~~~~~~~~~Your POV~~~~~~~~~

"You're sure you're okay?" Ally floated around me as her fingers fidgeted nervously, "Maybe you should head to the nurse's office."

I had a handful of tissue paper pressed against my aching nose to make sure I didn't bleed all over the place. Once it was mostly clean, I sniffled, that alone making me cringe in pain. "And have her yell at me again? I think I'm good."

"She's got a point," Andy leaned against the sink, seemingly uninterested, "What kind of school nurse hates children anyway?"

Ally glared over, "Oh shut up! You're not even suppose to be in here, it's the girl's bathroom!"

"Gender norms are so 1995, Allison," Andy replied with the bitchiest voice he could put on, waving her off. "Besides, the bathroom's empty!"

"Guys!" The two turned to me, and I let out a sigh, "Can you please not argue right now? I'm a patient in need."

Lowering her head in shame, Ally apologized while Andy looked away with a huff. Luckily, I always had bandaids with me since getting hurt in school grades wasn't uncommon for me, so I placed one over my nose and called it a day, just in time for the second bell period to ring so I didn't have to see or talk to anyone, speeding to the right classroom.

Little did I know this wouldn't be the first incident of the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day came and went the same as always.

For the most part, people were too busy swooning over the new students who arrived to pay any attention to me, which I was very grateful for. Granted, I myself wasn't too thrilled about them; the girl seemed nice enough, but egotistical and thriving off of all the attention she was getting from her subjects- or, classmates. And the boy, well, I owe my bloody nose to him, what else can I say?

The day had been cloudy, even rained a few times, but as I waited along with other students for the bus to arrive, the clouds had started to drift away. Ally welcomed the sun, her smile just as bright, while Andy seemed to hiss at it like a vampire.

It only took a few minutes for the bus to arrive, but because I had my headphones in, I hadn't notice the fast-forming entourage behind us, not until it was two late.

Before I realized what was happening, there was a sharp pain hitting my ribcage, and the impact took me so off guard that I tripped over my own feet and landed in a puddle of muddy water, bag and all. Instantly, people started to take pictures and videos of the scene, eyeing me up as they laughed.

'This day cannot possibly get any worse.'

"I- it's you!" Someone shoved their way through the crowd to get to me; the boy from earlier, the one who's nose job I owe a thanks to. "I-I'm so sorry!! Again! I didn't mean t- I was just trying-!"

"Bus to Grayroad Street about to close!" As the bus driver's words reached my ears, I covered my face with my hoodie and ran into the bus, hiding near the end. I didn't care if I came off as rude, now I had been drenched in muddy water and my own blood! I could even here the snickers and murmurs of the students who were also in the bus with me, all poking the bear with the stick, but none daring to take a step closer to it.

'I just want to go home...'

~~~~~~~~~Dipper's POV~~~~~~~~~

Because Pacifica decided to carpool with us home instead of taking the bus, I was pushed to the backseat, girlfriend privilege as the Passenger Princess and all that.

Still, I couldn't take my mind off the girl from earlier. I had meant to apologize for what I did in the morning, and instead I only made it all worse! It was all I could think about as I rested my head back and let out a heavy sigh; it's not that I wanted her to like me, the last thing I wanted right now was more attention, but I felt awful about the attention she was getting because of me!

I had to do something...

"Earth to Dipper, do you read me?!" Pacifica's voice knocked me out of my transe, looking ahead.

Mabel glanced back from the rearview mirror, "Yo, bro, you've been sulking ever since this morning! What's up?"

"It's just..." I started to fiddle with my bag's strap, unsure of how to answer. But I only felt worse when many notifications started to blow up my phone, pictures of the girl I had knocked into a puddle flooding every social platform people had added me in. Once again, I let my head fall back against the seat, a long groan leaving my lips, "I'm a horrible person!"

"Context, please!"

I looked down at the picture, trying to find the context Mabel asked for, then I looked over, "Pacifica, you've been attending public school for the past three years. Do you happen to know this girl?"

Turning back to inspect my phone, she instantly cringed at what she saw. At first, I thought she was reacted to the idea of being in a muddy puddle with bag and all, but her response wasn't what I had in mind. "I've heard of her."

"Heard of her?"

"There's a lot of rumors surrounding that girl. People say she's been caught talking to herself on a number of occasions, some even go as far as calling her a blood witch and claim they've seen her sacrifice goat heads to Satan or something."

I felt my blood run cold, though whether it was of pity for the girl or simply scared by the rumors, I didn't know. "That seems kinda harsh, don't you think?"

"Yeah!!" Mabel had a glare on her face, "What's wrong with talking to yourself?! I talk to myself all the time!!"

Pacifica giggled, moving a stand of her girlfriend's hair off her face, "Yes, but you do it in an endearing way."

"Heavily debatable." She shot me a glare, though Mabel seemed unbothered by it. Or, more like proud. 

"Point is," Pacifica continued, "many don't like her. Most are afraid of her, and the ones who aren't take any opportunity to mess up her day. I only have morning period with her, but other than that, I don't see her a lot."

"Huh..."

"Why do you ask?"

"W-well, uh," I glanced down at the picture on my phone, shame washing over me, "I was the one who pushed her into the puddle on accident..."

"You pushed her?!"

"After breaking her nose this morning...."

"YOU BROKE HER NOSE?!" Mabel was taken so off guard her hands slipped around the wheel, giving Pacifica and I a heart attack when she swerved into oncoming traffic for a second.

I tightly gripped the door handle in a panic, "I-it was an accident!! I was trying to get away from this other girl and fell back against the door and the door hit her face! I was gonna help her, but she ran into the girl's bathroom and I didn't see her after that until now!"

"Well why didn't you say so?! Pacifica, find that girl's address, we're gonna drive over there and-!!"

"NO!" Feeling myself getting so worked up, I took a deep breath to calm myself. "That's- n-no, I think that'll only make things worse. I'll just wait until tomorrow and I'll apologize and explain it was all just a big accident because I'm a klutz."

"Klutz is little."

"Shut up!"

Mabel laughed a bit, though Pacifica looked back at me with concern, "You sure about this?"

"Positive. Besides," I tried to muster up a smile, "Didn't we already have plans for today?"

"Right! Halloween's just a few weeks away, we gotta buy, buy, and buy!!" That sure got Pacifica excited, and Mabel's smile only grew.

It would do me good to focus on something else right now anyway...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had hoped things would be fixed easily, but due to my bad luck, because of course that's my luck, things only got worse and worse from there. It didn't matter how many times I tried to find the girl and apologize, most of the time she wasn't even around, and for a school in a small town, it was surprising big.

The few times I did see her, I was surrounded by too many people to even attempt to walk over, and whenever I did... I'd mess it up somehow.

Like the time I tried to find her in the cafeteria and ended up spitting someone else's food all over.

Or the time it was raining so I tried to offer my umbrella as a truce only to hit her in the face with it!

Or the time I finally managed to catch up with her in the hallway as she walked to her next class and a bucket of water conveniently fell on her as she opened the door but completely missed me!!

It got to the point where every time she saw me, she'd immediately turn around and head another way, and as much as I wanted to make it up to her, I figured the best thing right now was to just leave her be. She probably thought I was harassing her at this point, so for the better of things, I let it slide.

On a brighter note, Halloween was just a week away, and I was once again third wheeling between Mabel and Pacifica. Luckily for me, Candy, Grenda, and Wendy had joined us on the trip this time, so I had fellow third wheels to hang with.

Candy and Grenda had been Mabel's best friends for years, ever since we first came here. Candy was this petite young girl from Korean descent, with glasses over her brown eyes and her pitch black hair now a wolf cut; clothes wide, she usually wore mint greens contrasted with black, her old nerdy look combined with her new love for grunge. Grenda, on the other hand, had added pink highlights to her red hair, which she had grown out, her brown eyes and fair skin also mostly complimented by pinks.

Wendy looked more mature than the rest of us, being three years older. Half of her long red hair had been shaved off, giving that punk rock lock with her black tank top and ripped jeans, her classic green flannel tied around her waist, and a new forest tattoo along her right arm, as well as some new piercings. I had learned not to be so awkward with her over the years, considering I used to have a crush on her way back when, and luckily, she's always really chill about everything.

That part of her shined through as we walked past the masks isle. One instantly grabbed her attention, and she rushed over to grab it and cover her face with it, "Yo, check this one out!"

It was a yellow triangle with one wide eye in the middle, two tiny holes placed in each of the eye's corner so the person could see without ruining the design. It was definitely something way too familiar; Bill Cipher, the demon that nearly destroyed the world just years ago, had his own Party City style mask.

A laugh left my lips, unsure if whether to like the mask or not. "Eesh, I had hoped to never see that monster again."

"Kinda hard not to with all the merch Pacifica's parents made for him after the whole End of the World thing." She took off the mask to get a better look at it, "Maybe I should dress as him for Halloween! Think I'd pull it off?"

"Maybe if you shrunk five feet."

"Fair point," she replied as she placed the mask back on the shelf. "Maybe I should go to the slasher section again."

I let out a chuckle, then turned to the side. Right beside all the masks was a little section of phone charms. Some were cute versions of ghosts and zombies and such, while others were of famous movie monsters and killers. One in particular stood out to me more than others, inspecting it in my hand.

Wasn't this what she liked?

"DIPPER, WENDY!!" Mabel's voice ran from the end of the isle, seeing her smile widely at us, "Grenda found the packets of fake blood!! We need all the packets we can carry!!"

Wendy and I shared a laugh, Mabel's eccentricity will never reach limits. The two of us met the group near the blood packs, though I don't think the employees were pleased when Mabel and Candy exploded two of them, so we rushed to grab all that we needed and left.

Though, had we not been been in such a rush, maybe I would've realized the mask isle seemed more... empty this time.

Thanks for reading!!! 'Till next time!!!

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