LJ Leon  @leonlj   ・25 Sep
I just got the latest issue of #TeenStarsMag and guess who's on the cover. She looks so amazing! This face paint is even more beautiful than the last #PietraTioranoFans #PietraTiorano #TeenStars

Two days had passed, but neither did Bella have her phone back, nor did people stop the Pietra Tiorano craze. At school, girls were always on their phones, typing new tweets and Instagram captions, creating new hashtags which people immediately started using like it was some infectious disease.

Besides all that, Viola had been avoiding her like the plague. She was the mad one, so Viola had no right to avoid her. Their eyes would meet in the hallway and in the few classes they had together, but Viola would quickly look away. It was driving Bella crazy, but Beau managed to keep her grounded with his notes—which were starting to get a little flirty. She cherished them, and since she didn't have much to do, she created a storage section for them in her room.

Today, she sat in study hall, fiddling with her pencil and thinking about what to write to Beau. He was entertaining, and she realized that she enjoyed slipping notes into his locker, despite knowing a particular girl saw her every time she did it. It filled her with thrill and made her forget the 'filter girl' thing.

I'm out of things to write. I think it's writer's block, LOL. So amuse me ;)

"What's up?"

She looked up and couldn't help widening her eyes. Three girls she had always admired stood in front of her with smiles on their faces. If that wasn't enough to knock her off balance, then one of them telling the girl sitting next to her to "scoot" was.

The girl stood, cowering, then walked away, allowing Jun Li to sit.

"Hey," she said, her eyes glinting.

"Hey," Bella replied, placing her honors math notebook over the note. She quickly glanced around, and, sure enough, people were staring, especially the girl whose seat was just brutally snatched.

In front of the room, Mrs. Norvell, the supervising teacher, had her feet up on her desk and her head leaned back in her chair. Even if a bomb went off, she would sleep right through her death; the lady slept like a hard log.

The previous year, some boys had gotten into a fight, and, despite the commotion, she didn't wake up. It took the boys migrating to her desk and pushing her off her chair in the middle of their fight to get her to wake up. She was hospitalized for two weeks, and the boys were suspended.

Sometimes, Bella wondered why she hadn't been fired yet; it was long overdue.

"So we're having a sleepover this Friday, and we realized you're really cool. We want you to come add some spice. What do you say?"

It was a simple and clear invitation, but, for some reason, Bella found herself hesitating. She could've told Jun she was grounded and wasn't sure she would make it, but gosh!

She had been staring at them in awe since freshman year, and they had never given her as much as a glance, so she just assumed they didn't care about her or her Internet fame. This was flat-out shocking, and turning down their invitation wasn't an option.

Who knew when such an opportunity would present itself again.

"Um, I'll think about it."

The brunette she recognized as Frankie smiled. "Take your time. We'll even postpone if you don't make up your mind on time."

Okay. This was serious. They would postpone their sleepover for her. They were juniors for God's sake—a step away from being seniors. Why the sweet treatment?

"O... kay."

"Cool. We'll need your number so we can text you."

Another chance appeared for her to tell them she was grounded, but, instead, she said, "Um, sure. But I'm not with my phone right now, and I won't have it back for a while, so can I give you a friend's instead?"

"Sure."

Jun gave a phone to her and she put in Viola's phone number. It wasn't a completely thought out plan, but giving Viola's phone number to them meant her best friend would have to pass information. She'd see how she would worm her way out of this one.

"Thanks. We'll see you later." The girls gave her huge smiles, then walked away.

Bella would've done a victory dance, but she wasn't a hundred percent satisfied with the decision she just made.

Beside her, the girl whose seat was snatched gently reclaimed her chair, giving her a look out of the corner of her eye.

During lunch, she read Beau's latest note as she bit into her burger, having no choice but to stick with the cafeteria's greasy food.

You know, rare things are of great worth. The same goes for people with unique characteristics. Think Einstein, or Frankenstein (do you see the similarity in their names?). What makes them remembered? It's 'cause they're unique. Kind of like you, but I honestly think you're way more interesting ;)

She kept her burger in the lunch tray in front of her, then turned to look at her manual social media. He wasn't eating, but writing something instead—unmistakably solving a calculus equation, due to the numerous books on the table and the look of concentration on his face. She wanted to go sit with him, but their conversation at the gym came to her memory like some kind of flashback.

As if they had a mental conversation, he glanced up, doing a double take when he noticed her eyes on him. Her eyes widened at the realization that she had been caught, and she turned back to her burger. She could feel him smirking behind her, but didn't want to confirm it.

A tray landed beside hers suddenly, and she looked up to see Viola. Her ponytail looked like it had been through the second world war, and the neckline of her white tee was out of place. In one sentence, Viola DelMane was a wreck.

"Can we talk?"

Her appearance scared the life out of Bella, so she asked, "Are you sure talking is what you'd like to do right now?"

Viola sat beside her. "Yes." Her voice trembled, like she was about to cry, and it put Bella on edge.

She placed an arm around her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

Viola looked around, like she just escaped a weapon-holding caveman. "No. No, I'm not."

Her honesty knocked the wind out of Bella. Finally! Thumbs up to Google. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm sorry for keeping things from you. And I know yesterday—I should have told you before, but I was just so lonely in the summer, I had no choice."

"You were lonely?"

Viola unscrewed the cap of her water bottle, then took a sip. "Yeah. You were so occupied with Stephanie that you neglected me. On the day of our beach party—the same day I told you she was leaving—you left and didn't come back. Bella, it hurt. I didn't want to tell you until after the party, 'cause I knew you wouldn't be happy—" She screwed the cap back on and just stopped talking.

Bella wanted to ask her what happened, but paused when she saw why she stopped.

Amparo approached them, a smug smile on her face. Somehow, it made Bella's stomach churn uncontrollably. What did she want?

Amparo placed her hands on the table, across from them, making herself seem a bit more intimidating than she already was. She threw Viola a look that would've looked sympathetic without the smile she had on her face. "What's going on here? Why do you two look like you came out of a TV show?"

"It's none of your business, Amparo," Bella said, avoiding her eyes.

"Oh. Or is it about that new celebrity? What's her name again?" She snapped her fingers. "That's it. Pietra Tiorano, right?"

"Buzz off, Amparo."

She knew the girl was awesome—people's reactions told her all—and she didn't need someone, especially someone like Amparo, rubbing it in her face. It was annoying.

"I can't tell you how happy I am to know that finally, my friends don't have their eyes on their phones, waiting for you to post something. How easily people forget those who helped them get to that place of fame."

Couldn't Bella just give her a hard slap across the face and forget that moment ever happened? Because she was getting pissed at her.

"If you ask me, I'll say you deserve to be forgotten so easily. I mean, you think you're a hundred times more awesome than everyone else, and you literally replaced your shadow with Viola."

Bella fumed at that statement. She did not just bring Viola into the conversation.

"I know Viola has never told you," Amparo continued, "but I see her face every time you bury your attention in social media and don't give a damn about who's talking to you. Or am I wrong, Viola?"

"What's your problem?" Bella asked, a little too loudly, and, as unfortunate as the situation was, a few people turned in their direction.

"The truth hurts, I know, but you don't have to be so attention-seeking about it." The sly smile on Amparo's face said it all—that was the plan—but Bella still fell for it. Viola looked down at the table and pretended to trace a line on it.

"Amparo, leave me alone."

"I'm not done. Viola still needs to know things you haven't told her yet."

Bella stood, more in fear than to challenge her archenemy, who was looking too pleased for her satisfaction.

"Is there a problem here?"

At the sound of Beau's voice, Bella almost paid homage to him. Amparo smiled sweetly when he stopped beside Bella.

"No. No problem here. Bella just has serious anger issues."

"Well, I don't think you should keep on talking to someone with anger issues."

It was when Bella felt her fists get lighter that she realized she had balled them.

Amparo stared at Beau for a while, then at Bella, before walking away without a word. Bella's breathing evened and she realized she had never been that scared in her life. For some reason, she was embarrassed to look at the boy who had rescued her for the second time—the first being the night she snuck out.

"Hey, are you all right?"

She finally looked at him, but his attention was on Viola. Viola nodded, then awkwardly stood. "Bella, I'll..." She trailed off as she walked away, her ponytail naturally swinging from left to right.

"I should probably go after her," Bella said, then took her backpack from the floor.

"Yeah, you should. She doesn't look too good."

"Thanks for the help."

"You looked like you wanted to punch her." He motioned to her hands, and she felt a smile hover on her lips. "You don't seem capable of harming an ant, but," he shrugged, "it's always the timid ones."

She shoved his shoulder playfully, then brushed past him, but he gently held her hand, making her pause. There was no playfulness in his expression this time, instead it was intense seriousness. His eyes bored into hers like he could see through them.

"I still don't know what I have to do with what's going on between you two."

"I'll tell you. But not now—later. Right now I have to—" She paused when she realized what she said.

Beau smiled, visibly satisfied with himself, and she shook her head like she would at a misbehaving toddler.

"You're an imp," she said.

He laughed, then hesitantly let go of her hand. "You have to keep your promise now."

"Actually, I don't."

"Oh, you will."

Her heart leapt for a short second before he turned to walk back to his table. She saw his note on her table and couldn't help shaking her head again. He was messing with her senses.

* * *

Viola walked past her neighbor's house, pretending not to see the tall boy playing with his sheepdog on the lawn. When he saw her, his face brightened.

"Hey, DelMane, where's my cousin? And why do you look like you crawled out of a dump?"

His shouting caused the smallest bit of self-control she had left to disappear into thin air. "You're an idiot wannabe, Maximus," she replied, devoid of emotion, but didn't look at him.

"At least I'm doing a great job at it."

He was a fool, so she wasn't going to waste the rest of her energy talking to him; she had used it all up staying away from Amparo. She briefly wondered how and why he and Jake were related. The incident in the cafeteria was still fresh in her memory, and it was making her angrier every second.

You literally replaced your shadow with Viola.

As much as it hurt, she knew it was true. That was why she did something without Bella for once in her life, but what did that get her? She didn't want to lose Bella, but she was getting sick of the life she had—of the kind of person she was. She wished they could swap places, even if for a day, so she'd get a taste of what it was like to be Belinda Quincy.

She walked into her house and, knowing her mom wouldn't be home, ran up the stairs to her room. She dropped her backpack on the floor, then rushed to her laptop.

Logging onto Facebook, she bit her lower lip in anticipation. When it finally loaded, a grin went up her face, stretching even wider when she saw two private messages waiting for her.

Hi!

How are you doing?

She quickly replied, then asked the question that had been on her mind all the way home.

Can you help me with something?

Her friend was online, but she still held her breath, hoping she would reply soon.

"Come on, come on," she mumbled, eyes fixed on her screen.

After what felt like an eternity—but was just under a minute—her reply came.

Yeah. Sure :)