Date afternoon.

We were both right about the bowling game. We had barriers so we always knocked down at least one pin, but neither of us were all that good at it. We teased each other about our failures. Okay, we each got one spare, but no strikes at all. We played two games, both of which I narrowly won. Just because neither of us were much good didn't mean we tied.

"Hey, I didn't come here so you could beat me!" JD teased. "What happened to girls not threatening a man's masculinity by beating him at sports?"

I shoved him playfully. "Shut up, Neanderthal! I thought that died in the 1970s when the feminists came up – besides, I think we both know a sport you beat me at every time!" I didn't want to say "shooting" where anyone could hear. I didn't want them to get the wrong idea – or worse, the right idea.

"So," I said teasingly, "Am I getting anything for being a better bowler than you?" I didn't keep the innuendo out of my tone, but I didn't name anything because it didn't have to be anything more than him paying for the chilli fries they served at the bowling alley. Which is exactly what I got. Of course I wanted to match as many lyrics from 'Seventeen' as possible to our dates.

"This part is only for winning one game," JD whispered to me when we were served. "The reward for the second game comes later. That is, if you don't mind going home early." I shivered in anticipation, and he laughed.

"Remember you have to meet my parents and they won't be home until after five," I reminded him. "We need to look like we've been demurely discussing...I don't know, Bush's policies?" I had learned from living around here that the first Bush had been voted in last year. There was nothing more boring than politics, so looking like we'd been discussing that wouldn't spark any suspicions of our real activities.

So we didn't have a long time to play something other than bowling when we got home around three. We didn't spend the hours we usually did just cuddling afterwards, either. By four-thirty, we were both fully dressed, except for my blouse, a plain black one with little white bats on the collar, which I was ironing. It had somehow stayed on the bed and had gotten rumpled because one of us was always on top of it. It was a thin affair, something that crumpled within seconds, even if it was hung up.

"You're seriously making me want to jump you again right now, Indie," JD teased. He was sitting on my bed, just watching. "You look part housewife, part seductress."

"Just because I'm almost topless?" I said, rolling my eyes at him. I wondered briefly if his mom was a homemaker when she was alive, but decided to keep that question to myself. I'd already decided not to bring her up on my own. I finished ironing, switched off the iron and left it to cool down, and started buttoning my (uncomfortably warm but immaculate) top. "There. Turned off yet?"

"If anything, that's more frustrating." JD said lightly. "Maybe it's just because I like that better off, but it makes me restless."

"Hey, me too," I told him, sitting next to him and leaning there. He put his arm around me instinctively. "And it's worse for me because it's always more than one layer on you."

JD grinned and opened the side of his coat so that it wrapped around me too. "There. Does that help?"

I leaned closer to him. "Actually, kind of."

It wasn't easy to disentangle ourselves when my parents finally got home. We came down to talk to them hand in hand. "Hi," I said nervously. "So…this is my boyfriend who I was telling you about."

JD smiled at both of my parents, but I could tell it wasn't a real one. I knew he was nervous, too. "Jason Dean," he said, shaking first my dad's, then my mom's hand.
"But most people call him JD," I added. "Like I do."

The entire interaction was probably three minutes, tops. It was a good thing I'd told my parents JD was shy, because he couldn't get out of there fast enough. He answered a few questions, said something about how wonderful it was to find someone who was totally on his wavelength and then said his dad was expecting him home before he got out. Unfortunately, the motorbike wasn't exactly quiet and my parents heard it screeching off.

"That's why we take my car most places," I explained when I saw my parents' faces tightening. "Safety first."

They relaxed a little. "Well, he seems very nice," Mom said in a voice that sounded like she was going to get critical, "But he's…well, unusual."

I shrugged, knowing she meant weird, strange, odd, because unusual sounded less like an insult. It was true in a way, but that was what had drawn me to him before now. "I like unusual. It's not a bad thing. He's one of the few senior boys that treats girls like actual people. He's quieter than most of them, but that's because he likes reading. Mostly classics."

That impressed my parents a bit, but their first impressions of JD had still not gone smoothly. He'd been perfectly nice and they couldn't fault the way he'd behaved, but if they saw all black and a long trenchcoat as a threatening sign, I couldn't convince them that was wrong.

They also seemed concerned about JD moving around a lot when I admitted that I was sure we wouldn't graduate together. I just told them that we'd either break up or be long-distance. "We might meet again at college. You never know." I knew that sooner or later, he'd have to leave, but I doubted he'd leave me at the same time. I'd seen the way he reacted when Veronica dumped him. Once he turned eighteen, I didn't doubt he'd come back by any means necessary and we'd probably have to keep in touch via snail mail until then. Or phone calls. If only Zoom and Google Chat were available!

Either way, just thinking about that was distressing. I would have gone to bed in a restless mood that night, even if I hadn't had the ghosts waiting to irritate me.

I sighed as usual. "Get lost. I want to get changed and go to bed and I'm not having you watching me."

"You sure you want us to leave?" Kurt leered. "We might leave you alone if you kept up your end of the bargain and let us see you."

"No way," I scowled. "I'm that bitch who double-crossed you, remember? Isn't that what you said when you started running?" I looked at the Lady in Red. "Heather, please? Make them leave the room."

Heather sighed dramatically. "Okay, guys, let her put them on. You know if you stay you'll just torture yourselves because she's untouchable to you."

I didn't argue with her. Whatever worked. Maybe the guys would give me a break if Heather kept drilling that point into them, that they physically couldn't touch me. Well, Ram hadn't hit on me that much. He had made a few comments, but I'd expected that. It was Kurt who was really annoying me. It was clear he really had a specific interest in me and wasn't ready to let go yet, while Ram was just making lewd comments because I was the only living girl who could hear him.

Once I was done, all of them came back and Heather started asking questions. "So, how did it go, having the psycho meet the parents? I'm sure they thought he was a perfect gentleman, huh?"

I shrugged the sarcasm off. "Do parents ever totally approve of their daughter's boyfriends? At least I didn't bring home a bully who thinks putting their hands on a girl is okay because he'll delude himself into thinking she's given consent."

"Hey, I can hear the word 'no'!" Ram defended himself. "I just never have heard it. So forgive me if I assume I'll get a yes every time!"

"Veronica told you no and you didn't leave her alone!" I pointed out. "If you really know how to listen to it, you could also teach your buddy how to do it, because I know from experience that I said no at least four times and he didn't hear it any of those times!"

"Come on, baby," Kurt whined, "You know you wanted it deep down! Even then, I could feel the tension coming off you. I could have helped you loosen up a bit!"

I scowled. "First, never call me baby again. You know my name, use it. Second, you're right I was tense. You were the one who was making me tense because you weren't listening to me saying no! I didn't think I was going to be able to sleep that night because of you. You know what really helped me loosen up? Seeing what I would look like if I was one of the popular girls. So congratulations, Heather, your sense of style actually works on me. Maybe I'll get a skirt to go with my black blazer. Or I'll find another colour. I'm sure Veronica will help me shop for an outfit if I ask her."

Heather's eyes blazed. "If a loser like you tries to copy me, you're dead!" she raged.

"No, you are." I corrected. "But yeah, I probably shouldn't. JD likes me partly because I don't dress like everyone else. I just want to show up to school dressed like you guys because it would piss off Heather Duke. The girl hates me for some reason – and before you say anything, she doesn't know what I'm doing outside of school unless she's spying on me."

Heather gave a sigh and muttered something.

"Excuse me?" I said politely. "I didn't catch that."

Heather sighed again and said in a louder voice "She's jealous that you don't seem to feel self-conscious about your weight, even though you could lose a bit. She sort of mentioned it to me once. She used to be the same size as you and I told her she had to lose some to hang out with me."

I'd long suspected that Heather Duke had only had an eating disorder to keep her weight down, and with Heather Chandler criticizing her every move, I'd guessed it started with her. Now that was proof.

"Ha!" I pointed a finger at her. "I knew it! I knew it was your fault she developed bulimia to start with! That's why she's a waif now, isn't it? And FYI, I'm only this size because of my asthma and because my parents won't let me exercise properly."

Kurt was staring at me thoughtfully. "I don't mind a little extra padding on a girl," he said. "I mean, so much you can't find what you're looking for is a problem, but you've only got a little. Are you sure you-"

I gagged. "I don't care where you're going with this, but if you're going to stay, quit making comments!"

"You can't stop us," Heather said smugly. "From anything. If you didn't want us here, maybe you shouldn't have killed us."

"Or let your boyfriend kill us," Ram added. "We know he gave you the idea, but apparently you're the only one who thinks you did anything wrong."

I scowled and said nothing more, but that got me thinking. I was definitely going to go into school dressed like a Heather one of these days. Veronica wasn't really one of them anymore and she still got away with it. If Heather Duke already hated me just because I didn't have an eating disorder even though I wasn't thin, what did I have to lose?

Secondly, it was time to talk to JD about the ghosts. Maybe he wouldn't believe me, but if he did, things might change when he realized that we hadn't quite deleted those people completely.

By this point, Ana now has a selfish motivation towards not wanting to help kill anyone else. She still doesn't realize that the ghosts can get to her because she's suppressing her guilt, but that guilt has achieved its objective – she's not ready to take another life. And that means JD can't expect her help again. By the way, the black blouse with the bats – it's actually a variation on a white blouse with little dogs on the collar. I gave my one to my flatmate, but we don't have an iron, so it's constantly crumpled. I think the store did have a black version at some point, but they didn't have bats.