That afternoon was even worse.

After Mariana insisted she would go home with Samuel, Guzman was furious. So furious that he managed to shove Samuel in the changing room with the usual threat of staying away from his sister. What he wasn't expecting was for Samuel to burst out the sentence on the tip of his tongue which he had held hostage for somewhat of a week. 

'Well at least I actually care about her, unlike you! I'm not the one pretending to like the girl I'm with while sleeping with someone else!'

Samuel's voice rang in his head over and over again, embedded in his brain, like his 9am alarm, giving him a headache, as he angrily drove to the more simple side of the city to the grocery store he'd visited once or twice. 

As Nadia stocked the freezer with more vanilla yoghurt, she had a sour taste in her mouth as she thought of the school events earlier in the morning. The girl was surely conflicted. Marina had been nothing but nice to her from the first day she'd stepped into the school. To be harbouring a secret like that was solely her choice of course, but Nadia couldn't help but feel the need to distance herself from the redhead as her mind filled with different questions.

Why didn't she tell me?

Is it more serious than she let on?

Who else knew about it besides Guzman?

Did Alaska?

Did . . . Alejandro?

Her mind was frazzled. As Marina talked, she saw the way the twins weren't as shocked as everyone else in the class. She didn't know why she was so upset that neither of them hadn't said a word of it to her - 

"Honestly Nadia, what the hell is your problem?" 

Nadia turned around in surprise at the voice that had disrupted her thoughts. 

It was Guzman.

And he looked vexed.

"Pardon me?"

"You told Samuel. Fucking Samuel!"

Guzman was trying his hardest not to yell at her but was failing extremely miserably. Realisation hit Nadia.

"Lower your voice, and I didn't tell Samuel anything." Nadia said, as she tried to quiet him down.

"Don't tell me to lower anything because I won't. You told me you were going to say nothing." Guzman stifled a yell.

"I didn't tell you anything. You were probably sloppy and he saw you, the same way you were sloppy and I saw you-"

"Who else did you tell? Hm?" He beckoned clearly agitated and Nadia had enough.

"I told you I didn't tell anyone anything. Believe it or not, I wouldn't enjoy the prospect of my friend hurting because of your actions," Nadia scoffed, "Am I even surprised that this has happened?"

"What the hell do you mean?" Guzman dared, crossing his arms.

"Your whole world is full of craziness. You threaten me to keep your secret, you're cheating on your girlfriend with a girl who's basically her enemy, you've been caught by everyone under the sun, and now your sister has HIV," she scoffed again, "and you say my culture is archaic." 

"So, your family's perfect and everything's great?" Guzman asked sarcastically.

"No, I'm not saying that we're perfect nor that it's great, but at least we don't have those kind of problems."

"Those kind of problems." Guzman shook his head in disbelief, shut his eyes, and tried to calm himself down, while Nadia brushed her shoulder against his arm, as a customer walked through the door, making it chime, meaning she had to go and assist.

As Guzman looked outside the window in frustration, his frown deepened when he caught sight of Omar rounding the corner. He wasn't thinking about the next words that came out of his mouth were uncontrollable, but he wanted to somewhat prove to Nadia that she wasn't as perfect and neither was her life, as much as she thought it was. 

"Do you know what your brother does?" he asked, but didn't wait for a reply, "he deals drugs and sucks cock."

With that, he stormed out, his phone in his hand as he texted the familiar number.

To - Lu:

Samuel knows. 

As soon as Guzman sat in the car, the reply came almost instantly.

From - Lu:

I know?

And boy was he furious.

To - Lu:

My house, now.

-

'Well at least I actually care about her, unlike you! I'm not the one pretending to like the girl I'm with while sleeping with someone else!'

The same way the words were lodged in Guzman's brain, they were rooted extremely deeply in Alejandro's.

With the deadline for their group project past and gone Samuel's grade for creativity although decent, his grade for his vocabulary, grammar, and overall structure needed more than a little help. Luckily for him, Alejandro was a peer mentor and had been for a little over a year so instead of signing up for the scheme, and going through the process of looking through potential candidates for him, Alejandro offered because he knew how lengthy the process could be. The two had agreed to meet up after school in the changing rooms to agree on a time, date, and place. 

The blonde didn't even get a chance to walk into the changing rooms when he heard Samuel blurt out the words.

'Well at least I actually care about her, unlike you! I'm not the one pretending to like the girl I'm with while sleeping with someone else!'

Alejandro felt his heart sink immediately. That was the only way to describe it. He didn't know who Samuel was talking to but he sincerely hoped it wasn't Guzman. That's what he told himself  however; the blonde knew exactly who Samuel was talking to when he replied.

'What the hell did you just say to me?' Guzman replied quieter.

'You heard me perfectly clear. I'm poor, I'm a waste of space, I'm everything under the sun that means trash, as you love to say! But at least I'm not cheating on Marina the way you're cheating on Alaska -'

Alejandro's eyes grew wider when Samuel was abruptly cut off by the sound of slamming against the lockers. 

'Shut your fucking mouth, you don't know what you're talking about.' Guzman said menacingly.

'I'm such a horrible person for treating your sister with nothing but respect, yet you are the one -'

'Are you deaf? I said shut your mouth.'

'I'm sorry that you can't live with your guilt, but . . .'

Alejandro didn't bother to listen to the rest of the conversation for fear that he would act in a way that he might regret, even though he was still pulsing all over. The blonde hiked his bag up his shoulder and continued to kick his McQueen clad feet faster and faster to the front of the school doors where he had instructed his twin to wait for him.

The thoughts of what Samuel had revealed was still consuming him, even at the gym as he took out his frustration on the punching bag in front of him. Alejandro couldn't stay home, especially since he knew that at any point he would be in the same space as the girl in question and it was hard enough to resist the urge to tell her what he'd heard during the drive home. He was dreading his next course of action, which was confronting Guzman to find out exactly what Samuel was talking about. If he was to take the information head on to Alaska without the actual truth, he would be doing her whole relationship a dis-service if it turned out to be false.

A part of Alejandro that he tried to shove down wouldn't admit that there was a strong chance that after years of bottling her feelings with the series of unfortunate events that had crossed her over the last few years, this would be what finally caused her to boil over.

This time, she may not recover.

-

The next two days were .  . . tense. 

Alaska felt more and more unsettled everyday when she noticed that everyone around her was behaving differently. 

It begun with Christian. The brunette was evidently avoiding her. It was obvious during their shared free period three days period, when Alaska asked him at the lockers if they would be going to their usual spot in the library for it, but Christian didn't even have his usual grin on his face when he told her he had some sort of meeting with the school nurse about his medical records. Alaska ignored it, assuming it wasn't an issue and dismissed his unusual behaviour. But it'd been three days and Christian was replying to her messages very simply, and avoiding majority eye contact with her in general. 

Next there was Guzman, who wasn't avoiding her explicitly, but every new day he'd see her, he had dread on his face as if she was going to yell at him for something. But as soon as. Ala would give him a small kiss, he'd let out a sigh of relief.

Nadia was in the same boat. Nadia was walking on eggshells around the blonde and she didn't understand why. But Nadia wasn't avoiding her either, she was just behaving more cautiously, similar to Guzman's behaviour. 

The strangest however was Alejandro. Her twin would reply with one word answers whenever she'd ask him something. For once, they weren't as joined at the hip either; Alejandro was playing basketball more, at the gym more, and out of the house just in general. It was becoming confusing when she realised she was in the living room all the time in an attempt to catch him entering the house for at least one conversation, but she found herself going to her room defeated. Alba even told her that her brother was eating in his room whenever he'd ask her to make something for him, which he rarely ever did. 

Alaska wanted to complain to either of them, but didn't because she thought maybe they were all just too consumed in their own lives, especially with mid-terms approaching. It also helped her realise that the lack of meeting with her usual friends caused her to draw slightly closer to her old ones: Ander and Marina, with a little bit of Carla in the mix too. Even though she wanted to hate the idea, she was enjoying it.

Dr. Flores wished the blonde would voice all these different thoughts instead of keeping them to herself as she set her brown eyes on Alaska's 'lost in thought' demeanour.

"Finally we're meeting, Alaska." 

Ala cringed with a little bit of embarrassment because she had been avoiding the school issued therapist for a while.

"Si."

Dr. Flores continued to stare at her in hopes of her eyes catching Alaska's who was opposite her, but the blonde just continued to stare at her lap with her legs crossed, slightly fidgety. But the older woman continued.

"How are you feeling this afternoon, Alaska?"

"Fine."

"How is your brother? I had an oatmeal cookie the other day and thought of the ones he used to bring me when he came to his sessions." Dr. Flores smiled.

After the death of their father the Las Encinas administration thought it would be a good idea to introduce the twins to therapy, since they were young and that kind of loss was harder on them than they perceived. Alejandro utilised the opportunity to the max. Even after the trauma on his sister that followed a year after, he really found an outlet in Dr. Flores which he couldn't be more grateful for. His favourite type of cookie was oatmeal, and when the therapist had said she'd never tried one before, Ale brought a ziplock filled with three oatmeal cookies to his sessions every time. He finished his prescribed therapy appointments in the fall of the year before, while Alaska stayed. Unlike her twin, the girl found it harder to confide in a woman who she didn't know. She revealed things every once in a while, but while Alejandro got better, Alaska wasn't doing as well. Therefore, anytime the school would ask the doctor how everything was with the twins, Alejandro got a good report while Alaska didn't. During the very first day of therapy, Dr. Flores had given Alaska's grandparents, who were her guardians at the time, a full feedback on odd patterns she'd picked up in the way she spoke and behaved. The suggestion she gave was that Alaska begin anger management because she noticed the rage she was bottling in. It was safe to say that even though Nikita Flores had gotten Alaska to open up a handful of times, they still had a long way to go.

"He's fine, I'll let him know." She grunted.

It was quiet for a few more seconds as Alaska tried to avoid any eye contact, but Dr. Flores didn't beat about the bush any longer, going straight for the kill.

"How've you been since our last meeting? Your friendships, your relationship . . ."

"It's been good."

Alaska didn't feel like she needed to be there that day. For the past few weeks, she had been feeling okay and whenever she was with the therapist, she felt as though the older woman tried to force feelings out of her. She wasn't as angry as she used to be and Flores had to accept -

"Come on Alaska, you know we don't do the one word answers in these sessions."

"That was three words." She couldn't help but snark.

Dr. Flores gave her an almost 'don't give me that attitude' face, to which Alaska rolled her eyes and apologised quietly.

"Perdoname." She mumbled.

"It's fine. Remember, this isn't an interrogation and I cannot force you to talk or stay, but I do have to give reports after each session on your progress, and you have to help me help you."

Alaska shrugged and nodded.

"So, I'll ask again. How've you been since we last saw each other?"

"I've been fine, honestly. I feel fine, stressed because of exams coming but that's all."

"Does the stress come only from exams . . . or are there other factors perhaps?" Dr. Flores pried just a little bit more.

"No, just exams."

"Are you sure?"

That's when she had enough.

"I mean this respectfully, what do you want me to say? You asked me and I told you, what more do you want?" Alaska paused for a moment, finally facing the woman seriously. "You want to know about my anger? It's fine, I haven't been feeling so angry in a while. My friendships? They're fine. I told you the last time that I made friends with Nadia and Christian and sure they might be acting a little weird with me recently but it's fine. I'm rekindling things with Ander, he talked to me about a week ago and we decided to give things another go. My relationship is fine. Everything is fine. What more do you want me to say?!" She couldn't help but raise her voice, because the woman's questions were annoying her rather than helping her 'dig deep' as she liked to preach.

"You said you haven't been angry in a while-"

"That's right."

"Then why are you angry at the questions I'm asking?"

Alaska kept quiet, but the woman smiled, setting her notepad on the small glass coffee table.

"Like I said Alaska, I'm not going to force you to talk about things you don't want to talk about but it would be helpful to. That's my job, to be someone you can trust because I know it's hard for you to do so. I think you're suppress your anger and that's why you're finding my questions annoying. Don't suppress."

"I know," the blonde sighed.

"You can leave, it's almost time for your next class and I can only take one period per week. Please attend the anger management sessions, they're supposed to take attendance and yours is just a little blank." Dr. Flores grinned with a wink as Alaska got up to walk away. Even though she wouldn't say it out loud, the older woman's laidback attitude made her feel just a little more better whenever she came inside. 

"Oh and just an observation," she said, making Ala turn back round to face her, "talk to your friends. You said they're being 'weird' with you so ask them why."

-

To some extent, Dr. Flores was right.

As Alaska walked through the halls towards her locker, she realised that the therapist had a point about simply asking Nadia and Christian why they were being so distant. She took out her phone and sent Christian a message, but Nadia had swimming, so she would just wait for her in the changing room.

To - Christian:

Hey.

But then her phone dropped out of her hand when a shoulder bumped into hers.

"I'm sorry! I hope it's not broken, I'm really sorry-"

Looking up, her green eyes met Samuel's who looked worried and jittery.

"It's fine, don't worry about it." She laughed it off, bending to pick up the phone. 

Samuel didn't look convinced as he inspected the phone that was now back in her grip. 

"Okay." He sighed with relief before turning back round when Alaska called out his name.

"By the way, have you seen Christian?"

"N-No, why?" Samuel asked with nervousness.

"Nothing, I haven't seen him today so I was wondering."

Samuel let out another sigh of relief he wasn't even aware he was holding.

With that, they exchanged goodbyes and Alaska continued onwards to wave goodbye and the girl continued onwards to find Nadia in the changing rooms of the pool.

But Alaska was stopped when someone else bumped into her shoulder. This time, it was the girl she was looking for. But just like Samuel, Nadia looked frantic. Except Alaska had an even worse feeling about why Nadia was so panicked.

"Ala! We need to get help now!" Nadia almost screamed, putting the blonde in a state of worry.

"Why? What's happened?" 

"M-Marina . . . something happened to Marina, I have to go get help." 

Alaska didn't even let Nadia continue as she pushed past her to the changing room where her heart sunk as she saw Marina barely conscious and Carla who hovered over her, trying to shake her awake. 

"Marina?!" Alaska yelled, tossing her bag off immediately and running over to her. 

Carla looked up at the sound of her voice.

"Nadia found her like this, and I was walking by but I don't know what to do! She won't keep her eyes open. 

As the two girls tried to keep Marina from closing her eyes completely, Martin barged in, noticed the scene, and immediately dived down, instructing both girls to move back. 

"Marina listen to me," he cooed, trying to talk to her. 

Marina didn't respond, causing Martin to lift her body up.

"Do you hear me? Can you hear me? Hey. Look at me, follow my finger please." Martin tried again, lifting his index finger in front of her face. 

Next to them, Alaska walked to Nadia, Carla following closely by:

"How the hell did this happen?" 

"I don't know, I accidentally cut my finger and when I came here to wash it off, the blood, and I-I found her like this." Nadia explained.

"She's clearly high, I saw her eyes."

"Yes, but I think she might have hit her head or something because she's bleeding from the back of her scalp.

Two to three minutes passed and all three girls turned their heads to see Marina limp slowly with her mouth bloody and the back of her head likewise, leaving Martin behind with his mouth opened, a scared look on his face at the threat Marina had given him.

A/N: So Ale knows. That means - 

*lost connection*