"Here," Bianca says as she descends the stairs, holding out to me a pile of clothes.

She does the action without a single trace of emotion on her face, not even sparing me a moments glance before she goes to her phone and looks at the inanimate object instead.

Actually, I was lying when I said there isnt any emotion. There is - but I honestly don't have a single clue just what that exact emotion is. You'd think that after a decade of friendship between us, I'd be well familiarized with nuances of her facial ques, but for some reason I couldn't explain the look, even to myself.

It was plain as day to see that her encounter with the Barbie doll had left its mark, and stripped her of the good mood she'd previously been donning. Bianca didn't really seem rattled as much as she seemed pissed, and so here stood in front of me a stone cold bitch. Admittedly, using the term bitch would be putting it harshly, but it wasn't exactly like the girl was some magic-shitting fairy-godmother at the moment either.

I don't have any semblence of a clue as to what the Aubrey girl had to have been referring to, but whatever it was had struck a nerve so hard with Bianca that it's elicited this type of reaction. Curiosity bites at me to ask about it but I have the feeling that if I dared do so, then Bianca would only bite harder, and I preferred to leave this party unscathed. Both emotionally and physically.

Her face had fallen grim, wearing a familiar look that I remembered her brother also use an unhealthy amount of times. I didn't know it ran in the family, seeing as I'd only ever experienced the look on Hunter, never on her. But the proof stood in front of me as she stood there looking stiff and closed off, unapproachable and moodier than a girl who was severely PMSing.

I forced myself to fight down any instinct to make some sarcastic comment on whether or not someone had pissed on her Cheerios this morning, knowing full well that the action would only warrant a snap in retaliation, or maybe a reaction far worse. Even as a child, Bianca had been prone to refer to violent tendencies, and I hardly imagined she'd dropped it now years older.

"Whose clothes are these?" I ask as I take them out of her grip, careful not to spread any of the whip cream.

Bianca had already changed from her time upstairs, what must've been her original party clothes shoved in a plastic shopping bag. What she's wearing now is more casual, a pair of jeans paired with a t-shirt that has some summer camp logo on it. Her hair is damp from how she ran water through it to rinse out the mess, and she'd tied it up into that one obnoxiously perky bun thing girls always do with their hair.

"Why does your hair remind me of a loaf of bread?" I question randomly, staring at the pile she has on top of her head.

She gives me a dude-what-the-fuck type of look, shaking her head without a response to my odd question. "How the hell did you get bread, of all things," she mutters under her breath.

I don't know either, but isn't my mind a treasure?

"The clothes are Ryan's," she says, answering my previous, more normal question. I make a weird glance at the clothes that she's wearing, also questioning where she'd gotten those. "His sister's," she explains knowingly, and I nod my head in acknowledgement.

"Heyo!" The sudden outburst makes both of us jump for the second time that night, turning to find the source of the overenthusiastic greeting.

Some college student comes stumbling in from the back, his entrance loudly announced from his heavy steps as well as his thundering statement. It wouldn't take much to figure out that the guy was heavily inebriated, though clearly had no qualms with attempting to be even more so, judging from the bottle of beer in his hand that he was draining rather fast.

Someone who'd passed out on an armchair close to him groans at the noise, muttering a complaint and providing a telling of "shut the fuck up, you asshat," before shifting to get back to their sleep.

The drunk stranger narrows his eyes at the person who'd told him off, but the action is more out of curiosity than anger. He squints his eye as if in attempts to see better, focusing in on his subject before he laughs to himself and shakes his head. "Damn, I must be pretty hammered if pies can talk."

I snort at his words when I get what he's talking about. The person who'd said something was one of the people me and Bianca had so kindly given a makeover to, and admittedly, they did kind of look like pies or cake toppings. They were all covered up in whip cream, not to mention other things we'd found in the fridge or pantry. I even roughly remember sticking a Twinkie on someone's forehead.

"Oh, hi!" The guy pauses as he spots us, slowing down as he takes a another swig of his beer bottle soon after.

It takes a few moments for me or Bianca to register its us who he's talking to, so we're all at a pretty unpleasant standstill before me and her awkwardly lift our arms in greeting, giving unsure waves in return.

I'm not sure what we were expecting after that, but whatever was happening was far from it. He continued to stand there, still grinning like some extremely high hippie as he sipped some more of his drink, though I doubt he really had any left. He could of at the very least said something other than stand there and stare, but apparently the thought never even crossed his intoxicated mind, leaving all of us to a really uncomfortable silence.

Fortunately, after what is at the very most only a few minutes of torture, he takes it as his que to leave. Where he plans on going at this point, I have no idea. The guy's drunk off his ass and shouldn't be driving, I don't see any friend who plans on taking him home, and I doubt he'd last five minutes walking to somewhere before he fell off the pavement. Staying right here would have honestly been his best bet.

I don't make a comment as he begins to walk away, but I also can't seem to peel my eyes away from the walking catastrophe.

I watch as the stranger managed to trip over thin air, his foot catching on an invisible object. I can only stand there as he descends, falling victim to the harsh clutches of gravity as he face plants to the floor with a small groan.

I wince at the sight and making a face, as if I can feel the pain of the fall myself. Bianca does the same, visibly cringing back as she makes a hissing sound.

I wait a few seconds to see if he'll get up, ready to offer the poor dude a ride once I ask him if he's okay. But my plan to be a decent person never comes into play.

The poor guy doesn't get up, nor does he move. In fact, he seems perfectly content staying right there on the floor just as he is.

"Holy shit, Bianca, he's dead," I whisper, and she turns back to glare as she sends an elbow into my side.

"He's not dead, you idiot." She rolls her eyes at me, turning back to unconscious party, mumbling under her breath a, "Well, I hope he's not."

"Bianca!" I exclaimed, shooting her a panicked look. She shrugged in apology for her shitty reassurance, but couldn't seem to offer up much more than that.

It's not like I've never seen someone pass out from too much drinking - I'd attended enough wild parties to the point where such an action had been deemed the normal thing to do after a few hours. But I hadn't actually seen someone do it in years, and that fact coupled with how this guy wasn't moving a single inch was starting worry me.

The fall hadn't exactly been the softest, and the groan that escaped the guy had attributed to that fact. Not to mention how unnerving it was that he wasn't currently moving. At all.

"Go check," I whispered to her, almost hiding behind her as I eyed up the drunken stranger.

She let out a scoff of both outrage and disbelief, turning to give me an incredulous look over her shoulder. "You're fucking kidding me," she muttered, eyes narrowing. They only narrowed further when I shook my head and offered up an innocent smile as an apology. "Why not you?"

"Because you're closer," I pointed out, which was entirely true, seeing as I was practically hiding behind the girl that was shorter than me. As if to prove my point, I shoved her further ahead. She let out a surprised yelp, staggering a few steps before she righted herself and threw an accusatory glare back at me.

"What, do you want me to trip and die, too?" The sarcastic snip did nothing in help me quell the somewhat humorous worry that ran rampant in me.

Under normal circumstances, I think I would have found the situation a little funny, but now that the idea had entered my mind, it wouldn't be leaving any time soon. I'd have to sit and wait to be absolutely sure that the guy hadn't died right in front of my very own eyes.

"Just check the poor fucker, would you?" I asked, though nothing about it made it seem like I was giving her any choice. It was her or me and I choose her.

Bianca grumbled something under her breath, flipping me the bird before she turned back to the drunkard. I hadn't caught what she'd said, but I honestly didn't give enough of a crap to listen. I knew her well enough that I could've probably guessed what she'd said anyways, or at least a pretty good idea. It didn't take much to figure out she was complaining about me, accompanied by what was most likely a cuss word - the details were unimportant.

She sank down so that she could study the guy closer, turned away from me so that I couldn't watch her reaction. I was tempted to walk over and see for myself as well, but held back - because let's face it, I'm a whimp when it really comes down to things.

"Is he alive?" I whisper tentatively, waiting with baited breath.

"Shut the fuck up, I'm checking."

I rolled my eyes at how she'd snapped at me, sticking my tongue out at the back of her head in childish retaliation.

After a few more agonizing moments, Bianca's posture noticeably relaxes the same moment she lets out a sigh of relief. I mimic the actions without thinking, running a hand through my whip-cream-covered hair.

She turns towards me as she stands, offering up two thumbs up and a flashing a grin full of white teeth. It seemed a little sarcastic, but I could care less. Sarcastic was what Bianca was most fluent in, and for her not to speak it would mean something was wrong.

  "All good," she confirmed, standing to dust her pants off. "He'll be fine, mostly. A killer headache, but fine."

She began her walk over to me, trying her best to offer up a smile, but couldn't quite sell it. The smile was fine, I guess, if you were a less than mediocre actor. Her straight, white teeth grinned at me in reassurance, but her eyes lulled heavy with exhaustion. There was no hiding how tired she was, and the fact that it was now getting into the early parts of the morning didn't help.

"Fuck!" My eyes widened at her exclamation, watching in surprise as Bianca came tumbling to the floor, landing almost as harshly as the guy behind her. I grimace at the sight, my eyes immediately drifting to the cause of her crash.

Wrapped around her ankle, the stranger's hand held a firm grip on her limb, forcing her to go down out of mere surprise when she'd tried to step away. What could have possessed the guy to do it, I don't know, but the end results were pretty great.

"He seems very attached to you," I remarked, chuckling a little.

I happen to find myself very funny. I always laugh at my own jokes.

She yanked her foot from the guy's grasp, muttering a slightly unintelligible, "Jesus," before she scooted a little further from the guy before flipping onto her back, giving a huff as she collapsed, her eyes glaring up at me. "Just go change so we can leave already."

She didn't have to tell me twice.

***

Seven minutes later and we're in my car, more than ready to get home and collapse into bed. It's nearing three in the morning when I check the clock, but I can still hear a few people out in the backyard yelling. Most of the partygoers have already vacated the scene but the amount of cars littering the street tell me there's still plenty left. I'm surprised we didn't get shut down by the police before the party got further.

Bianca's shoved her nose into her phone as we drive, legs crossed Indian style even though the room in the car doesn't allow for it, so most of one leg is resting on the car door. Her wet hair is up in a pony tail, and she's managed to steal fuzzy slippers from the house, which I'm not sure whether to laugh at or tell her to put it back because that shit isn't hers.

The aspirin she'd taken seems to be working, seeing as I haven't heard any other complaints about headaches and she hasn't projectile vomited at all. So I'd say we're pretty good on that front, though her mood still hasn't lifted, even after watching that poor guy faceplant.

My gaze flicks over to her a lot, watching her while I balance the task with watching the road and trying not to get both of us killed. She doesn't meet my gaze once, but I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

She's been texting her friends, which she tells me but I can see that she's chewing on her bottom lip, a habit she'd taken to since we were kids.

She used to bite the inside of her cheek, too, though she'd resorted to that tactic much more often. She's done it whenever she was nervous or thinking too hard. And of course, being Bianca, she always did that. Being the top student, the perfect child, and an overall morally amazing person could cause a lot of stress among other things. So the cheek biting had made its appearance on several occasions.

The action had started to make marks inside her cheek from biting too hard. One day she'd mentioned with a sort of amusement how she could feel the raised skin of the line where she usually bit down. Being young and naive, me and Xander got real concerned real fast and labeled it scarred tissue (we still don't have any clue today if that's what it could actually be called). We'd made it our personal mission to make her quit the habit, always reprimanding and swatting at her whenever we'd caught it.

That, we'd been able to put a stop to, and we'd bothered her about it so much that she'd eventually just stopped, but the lip biting hadn't been done away with. Neither me nor Xander had made any move to change it, seeing as she was cutting her lip with her teeth or anything like that. It wasn't as bad a habit, and besides, it was sort of an adorable quirk. Still is, actually.

I'm tempted to ask her what's on her mind, but she supplies all the needed information for me. Going off the fact she's currently updating me on the current situation of other people, I can tell she's getting a hold of her friends. Well, I guess they're my friends, too, and some of them were actually my friends before they were hers, but now times are different.

The thought is almost disconcerting, oddly enough. I know that Bianca is perfectly capable of handling herself and making her own decisions. She doesn't need anyone, least of all me, judging her life choices, but it still makes me worry.

The types of friends I used to have and that she has now, weren't exactly known for being model citizens, and had continuously proved to be anything but. We had been the kids who spent more time in detention than they did school, and who cared less than probably what was healthy.

I'd never, in all my life, ever thought that someone as innocent and pure as Bianca would associate herself with them.

But from the looks of things, she's not all that innocent at all.

The sound of her speaking is accompanied only by that of the quiet lull of the radio that fills in during the moments of her silence, which are few and far between. I only know a few people she's talking about, it seems, but by the end of this conversation, I'll know plenty, and as a bonus, I'll know all about them. Curtesy of the very talkative girl before me, who's spouting off facts about everyone like it was a practiced PowerPoint.

While I'd never asked for the all the extra information, I'm not surprised when it comes to Bianca, it's very her to be...well, extra. She had a tendency to do too much. But I don't mind her talking about any of it, at least not right now. I simply sit beside her with a calm demeanor and let her continue, and I'm actually sort of enjoying the experience.

After being deprived of her for so long, I like the feeling of this, of being in the same vicinity as Bianca White, to be hearing her voice and watching her rant. It's comforting, I guess, to have her talking to me so casually.

Now I could lie and tell you that this was what I'd been expecting all along. That I knew her so well that I also knew that all along she'd forgive me as quick as a snap of her fingers and we'd be best friends again. But that would a big, fat lie.

I wouldn't call this forgiveness, not when I haven't uttered a sorry for what I've done and she hasn't explicitly told me those key three words, "I forgive you". What I really expected was for her to be pissed, because the Bianca I grew up with held grudges and made revenge schemes and got petty. So imagine my surprise when we're acting like the old pals we really are.

I'd been expecting rage and disappointment and general upset. And who could blame her? It's not like every day one of the people you're closest to just decided to ignore you, to leave you behind like a forgotten toy. So have her accepting me back into her life is a miracle in itself, and her talking to me is just a bonus.

Ellie has somehow managed to safely make it home to her own bed, a straight out miracle considering how drunk she'd been when I'd seen her at the party. The girl could barely walk straight despite having discarded the heels she'd walked in with. The only possibly way she could've made it out here had to have been with assistance.

I envy her, for getting home and collapsing into the comfort of my own bed is currently my top priority, seeing as I'm feeling really tired from being on babysitting duty all night. I mean, I'd taken a small nap at Ryan's while I watched Bianca, but that wasn't enough or as good as a full night's sleep.

As for Dylan, turns out he's crashing at a friend's house tonight after being found passed out under the billiards table, which is surprisingly unsurprising. Dylan has always had a tendency for going overboard with the whole liquor thing, and stuff like this was always the result. Everyone knew that.

Ryan abandoned his own party - well, the party he'd thrown for Bianca - and retired to his own bedroom once enough of the party had died down to where he was sure it wouldn't burn with him in it. He'd locked his door to ensure he wouldn't be disturbed, but fat lot of good that did him once Bianca came pounding on his door, demanding to be let in. He hadn't initially been happy about being woken up, but he'd easily done the favor of offering clothes, lending me the shirt and sweats I was currently wearing.

It's kind of Bianca to be caring for her friends, which is something that hadn't changed since we were just little kids and she'd cried when I killed a lady bug. It wasn't common curtesy for someone to check on their friends after a rager, usually too preoccupied with themselves to bother with it. It surprises me, but I admire her heart nonetheless.

Eventually, once she's made sure her friends are all relatively okay, she lets the phone drift towards her lap, where she'll only glance at it from time time as a new notification comes in. The radio that previously filled the silence doesn't become necessary, with far too many things to talk about between the two of us after the years that have slipped away.

So far it's mostly her firing question after question at me like this whole thing was an interrogation, but I don't mind all that much. I owe her at least this much, to answer all the questions she throws my way. But surprisingly, none of them is the one I'd expect her to ask above all else.

Why?

It's the question I keep expecting to slip out from her mouth, the one I can't help but stress over.

Why did you leave? Why did you stop talking to me?

Those words never escape her lips, they never reach my ear. Not once does the dreaded question come up on in our conversations, but I'm starting to think that maybe it's not a good thing. Yeah, I'm afraid of the time when it will come up and how I'll answer it, but I really want to get it off my chest and confess my guilt.

But instead she asks me about other things, and I gladly oblige. I tell her all about how I'm going to have catch up on a few things for school, and how I clearly have a lot more to catch up on with the happenings inside school. I admit to her how odd it is for me to only now entering school with a few weeks of school already passed. And I tell her how me and my dad have decided to move back into the old house.

She freezes at the last bit of information, head snapping over to me and eyes going wide like saucers with surprise. "You're the people moving in next door?" She asks, looking stunned, making me laugh. You'd think for such a smart girl, she'd be able to figure it out. "I just thought you guys finally sold the place.

"Uh, how could you not notice?" I ask her, raisin an eyebrow. She shrinks into the seat a little, looking sheepish in embarrassment. "But no, we never sold it. My parents thought it held way too much sentimental value to just sell to a stranger, I guess."

My parents had always been really big saps, or at least for as long as I can remember. Aunt Ruby tells us that neither of my parents had been that way until they had kids, but it's hard to imagine them as anything but the mom with a million scrapbooks and the Dad with a horrifyingly large collection of home videos.

Memories and other momentos meant a lot to them, especially when they knew how easy it was to be taken from the world after my mom's first time battling cancer. Being a survivor, and learning to cherish every single thing, I couldn't remember a time when my parents had ever just let a day go by if it was important. Every single birthday, concert, competition, game, always on record in our household.

And so naturally, the house was a largely important thing to the both of them. I'd spent basically my entire life in that house, save for two years. And my sister had spent even more.

There were times within those walls that you could never recreate somewhere else, no matter what. Tantrums, arguments, birthdays, messes, laughs, everything in between. Not to mention the two houses of my best friends, of which were neighbors, and the proximity of our houses allowed us a certain kind of closeness that we'd never seen anyone else have.

I couldn't blame my parents for wanting to keep it that damn house, because hell, I'd be pretty attached, too.

Even when things had gotten difficult, they couldn't bear to lose it. When mom's cancer had come back and we'd moved soon after to get her the best we could, the choice had been simple for them. Both my mom and my dad had been doing well enough in work, my sister had already received a full ride scholarship, and we'd only expected to be away for a little while. Paying for the extra house hadn't been much trouble until Mom's cancer got really critical.

But even then, when the bills were getting pricey for a failing treatment and the suffocatingly white and sterile hospital she'd seemed to take residence in, my mom had begged and insisted that we keep the house and we don't sell it away. And we'd respected her wish without another thought. How could you turn down a dying person?

"How are you and your family doing by the way?" The words slip from Bianca's lips in a quiet murmur, asked tentatively and delicately as if handling a porcelain doll.

My hands tighten around the steering wheel and my jaw clenched until I notice what I'm doing and tell myself to calm down. I tried not to lose patience when I could practically see the eggshells she was trying to step around. I'd heard sympathy after sympathy about my mom, and I'd gotten sick of all the pitying looks I'd had to suffer through for months after her passing.

When I respond with silence, she takes that as the chance to say something more. "It's hard to lose someone you love," she tells me, tone laced with the kind of sadness that makes me want to ask her whether or not she's talking from experience. I flick my eyes over to her, but I can't read her facial emotions if there were even any, not since she's facing the window, trying damn hard to avoid my gaze.

"We were a mess at first." The statement ends with a dry chuckle, putting a use to the phrase, we'll look back and laugh at it. Except there wasn't anything funny about. It was so goddamn shitty to have to go through that, so difficult to deal with all of it.

Bianca makes a noncommittal noise in response, but as I sigh and run a hand through my hair, I decide that I've still got more to say. "It's was just so fucking depressing." I almost surprise myself at the anger in my tone, at my sudden outburst.

But I have a right to be angry, don't I? My mother hadn't done anyone wrong. She was an amazing person who was kind and strong and hadn't deserved to be taken from this world, from my world. She deserved so much more than the cards that she'd been dealt. My mom should have had the opportunity to grow old and watch her grand children running around her feet as she rocked in an uneven rocking chair and knitted dog sweaters next to my dad like she'd always tease she'd end up doing

This time, Bianca doesn't have a response, and the radio has become awkward in the silence, the fast pace music inappropriate for the topic at hand.

I don't know why I keep talking, but I find the words spilling out of me before I can do anything to stop them. "But after a while, when we all came to terms with it, we slowly picked ourselves up. Mom wouldn't want us moping around, so we didn't. But we couldn't just stay there either, there was nothing there for us. So we moved back here, our real home."

When I look over to her, I catch the small nod she gives me, but she's not looking in my direction and she doesn't say anything in response.

It's started drizzling rain outside, the drops splashing onto the window though the windshield is using wipers so I can see. I can almost imagine that it's all to match the situation, and resist the urge to laugh at the irony as a slow song about loss begins to play lowly on the radio.

"Why?"

I swear my heart rate spikes at her question, getting sudden anxiety at the prospect of having to answer the question that will inevitably be fired my way.

"What do you mean why?"

"Why did you decide that you wanted to come back?"

Oh, so it's not what I thought it would be.

When she stays turned away from me, I sigh and look back to the road, my grip on the wheel dropping down to the bottom of the wheel so I can rest my arms on my lap, as if relaxing will help me think it out.

"It was a few things, I guess," I answer truthfully. "On one hand, I don't think either me or my dad could handle living there after losing my mom, and my sister hadn't waited long before running back to college. Staying there would have been painful, and we couldn't see any reason to stay. My dad got offered a job that would have even more travel than office work anyways. My sister had her school, and it wasn't like she'd had too many friends to leave behind anyways. And me? I made friends, I guess, but I took homeschooling when we got there to be with mom through everything anyways, so I could've cared less."

"Oh," Bianca's response is small, and with nothing else added on. It's more the type of thing you'd say to let someone know you're still listening when you have nothing else to attribute.

But I'm not done. I've got to make myself finish. "And so we came back here, back to home and everything we'd known. Here was so much better than there, because even though so many things still reminded me of mom, the reminders weren't painful, they were sweet and melancholy memories. Our family belonged here. Even my sister, who didn't even live with us anymore had gladly taken up her vote in moving back."

"How is your sister doing in school, by the way?" The sharp turn in conversation is as obvious as a broken neck, but I'm not offended for her trying to pull away. It's some pretty depressing shit, and I'm sure I wouldn't want to listen to my sob story either.

"She's doing really well, and college is a struggle but her grades are really good. What about your brother?"

She doesn't answer for a few moments, and when I look over at her, her form is tense and rigid. She looks over at me, looking surprised when she finds I'm already looking, the look she'd had before disappearing before I've got any time to analyze it. "Busy, you know. College and all." She doesn't elaborate on it other than that, which is sort of weird.

"Oh, which college?"

"His dream college. Dartmouth."

"He actually had a dream college? I'd always thought college was the farthest thing from his mind. He acted like he didn't even know what college was." I chuckled at my own lame attempt at a joke, receiving a tight and highly awkward chuckle in return, but I couldn't figure which part of the conversation was making this awkward for her or why.

"Yeah, he sure was a pain in the ass." She runs a hand through her hair and knits her eyebrows together.

"More than that."

I don't get a response, which almost makes me squirm in my seat at the tension between us.

I know that she loved her brother when it came down to things, the same way I'd love my annoying sister. But it had always been her favorite pastime to rant about him: the brother that had always irritated her as they grew up.

The silence between us is suffocatingly heavy, making my hand twitch in a need to roll down the window for air. Instead, I reach out turn up the radio to play louder, actually needing it to fill the emptiness now.

"That song has been played way too many times," Bianca states, suddenly talkative.

"And for old reason, too," I stated knowingly. "Shake it off is my jam." She gives me a skeptical look before she laughs at the serious face I'm giving her.

"You're so weird."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I stick my tongue out childishly. I sit back in my seat, taking a deep breath as I prepare myself.

And then I burst out start singing.

"Shake it off! Shake it off! 'Cuz the players gonna play, play play-" She clamps a hand over my mouth, laughing so hard she clutching her stomach before she reaches out to change the station. One Dance by Drake plays clearly as she turns up the volume, seeming to find this music much more suitable.

"There," she says, sounding immensely satisfied with herself. "You can't possibly burst my eardrums with this one," she tells me, referring to my singing skills.

"Meanie."

"It's my lifestyle."

The next ten minutes are spent similarly. Whatever weird atmosphere that had clouded around us has dissipated and left behind two very exhausted and very slaphappy teenagers who keep off key singing and laughing at one another.

Even when I park into my driveway and turn off the engine she's still in the seat beside me, laughing so hard she's got tears in her multicolored eyes. It takes her a few minutes to calm down, and a few dramatic wipe of the eyes before she calms down. And I'm not in much better shape.

She shakes her head with a smile, pulling on the door handle to get out, me following suit. "Goodnight, you idiot," she calls out with a playful tone and stumbles to her front door. I wait until she's safe inside her house before I even start making my way to my own front door.

"Yeah, goodnight," I say to myself, smiling.

•(edited)•

A/N: Heads up, I'm getting rid of the next scene where Chase climbs in her window for the flash drive because the entire thing is pointless and getting rid of it will help me move the story along faster, though I might throw in a Xander chapter in its place.

Tell me what's good and what's bad :))))