⠀⠀As soon as they step foot in his room, Emma pushes Alec down on his bed and climbs on top of him, pressing her lips, perfectly colored in Kylie Jenner Lip Kit, on his roughly and practically shoving her tongue down his throat. While his hands move instinctively to her butt, hers begin undoing the buttons of his shirt, starting with the top one and moving down. About halfway down, Alec manages to somehow pry his lips off of hers.

⠀⠀"What's gotten into you?" he asks with a smile, not necessarily minding.

⠀⠀"Can't a girl just want to kiss her boyfriend?" she replies, kissing him again.

⠀⠀He breaks away. "Yes, but you usually don't want to like this."

⠀⠀"Well, today, I want to," she says in between kisses.

⠀⠀While they start to kiss intensely once again, Alec's mind is reeling over her odd behavior. Usually she only wants to make out with him when it'll be of some benefit to her, so like when they're in public and she wants to make sure that everyone knows that she's the top dog or when another girl is checking him out and she wants to make sure that she knows Alec is hers. When they're alone together, she typically just bitches at him for whatever he did wrong that day. He puts up with it because she's hot, and she'd be even more of a nightmare if he dumped her.

⠀⠀For her to want to kiss him like this without other people around, he knows that there's something else she wants. Something that will help her, of course.

⠀⠀When Emma moves her lips to his neck, he makes a realization. "Does this have to do with Kalani being back at school?"

⠀⠀She seems to pause immediately following his words and straightens herself up into more of a sitting position. "Why would you say that?"

⠀⠀He shrugs. "I don't know... It's just that—"

⠀⠀"It's just that the bitch who made my life a living hell for three years is back?" Emma finishes. "Why would that make me upset?"

⠀⠀She runs her fingers through her shiny hair and looks down at her lap in an insecure way that she hasn't let anyone else see since the end of eighth grade. All through middle school, Kalani's joke about her having a mustache haunted Emma. She got called The Curtain more than she was called my her actual name. Making friends was hard, and getting boys was out of the picture. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape being The Curtain.

⠀⠀When Kalani announced that she was going to be moving, Emma made a plan to start over for high school. All the other kids would be the same as they were in middle school, but she would be totally different. She would be a new person. Her growth spurt over the summer was a pure coincidence that she took as a sign that she was supposed to transform herself into the new queen bee. She waxed her upper lip. She shaped her eyebrows. She learned how to do her makeup. She bought a completely new wardrobe that would show off the features she liked about her body and hide the things she didn't. She discovered the magic of a flat iron and a push up bra.

⠀⠀Ninth grade started, and people could hardly recognize Emma Vargas. The Curtain was no more. The reign of Queen Emma had begun, and she vowed to never let anyone treat her the way they had in middle school again. If they did, she would ruin them the way they ruined her.

⠀⠀Josh sits up and places his hand on her thigh. "That was a long time ago, and a lot of Alec have changed. I mean, look at you." His eyes rake over her body as he whistles. "What's anyone going to do to you? Nothing, especially if I have anything to do with it."

⠀⠀She smiles at him and leans in to kiss him again. In the nearly one year that they've been dating, he's hardly ever talked to her like that. Maybe he just wanted to get laid, but she liked him acting protective over her. And she liked that he was on her side instead of Kalani's. Alec is now one more thing that Emma has over her.