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Sleep didn't come easy after that call from Lenard. Restlessly, I tossed and turned in my bed. It was no surprise that the only time I did sleep, I had vivid nightmares like the ones I had about four or five years ago. Every time I would shut my eyes, hideous memories jarred me awake, causing me to leap out of the darkness of my own mind.

When the morning arrived, I had to drag myself out from my bed and into the bathroom. I applied more makeup than I typically did, trying to hide the bags that had formed under my eyes. I made my eyeshadow darker than it was before, hoping that it would help my groggy appearance.

Evelyn had left in her car earlier that morning. Hunter stayed behind a little more than he usually did and I carpooled with him. I had a feeling that they were only letting me drive with Hunter because they didn't want me to take Dakota home in Evelyn's car again.

While driving to the school, Hunter tried to explain that my dad and his mom had something to do at dad's law firm, but I knew it was a lie.

"You don't need to fabricate the reason to why she can't drop me off," I cut him off while he was explaining. "I know it's because of how I dropped off Dakota."

"Well, yeah, I think it's half of it." He slowly but surely shrugged. "Honestly, after Maven had told your dad and my mom about what happened, they were pretty freaked out at that you'd drive him home. Maven kept putting his own theory to why you dropped him off, but your dad wanted to hear the story from you. After you told us why you did it, I didn't get understand why Maven was so hell-bent on trying to get you in trouble."

"It's because he hates me," I stated. "Don't you get it by now?"

"He's just being Maven. That guy doesn't like anyone; he doesn't even like me," he said . "And to clarify, he doesn't hate you. He just sees no reason to like you."

"Thanks. Like that's any better."

"It is better if you ask me," he said, turning to another street. "And if you keep on trying to hang around Dakota, he'll only show you how much he doesn't like you. It'll get worse-trust me."

"Why? What's his deal anyway?" I sat up. "Did something happen between the two of them that caused him to hate Dakota this much?"

"You don't want to know."

"No, I do. If I didn't want to know, then I wouldn't ask."

"That's not what I mean. I mean you'll wish you didn't ask if you knew the reason behind it."

"Try me," I challenged.

He let out a sigh. "You're not going to drop this are you?"

"Nope. I'm pretty damn persistent."

"Fine," he exhaled. "There's some things I personally can't tell you, but what I can say is that Dakota and Maven didn't always hate each other. They were good friends, if anything. I wasn't there to witness the real start of the tension, but their friendship kind of crumbled-or at least started to crumble-last year before the second semester. It became a back and forth battle between the both of them. And then Diana..." Hunter trailed off. He shook his head halfway, probably recalling something that he didn't feel right speaking about.

I grabbed his free hand that wasn't on the steering wheel. "You don't have to tell me. It's okay. I'm fine not knowing."

It wasn't necessarily how I felt. I wanted to know so badly. But I could see the pain hit his eyes, and the last thing I wanted to do was get him upset while retelling what happened with Maven and Dakota.

Hunter was right about something though. If I kept digging, I'd only unearth something I'd wish I never knew. I didn't want that kind of burden on my shoulders. For now, my Dakota Investigation was placed on hold.

I had my senior year to look forward to. It was the first time I could go and live my life without looking over my shoulder every few minutes. It was the first time in a long time school was a safe haven again, and not another place where I'd face torment and torture.

One of the Maine issue was the way people whispered about me and my family. (See what I did there? Maine. Main...). Right now, the most important thing for me was to complete my senior year without spazzing out and having some emotional breakdown because of college applications. It wasn't even October yet and students at Crescent High were already freaking out about college and standardized testing. And here I was, trying to be like freaking Nancy Drew or one of the kids in Mystery Inc. No matter how hard I tried, I was no Velma Dinkley.

I had to focus on college. That was my next stop after this hellhole. I had to still figure out where I wanted to go. Finding another place to locate myself brought a new fear into my world. And that, believe it or not, was something I knew would always top the Maine problems (okay, I'll stop now.)

"Are you sure you don't want to know?" Hunter asked, pulling into the school parking lot.

I nodded. "Yes, I'm sure. I do want to know one thing though. Do you know who Maven was talking about at dinner? The supposed 'friend' who told him about where I was at."

Maven had never specified who his source was, but I had gut wrenching feeling that it was Pierson. Something about how he gave me a raised eye brow after I came back to the soccer try-outs told me that it had to be him.

"I don't know who it was," Hunter said unconvincingly. "You could ask around, but I doubt anyone will admit to it."

. . .

I was praying that someone would stab me in Honors English class. Over and over again, I tried to remind myself what was going through my mind when I agreed to take two AP classes and an Honors class. Dad and Evelyn had talked me in to at the school office when they were first arranging my schedule. The councilor himself recommended it, saying it would be a piece of cake for me since I had taken AP classes in the past. He didn't--however--understand that I'd nearly scrapped by with a C minus.

And it was less on if I understood the material and more on the fact that I didn't have anywhere to study after school. The library near my house was in pretty sketchy part of town. After Lenard was gone, I didn't have any one to pick me up from there. It wasn't like I could go home to study.

"You look like you're about to faint," Ronnie said, nudging me slightly. Her real name was Veronica, but she went by Ronnie. It fit her better because of her black clothes, black lipstick, and dark eyeliner. She sat next to me in Ms. Smith's class. "Breath, Silvia. You remember how to breath, right?"

"I forgot how to." I crumbled into my desk, face first. "How am I supposed to pass the quiz this Friday if I can't spot a comma splice and all that other junk she keeps yapping about?"

"You can always show Ms. Smith your boobs," she suggested with a straight face. "That might get you an A plus. Maybe even offer to stay after class to get some extra credit." She winked.

I made a gagging noise. "I'll pass on that brilliant idea of yours. Besides, even if I was that desperate, she'd probably lecture me after on how awful I was for whatever I did to her. Ms. Smith has no soul."

"Of course she doesn't have a soul. Her boyfriend ate that out."

I playfully punched her arm. "You need to stop. She's going to hear us."

She only laughed louder. Man, I really wished she could sit with Xander, Beth, and I at lunch. Sadly, Ronnie had an issue with Xander that went pretty deep. It wasn't a mutual hatred; from what I understood, Xander didn't even know about it. If she had to be in the same room as Xander, she only grinned and bared through it. That was the main reason why we first hit it off. I knew it was going to be a great friendship when I knew she didn't like Xander either.

"If you really want to, I don't mind helping you," she offered.

I reached for her hands. "I will love you forever if you helped me. Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I am. I'm free after school tomorrow if that works for you."

"Yes, it does." I went to embrace her. "I could kiss you, Ronnie. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but I don't like girls." She hugged me back and let out a low laugh. Pulling back, she tapped her finger on my nose. "I can see why Pierson can't stop talking about you though. I'm not blind."

"Wait, what?" I ripped myself away from her. "Pierson has been talking about me?"

I wasn't too sure how I felt about Pierson talking about me to people. This morning, he didn't seem any different. When he had invited me to the celebration for his soccer team try-outs--like Beth had predicted he would--he didn't seem to be nicer to me than he was before. What could he possibly say about me that he couldn't say to my face?

Ronnie looked at me a little longer, racking her brown eyes up and down at me. "Why aren't you blushing like crazy? If any of the girls in this class knew that Pierson Redmond was talking about them, they'd be all smitten and blushing to their scalps. What give? You don't want an Irish lover?"

"I don't want a lover. Period."

"I hear he's great in bed," she gave me a fox grin. "And that's he's really, really big di--"

"I don't want to know!" I yelled, winning me a "hush" from the teacher at her desk. "I honestly don't want to get involved with any guy. Pierson or anyone else."

She arched a brow. "Now, I know that's not true. If I told you that Dakota wanted to do the frickle freckle with you, you'd be jumping up the walls like Tigger on ecstasy."

I sighed. "Let's not talking about that person."

"Last week, you wouldn't stop asking me questions about him. What's changed?"

"What's changed is that I've recently realized that high school doesn't continue after this year. This is it. I might as well get my shit together and basically beg for a school to adopt me for the fall semester." I leaned into my open hand, glancing over at her. "I want to focus on school and not boys."

She snorted. "Let's see how long that lasts, kiddo."

. . . . . . .

Entering into Mr. Finley's class with a raging headache, I had hopes of a sub coming in. I was greeted with disappointment when I saw Mr. Finley's sitting in his wooden chair, reading something on his dinosaur of a laptop.

A light hush floated in the air as I walked down the aisle, making my way to the back of the room. I looked around, wondering what the fuss was about. At last, my eyes hit the back of the class room and notice that Dakota was in Faye's seat, drawing something in his sketch book. He was going to sit next to me.

It took everything in me to not smile at that sight. I wondered if he was drawing me or a tree, like a lot of his drawings were. Refraining from grinning, I took my seat and pulled out my AP Government notebook and a single black pen.

"You look different." He pointed out, not looking up from his sketch book.

I sat up right. Was that a good different? I couldn't tell by his emotionless voice. "Different how?"

"I don't know..." he inhaled deeply. "I'm not sure what it is. But something's different."

"Well." I swayed in my seat. "I'm wearing makeup."

Dakota lifted his captivating eyes off his sketch book and fluttered them up to me, narrowing at the space below my own gray eyes. Reaching out a hand, he brought his thumb to my cheek and then over the freckles on my nose, that were now covered in foundation and hidden from sight. He noticed, even though no one else had.

He dropped his hand, shaking his head. "You should wear less makeup."

"Is that an insult that I can't put it on right or that I put on too much?"

"No, quite the opposite, doll." He smirked. "You look better with out it...I mean--"

I faked a gasp. "Is that a compliment coming from Dakota? Wow, I never knew this day would ever come. I'm going to have to mark this day down. Maybe even make it a national holiday. I'll even tell my grandkids about this historical moment."

He rolled his eyes, sighing. "See, this is why people aren't nice to you. No wonder Maven hates you."

"And he's back to his rude ways," I mused, easing my back into the seat. "You should be nice more often."

"Nah, it's bad for my reputation."

I rolled my own eyes this time. "Why are you being nice now then?"

"I'm only going to be nice for a day and a half to you. I promised forty-hours and that's all I'll do." He used his thumb to smudge the image. It was of a stream with a willow tree in the foreground. His talent amazed me. I couldn't draw anything besides stick figures, M shaped birds, and suns with cool black sunglasses.

Looking back, I shouldn't have done what I did next. It was stupid of me. If I hadn't said what I was about to ask him, then maybe none of the things that would happen after wouldn't have occurred.

I moved in closer to him, resting my elbow on my desk. "What are you doing next Wednesday night?"

. . . . .

A/N: The last two updates were pretty depressing/confusing so I tried to add some more Dilvia screen time to make up for it. Pilvia will get their screen time possible in the next chapter. IDK yet :P (thanks jodie157 for coining the ship name Pilvia first). Do you have any ship names figured out? I wasn't really thinking of that stuff when I named the characters but I'd like to hear what you guys say :P

>Song: Eat That Up, Its Good For You by Two Door Cinema Club

Lyrics: ❝You would look a little better, don't you know, if you just wore less make-up.❞

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random cover stuff: I made this while I was bored, pretending to write a chapter haha.

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