"Dude, Deb just texted me," Chase said.

He had his Calculus textbook propped on one knee and his iPhone in his hand.

"Mac'n?" Derek teased.

"No. She texted me," Chase said, rolling his eyes.

"What does she want?" Alyssa asked.

"She's trying to get a group of people to chill with her at Santa Monica tomorrow night," he replied, tapping away at his phone.

"She said club earlier," I muttered. They all looked at me.

"What?" Derek asked.

"I ran into her earlier. She asked me if I wanted to go clubbing with her," I replied. Alyssa snorted and Chase laughed.

"She asked you to go clubbing with her?" Chase asked. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Who asked who to go clubbing with them?" Brooke asked, walking into the room.

We were all sitting in Brooke's and mine's apartment, trying to get studying done. But it was already three in the morning and we were now distracted.

"Deb asked Soph if she wanted to go clubbing," Eli explained, not looking up from his anatomy textbook. Brooke raised an eyebrow at me.

"She clearly doesn't know who Soph is," she said.

"After 4 years of studying together..." Derek said, grinning at me.

"Wah, wah. I'm so hurt," I replied. They laughed.

"We should go," Brooke said.

"She changed her plans. She wants to have a bonfire at the beach," Chase said, holding up his phone. Brooke took it from him, reading through the text-conversation. She looked a little better now, more rested.

"Bonfire sounds fun," she said.

"Dude, we need to study," Eli said, looking up at her. She glanced at him.

"Well you can stay here and study. I want to go to the beach and relax for a night. We've been studying all day, all night for the past week. I'm bored and my head is getting ready to explode with information," Brooke said.

We all exchanged glances. She had a point.

"And besides, we're young. We're in our twenties. What's the use of having youth when you waste it on studying all the time? We need to live a little. Studying will always have its place, but living...you can't stop living," Brooke said.

Chase began clapping.

"Wow. What a speech! Everyone, hands up for our future senator!" Chase said, standing up. Brooke threw a pillow at him and he laughed, dodging it easily.

"She's right, guys. We need to live a little. I found a gray hair yesterday. We're literally not going to stay young forever. We might as well make the most of what we have right now," Alyssa agreed.

"Ok, fine. But I'm not drinking," I said.

"We're going to get you wasted, babyyy," Chase said, smirking at me. I grabbed another pillow and threw it at him, which he also dodged.

"Chase, stop being a douche," Eli said, shaking his head.

"Eli, stop being a pansy," Chase replied. Eli raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. Chase ducked his head, backing down immediately.

Eli had that sort of power over us. He was the quiet, thoughtful type of guy and we respected him for that. He was the last member to join our little group. Derek had been partnered up with him for a chemistry lab and they ended up finding a research job together. So Eli started hanging out a lot with Derek, who was always with us. And then after some time, he just became incorporated into our circle of friends.

"Eli can own you without even trying," Derek joked.

"He's got those eyes," Brooke said, pinching Eli's nose. He laughed and pulled his face away from her.

Brooke was definitely the leader of the group. She was the loudest and most eccentric, right next to Chase. But she had a way of keeping us all together, especially when we got so sick of spending time with each other. She would always find some way to give us an inspiring speech and we would all go back to normal. Our group of friends wouldn't have existed without her.

At first, it was just Brooke and I. Freshman year, we decided not to room together, for fear of getting sick of each other quickly. I was roommates with Alyssa, who was the typical sorority girl with beach blonde hair and bright blue eyes. But she was nice and we got along. Occasionally, we'd eat roomie lunch together at the cafeteria. It was during these that Brooke and Alyssa met.

After finding out that Alyssa was in a sorority, Brooke decided to take that to her advantage.

"Sororities are tight with fraternities. And fraternities have hot guys and excellent parties," she had told me after her first meeting with Alyssa. So she formed a friendship with Alyssa.

It was Alyssa that was friends with the boys. Chase and Derek were roommates and Chase was in a fraternity. He was also dating my other roommate, who dropped out of USC after first semester. But since they were dating, he'd be in our room all the time. He and Alyssa would always be talking about the frat house on campus or some other frat-related drama. It annoyed me to no extent and I would always find myself wanting to leave the room whenever Chase walked in.

Second semester freshman year, Brooke was hanging out in my room with Alyssa and I when Chase walked in. Brooke took an immediate liking to him. After all, he was the athletic and flirty all-around typical frat boy.  But she didn't like him because of his looks. She liked him because he was clever and had witty retorts to her never-ending comments and critiques. And just like that, Chase joined our group.

With Chase came Derek, since they were roommates. That was inevitably going to happen. Once Derek became integrated into our growing circle, we realized we had a lot of the same classes, since he was pre-med, too. And so he and I clicked and Derek became apart of our group.

Then Eli came in, and well, that was it.

Here we were now, four years later, sitting in the small living room of mine and Brooke's apartment. We had been through a lot together--from stupid fights to being there for Alyssa when her grandmother passed away to spending Christmas holidays together at each other's houses. We had shared with each other the good and the bad times, the good news and the bad. We became a functional unit and our power source was Brooke. It was, after all, she who brought us all together.

"So are we going to this or not?" Brooke asked, squeezing in between Derek and I on the couch.

"I think we decided that we were," Eli replied.

"Yay!" she clapped, beaming at us.

"Guys, we should use that body parts song from Hannah Montana to remember all of these bones," I said off-handedly as I flipped through my anatomy textbook. Everyone burst into laughter and I grinned.

"How the hell did that go?" Alyssa asked. Brooke and I looked at each other and then burst into song.

"WE'RE DOIN' THE BONE DANCE. YOU STUDY THE ANSWERS AGAIN AND AGAIN 'TIL I GET IT RIGHT!" we sang.

"Oh yeah!" Alyssa said, chiming in. The boys looked at us, shaking their heads.

"WE'RE DOIN' THE BONE DANCE, WE DANCE AND WE LEARN IT. AND WE WON'T MESS UP THIS TEST. WE'LL GET IT PERFECT," we sang.

"You know, I don't think you guys need anyone to embarrass you. You're so good at doing it yourself," Chase said. We picked up the pillows off the floor and chucked them at him.

"ALL RIGHT. IT'S ON!" he shouted, setting his textbook down. He picked up a pillow off the ground and we all scrambled to our feet as he chased us around trying to hit us with the pillow.

"Oh my God..." Derek muttered, watching in amusement.

"It's like they're 6 again," Eli said.

"YOU'RE SO GOING DOWN!!!" Chase said, jumping over Eli's legs to get at us. We hid behind the chair Eli was sitting in.

"Dude, back down. There's no point," Eli said.

"You guys should be helping me," Chase said, sitting back down in his spot. We all laughed, slightly breathless from the sudden burst of energy. As Brooke sat down next to him, he thumped her on the head, smirking. She smacked his arm and he let out a yell, shoving her to the side. We all started laughing again.

"We're slap happy," Derek said once we composed ourselves.

"It's almost four in the morning," I said, checking my phone.

"Ughhh. I haven't done anything. What am I doing with my life?" Alyssa groaned, sinking back into the couch.

"I think we need to stop studying together. We never get anything done when we're all together," Eli said.

"He's right," I said, nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, but we've been studying together for four years now. There's no point in trying to be constructive about it with our last round of tests," Brooke pointed out.

"True that," Chase said, putting his arm casually around Brooke's shoulders. She elbowed him in the abs and we all smirked at them.

Chase had been trying for two years now to win over Brooke. He made every attempt to flirt with her and ask her out, but she ignored him, saying that she preferred being single. The rest of us--Alyssa, Eli, Derek, and I--had a bet going about when they would get together. Eli and I thought that they would get together after we graduated. Alyssa and Derek thought they would get together before. So far, it looked good for Eli and I. After we graduated, we decided to specify when exactly they would begin dating.

"I just got a text from Deb," I said as my phone buzzed in my pocket.

"So did I," Alyssa said, pulling her phone out as well. The others pulled their phones out, too.

"I think she mass texted everyone," Brooke said, scrolling on her phone. We all fell into silence as we randomly checked our Facebooks and texted back people we had forgotten to text.

"Let's play a game," Alyssa said, closing her Cognitive Psychology textbook. We groaned. "Oh hush! We're not going to study anymore tonight. And we're not sleepy yet, either," she said.

"Says you," Derek said, yawning and stretching.

"Are you guys actually sleepy?" Alyssa asked, her eyes wide.

"Not really," Brooke, Chase and I said at the same time.

"Kind of," Eli and Derek said. We looked at them.

"We got about two hours of sleep last night," Eli explained.

"Oh, right. You told us that," I said.

"What were you guys doing staying up that late?" Brooke asked.

"Studying. This anatomy test is going to kick our ass," Eli answered, stretching out his legs.

"Soph isn't worried about it," Brooke pointed out, nodding at me.

"Because she's a teacher's pet and did research with the professor. Automatic A for her," Derek said.

"I am not! It's not my fault I'm good at anatomy. I'd give you my intelligence, but I kind of need it myself," I said. They chuckled.

"We're just teasing you," Eli said, a kind smile on his lips. Brooke hiccoughed from where she was sitting and I sent her a death glare as she smirked at me.

Brooke knew about my little crush on Eli and she never missed a beat to point it out to me. No one else knew, and I made Brooke swear to keep it like that.

It was strange because when I first met Eli, I didn't like him all too much. He seemed very aloof to me, like he thought he was better than everyone else. Then one night we were studying for a test together and we got to talking and I realized that he had a lot more to him than he let on.

His father had passed away when he was in high school. He had been in the army and was stationed in Iraq and one day, they got the heart-breaking call. So then his mother was left widowed and he was forced to take care of her and his little sister, who had autism. He had a pretty rough life and said that he wanted to be a special disease doctor because he wanted to help people out, especially since no one had been there for him.

After that conversation, I took an immediate liking to him. I began to see him differently, more like a tortured soul than a conceited know-it-all. And Brooke let on to this and took every moment to tell me to make a move. But I wasn't Brooke. Making the first move wasn't something I would ever do.

I had always been the shy one. I wasn't the kind of person that tried really hard to make friends with everyone. I had a close group of friends and I was content with that. I was never one for partying hard and socializing for the hell of it. My idea of hanging out was sitting in someone's apartment and watching a comedy or horror movie together with popcorn, sodas, and chocolate covered pretzels.

But, alas, I was friends with Brooke, who the definition of a party girl. She would always find some way to drag me to the club with her every couple weeks, where she partied hard and got drunk. Then it was always me who drove her back to our apartment and nursed her and her hangover.

I didn't blame her, though. I was almost pretty sure she acted the way she did because she had grown up living with a woman who did the exact same thing. Her mother hadn't been a good influence, and now it showed on her daughter's behavior

But I guess the difference between Brooke and her mother was that Brooke wasn't an addict. She knew when too much was too much. It's not like she got drunk every weekend.

"I think we should call it quits for tonight," I said, setting my book on the coffee table in front of me.

"Agreed," Derek said, yawning.

"You guys are party poopers," Alyssa pouted.

"We're getting old and cranky," Chase said, pushing her chin up with his finger. "Deal with it," he added. She huffed and crossed her arms.

"I don't want to walk back to my apartment," Alyssa said.

"Crash here, then," Brooke said, standing up and cracking her back.

"Dude, can we all?" Chase asked, looking at Brooke with hopeful eyes. The rest of us exchanged knowing glances.

"Go for it," I replied when Brooke didn't.

"Awesome. I wasn't up for walking back to my place either," Derek said, standing up.

"I think you guys may have left some of your clothes here from that one night," I said, going to the small hallway closet and opening it.

"I think I have a pair of your sweatpants, Chase," Brooke said, climbing over his legs to go to her room.

"Why?" Chase asked.

"Oh, I think I found them in your room and they looked soft so I took them," Brooke called back from her room. She emerged with a pair of grey sweatpants in her hands and threw them at him. He caught them and raised an eyebrow.

"You sleep with my pants on?" he asked quizzically. We all bit back laughter. Brooke remained unfazed.

"Yeah. They're comfy," she replied non-chalantly. I chuckled.

"Here you go," I said, dropping a few sweatpants and sweatshirts onto the couch.

"I was wondering where these were," Eli said, pulling out a pair of black sweatpants from the pile of clothes.

"Are these all washed?" Derek asked, smelling a t-shirt. I nodded.

"You're so lucky I'm nice and washed them for you guys," I said.

"She's such a sweetie," Brooke said, putting her arm around my shoulder and smiling at me. I returned it heartily.

"We're lacking in a t-shirt," Chase said.

"You can wear one of mine," Brooke said.

"Yeah, because I'd fit in that," he said sarcastically.

"You would," she said.

"Ummm...do you not see the size of my arms? Do you not see these muscles?!" he exclaimed. We all burst into fits of laughter.

"You are such a diva," Alyssa remarked.

"She's right. If I didn't know you, I'd think you were gay," Eli said.

"What?! You've got to be kidding me," Chase said incredulously. "How the hell do I look gay?" he asked in disbelief.

"You dress like a priss," I said. The others laughed.

"Just because I dress like a boss doesn't mean I'm gay," Chase said, rolling his eyes.

"Is that what you call it?" Derek asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Whatever. You guys are idiots," Chase said.

"Awww, the baby's angry. We're just joking, sweetie," Brooke said, pinching his cheek. He smacked her hand away and she yelped gleefully.

"Chill out, Chase. You can wear that oversized t-shirt I won from Kaplan that one time," I said. The others snorted.

"The extra large one," Alyssa chuckled. I nodded.

I had entered a contest to win a free t-shirt by signing up for Kaplan classes to help prepare me for the MCAT and I won it in a drawing. Problem was, it was an extra large.

"It's better than Brooke's extra small t-shirts," Chase huffed.

"I do not wear extra small t-shirts! My t-shirts are baggy," Brooke defended.

"Right," Chase said, rolling his eyes and getting up and following me into my room. 

"You're such an ass, Chase," Brooke called.

"And you're a bitch, but I still let you hang out with me," Chase called back. I gave him a look.

"Why do you like pissing her off all the time?" I asked him, rummaging through my closet for the shirt.

"Because she's a pain in the ass sometimes," he replied. I handed him the shirt and gave him a look.

"You're not going to find a way to her heart if you're a jerk to her," I told him. He smiled at me and pinched my cheek. I pushed his hand away.

"Who said I wanted to find a way to her heart?" he asked.

"You're not fooling anyone, Chase," I answered. He smirked and winked at me before walking back out.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

It was going to be an extremely long night. Not that that was a bad thing. It never was. Especially when I had my friends around.

__________________________________________________________________________

A/N: This is what came out of my compilation of study breaks. I think it's a pretty good chapter. It has a LOT of background on all the characters, so you get to know them a bit.

Well, break's over.

Enjoy the chapter!

Comment and VOTE!!!

XOXO