another coat of lip gloss. "I mean, lots of lo – I mean, people who aren't that popular – go there a lot."

At that moment, a familiar, irritating voice broke in. "Hey, girls! I've got something I'd like you to sign."

Courtney was standing over the two girls, holding a clipboard with a sign-up sheet. "I'm trying to organize a big anti-suicide rally and party for fall break," she said, smiling sweetly. "We'll be getting the news out to report on it, too. I'd really like you two to support it."

Lindsay obediently signed, but Gwen looked a little nervous. "Um, Courtney, I'm not sure that-"

"Save your excuses and take the pen," Courtney ordered. "I don't know why you're trying to argue. It was all your boyfriend's idea. He asked me to take it around for him." She left out the part where he blackmailed her. Somehow, he'd gotten ahold of photos of Emma and Courtney from when they were small. They'd been friends very briefly

This made Gwen even less eager to sign it. "Look, I don't know what Trent's up to, but he is not my boyfriend any more, and I somehow don't think that's what you think it is. I know him well enough to know he wouldn't do anything like that."

Courtney raised an eyebrow. "He dumped you, huh? Losing your boyfriend and your old best friend in a few short days must be rough."

Gwen frowned, wanting to mention that she was the one who dumped Trent, but the hot feeling of guilt and fear pooled in her as she took in what Courtney had said. "Are you talking about Emma? I couldn't find her this morning."

"It's no wonder," Courtney said nonchalantly. "Chubster isn't in any condition to get here today. She might make it to the pep rally, but I doubt she'll want to, after that suicide attempt she made last night."

Gwen's jaw dropped. "Yeah," Courtney said, clearly enjoying herself, "She jumped off that bridge just out of town with a suicide note taped to her jumper. But she failed as usual. She was just trying to copy the populars, but she couldn't even do that right. She's pretty badly hurt, but she'll live."

Gwen went even paler than usual. It didn't matter that Emma was still alive. She'd actually done it – tried to kill herself. She'd had no idea that Emma was that hurt.

"They showed part of her note on the news," Courtney went on. "Turns out she thought her best friend hated her and the only guy who would ever like her was dead and didn't care about her anyway."

Gwen didn't hear a word said in her afternoon classes. Her thoughts were consumed with self-hatred and guilt. She sent apologetic texts to Emma under the desk, even texting her mom to ask which hospital Emma was in and if she was conscious.

As if it wasn't hard enough to concentrate, the ghosts were bothering her again. "And I thought I was the queen of mean!" Heather taunted her. "You made a loser almost kill herself. You're truly part of my group now. Maybe you should be the one wearing my scrunchie."

"We knew you'd come far, New Heather!" Ripper added. "Pretty, popular, bitchy…all you need is the red scrunchie and better taste in men."

"She's going green," Chase added to the other two. "What's wrong, Gwen? Don't you want the credit for your popularity? You wanted it. You earned it. You got it."

"We should hang around," Heather added. "Let's wait. Then we can bring her down to hell ourselves."

Gwen didn't know what they were talking about. Was Heather expecting her to die soon?

However, just as school let out, Gwen got a phone call from her mom. And her mom never called her unless there was some kind of emergency. She tentatively answered. "Hi?"

"Gwen, I'm at home," her mom said. "Your friend Trent called me at my work today. He seemed very worried about you. I don't think you've mentioned him to me before, but…"

"Mom, what did he say about me?" Gwen asked urgently.

"Look, this isn't really a conversation to have over the phone," her mom told her. "Can you just come home and we'll talk about it?"

The conversation at home wasn't any better. Apparently Trent had forged her handwriting on some classic book, with lots of underlining – one of Courtney's favourites, Gwen noticed – and put that in the mailbox. Then he'd made the call, claiming that Gwen had told him she was suicidal, and the passages "she'd" underlined supported that.

"That really does look a lot like your handwriting," Heather remarked as she looked at it over Gwen's shoulder, sounding a little impressed.

Gwen listened to her mom telling her all this in growing horror, and sat through all her urges to open up and talk about her nonexistent suicidal thoughts.

"I'm not suicidal, Mom!" she insisted. "I went out with Trent a few times, and we're not together any more, but he wasn't happy when I broke up with him. He's probably just doing this to give me a hard time. Don't take it too seriously – besides, this isn't even my handwriting!" Not the total truth, but enough to handle. She was starting to get scared, though. If Trent wanted to paint her as suicidal, did that mean she only had a few hours before another staged suicide would take place?

Well, she wasn't going to go down like some damsel in distress. She needed a failsafe plan, one she began to think up, right at that moment.

Her mom still didn't look convinced. "Are you sure you're okay, honey?" she asked. "I've noticed you've been a little quieter ever since you made those new friends. I know I'm not home enough, but-"

"I'm fine," Gwen insisted, cutting her off. "I understand, and it's not to do with you. You have to work, anyway. I get it. My friends are fine, work is fine. I'm okay. It's just normal teenage things. Honest."

As soon as Gwen was able to get away, reassuring her mom that she was honestly not suicidal and that nothing was wrong, she started setting up her failsafe method, while the ghosts continued to taunt her, saying that she was delusional if she thought there was anything she could do now.

First, she got dressed in one of the few outfits she had left – the one that the girls had let her keep for Halloween, the corseted dress that made her feel like her old self, the quiet, arty goth girl. She took off her makeup, leaving her face as pale as it used to be.

Finally, she got to work on all the clues. She didn't know if she'd need it yet, but she scribbled a few words in her little black diary, starting "Last entry. I think I know where this is going. Let's see how Trent reacts when he sees a suicide that he didn't plan out." Then she purposely left it open, and pulled her navy-blue dressing-gown cord out of the loops and tied part of it to her wardrobe rail. She felt so tired with the stress that she just wanted to collapse. But she knew she couldn't risk napping, or sleeping at all, until it happened. For now, she'd just have to wait.

If you know the story, you know what she's up to. Next chapter coming soon!