Maggie and Peter, two people in school that I despised. They were the most fake people anyone could ever meet, both would smile at you while you faced them but as soon as you turned your back they'd be right behind you with dagger ready. That's how they were, they picked on the vulnerable, the shy and the 'weird.' They complained until they got what they wanted and lied to get attention, they were the worst of the worse and it was a surprise that they hadn't been caught out yet.

I listened to Nat crying and unloading on Ilyse everything that had been done to her so far, she didn't leave a single thing out and it made my blood boil all the more. Nat used to tell me everything, but when the bullying started I was finding things out from other people. She had been too ashamed to tell me, to scared that I'd go and beat Peter up and get expelled from school.

She was probably right about that, I would have beaten Peter. Or at the very least given my best shots before he beat the sh*t out of me.

I wasn't sure how long I sat under the tree house for, but eventually Ilyse came down. She knelt beside me and frowned, I knew what she was frowning at but didn't say anything as my attention was taken by Nat. This was the quickest she'd ever come down out of the tree house, usually I had to sit there for half the night before she decided she wanted to come down.

"Keelan! Have you been fighting with Brock again? Please tell me you haven't?" Ilyse's eyes narrowed, while Nat looked completely worried.

But I shook my head and smile at Nat, "Cal is home." Nat knew instantly what we'd been doing. Whenever Cal and I were stressed we usually fought, not in the serious 'I'm going to beat the shit out of you' sort of way, but more the 'tit for tat' sort of fighting. I guess some people would call it play fighting, except Cal and I weren't playing.

"What do you mean? Who is Cal?" Ilyse demanded. I looked at her for a few moments, wondering why she was demanding more answers out of me than I was willing to give.

When she reached a hand towards my bruised eye and cheek I swatted her hand away before it could touch the throbbing skin. "Cal, he's my best friend. Goes to another school now, lives just over the fence there. We let off some steam this afternoon by play fighting." Ilyse frowned when I swatted her hand away, it wasn't that I didn't want her touching me...just that I didn't want her thinking she had free reign to do it.

"Oh, come on Nat. Let's go back inside." I may have been mistaken but I think Ilyse was upset about something. Sure, it might have been all the stress of having to deal with the situation with Nat, it might have been that she thought we were friends. I don't know, girls were weird like that sometimes and I really didn't want to start trying to figure them out.

I sat there for a whole longer, mom and dad were probably going to assume the same thing that Ilyse did. If I told them Cal was back in town they would most likely call his parents and tell them that he was home without them, but if I told them I'd gotten into a fight with some random guy they'd probably ground me triple time. As far as I could tell there was no easy way out of this and I knew that Cal being here alone was what he wanted.

Sighing, I pulled myself up off the ground and went inside.

Almost as soon as I stepped foot in the door mom and dad were on me. "What happened to your eye? Have you been fighting again Keelan?" These were from mom, while dad on the other hand was standing there giving me this look like he was trying to see into my soul.

"Mom can you not, it was just a little mucking around with some friends. That's it," I tried to walk around mom and dad but they both blocked my way again, mom grabbed my face between the palm of her hands and tried to look me in the eye. She used to do it a lot when I was little, when we locked eyes she would always just stare at me like she was trying to see some sort of truth.

But right now, I avoided her eyes and pulled her hands away from my face. "Mom seriously, I'm not ten anymore. It was just a bit of wrestling with friends that got out of hand, it's not like I was street fighting or anything." I snorted, it sort of was like street fighting and stuff but it was with Cal. So who cared?

"Keelan, I thought you were changing? I thought summer school was helping you be a better person." It stung when mom said thing like that but sounded so disappointed, had I not changed a lot? Did I not think more about others now than I had in the past? Didn't she see that I cleaned up after myself, helped around the house more and didn't spend so much time in my room?

I could feel myself getting angry and hurt as all those questions formed in my mind, did everything I had shown over the last few weeks mean nothing to her?

"Maybe I'm not the one that needs to change mom." I tried my best to keep my voice level as I looked from mom to dad, mom's bottom lip began to quiver and dad looked instantly livid. Like I'd hit her or something, but I really was getting sick and tired of having to be this perfect guy when really...I wasn't.

"I'm going to my room." I said as I pushed around my parents. There was no way I was telling either of them that Cal was back in town, he was already a mess because of his parents divorce. The last thing he needed was being chased down by both parents so they could prove that one was better than the other.

I didn't go down to dinner that night and both my parents stayed away, but later in the night my door opened quietly after a quick knock. It was Nat, she always came to check on me when mom and dad were being like this.

She brought with her a small plate of food, I was thankful as I was pretty hungry.

"Why didn't you just tell mom and dad that Cal is back in town? They're going to see the lights on next door and you know how mom is, she'll call Cal's mom and he'll be found eventually." It was stupid of me to keep a friends secret but I wasn't that disloyal to a person that I'd spill my guts over a simple question.

It wasn't that big of a deal that I currently had a black eye, the throbbing had stopped a while ago and I didn't need stitches or anything.

"Because Nat...I'm one of the only friends Cal has right now. He's going through a hard time right now and I didn't want to make it worse by telling mom and dad that he was back in town minus his parents. Don't worry about him, he's learned from the last time I came home early and turned all the lights on. He won't be doing anything to attract mom's attention again. Thanks for bringing me something to eat too, is Ilyse okay? What? Don't look at me like that Nat, I was just asking." I regretted asking after Ilyse as soon as I saw the expression on Nat's face, there was something going on in her head and I didn't like it.

"See, I knew you were a good guy. Why don't you let other people see this side of you? You'd win more friends if you just opened up a little bit." I rolled my eyes at Nat as she handed me the plate of food, it was nothing special. It looked like mom wasn't in the mood to cook as what sat on the plate was a piece of cold toast with a poached egg on top.

I didn't complain, it was food and I was hungry.

"..so Ilyse? What do you think of her? I adore her, she's probably my only friend in school. And so what if I want you to go out with her? That's just me being wishful, I don't actually expect you to do it. But I'm sure she likes you, she goes pink whenever I tease her about you. And I know you were listening this morning so don't even try and pretend like this is new to you." Dammit all, I figured I couldn't sneak up and eavesdrop at Nat's door. She might have been quiet, but it was weird how Nat knew people were around.

"Good, because I'm not going to date her. Okay? She's okay, sometimes I feel like she's trying too hard to be mature or something, like she never just is. You know? Like what teen in their right mind mentors other teens and sits there patiently listening to them unload? It's weird." Okay, so that was my biggest gripe about Ilyse. It wasn't that she had lived with her poor aunt, it wasn't that she talked too much. It was the fact she wasn't 'normal,' anyone who absorbed that much from other people had to let it go somewhere and I was still trying to figure out how Ilyse dealt with emotions.

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Please don't ask me what I'm doing...I have no idea.