Tyler had now come back to school, and it was awesome. It was currently Friday, and the gang was back together again, with the addition of Veronica, which neither of us really minded, except when her annoying needy best friend tagged along.

"Shawn! Give that back!"

"It's mine now Megan!"

We were in the cafeteria, and Shawn had stolen Megan's phone after she'd been intensely texting someone for the last ten minutes. I hadn't noticed Ezra was on his phone either, wearing a red crimson blush.

"Woah, check out this text- You look so hot right now, all I want to do is take off-"

"Ew! Okay that's enough!" I yelled out, cutting him off and snatching the phone to give it back to a now extremely embarrassed Megan. "Thanks Alex."

Once the lunch break was over, I walked off to English which was the next class. The first thing Mr. Jones asked us was how the project was coming along. Shawn and I glanced at each other and I immediately looked away, my face red. Ugh, what the hell? Ever since that day in his car, I can't even look him in the eye anymore without turning into a tomato. It was too awkward and weird. Were we friends? Enemies? Frenemies?

Once class ended, I hauled my ass out of there before Shawn could try and come talk to me or something. I'm not sure why I was running away from him, but apparently that's what my brain wanted to do.

We reached the end of the day soon enough, and it was time to go to practice. I was stuffing my books back in my locker, while Veronica waited next to me in her cheerleader uniform. She had practice as well, and was nice enough to give me a ride home today.

I heard laughter at the end of the hallway and turned around to see Shawn laughing with Brad at his locker. His eyes caught mine and he stared at me for a second, before I quickly turned away again.

"All right, what is going on with you and Shawn?" Veronica suddenly spoke. I gaped at her. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw it at the waterfall and I saw it again now. You two keep looking at each other with weird expressions on your faces."

"There's nothing going on!"

She folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "You're going to have to lie better than that Alex, because I've known Shawn since we were five years old, and I can tell every expression on his face. And right now, you have the same one he does."

I tried to fake laugh, grabbing my gym back and walking to practice. "Seriously Ronnie, it's nothing."

"Sure, if you say so. But Shawn's been acting weird and I'll figure out why soon enough."

Neither of us said anything after that as we'd reached the gym and went off in separate directions. Shawn was acting weird? I guess he's not the emotionless robot I thought he was. The car incident had proven that after all. I knew something about him that apparently no one knew, and he knew something about me. It was killing me that he had heard my parents fighting, like he had some leverage. I hadn't even told Megan about that. Atleast, he had seen it with his own eyes; he knew it was true. I didn't really have any evidence. Ugh, why can't my trust issues shut up for once?

I got ready and walked out on the court to warm up. Tyler and Shawn were already there with the rest of their team, while I warmed up with Stacy and Olivia.

This time when we played a match, Shawn and I were on the same team. Which was odd, since you don't normally put two captains together, but apparently the Coaches wanted to see if we could work together since 'teamwork is important' and 'we had a rocky relationship since I punched him'.

The game started out well and we pulled ahead really quickly, which was no surprise since our team was really strong. Tyler, Stacy and Andrew were also with us and they were great players. The other team had Brad, Olivia, Tracy and more, while Brad may have been decent, Tracy was really the only good one compared to us.

Shawn had the ball and was dribbling down the court, but got blocked. I was open and I waved my arms, yelling at him to throw it to me. He looked up, but the moment he saw me he fumbled, and for some stupid reason, swivelled around and threw it right into Tracy's arms in panic. She then ran around and scored easily.

"Hunter, what the hell was that?" Coach William yelled. Everyone else looked equally surprised, including me. Was he scared of me now? That I'd tell everyone his secret or something?

"I'm sorry Coach, I wasn't thinking."

Tyler ran up to me with a confused look on his face. "Peirce, do you know what that was about?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"He looked at you and fumbled. You didn't threaten to murder him, did you?"

"What? No!"

The whistle blew and the gamed continued. We still won, but by a lesser amount than one would have normally thought. As I left the locker room, everyone was mumbling theories about Shawn's sudden distractedness, including the cheerleaders. Tyler and I met up with Veronica and she drove me back home, and I took a quick shower and sat on my bed.

What the heck was up with Shawn today? He was flinching at every movement, like he was scared someone would hit him. It's a natural reflex, when your father is a psychopath I guess, but hasn't he concealed it all these years? I would have never figured it out if he hadn't told me. Was I the reason he was suddenly so fragile? Like him telling me made him more vulnerable somehow. Ugh, what was I doing? Thinking about stupid Shawn Hunter.

I went to my desk and did my homework, which I finished surprisingly fast. Then like some crazy telepathy, like as if she knew the second I was done, I received a text from Megan about a party nearby.

A party Meg? We just went to one.

That was weeks ago. Cm on, it'll be fun. U can't sit at home on a Friday night.

I sighed and texted her a thumbs up and started to get ready. Sure, I'll go to the stupid party but no way in hell am I touching another drink. The semi finals were in a few days, and I couldn't afford to do something stupid.

Meg picked me up five minutes later, and drove us to some other rich person's house where the party was taking place. It looked somewhat familiar.

"Have we been here before?" I asked her.

"Yup. When we toilet papered Kayla's house."

"Kayla? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm leaving."

Before I could go anywhere, she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside the house. The party was in full swing already. We navigated through the sweaty thrashing bodies until we made it to the kitchen, where Ezra, Tyler and Veronica were waiting for us.

"About time you two showed up." Tyler commented. "How did you get her to come to Kayla's house when you told her?"

"She didn't" I grit my teeth and glared at her. She shrugged with a guilty smile on her face. "Oops. Here, have a drink."

"Nuh uh. I'm not drinking so close to a game."

"Has anyone ever told you you're a real party pooper?"

I rolled my eyes at her and took out my phone. My friends proceeded to get drunk, while I just scrolled through my phone and took funny pictures. I'm sure they won't even remember half of it in the morning. Idiots.

Twenty minutes later, they decided to go to the pool when Kayla invited them. She didn't say anything to me, but hesitated for a second like she was deciding if she should be nice to me or not after the incident at school. In the end she just shook her head and walked off.

After a while I started to feel like a stupid loner, so I ventured out to try and find my friends at the pool. It took me forever to navigate through the house, but I finally managed to reach the sliding glass doors to the backyard. I was just about to walk through, when I was rudely bumped into from behind and someone spilled all their beer on me.

"Hey! What the hell?!" I yelled, turning around and trying to brush the liquid off me. I looked up and stopped when I saw Shawn, standing there with a dumb look on his face, like one of those wonky eyed dog videos. He was very clearly drunk. For real this time, I might add.

"Alex? Oh my god, I am so sorry. Let me help you get cleaned up."

"Oh uh, Shawn its really not necessary, I-"

Without warning, he grabbed my hand and sloppily dragged me into the backyard and towards the pool. The tiles over there were extremely slippery, and I was scared to death that Shawn would fall and take me down with him.

"What better way to get cleaned up than jump in the pool eh?"

"Shawn-"

Then he suddenly took off his shirt and grabbed me, jumping into the pool as I screamed at the top of my lungs. It only lasted a second though, as we plunged into the water.

The cold hit me like a shock wave, and I felt like I'd punctured my lungs. I managed to push Shawn's slobby hands off me and swim to the surface, coughing out the water from my throat.

"Whoo-hoo! That was awesome! Is the beer gone now?" Shawn asked, giggling like a two-year-old. I gaped at him, still trying to recover my breath.

"Yes, the beer is gone, because I'm doused in chlorine!"

"Well, I think you look sexy."

I nearly choked on air when he said that. What the actual fuck? This guy was even more nuts than I originally thought.

"Okay Hunter, get out of the water, you need to sober up."

"Noooo! Sober is boring. Drunk is fun! It's when I'm most honest, ask anybody!" He giggled again, moving closer to me in the water as he did so, his hand snaking around my waist. His foot brushed against my leg and I jumped, trying to push him away from me. For a drunk guy, he still had a pretty strong grip, and trying to do this in water was nearly impossible.

His expression changed from humorous to something more serious and intense. He had that typical bad boy cocky smirk on his face again, his eyes glinting with need. He huskily whispered- "Let's have some fun."

I was frozen in shock, his bare chest sticking to my hoodie and his wet hair right in my eyes. He moved closer and closer, and at the last second, he stopped and burst out laughing, and I managed to push him away and swim to the side.

"Hahaha! Your face! You looked so freaked out, it was hilarious!"

Grumbling to myself, I got out of the pool, using my hands to push myself out. Shawn followed after me like a toddler, laughing to himself again like he'd just escaped from a mental hospital. It was psychotic.

"Get away from me Hunter. I'm going to my friends now."

"Aw, I'm not your friend?"

I ignored him and walked over to the other end of the pool where the four of them were sitting. They were drunk of their asses, except for Tyler, thanks to his high tolerance he could still make sense of things and had seen the exchange between me and Shawn. I think nearly everyone had seen it, and I wanted to die right then and there. He narrowed his eyes.

"Peirce! Where have u been you narc? Join us!" Megan drunkenly yelled, while Ezra turned around and vomited into a bush. I smacked myself on the forehead. "That's it, I don't have a license, but I'm going to drive you drunk asses home."

It literally took me an hour to get the five of them out of there and into Megan's car. She'd still been giving me driving lessons, and while I wasn't exactly the best driver in the world, I was still pretty decent.

I dropped everyone else home until finally it was only Shawn left. I'd dropped Megan home first even though it was her car because I'd have to go through a roundabout route. Navigating in the dark was even tougher than normal, but I managed to pull up outside his house just fine. I'd made all of them eat some food before we left, so Shawn was certainly more sober now. He started to get out of the car but suddenly shuffled back in and slammed the door, his eyes wide like he'd just seen a ghost. "No, I can't go home Alex."

"What? Why?"

"My dad's home. If he sees me like this, he's going to kill me."

I stared at him in disbelief. "So, what do you expect me to do? We can't stay here forever."

He turned towards me with a pleading look on his face. "Please can I stay at your place? Just for tonight?"

"What? Shawn-"

"Please."

He looked so broken and pleading, that I couldn't possibly say no to him. Sighing, I put the car in drive again and drove us to my house, hoping my parents weren't home and I wouldn't get pulled over by a cop. I'll just return Megan's car after I drop him off.

So much for not doing something stupid.