Why her? Why did the universe constantly spit on her and laugh when it landed in her eye? She grumbled unhappily as she stepped out of Ari's car for the second time that morning- this time with a bright pink shirt on.  "Ari- I. really. hate. you," she seethed, crossing her arms over the words "Tom's auto body, THE HOTTEST BODIES IN TOWN!"

Ari was pleased with herself and Harper laughed, complementing her on her achievement of making Cherish look like a girl who hadn't rolled out from under a car. Even Delia, and her usual clueless ways, caught the subtle joke in the shirt, "Hey, Ari, what are the odds that your shirt said that?" she gasped between giggles. Cherish narrowed her eyes and glared at them all, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Ian and his friends had piled out of a pick-up truck not far away and paused to look at her, perplexed.

"Ari, I am going to kill you." she growled and they all laughed at her again. Sighing, she accepted her fate and leaned onto the hood of the car. It was genius, really; since Ari couldn't coax Cherish into wearing something else, she found a way to force it. After "accidentally" spilling her blue raspberry soda on Cherish, she remembered she just happened to have a couple of extra shirts lying around in the back seat.

"For emergencies like this one, you know?"

Of course, the dark blue shirt was conveniently dirty, and of course, the only other shirt was the one that Cherish was now wearing. Noticing the odd quiet from her friends, she turned to look at them, but it was too late. Apparently Ari had enlisted their help as well. Delia jumped on her and held her in place as she tried to escape. She yelped in pain as Ari grabbed hold of her hair and quickly pulled at and twisted it into two long braids that fell to her lower back. But the torture didn't end there, no of course not- and it was Harper who attacked her next, happily smothering the top of her head with hands covered in hair product to hold stray hairs in place.

"Let go of me you freaks!" she crowed, laughing all the while at the absurdity of the situation. Admittedly this would have looked quite comical- if not for the fact that it was her the three of them were sitting on. When the bell rang, Delia and Ari bounced off to their respective classes and though Harper was going to the same place she was, he walked away with the other two, leaving her to find her way alone.

-.-

It had only been three days and already Cherish was sick of her new school. She had trouble memorizing her schedule, which unlike her old school's timetable, wasn't semestered, and had her doing all eight subjects at once. Frustratingly, instead of putting all subjects into one day, they had split the stupid schedule into Day One and Day Two, and that was where she had trouble. After walking into the wrong classes on the wrong days numerous times, she was growing fed up with the whole thing and was like to start sitting in on whatever class she happened to step into. Hoping she had put the right books into her bag, she wandered into a class and sat down, uncaring if it was the wrong room.

As she took her seat, staring at the back of Harper's head, she was thankful that she had in fact stuffed her Modern Western Civilizations history text in her bag that morning. Harper laughed suddenly, meriting a few peeved looks from surrounding students and Cherish realised he was hunched over his phone, reading a text message. He turned to her and smirked, "So you walked into Deals' Business class, huh?"

"Grow up, Harper."

If he had forgotten he was mad at her, her words definitely reminded him and he scowled and turned back to face the front of the room. Cherish sighed, "I wasn't being mean, Harp, I'm just cranky because of these stupid schedules."  When he didn't reply, she huffed, "That's great, Harper, be a freaking four year old!"

"You're here to learn, Cherish."

Grudgingly she pulled her text from her bag and tossed it onto the desk, not caring that it hit him in the back.  "What care I if I don't have any friends?" she muttered under her breath.  "People are stupid anyways, always in your way and getting in your hair and complaining that you bruise them and..."

She stiffened when Harper snickered, but growling and poking him hard in the back with her pen, she continued her rant, furiously scribbling the answers to her unfinished homework.

"...being such damn petulant babies. I don't need any friends, if that's all they give you. I don't have time to waste on all that shit. I so don't need any of this shit right now, people being all friendly and then getting all mad when you tell them nicely that you're too busy for friends. How else am I supposed to get out of here, huh? How is anyone supposed to get anything done with stupid people making them... care?"

"Miss McKinley, if you are finished, I would like to begin today's lesson."

So her rant hadn't been as under her breath as she had intended, and she looked up to see about thirty people watching her with very amused looks on their faces. At the front of the room, Mr. Hennessy suppressed a grin. She had been warned about him, a teacher who loved to get a rise from his students.  Refusing to be embarrassed, she scowled at a girl beside her and then shrugged, "Yeah, I'm done, you may proceed."

Mr. Hennessy nodded his thanks and began his lecture on the social and economic ramifications of war. Cherish quietly took notes doing her best to ignore the incessant humming coming from the chair in front of her. Even when the lecture was done and the class was silently working on answering the questions scrawled almost illegibly on the board, the humming continued. Her leg twitched rapidly, and she even began chewing on the end of her pen, something she never did. Eventually snapping, she picked her hat up off the desk and cracked Harper on the head with the edge of the bill.

"Ow! Fuck!"

All thirty pairs of eyes, swiveled to look at Harper. Cherish looked at him, equally as confused as the rest of them, her pen in her fingers, paused in mid-loop of the d she was writing.

"Harper Joseph, need I remind you that we are not to be using that kind of language in my classroom. I don't care what manner of delinquency you might practice outside of this room, but in here I would ask that you please conform."

Several students snickered but Cherish laughed outright; was he serious? The guy had used at least- at least- 20 swear words in his opening lecture. Mr. Hennessy eyed her, with an expectant look on his face, as if daring her to say something.  "Are you aware, Mr. Hennessy, that what you just said is a complete contradiction of your earlier speech?"

"Hmnh. Thank you Miss McKinley for pointing that out," sarcasm she noted, "and I assume you are aware that I am aware that it was you who just hit Mr. Joseph. Normally, I would be obliged to send you packing straight to the office, but since it appears that you are merely flirting with young Harper here, I will let it pass. But please, if you are going to hit him again, do it while I'm not saying something interesting."

He smirked at Harper's scowling face and winked at her in a way that suggested it was all but a joke.  "I think I'm going to like this class," she mused evilly into Harper's ear.

-.-

Upon leaving the music room after a particularly uninteresting class Cherish found herself accosted by Harper, who had for some strange reason forgiven her.  "So, Rish, you wanna go down the street to the Noodle Bowl? I'm so sick of this stupid caf food."

"Um, Harp- are you all there?"

"Why?"

"You're talking to me."

He blushed, "Yeah, I noticed. I can't be mad at you for long, Rish, and even though you're so incredibly funny when you're mad, I can't take any more abuse!"

"Gee thanks."

"Nopblem," he shrugged, throwing his arm up over her shoulder, "so, you coming?"

"Sure. Wait- did you just say nopblem?"

He paused and coughed out a laugh, "Oh no! I'm talking like Deals now!"

"Um, okay?"

"No problem- Nopblem." said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

-.-

Delia slammed her book down on the table at the restaurant, "Gee thanks for waiting guys!"

"Oops?"

"I don't know why I expected anything else," she said sweetly as she squeezed herself in beside Cherish.  "Harper, suddenly you've got your precious Indie here and you forget all about me!"  She crossed her arms over her slight frame, her straight shoulder length hair bobbed in response to her movements. Cherish grimaced at her almost fully retired childhood nickname being used, but said nothing of it. Delia managed to hold her pretended annoyance for a few moments, her small pointed eyes narrowed and glossed lips pinched.  As Harper choked on his food, crying indignantly that it wasn't true, she giggled, "I'm kidding, Harpie!"

"Don't call me that," he muttered and shoved a container at her.

"Oooh! Thankles!"

They ate in silence for a little while, which was entirely odd, considering they were sitting with Delia. Delia who jabbered on incessantly, all the time, about nothing at all in particular.  Harper watched her and though she was stuffing her face, she was staring thoughtfully at the table.

"So where were you, Deals?"

"In class."

"Yeah, I know that, but after class?"

"I know what you meant."

"Deals, what happened?"

"Ian."

Harper glanced at Cherish and frowned.

"He was ignoring me today. And when I asked him after class why he wasn't talking much and what was up, he yelled at me."

"What did he say?"

"He said he didn't need to hear about my bitch friends, and to talk to him when I can find myself some better ones."

Harper looked at Cherish again, as if to say, now look what you did. This time Delia caught it, "Cherish India McKinley! What did you say to Ian?"

Cherish sunk into her seat and inched away from Delia, whose voice was edgy with anger.  She'd even gone so far as to use her middle name; an homage to her mother's birthplace.

"She told Ian to stop talking to her because he was annoying her and she doesn't need any friends, since she's only here to learn-OW!"  Harper pulled his leg up to rub at his shin, where Cherish had swiftly kicked him too late to curb his comment.

"You WHAT?"

Cherish flinched at Delia's shriek, "I, um, told him that-"

"I heard, thanks," she said abruptly, pulling the container with her food off the table and roughly shoving her bag up onto her shoulder.

"I don't care if you think you don't need friends, Cherish," she snarled, in a completely un-Delia way.  "And, I don't care if you don't like talking to Ian, but you will stop being such a bitch and fix this, because even though you may think he's an annoying fool, I happen to like talking to Ian!"  She turned and stalked out, slamming the door of the restaurant behind her. 

"Woah!" Harper muttered, surprised.  "I have never seen her like that- ever."

Cherish looked down at her lunch sheepishly, and having suddenly lost her appetite, she absently poked at it, lost in thought.

-.-

As she sat in her Media class peering at her screen, she could hear Harper muttering nonsensical words from behind it. Leaning to the side she looked at him through the space between her computer and the one beside it. There he was staring at his monitor, his face a mix of angry and confused as he tapped the keys and pulled his dreads back in frustration.

Beside him, and directly behind her computer was Ian. He was apparently not talking to Harper either, since Harper had entered the room with Cherish under his arm. Despite the way they walked in, Harper was more upset with her than sorry for her, because she broke Delia.

"Argh! Where is it?"

Ian looked sideways at Harper before deciding he didn't care and looked away again.

"Where's what?"   

"Nothing," Harper muttered not bothering to look up at her. Cherish returned to her work, which was painstakingly entering codes into a program so she could make a website.  "How does a whole site just up and freaking disappear?"

He was exasperated, she could tell, but since he didn't appear to want her help, she didn't offer.

"Maybe you deleted it," Ian's voice was flat.

"No, it's not my site! It was here earlier!"

"Here, let me try."  Ian appeared in the space between the computers as he copied the address from Harper's screen.  "Nope. Doesn't exist."

Harper didn't stop muttering to himself and eventually Ian loudly pushed his chair back and left his assigned seat for one on the other side of the room.  "Cherish."

"Yeah, Harp?" she asked with a false air of innocence.

"Where the hell did it go?"

"What go?"

"The site."

She wiped the look of pretend uncertainty from her face, "I deleted it," she said simply.

"What? Why?"

It hadn't been too hard to figure out that it was him; he was the reason Jeb had messaged her. She wondered simply if he knew, if Jeb had told him. But then, if he had known he wouldn't have asked her about the site, would he? Whatever Harper was stupid enough to do, she didn't think him stupid enough to willingly cause her pain. She didn't bother to answer him, returning her focus to her assignment, but he whined, "I was going to get something for Delia!"

"No you weren't."

"Yes I was! There was this sweater she saw Len wearing and she really liked it so I was going to get it for her."

Having already braced herself for it, she barely flinched when he said the name, and poured all her energy into being angry. She had warned herself not to fly off the handle when this discussion came, but now she let her anger shove the words out of her mouth in a rush.  "Did Jeb ask you to keep an eye on me?"

He was stunned, suddenly silent, but then he asked slowly, "Why would he do that?"

"Never mind," she was disappointed.  "I've already got my answer."

"Why would Jeb ask me-"

It made sense she supposed; Jeb had asked Harper to keep an eye on her, to make sure she was okay. He knew better than anyone that she would not be okay, that she didn't plan on being okay ever again. How could she be after...  No! I will not break down here... not here.  "So, I guess that's why you forgave me then."

He looked hurt and opened his mouth to protest, but she abruptly stood and crossed the room, dropping heavily into the chair beside Ian's. Ian didn't even look at her, and she had to give him credit. For being , as Delia had put it, a really friendly guy, he sure knew how to hold a grudge against a person he barely even knew.

"So, Ian," she smirked when he didn't reply, ignoring her like she had him. "Yeah, this is quite familiar, I get it."

When he looked at her, one eyebrow raised, his face read, Oh, come on!

"See, the thing is, I'm horrible and you can hate me for it. That's fine, I don't mind, but Delia isn't me. Just because I hang out with her, doesn't mean you have to hate her too."  She paused to watch Harper shuffle across the room and hover nearby, looking as if he really wanted to say something.  "I was friends with her and Harper way before I moved here, and frankly sometimes I don't know why," she threw a cutting look at Harper.  "I meant what I said though, I don't need any friends."

Ian watched, unsure of what to say, as she threw another pointed stare at Harper. A myriad of expressions ran across his face, as he tried to formulate an answer as Cherish smiled sadly at him.  "I'm sure you can understand why," she murmured for him only and exited the class, shoving Harper aside.

*Title song by Imelda May