***IMPORTANT AUTHORESS NOTE***

I just re-read this story and I realized I majorly screwed up the
chapter numbering. It should be like this:

Part 1: We All Have Problems
Part 2: Casualty
Part 3: Little Miss Not-So Perfect

SORRY! And don't forget: updates might become scarce, because though I
have no school on Friday, Saturday is my birthday party and Sunday I
have to perform a skit. Oh yeah, and Tuesday (November 15) is my
birthday! After writing here since age 10, I feel like an old fart since
I'm turning 14...

Here's chapter 4!

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Chapter 04: Fading Away


     Nick had a scowl on his face as he walked down the hallway to first
hour. Aaron was sucking up to one of the biggest preps in school. What
was WRONG with him? Had some kind of alien taken over his brain during
the night? Did he have a thing for Jenna Riley? Why Jenna? WHY?

     "Ugh, Jenna's party is going to suck," he could hear Astrid say as
he passed the group. "I'm so glad we're not going."

     "Jenna's a jerk. I wish she would go back to where she was last
year," Bree Maxwell commented. How dumb could Jenna be? She thought
these were her friends. 

    "She's probably fun though," added in Ben Parker. "If you know what
I mean." Bailey glared at him. Nick just rolled his eyes. They were all
the same. They talk crap about each other when they're with other people
but as soon as they were all in a group, they were best friends. 

     And they WERE best friends in a group. If best friends could stem
out of a posse. And that was truly what they were. Astrid Landgren was
the leader, gym leader of the Labyrinth Terrace, a perfect vision with
straight blonde hair and blue eyes, icy and scrutinizing. Emily Richards
was second in command. She was exactly like Astrid, except she was a bit
quieter, and her hair was red. Not blonde. Bree Maxwell was the smile of
the group, only most of the time her smile was fake. But you always got
a smile out of her, with all teeth pearly white and straight. Nobody
really cared what happened to her. The same could be said about Bailey
Monterrey. Candace Parker's replacement and Ben Parker's current arm
candy. That would change within the next week. And then nobody would
notice if she hung around.

     But then there was Jenna Riley. She hadn't always been just another
one of the girls. They had been friends, once upon a time, before the
divorce. He had once been a citizen of the Labyrinth Terrace, where
money was all you needed and Abercrombie was more than just a label.
With her front tooth missing, frizzy sunbleached brown hair always
tangled and round belly, she had been just a normal kid, though it was
hard to believe now. The frizz was just a mere memory, now replaced by
long curls. The tooth had grown back, giving her a full set of perfect
teeth and her belly had too vanished, giving her a figure envied by many
girls at the school. Even her smile was gone now, but Jenna was a good
enough actress to be able to hide it. Nick knew though. He knew.

     Class was boring, considering Aaron was the only one he talked to
during first hour. Second hour was different. In second hour, there was
Leah. And that made Nick want to run for cover. Sure, she was his
girlfriend. But with Leah, he didn't know how to breathe. He was closed
in on all sides, and there was no possible way to be himself.

     In the hallway, Nick passed six people wearing Abercrombie, and all
of them made him sad. For some reason, all he could think about how the
pudgy, frizzy-haired girl down the street had turned into this walking,
breathing mannequin. It was kind of pitiful, if you thought about it. 

     Second period was in clear view, but he didn't really want to go.
Nick was seriously dreading it. But then again, why did he have to go at
all? He could just skip it and come back for third hour. And plus,
second hour was the only class he had with Leah. He could completely
avoid her all day this way.

They seriously needed to break up.

     Exiting the school was not hard. It really wasn't. All Nick had to
do was exit out through the side doors that led out to the parking lot.

But then he heard it.

     It was a muffled sound and at first, he thought he was imagining
it. But as he walked further down the parking lot, it got louder. It was
somebody crying. A GIRL crying. Was she injured? Was she being attacked?
What if whatever attacked her went after him? But then he knew that if
she was being attacked and then he heard about it on the news, he would
never forgive himself for not intervening. 

     So he walked towards the sound. As he got closer to Astrid
Landgren's BMW, the sound got louder and louder. But as he finally made
his way to the car's side, he found the cause of the crying. It was
wearing all white.

     "Are you okay?" he asked hesitantly. The girl looked up quickly,
and before he could even realize it, a puffy-eyed Jenna Rile stared back
at him.

     "Not like you care," she mumbled and then sniffled. She picked up
her precious multi-colored Billabong bag off the gravel of the parking
lot and then brushed off her backside.

     Nick couldn't stop staring at her sleeve though. Two splashes of
fresh blood glared at him, surrounding by older spots that were
obviously fading away. "Are you hurt?" he asked her, pointing at the
spots. For one moment, just one moment, her facade disappeared and she
looked horribly vulnerable, and Nick could nearly swear that a little
girl with one front tooth was waving at him, proving her existence to
him and everyone else.

     But she disappeared as quickly as she had come. "Just go away," she
whispered and then collapsed next to the car again. She didn't have to
say anything. Nick knew that she knew. She knew they didn't care. But
the crappy thing about knowing that people don't care is knowing that
you do and knowing that they hurt you. Knowing that you want them to
care. And knowing that they never will.

     Nick began to walk away, figuring that detention for being late was
worth not having to see that. "Nothing's ever going to change," he could
hear her murmer sadly.

The bloodstains weren't the only things fading away.