I do believe I made some sort of squeaky noise resembling that of a mouse that somebody just stepped on. 

But after the initial shock, (which took maybe one or two seconds) my brain registered that this was the first time my boyfriend had actually  kissed me. 

And it was pretty awesome.

So of course it went downhill from there. 

I heard a tiny poof behind me and somebody clearing their throat. My eyes shoot open and we wrench apart to find my father standing behind us, holding the book I had been reading for the first half of the drive. His face is purple and his right eye is twitching. And a pair of binoculars are hanging around his neck.

"Umm-----" I squeak. My lips feel numb. 

"Run?" Carlos asks. 

"Run." I agree. I grab his hand and turn to dash away.

"STAY PUT!" Dad yells. We stop together almost like he's frozen our feet. 

"HADES!" Mom shouts, running up behind him. "I'm sorry, Ellie, he saw it happen and looked for an excuse---He saw your book and used it to get close----HADES GET BACK HERE!"

"HE WAS----"

"I AM AWARE!!!"

"BUT----"

"Daaaaaad!" I groan.

Mom finally catches up to him, grabs my book, and tosses it to me. "Stop interfering with Carlie!" she scolds my dad. 

"MOM!" I shriek. 

"What?" She smiles. Then she grabs my dad's ear and makes him poof them back to the car. 

And Carlos is dead silent. 

"Sooooooooooo...." I drag out the word long as possible. 

"Sorry." Carlos mutters. 

I can see he thinks he shouldn't have done it, so I laugh. Even to me, it sounds strained. "I'm not mad. I just wish Dad hadn't seen." I quickly say, smiling. 

He looks up with the tiniest smile. "I'm just glad he didn't kill me."

I laugh again, sounding more real, though this one sounds more like a pig's snort, and hook my arm through his. My whole face feels like it's on fire. "Where's everybody else?" I ask.

"They're in their dorms. They said something about going to your dorm later tonight." Carlos said. 

I feel a trickle of disappointment. I'd hoped to see everybody at once. "Oh."

"And... Sera's still not awake." Carlos mutters. 

"Oh."

He must see how sad I'm getting, because he tugs me towards the building. "Hey. Sorry. I just.... Never mind. Come on."

I let go of him to go back and grab my bag, then I walk inside with him to my dorm. I'd hoped Sera would be awake, too. 

"How's Arson doing?" I venture. 

Carlos grins, to my surprise. "He's loving it here. He misses Sera, but he doesn't miss the Isle."

'What about Ares and Uma?"

"On the Isle, under intense spells."

"Gil? Brit?"

"Gil still likes it here. He wishes he could patch things up with Uma, though."

"Aw." I smile sadly. "Wish I'd been there."

"Oh, by the way, now that you've pointed it out..." he clears his throat. "I actually think your black eye looks awesome. When Hades told us about your...uh...scars and stuff, Mal said that was the coolest thing ever. Dizzy said that she had "so many ideas her head was going to burst" He puts air quotes around the sentence. 

I snort. "Of course she does."

We get to my old dorm, and I expect Carlos to leave to go back to his. But he just waits behind me. 

I glance at him. "Uh, is there a reason you're hanging around?"

He just shakes his head, bouncing on his heels. 

Weird...

I open my door up to find it pitch-black like it was the night Chad, Quentin, and Ned attacked me. I glance back at Carlos once, and he's grinning. I step one foot in and blinding lights turn on, a LOT of voices yelling "SURPRISE!!!!" at the top of their lungs. Once I blink the light out of my eyes, I register what looks like half the school squished into one room. Or at least it feels like it after a year with just two other people in my life. Really it's just Mal, Evie, Jay, Ben, Arson, Gil, Brit, Doug, Dizzy, and all my other friends. I do have a lot.

I see a table filled with ice cream, cake, and a couple presents. A huge multicolored banner above it reads WELCOME BACK ELLIE!!!!! in all caps. 

And I'm still standing in the doorway with one hand on the doorknob. Carlos pushes me in a little as everyone starts talking at once. Over the next fifteen minutes, I'm hugged so many times I can barely feel m arms. Then things start calming down a bit once everybody gets a slice of cake (chocolate with double-fudge icing---yum!) and let me actually talk. Not that I have anything to say. 

Mal speaks up first. "Gotta say, Ellie, your dad wasn't kidding about the black eye. It's awesome."

I smile. "Thanks. Nice hair."

She grins and shakes back her shorter, more vibrant purple hair. 

"Hey Ben, did my dad really have to threaten the school board?" I ask. 

Ben laughs. "Yeah, he did. It was actually pretty awesome."

Evie shoves her way to the front with Dizzy. Dizzy is holding a bright silvery present, and she shoves it into my hands. "We made it yesterday, so don't judge if it's weird!" Dizzy says. 

I smile and tear it open, expecting some kind of hair product. I'm half right---

"A coupon book?" I ask, flipping through the little booklet.

"There are twelve cards in there. Free complete makeovers, not counting the one I'm going to give you tomorrow." Dizzy squeals. "But that's not the best part. Look in the bottom!"

I move around the tissue paper until I find a little notecard. It's only got two sentences on the front.

You've been asking for too long. Hope you like!

I turn the card over. Devie.

I look up to find Doug and Evie grinning at me. I stare at them for a minute before cracking up. "About time!" I say between breaths. 

Evie just grins. Doug looks a little embarrassed, but still happy. 

"Mine next!" Brit squeals, shoving past them. She, Gil, and Quentin look pretty pleased with themselves as they hand me a gold-wrapped package. I tear it open, and find...

"A book?" I ask. 

"Right!" Brit says. "Y'know, on the Isle, television was called books."

Her eyes sparkle as it clicks in my head. "You've seen---"

"No. Ar told me to say it." Brit says. Arson jumps up behind them, waving for the second he's in the air before he disappears in the crowd again. 

I push through to hug him. "We have to watch all my favorite movies so you can quote them with me," I tell him. He nods, grinning. 

And then someone clears their throat and my small welcoming party clears to show Maira. She looks severely uncomfortable. But she also looks different. She's not glaring at me, for one, but her hair is also cut to just below her jawline, and she's actually wearing a sword with her knapsack. 

She clears her throat. "You wanna talk outside, Icy?"

I feel a twinge of the old annoyance at the nickname, but I nod and follow her out. I hear people back inside my dorm whispering, betting on whether I'll kill her as I close the door behind me. I roll my eyes and follow Maira out of the hallway. She leads me to a garden with a small trickling fountain. I tap the base and it frosts, freezing in a twirl of sparkly white dust.

Maira sighs. "Look, I wanted to apologize."

"For what exactly?" I ask. "For being a brat? For basically hating me?"

She growls. "And you wonder why it was so easy for me to hate you."

"You're not exactly helping your case."

She sighs again. "I know. You want to know the real reason? Why I hated you so much?"

"Do enlighten me."

"Okay, A) because of that attitude." I sigh. "And B) Because you stole Hades."

"What?"

"I grew up with him my whole life, Ic---Ellie. Look, my dad always wanted a son. He didn't try to hide that fact. But Hades was like a dad to me. And then you show up, out of nowhere, never having met him in your life, and all of the sudden you're his little girl, not me."

"Oh."

"He used to talk about you all the time. Whenever I would see a picture of you online, I would run over to his house and show him. He loved that." She sighs and sits down on the fountain. I hesitantly sit next to her. 

"Sorry?" I venture. 

She laughs. "You don't have to apologize. I was kind of a jerk to you."

"Kind of?"

"Okay, I was a jerk."

"There you go."

She laughs again. "And here, everybody was just lining up to be your friend, even Sera."

"Not everybody." I correct. "I have a few stupid enemies."

"Yeah?" Maira smiles. "Like who?"

"Well, Nedwin of Maldonia for one."

"Prince Ned?" Maira's eyebrows knit together. "Green sweater most of the time, arrogant, son of Tiana?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, he hates me. I was hanging out with Arson one day, and he walked by us and when he saw Ar, he squealed and started screaming at us to run back to our slug holes."

I get up. "Scuse me. Gotta go kill him."

She puts a hand on my arm. "Wait! Just wait." She's laughing so hard now, she's crying almost. "Arson looked so offended, so I punched the guy in the nose, and Arson started laughing, and he said 'squishy face!' because of how Ned's nose squished against his face when I punched him."

"Squishy face?" I laugh. "That's from Lord Of The Rings! I told him that's what I called one of the Orcs."

Maira nods. "I know. He told me. He also made me watch every good movie in existence."

"Princess Bride?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Star Wars?"

"We're on number seven. Carlos watched those with us. He kept saying something about finally getting what a padawan was."

I smile, thinking back to before Cotillion, when I had said that word and he'd had no idea what I'd meant.

"Star Trek? The newer ones?" I ask.

"All un-named red shirts beware." Maira smirks.

"And here I was worried you two would be killing each other." I hear behind us. We both turn at the same time and find Mahina behind us, looking very out of place from my memories in jeans and a T-shirt.

"Hi, Mahina." I say. 

"Welcome back." She hugs me. "Sorry I missed your welcome party, but Nedwin threw gum in Kalia's hair again and we had to look up that potion Mal gave us last time to get it out."

Maira growls. "We seriously should kill that kid."

"Don't bother." Kalia comes outside and closes the door behind her. She's also in jeans and a T-shirt, but her T-shirt is soaking wet. 

"Why are you all wet?" I ask.

She smiles. "Because I just finished rigging Ned's goldfish collection. The next time he goes to feed them, it will flip and dump on him."

"What about his fish?"

"Oh, they aren't real. He hates real animals. They're mechanical." Kalia says. "He only pretends to feed them so people will think they're real."

"Only Ned." I sigh. "Why did he put gum in your hair the first time?"

"The first time was right after you left." Mahina says. "He blamed us for bringing Hades here and finding out about the whole pictures-from-the-Isle thing."

"That's dumb, he's my dad!" I say. 

Maira rolls her eyes. "You think that matters to him?"

"Point taken." I laugh. 

"We should go back to the party." Maira says. "Otherwise they'll think we've murdered each other."

"Please. I would roast you in a fight."

"Suuuuure." Maira snorts. "Keep tellin' yourself that."

I put one arm over her shoulder and one over Mahina's. She links arms with her sister and we walk back inside with one of the least likely people I would consider a friend. 

_____________________________________

Hope everybody enjoyed my newest chapter! :)

Please comment what you think!

One thing, tho: I HAVE NOW HIT 50K VIEWS!!!!! AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!! *squeals in delight and dances around my room* Thanks so much, everybody who reads this! 

*hugs* 

*sends out candy THAT IS NOT TWIX DON'T YOU DARE SAY TWIX BeautyBeastRose I AM WATCHING YOU*

Okay. Bye!