It took me about a second to come to the conclusion that what I was doing was wrong. It took about half that for me to tear away and scoot to the other side of the booth.

I couldn't begin to imagine what was running through Zane's mind. He looked as if I had just ran over his puppy and brought the deceased animal to him as proof. The blues in his eyes were so striking in that moment, I wished I could hear what he was thinking. My mind was numb, as if it had momentarily lapsed and couldn't find any coherent thoughts to latch on to.

I just kissed Zane Dryer.

Zane Dryer, the kid I had spent endless years tormenting for being smarter than the rest of the kids in our grade. Zane, the guy I had always joked around with about being too short. Zane, the boy who had changed so much in the last few years I was starting to question if I knew at all anymore.

"I'm sorry." he blurted, pink tinting his cheeks as he looked toward the stroller on his left. I tried to find the right words to say, but my mouth just hung open, lips still tingling as I reeled in shock.

I took a sip from the ice water that had been set on our table and nodded. "I think I should head back home now. I can catch a-"

"No, no. I'll drop you back off." he insisted, cheeks an even darker shade of red now. "Come on."

We had just finished strapping Liam in and getting the stroller in the trunk when a familiar laugh echoed through the alley behind us.

"Zai! Paige! What are you guys doing here?" Mark had his arm tangled around a blonde's waist, his eyes glued to me as he spoke, acting as if his brother and his poor, innocent new toy didn't exist.

"We were just getting something to eat." Zane lied quickly, stepping in between the door so his brother couldn't get a good look inside the car.

Marcus quirked an eyebrow. "I've never seen either of you here before, and definitely not together."

"We thought we'd try something new." I piped in. "Zane was tutoring me."

"You sure it wasn't more than that?" Mark's tone was teasing, but the look in his eyes was the furthest from it.

The girl spoke up for the first time since they'd appeared. "Cody asked her out, babe. I don't think she'd go out with some loser like your brother if she had the choice."

Zane recoiled against the car, turning away with a grimace. I looked toward Mark with a disgusted look.

"You're just going to let her talk about him like that?"

Marcus shrugged. "He is a loser. He's a know it all, wannabe dork that can't get a girl for the life of him. She's only stating the truth."

I ran my fingers through my hair and pushed it off my face as I glared at the couple standing in front of me.

"Yeah? Well, Marcus, I guess that makes you a self-centered, egotistical asshole that can't keep it in his pants, right?" I turned to the blonde, "And anyone stupid enough to try and date him is just as dumb as he is."

In the millisecond it took me to turn my back to him, I swear I saw hurt flash through his eyes, but it was gone quicker than it had appeared and I had to question if it was only a trick of light.

*

Zane didn't say anything until we pulled in to my driveway, hands grasping the steering wheel so tight they had begun to lose any sort of color.

"Am I really that fucked up?" Zane finally whispered for the first time in a half hour.

"What do you mean?"

"All that shit my brother said, is it true? I know siblings are supposed to fight and all that, but he takes it to an entirely different level."

I leaned across the clutch and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"You aren't a loser, Matthew. Sure you don't have a thousand friends or tons of girls lining up at the door for you, but that doesn't make you any less of a good person."

His lip curled at the mention of his real name. "Can you help me?"

"Help you what? I don't think you're really in any need of help with kissing." I joked. His cheeks flushed again as he stared at the front door of my house.

"Give me one of those stupid makeovers you see in all those movies. Make people like me as much as they like my brother." he pleaded.

I waited until I had Liam out of the car to peek my head back in through the open passenger's side window. "I'm not helping you change who you are. If people don't like you for you, then it's their loss."

"Do you like me for me?" there was a childlike desperation in his voice as he peered at me through his lashes. I tightened my grip on Liam's carrier and shut my eyes.

"I love you for you, Zane. Don't change because of Marcus. I tried that once and we all see how well that worked out."

*

I couldn't sleep that night. It wasn't just Liam's occasional whimpering or the slight breeze that rattled the wind chimes outside, or even the sound of my dad's heavy footsteps every time he got out of bed and went into the kitchen or bathroom. I had gotten a few texts from Cody, but I couldn't find it in me to respond to them right away.

There was a terrified part of me that believed that Molly inviting me to sit at her table was a trap, and if I agreed to go on a date with Cody, I'd fall right into it.

It didn't help that every time I started typing something, but eyes would advert back to my wallpaper. It was a picture of Marcus, Zane, and me when we were six. All three of us had been herded into the living room to take a picture Christmas morning. Zane sat right in the middle, eyes as blue as they are now, staring directly at the camera with a toothy smile.

My fingers were dance across the keyboard, but I'd feel Zane's presence in the room with me every time my finger hovered over the send button, as if he were giving me his opinion on the situation. When I finally gained enough courage and forced Zane out of my mind for a few minutes, I sent a response to Cody and dropped my phone on my chest in exasperation.

It wasn't even a minute later that I felt a vibration against my chest; it just wasn't a text from Cody. Zane's face and number lit up my screen as I sat upright.

The entire message was a list of girl names, some I recognized, some I'd never seen before. I was about to respond when I caught sight of how many notification I had gotten on Facebook. My heart dropped, thinking back to my conversation with McKenna. Marcus had done something again, and I was the main attraction.

Logging on, I wasn't at all surprised to find a video posted by Mark and tagging me in it at the top. The beginning of the video was real, it was when we had started making out in the hallway outside his room a couple months ago before going into the room. It was everything that followed that I had no involvement in.

The next clip of the video merged with one of a girl on top of Marcus, screaming his name. The only similarity between me and the girl was the hair color, and hers was even a couple shades lighter.

I was about to scroll through the comments when I caught sight of Zane live streaming from Mark's computer.

"Listen guys. I don't give a shit what you think of me anymore, sure I'm not like the ass you were expecting to see when you started watching this, but I don't want to be. I'd like to know how many of you actually believe that the girl in the last six minutes of this video is Paige Banner?"

He looked right into the eye of the computer and laughed.

"All you assholes asking for shit from her, get a life. Half of you already have girlfriends, the other half sure as hell don't want to go near my girl or I'll kick your ass. Laugh all you want, but I'm sick and tired of all these games you guys play, especially Marcus. High school is nothing but a popularity contest, guys, and guess what? None of you are going to win in the end."

I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as Zane finished. He cut the stream off just as Marcus' familiar figure ducked into the video. I set my phone on the nightstand beside me, my lips finally starting to tremble as I buried my face against the pillow.

We're going to find Liam's mother because there was no way in hell I was going to allow that child to become the monster his father is. 

***AN****

Hope you guys enjoyed! 

What do you think of what Marcus did? Do you think he's really the one that posted the video? And what do you think about what Zane said over the live stream? Or about himself?

Let me know what you guys thought/think!

~ChasingMadness24