LOVING SOMETHING WITH A DEADLINE is the most painful thing in the world.

Watching Dad and Mom fall apart. Watching terminally ill people try to leave a big enough footprint in the sand such that it won't be swept away by the tides of time. Watching Suki and her parents pack down the only house she's ever lived in and kissing her in the interim.

Niko and Haru understand why I'm around so much these days. I think I wrote them off as cold and clinical too early. They're actually really understanding, they just aren't touchy-feely about it. I don't go to school at all while Suki's still here. Dad gave me shit about it the first three days, till I blurted out the truth and started crying in front of him.

So, he's more understanding than I thought, too.

All I try to do is memorise.

I memorise while Suki sends boxes of her clothes away, and while we heft furniture into the moving containers that'll be transported to Ranscher. I memorise when Suki and I make homemade lemonade, apple juice, peach juice, cantaloupe juice—to use up all the perishable fruit they have—in the kitchen. I memorise every second of every day that I have until the deadline.

It's like I've got a final, and Suki is the subject. I want my head to be full of her, I want to plaster my consciousness with pictures of her smell, a detailed description of her plum, soap and lotion scent, the way her voice holds both the windy mountains and the rustling forest. I want it to feel like she never left.

That's impossible, of course.

She did leave.

The Monday after Suki flies out to Washington, I wrench Brittany's empty hand around in the hallway. Her other hand is tucked into the back pocket of her latest jock conquest.

"You," I snap, jerking her clean out of his arms.

"Me?" She bats her eyelashes innocently. "What now, Terry?"

"Hey, fuckwit," her plaything says, walking slowly towards me. "Howse about you leave my girl alone?"

"Oh, you're Britt's new side dick." I smirk. "Nice. Enjoy it while it lasts."

The dude makes some noise like a charging bull, nostrils flared, and then I'm pinned against the lockers. Brittany stifles a laugh. Why do people lose their temper so easily? That's a recipe for disaster.

"What did you say to me?" he grits out threateningly.

"I said you're temporary—"

I watch his fist draw back and time the impact, jerking my head to the side. The place my face was gives way to navy tin. A sickening crunch, accompanied by clanging metal, sounds by right my ear when he smashes his fist against it.

"Ow!" His grip on me loosens. "Fuck!" I step neatly around him, appearing at Brittany's side again.

"Babe," she says with faux-concern. "You should really get that looked at. Go to the nurse's office. I'll take care of this."

"But—"

"Nurse's office. Now," she commands sweetly. "Please."

Dude cradles his hand gingerly, giving me a death stare. I keep my face carefully blank. No use provoking him again. Brittany's plaything wraps his uninjured hand around her face and sucks her mouth for five disgusting seconds. He hocks a loogie to the side and wipes his lips. "See you later, babe."

How does she manage to pull the most revolting upperclassmen possible?

Brittany smiles at me when her boy toy is out of earshot. "Well, that was entertaining."

"What's entertaining is how well and truly managed you have him." I lower my voice, taking her by the arm and walking us to a less crowded hallway. "What's not is that you fucking ruined my life."

"Hm?"

"Did you know Suki was gonna leave?"

Brittany freezes. Because I've been staring daggers at her the whole time, I see the shock and pain that pulls her face taut. "You're the father?"

I scoff. "You didn't know?"

"No. I didn't. Wow. Go you, Hollister," Brittany pats me on the shoulder. At my disbelieving frown, she sighs. "Suki's a very private person."

Hearing something akin to fondness and familiarity—about Suki, on Brittany's lips—makes me want to gag. Especially because it's not misplaced. She is a private person. So private I always felt like I never really could call her mine.

"So. . . how are you doing?"

A broken laugh rips out of my throat. "Don't. Don't act like you care. Like she was anything to you but a slave in your little essay-writing scheme."

Brittany clicks her teeth, dragging us into a boys' bathroom. It's empty, thank fuck, though my eyebrows shoot up at how qualmlessy she walked in here.

"I do care about her," Brittany hisses, arms crossed. "We grew up together. Our parents used to go to each other's houses for dinner. I watched her, practising her cello, dancing, studying, and I wondered if she was really as goody-goody as she appeared. Surely, she couldn't be that perfect. But then I met her in that clinic, and she was. Is. At least, as close as one can get."

I cross my arms in turn, mirroring Brittany's defensive posture. "So, what, you got jealous you'd never measure up and decided to run her out of town?"

"No. I got jealous and decided to be there for her." She sniffs, then admits, "Sometimes I like to mess with people—"

"—I noticed—"

"—but not people who are already messed up."

I don't know whether to believe her or not. Sure, Suki said that Brittany is the only reason Cassie exists right now, but Brittany could have been manipulating her under the guise of supporting her.

But something seems genuine about Brittany. Either it's that she's standing unperturbed right next to a urinal, or it's her unwavering eyes.

I wonder quietly, "Did she ever talk about me?"

"All the time," Brittany answers softly. Her eyebrow quirks up, as if remembering something that just started making sense. "Your nickname was Trouble."

My heart squeezes in my chest again. I cradle my head in my hands, nearly on the verge of tears. I breathe out, keeping my voice even. "Fitting."

Curse you, Suki. Why'd you have to leave? I will not cry in front of Brittany fucking Stanson. I will not give her that leverage—

"She told me a lot of things, but I said everything she told me is in strict confidence. What I can tell you is that the gist is: you're a case of right person, wrong time."

I raise my head. The moment I meet Brittany's eyes, it's almost like I'm looking at Suki. She has the same shade of brown eyes, but her face is more square, features more proud. I blink, shaking everything away.

"Is there such a thing?"

I hate that I let her peel back my defense. But I want someone to know how much I love Suki, I want someone to bear witness to the fact that she was the one who broke me. Everyone's going to forget she was ever around, I realise, except me. I thought there'd be a day when I put a ring—more permanent than a promise ring—on her finger and declared her mine in front of the world, but the deadline has elapsed.

Now it's just Brittany and I in a piss-smelling bathroom, talking about a girl neither of us can see anymore.

"I don't know." Brittany tosses her hands up, letting out a maniacal giggle. "Christ, I'm sixteen! I'm just a kid. I know nothing."

"That's not true. You know way more than anyone thinks you do."

Her eyes zero in on me, glinting like the sun on shark-infested waters. Hiding danger. She pouts her glossy lips, glancing around disorientedly as if she didn't pull us in here. "Pardon? Where big, strong boyfriend?"

"Nice try. I see you."

"Let's go to English, Terry. Read about little boys tearing each other to pieces. What fun."

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Ironically, the rumours only start in full force after Suki is long gone.

I guess it's because all the teachers announced to her classmates that she won't be returning. I had to play along in Maths class, when all the speculation and gossip started. Suki Yamato, one of the most high-achieving high achievers in the grade, suddenly up and left her budding academic legacy with no explanation? No explanation to any of her closest friends?

Just Brittany and me. What a sick twist.

The girl I love and the girl I hate are irrevocably twisted together, so I have to take this weird newfound camaraderie with Brittany in my stride.

Some of the rumours are absurd. The one that takes the cake is that she's dead, and the police told the teachers to fabricate a milder excuse so as to not cause a panic that will hinder the investigation. Others mention a scholarship to Austria, or a long-running Christmas vacation in Japan—I think I know the friend group that spread that one around.

Oddly enough, no-one talks about her being pregnant.

I know the rumour went around when everyone came back from winter break, but it seems most people don't take it seriously. Suki's image seriously worked in her favour, after all. The student body either considers her too studious to ever think about dating—or if she did date, too clever to get pregnant, as if pregnancy and intelligence are somehow correlated.

I want to say to those particular students that Suki's the smartest woman I'll ever know and she's going to a teen mother. That shit is up to biology and chance, but they have to take the blame for their idiocy. Of course, I can't say any of it.

She is still a private person, miles away in Washington, at the other end of the line.

She tells me that she doesn't want to be dragged into the limelight by me stepping forward as her secret boyfriend and the father of her baby. What would be the point? I don't want to send a legion of fake, gossip-hungry acquaintances into her message inbox while she's trying to settle down in Ranscher.

I'm conflicted about whether I want the gossip to stop or not. If I hear the rumours, I'm infuriated. It feels almost like slander, the things they come up with. I hate that random kids get to talk about her as if they knew her intimately, as if they are the leading expert on why Suki left, and I am resigned to biting my tongue as they pass me in the hallway. Fuck them.

On the other hand, if I don't hear any rumours, it's like Suki has just vanished. Not from Carsonville, but from memory. No-one cares about her enough to even wonder why she left. She leaves no footprints in the sand, and life continues as normal. As if she didn't barrel into my life and fuck shit up in the best way possible.

I don't know.

I don't know a lot of things anymore, and whether I want the gossip or not is the least important one. It's also the least painful to think about, so I find myself ruminating at length about rumours and trivial gossip like a regular teenager with no real problems. Ha.

After the weekend, the second scenario comes true. All gossip about Suki stops. Which is weird, considering last Friday everyone couldn't get enough of it. Their urge to talk about people behind their back usually builds up over the weekend and spills profusely forth on Monday, but gossip is mundane as I walk to homeroom. Reserved. Careful, even.

In English class, all it took was Brittany walking in for everyone to stop talking entirely.

Before fifth period, I shut my locker and find Brittany leaning silently against the one adjacent. I stifle the urge to flinch and level a flat stare at her. "What do you want?"

She examines her nail cuticle, lazily announcing, "You're confused."

"No." What would I be confused about? Why the fuck God hasn't smited her with lightning yet? I'm not religious but maybe I should be. One of nature's biggest mysteries.

"You're wondering why they all stopped talking about her," Brittany fills in. My eyebrows raise despite myself, and a victorious smile appears on her face.

Is she saying she had something to do with the radio silence?

How could she do something that... elaborate?

"How?"

"I got Madison to do what she does best."

Gossip.

I roll my eyes. Everyone knows that Madison Murdoch is the queen of gossip. People take her word as gospel and her opinions as science—or even worse, entertainment, which spreads twice as fast—even if they're aware of her petty, superficial nature. Fuck knows the damage she does with her internet fame.

I lower my voice and angle my back to the hallway, closing the conversation to prying eyes and ears. "Does Madison know then? About Suki?"

Do I want people to know? I don't know.

"No. I just told her what to say, and she said it. Everyone thinks something utterly heinous happened to Suki because of me," Brittany declared proudly. This girl... is insane. "Madison spread the warning that I'd do the same to them if they ever mention Suki again."

"Seriously? What is this?"

"It's high school," Brittany giggles, flipping her sleek hair over her shoulder. "No-one gets out alive." She pauses for laughter, and I cock one eyebrow. "You're welcome, by the way."

I sling my backpack over one shoulder and turn around, ready to escape her exhausting presence. I yell behind me, "I did not thank you."

Her tinkling, dangerous laughter follows me all the way to Science class. "You're still welcome."

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A / N :

I love writing angst (hurting my characters) way too much. We are heading into the thick of it now mwahaha

A problem I"m encountering now is continuity between TGR and WTT. A rewrite of TGR (which is my written-at-fifteen, first-ever novel and full of cringe) has been on my to-do list for about a year, but I keep pushing it off for other projects. I thought I'd have it done by the time we got to senior year in WTT - which will come faster than it seems - but this will not be the case and I don't want the cringe to transmit into this book.

So if you have read both and see discrepancies, take this as Universe 1 canon and trust I will eventually smooth over the differences in a TGR rewrite yet to come.

Thanks,

Aimee x