Not long after Arti had helped herself to some tea, we heard a car pull into the garage, and my heart rate increased faster and faster until I was fully convinced that I was going to die.

Usually my two personalities worked together pretty well, but rational, bitchy Amanda was about two seconds away from drop-kicking the shit out of fucked-up in love Amanda.

I looked up at Arti.

"Oh shit. I'm not done with my tea yet," Arti said with a laugh.

I blinked a couple times. "Why the hell is that your primary concern right now?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I feel like I've been caught stealing."

"I'm sure they're going to be less worried about the tea you stole and more concerned about how we broke into their house so easily."

"Blaine's mom is chill, though. She won't care."

"She's really not," I said, just as I heard Blaine's voice.

"Okay, well, I'm sorry. I did my best, and I still failed. What else am I supposed to do?" he said.

"Not fail," his mother replied.

"Didn't she drop out of college to have a kid? Why is she on her high horse?" Arti asked me.

I tried not to laugh, but a little snicker snuck out anyway. "She did go back to school, though. She's pretty much a badass."

Arti shrugged. "Well, that's true."

We listened to them come around the corner and into the kitchen, where Arti and I were waiting.

"Good morning. Glad to see y'all," Arti said.

Blaine's mom gasped. "Jesus fucking Christ, Arti. What the fuck are you doing in here?"

While I certainly got my bad language from Matt, Blaine got his from his mother.

Blaine and his mother, Danielle Jacobs (or at least that was her maiden name. She had gotten remarried to a man named Mark, and I had no clue what his last name was), looked almost nothing alike (or maybe they did before Blaine's mom bleached her hair. I had always known her as a blonde, though). Since she was so young, she refused to let Arti and me call her Miss Jacobs as it made her feel ten years older, so most of the time, we called her Danielle or Blaine's mom.

Blaine picked up his casual attitude from her, as well as the mild anxiety.

"Merry Christmas. I'm your present," Arti said, then she looked over at Blaine. "Are you gonna say anything, or..."

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'm just slightly overwhelmed right now," Blaine said.

"What's your deal?" his mom asked him.

He shook his head and put down everything he was carrying, then pulled me close to him. "Amanda, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." His lips brushed up against my ear, and he spoke in a tender voice that wasn't meant for anyone but me.

"You can apologize later," I said, smiling into his shoulder.

I wasn't quite sure what he needed to apologize for, but he seemed sorry, and that put me in a better position than him.

"How about now?" he asked.

I looked up at him. "Not now, you idiot. I need you for other things now."

"Like what?"

"Like Christmas cookies."

"Hell yeah. Let's go. I've missed your cookies and cupcakes and shit."

"Saying 'and shit' doesn't make it any more masculine," Arti said, jumping into our conversation.

He laughed. "There's nothing unmanly about enjoying cupcakes." He wrapped an arm around my waist and let out a whisper that was barely audible. "Holy fucking shit, Amanda."

I smiled. Arti said the exact same thing.

It was nice to have that effect on people for once.

"I'm not really sure why everyone feels the need to remind me that I'm me, but I kinda like it, not gonna lie," I said.

"Amanda," he said again.

"Okay, thanks again."

"Amanda."

"Oh my god. Danielle, please remove your son from me," I said.

She laughed. "If you're gonna steal him from me, you have to deal with all of him."

"I like all of him, so that's a deal I'm willing to make." I laughed. "You don't mind if I steal him for a little bit, do you?"

"Honey, that storm's gonna start soon. You better have him back here before then."

"Yes, I'll be back. I love you, Mom," Blaine said.

He knew how to talk to his mother better than I did, so I just let him. There were times where he was better at getting to the point.

But most of the time, that wasn't the case.

"Love you too, Blaine. Don't do anything stupid," his mother replied.

Blaine was Danielle's pride and joy. She burned countless bridges for him, and she stood on many more bridges that burned in his name. She was overprotective, but nothing could burn brighter than the love of a mother.

I wondered how the hell both of them dealt with the separation. Before Blaine had Arti and me, his mother was all he ever had.

Blaine laced his fingers through mine, and it felt like another small piece of home falling into place.

I was surprised he hadn't replaced me. With his natural charm and humor, finding a significantly nicer girl shouldn't have been a problem for him.

Of course, there was also the fact that I was pretty fucking awesome in my own messed-up way.

"Blaine," I let myself say as we walked out to my car.

"Hm?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just missed you."

He smiled. "Don't waste your time with that shit."

"What? Missing you, or telling you that I missed you?"

"Both, probably.

"Do you not like it when I express my single emotion?" I asked. We climbed into the car, and I took my seat as the driver like usual.

Blaine reached out and touched my shoulder. "It's a little weird to be honest. Plus, it makes me feel even worse than I already do, so—"

"What?"

"You mean you feel guilt and remorse?" Arti said.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do sometimes feel like a piece of shit, thank you for asking. I mean, who the fuck just leaves the people they care about behind?" Blaine asked.

I rose my hand.

"You didn't have a choice. I did," Blaine said.

I rolled my eyes. "Please don't tell me you feel guilty about—"

"I left you when you needed me the most, Amanda. I suck, plain and simple."

Arti looked at him, then at me. "This boy is all fucked up now."

"Well, he better stop that, because it's making me a little irritated. I can handle myself, I can keep myself together well enough on my own, and he knows that," I said.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should have to," Blaine said.

A valid point, but in all honesty, what could he have done? I was a mess for a while, and no one could pull me out of it, not even Viktor.

Grieving was a process, and there certainly wasn't an instant cure. Especially not just the presence of a pretty boy.

"But if you don't want to hear it, then I'll gladly switch gears," Blaine said, and by his tone, I figured it wasn't as gladly as he said. "Tell me something."

"I'm secretly planning to murder Viktor's roommate," I said.

"That's... something. Will my services be needed?" he asked.

"Just the shovel. You don't actually have to kill anyone. I have that handled."

"What else?"

"I've probably gained ten pounds from taste-testing whipped cream all the time," I said.

"I noticed. It looks good."

Arti laughed. "Oh, boy, that was the wrong answer."

Blaine's eyes widened. "Wait, was that out loud?"

I nodded.

"Shit, sorry. I just meant—"

"Don't worry about it. If I wasn't okay with it, I'd fix it. You know me," I said.

"Do you want me to break his neck for you?" Arti asked.

I looked back at her. "Why the fuck would I want that?"

"Just asking. I kinda want to break his neck half the time, so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone," Arti said.

Blaine smiled. "Please, let's keep the compliments to a minimum in front of Amanda. She doesn't need to know that we're secretly mega best friends."

"You two are, though. Don't lie," I said. "It's kinda like Viktor and me. I hate him, but dammit, I'd do anything for him."

Arti looked at Blaine, and Blaine looked at Arti.

"I love you, you piece of shit," Arti said, and before either Blaine or I could respond, she burst into tears.

"Oh god, what do we do? It's a feeling!" I cried.

"Calm down, calm down. You'll only scare her with your confusion and fear. The best way to approach this is by asking her what the problem is."

"What's the problem?" I asked.

Arti wiped her eye with her sleeve. "I just hate what we've come to. I guess you don't really know what you have until you don't have it anymore."

"Well, step number one to fixing that is pulling your shit together. Step number two is maybe not taking everything for granted all the time. The world isn't nearly as loving and caring as us," I said.

Arti sniffled. "I know, I—fuck, you're right."

I smiled. Those were my favorite words.

"Anyway, stop with the tears, because we're all together now." Blaine's voice was calm and soothing, a tone he never used with me, but then it returned to normal. "I have a story to tell you guys."

"Oh no," I muttered.

"No, no. This one's really good. So I had to do this presentation with a girl named Monica—" Blaine began, but Arti interrupted.

"Is she cute?"

Blaine hesitated for a moment. "I don't think there's a correct answer to that question, so I'm just gonna ignore it. So me and Monica had to do this presentation on whatever the fuck we wanted for our public speaking class."

"Please don't tell me you did your presentation on the importance of Spongebob to memes," I said.

"No, but we should have. Damn, why didn't I think of that? You're, like, ninety-five percent of my good ideas, and one hundred percent of my bad ideas."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," I said.

"Oh my god, would you just tell the story?" Arti interrupted just as Blaine was about to reply to me.

"Yeah, sorry. Try to keep the off-topic questions to a minimum, Arti. Okay, so Monica seemed nice enough, not exactly my cup of tea, but I could work with her. She had three options that she wanted to talk about, and they were all so stupid, we'd pretty much get an automatic F if we did those," Blaine said.

"And those were...?" I asked.

"Why the Earth is flat, why evolution is fake, and how veganism is causing the destruction of the world," Blaine replied.

"Oh my god," I said, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, like I said, she was nice enough at first, but damn, that's pretty much all the positive shit I can say about her. So I figured I could talk her into doing something a rational person would do, and after a few suggestions, we finally agreed on violence in schools."

"Oh god. That's a personal issue for us, huh?" Arti asked.

"And that's exactly why I wanted to talk about it. I figured I'd use Amanda's experience as sort of a case study for our presentation."

"And?" I asked.

"Well, I told Monica to read up on the issues, like mental health, weapons, blah blah blah, with a focus on the Madison High School event a couple years ago. I even said, 'Hey, make sure you know their names. Lukas Hynes and Amanda Jayne.'"

I smiled. "I feel like a celebrity."

"Literally all you have to do is Google your name, and the story pops up. That's all you have to do. But guess what? Amanda Jayne is also the name of a folk singer from Pennsylvania. And I'll bet you can guess which Amanda Jayne Monica read about."

"Was she really that stupid?" Arti asked.

"Yep. So I told her to just not say anything for the entire presentation, because if she did, it probably would have been fucking moronic," Blaine said. "Just as I was finishing up the presentation, the professor was like, 'Uh, is the girl going to say anything? If she doesn't, you're both going to fail.' I looked over at her, and she just said, 'Amanda Jayne's death was tragic, but it sounds like she deserved it.'"

"Wait, what? I'm not dead," I said. "And how the fuck did I deserve it?"

"Don't get pissed. I'm just relaying the story," Blaine said. "So I said, 'Yeah, that's kinda bullshit, considering she's alive and my favorite person on the planet, so keep your ignorance to yourself.' She didn't like that, and it ended with us screaming at each other for the last three minutes of our presentation."

"And what's the point of this story? To piss Amanda off?" Arti asked.

"Nope. It's the story of how I failed public speaking," Blaine said. "The end."

I bit my cheek. "You idiot. Why the fuck would you do that? Now you have to retake that class, just because you felt the need to defend my honor or whatever."

"But, there's a part two to that story, if you want to hear it," Blaine said.

"I think you want to tell it, so go ahead."

"I'm not gonna have to deal with that shitty professor anymore. She didn't like a lot of the things I said in that class, and my presentation on the lack of responsibility on the school's part especially didn't sit well with her."

"That's good. Is your professor next semester any better?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know. I'm not taking it next semester. I'm taking my next public speaking class at Winterview next fall."

I just about wrecked the fucking car.

"Blaine! What the hell?" I rose my voice.

He smiled. "Surprise."

--------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading!

Amanda doesn't like surprises (as we all know), but Blaine's done it again. How is this going to play out?