I woke up to another bleak, frigid morning at the ungodly hour of six-thirty. Ever since I got the basement to dance in, I never really bothered waking up early to get to the studio before others. My bed was too snug and toasty to leave, so even though I showered the night before, a hot shower again was the only motivation I had to get out of bed.

So after ten minutes of internally battling falling back to sleep, I pushed myself off my bed and tiptoed to my bedroom door in the darkness, silently slipping into the hallway, and the door next to mine was my bathroom. My mother had her own master bathroom in her own room, and since I was an only child, I never had to share much.

My father is Mark Puckett, one of the city's most sought-after defense attorneys. And since Seattle, Washington is a pretty big city, that's saying something. He and my mom had me when they were fifteen, so they're both pretty young, and obviously divorced. Not that I minded, I mean, my dad was generous with his money with my mother and me, they both are pretty civil when interacting, and all that other shit that is considered an ideal divorce.

But like I said, he's a lawyer, so my father is pretty sly and deceiving when it comes to defending a case, but when it comes to his own family, he was pretty quick to drop a good two-hundred-thousand on the house I lived in. It was a two-story tudor-style home, complete with brick walls contrasting with white-wall finishes, a green front yard, big windows, and every room was spacious, including my own bathroom.

The floors were marble, matching with the tub, shower, and counter. Hanging above my toilet was a wicker cabinet filled with my entire make-up collection that Carly and me spent forever compiling, my bathtub sat directly below a large window overlooking the backyard, and my mother hired an interior decorator to coordinate my bathroom to be on one color palate of seafoam green. I hobbled across the heated floors and turned on the hot water, as far as it would go, pulled my long-sleeve Abercrombie shirt over my head, stepped out of my underwear, and hopped in the shower, relaxing as the stream of boiling-hot water warmed my skin.

I could've stayed in the heat all day, but after minutes of just standing in one place, I lathered up soap and shampoo, getting clean and rinsing off. Turning off the water, I reached past the shower curtain and grabbed my plush towel off the towel rack, drying my hair first, then my body, then flipped my hair upside down to roll it up in the towel. The mirrors were fogged up, so I wiped away the fog to brush my teeth, and I couldn't help but examine myself.

My eyes went straight to my left arm and I sighed. A bluish-blackish handprint was imprinted into my flesh, right where Mikey grabbed me last night. I pressed my finger against it and winced when I found out how tender it still was. I contemplated for a second what to do, then decided to take concealer out of my make-up cabinet, dab a little bit on a sponge wedge, and press it against the blemish, rubbing and blending in the make-up until I barely saw the bruise. I grabbed pressed powder and set the make-up gingerly, to make sure it would stay concealed all day.

Backing away from the mirror, I examined it from a farther distance and at different angles, adding a teensy bit more make-up here and there until it was completely gone. I took the towel and unwrapped it from my hair and tightened it around my torso, sneaking back into my room. It was seven in the morning on Saturday, so I decided to grab some breakfast and head out to go dance more. Even though I hid the bruise from view, I wanted to play it safe by sticking to sweaters and long sleeves, only exposing my arms when I was dancing alone.

I balanced my phone in between my ear and shoulder as I ran a wide-tooth comb through my damp curls. It rang four times before Carly picked up. Her voice was strained and groggy. "H-Hello?"

"Hey, Carls," I switched my phone to my other ear and got to work on another knot on the base of my neck. "You up for some breakfast?"

"Um," She yawned and let out a long breath, the way she did when she stretched. "I have a yoga class at nine, but we can get something. You wanna come with me to yoga?"

"Sure," I figured the class would help with my flexibility, and it would be a good warm-up to the dance rehearsal I had at two. "Stop by in twenty?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna throw on some clothes," I heard dresser drawers opening and shutting from her side of the phone call. "Do you have a yoga mat, or do you want me to bring you an extra?"

"No, yoga's new to me," I put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the bed as I pulled a baby-blue long-sleeve t-shirt that I got from a 12K Fun Run sophmore year over my head. "So if it's cool."

"Okay, cool," Keys jingled on her side and a few doors opened and shut. She whispered something to someone, then another door shut and her voice was audible. "I just told Spencer I'm heading out, so give me ten minutes."

Carly lived in a upper-class apartment complex downtown, which was a few blocks from my neighborhood on the outskirts of urban Seattle. "Sounds good to me. See ya in a few."

I tapped the end call button and sifted around my drawer for a pair of shorts. I settled on an old gray pair of short-shorts I cut off from a pair of sweat pants and slipped them on, then stepped into my Rainbow flip-flops, grabbing my purse and tying my pointé shoes to an inside strap. I tried to keep it buried underneath the rest of the things in my purse, making sure Carly wouldn't notice it. If she saw the pointé shoes, there'd be questions asked, I'd have to do some explaining, and dance was the most intimate, private part of me, and I wanted to keep it separate from every other aspect of my life.

Opening my door and walking down the hallway into the kitchen, there stood my mother at the island, typing away on her laptop, steam emitting from the pale green coffee mug beside her. She was, supposedly, my twin, both of us petite, blonde, and in her case, beautiful. She typed away on her keyboard, her black-rimmed glasses perched on her straight nose, her almost white-blonde hair in a messy bun, and she barely looked up to see me. "Morning, Samantha. You're up early."

"Carly and me are going to breakfast, then yoga," I put my purse on one of the barstools, looking at my mom's blue eyes narrow at the computer screen. "What're you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," She finished typing something before closing the laptop and looking at me. "The museum is just holding a party for the opening of the new space and astronomy exhibit, and yours truly was put in charge of hosting the whole thing."

"Nice momma," I laughed, watching her stressed and frazzled face. "When's the party?"

"In three weeks," She let out a sigh and sipped her drink from her mug. "So I have to coordinate invitations, entertainment, press, decorations, catering, and-" Instead of adding something else to her to-do list, she let out an exasperated grunt. She turned to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs, and unhooked a skillet from the rack hanging above the stove. "Sorry, just stressed. Since you're going out, I'm gonna stay home and make my own breakfast. Maybe try to regain control over my own sanity."

"Okay," I smiled, tapping my fingertips against the granite countertop. "I have rehearsal at two, then a quick shift from from six to closing again, so I'll be home later tonight."

She frowned at me slightly, cracking an egg into the pan. "You know you really don't have to work that job. Your father and I have plenty enough to provide for you and your imaginary ten brothers and sisters."

"I know, I know," Carly and I really didn't need the money, the job just gave us something extra to do. Plus, the discounts on purchases and the amount of people we randomly met through that job were worth it. "But it's mostly for fun, plus it looks good on college resumes."

"Right," She reluctantly agreed, taking a spatula to poke at her sizzling eggs. "So, anyway, how are you and Mikey?"

I bit my lip and sort of brushed my hand against the place where my sleeve was covering the bruise. I didn't want to lie to my mom, but I didn't want have to explain what happened last night. By some grace of God, however, there was a knock at the door. With no need to be answered, the door opened and Carly herself came into the kitchen, wearing a purple tank-top and black yoga pants. "Hey Sam, hey Ms. Puckett."

"Good morning, Carly," My mom pulled a white square plate from a cabinet, putting it on the counter next to the stove. "How are you?"

"Fine," Carly had her keys in her hand, ready to get going. I stood up, shouldering my purse, and started walking towards the front door. Carly smiled at my mother before turning on her heel. "We'll talk later, bye!"

"Bye momma," I shouted from the front door, closing it behind me and then followed Carly to her hybrid silver Prius. "So, Sunny's Place?"

oOo

Carly sat across from me in a booth in the back of Sunny's Place, a locally owned café that specialized in breakfast, lunch, and all things brunch. I didn't even bother to look at the menu, already knowing I wanted the green eggs and ham. Carly knew this and smiled, "Sam-I-Am wants green eggs and ham? What a shocker."

I only smirked, sipping on my glass of orange juice that the waiter already dropped off. Carly indecisively flipped through the menu again and again. I internally laughed at this, since she always couldn't make up her mind, then always ended up ordering the same thing since eighth grade. "I think I'm gonna get the egg in a basket."

"Same thing since always," I nodded, poking fun at her weird habits. She stuck her tongue at me and placed her menu on the edge of the table. I narrowed my eyes gently at her knowing face, already picking up on what she was thinking. "By the way, thanks for last night."

"What?" She faked innocence, smiling wide and holding back a giggle. "You and Freddie? What makes you think I had something to do with it?"

"Well, for one," I leaned forward, holding up a finger to tally off my proof of her involvement. "He knew my work schedule, something only a fellow employee would know, really."

She finally gave up and let out her laugh, her cheeks turning pink in the process. "So, who cares? You and Freddie have a lot of unresolved tension, and I'd figure I'd take the first step on both parts to get the friendship ball rolling."

"Well, whatever," I rolled my eyes, not even all that mad. I knew it was her from the start, and she only had good intentions. Besides, hanging out with Freddie was fun, if not anything else. "Thanks, I guess."

"Your welcome," She answered, almost dignified. There was a beat of silence before she anxiously leaned over the table and smiled wide-eyed. "So how'd it go? What'd you guys do?"

"Well, for one, Rachel pulled me aside before I left to tell me how gorgeous Freddie was."

"What!" Carly's mouth dropped and she laughed loudly, but not too loudly to attract attention. "So, like, Rachel's into him?"

"Uh-huh, she was asking him if he was single and all this bs," I laughed along with Carly, especially laughing at the fact that someone found Freddie attractive. "It was ridiculous."

"Well, besides that," She came down from her laughter, taking a breath inward. "What'd you guys do?"

"Went bowling," I answered, rather cut-and-dry. All in all, that was all it was, but I also felt sort of… protective of what happened. Spending that night with him reminded me of all those times before. "Hung out, you know, just whatever."

"Whatever?" Carly picked up on my lack of enthusiasm on my last word. She stared at me with a skeptical smirk.

"Yes," I answered dryly, sipping on my juice, looking down at the placemat below me. "Whatever."

"In Sam's language," She rolled her eyes, picking up her menu to flip through it again. "Whatever means 'Carly's onto something, but I don't want her to know it.'"

oOo

"You're going to love Hannah," Carly swore to me, laying her mat out in the second row of the class. I took the mat she let me borrow, pale pink and a sort of squishy material, and unrolled it to be parallel to hers. "She may be on the older side, but she knows her stuff – a total yoga guru."

"Right," I nodded, scanning the decently-sized studio room. The class was at the local YMCA, held in one of the rentable offices. While the bulk of the class was college girls trying to seem hipster and laid-back, a few feminine guys were scattered here and there, preparing their organic mats and sipping from their Smartwater water bottles. Suddenly, it hit me that the likeliness of me running into my dancing friends was pretty good, and I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with it. "So, are you working tonight's shift?"

"No," Carly was sitting on her butt, legs out striaight in front of her, as she attempted to reach for her toes. "I called out so that I can go shopping today."

I watched her, holding back a burst of laughter as I watched her barely touch her forehead to her knees. "Are you seriously pre-stretching for an exercise that specializes in, um, stretching?" Carly laughed along under her breath before flashing me the middle finger. I sat criss-crossed on my mat beside her and stretched out my arms. "Anyway, you have the biggest closet I've seen in my life. Why do you need to take a day off to go shopping for more clothes?"

"You know my lab parter, right? Austin Rodgers?" The pretty-boy blond on the lacrosse team, complete with chemically-achieved highlights, steroid-induced physique, and cookie-cutter frat boy wannabe? Also known as the guy of Carly's dreams. I nodded to her to continue, and I swore I saw a blush dust across her cheeks and perfectly button nose. "Well, he's throwing this thrasher for Christmas. Like, we're talking all-out rager."

I nodded to Carly's plans, not even all that interested. Austin Rodgers' parents were soap opera actors, completely famous to the audience of daytime dramas. He was completely rich, and since he was freshly eighteen, he was also unsupervised all the time, due to the fact his parents were always in Canada for filming and weren't legally obligated to hire a babysitter. While Carly is sort of a veteran to his parties, I've only heard things. Things along the lines of table-dancing topless, skinny dipping, kegs upon kegs upon kegs, live bands that were hot on the underground Seattle scene, college kids having orgies in random rooms, and all in all, it was insane. Carly always invited me to the next one, but I never was set on being in that scene.

Jumping me out of my thought, the door to the room shut, and in walked a woman, who you could tell was aging, but her body was about as good as they came. Her hair was light brown, on the territory of being grey, and she was tall, lithe, elegant-looking, with a once-beautiful face. "Well, hello, hello," She was all-smiles, making her way to the front of the class, sitting down on an already-made mat. She glanced across the room, locking eyes with me for a moment, then looking down at her lap. "I see we have a few new faces, and I just wanted to say that you all are welcome here happily and warmly," She sat with her legs in that meditation position, where it looked criss-crossed, but both feet were on top of each thigh. "Now, let's all start with basic breathing and the beginner positions. Today, I'm feeling adventurous, so we're going to learn some much more advanced poses."

I glanced over at Carly, hoping to make some sort of witty comment, but her eyes were closed, brows furrowed, looking completely focused. So I just shut up as Hannah lead us in proper in-and-out breathing exercises, walked around the class to adjust our downward-facing-dog poses, and helped some of the less-coordinated – aka, Carly – students balance evenly enough to hold the tree position. Hannah was adjusting the foot placement with Carly, and I just held my pose tall and strong.

My hands reached over my head, my hands pressed together, my entire chest feeling tight as I jutted it forward while my back arched, which put my butt completely sticking away. All in all, my body took the shape of an S when you looked at it from the side. My left foot was against my thigh as far up as it could go, my supporting right leg not even quivering. Carly looked at me with narrow, jealous, and somewhat surprised eyes, and I could merely work up a smirk. This pose was merely juvenile work compared to some of the dance conditioning I had to push myself through.

Hannah apparently noticed my ease against the rest of the class strugglers. She smiled at me, yet I could tell she wanted to push my limits as far as they would go. With every dance teacher or choreographer I had, currently have, and will have, the need to push the dancer to their limits was a common trait. She was a yoga teacher, not Velma, so my intimidation level was pretty low. She continued to stare me down as I pushed my pose even farther, keeping no sign of struggle plastered on my face. "Well," She finally spoke, peacefully yet at the same time, her voice was patronizing. "Looks like we have a potential guru today," She motioned at me, working her way to the front of the class and onto her mat. "I'm curious as to where this will go."

Carly nudged me, asking me where in the hell I got so flexible in silence. I shrugged, tuning back into Hannah's instruction. "This is called the Maha Natarajasana," She raised her left leg behind her, reaching her arms behind her head to grab her left ankle and pull it up so that it was perpendicular to her head. She looked up to the ceiling, both hands having a firm grip on her ankle. There was a good two-foot gap between her foot and the back of her head, and I could tell that she was already pushing the position as far as it would go. In normal dance terms, this position was called the scorpion, which I successfully hit when I was twelve. When Hannah released the position, she turned to me, hands on her hips, and smiled. "Do you wanna give it a try?"

"Um," I shrugged, raising my foot to my head. "Sure." As simple as blinking, I exerted the most simple dance position there was. I completed that two-foot gap that Hannah was missing, and my Maha-whatever was long, lean, and above all else, sturdy. Hannah noticed and applauded my pose.

"Nice work. But, let's try something new. How about the Ekopada Dhanurasana?" I watched as she went down on her back, raising up into a backwards arch. Her hands and feet were firmly planted on the mat, then raised her right leg to be at a perfect ninety-degree angle to the floor. It was a simple backbend with the beginning steps into a full backwards flip. Nothing too extreme. So when Hannah came up out of the pose, and motioned for me to try, I skipped the laying down step and bent backwards straight onto my hands. Without even trying, I raised my leg and held the pose, not releasing until Hannah seemed to accept the fact I was doing all her hardest poses without even trying.

She continued to make me mimic whatever balance pose she threw at me, and for the most part, I mirrored each one easily without any effort. But before I knew it, the hour ended and Hannah eased off my case, having everyone sit down and meditate as a cool-down. "Sam," Carly leaned over and whispered harshly. "Where in the hell did you learn all this stuff?"

I laughed under my breath. Flexible naturally would be a good excuse, right? "I dunno, I've always been this flexible, I guess," By the look of Carly's face, she bought it, and I wanted to just leave it at that. The class seemed to wrap up, and I was glad to get out of there. I wanted the basement of the studio. None of this posey crap. I wanted to dance.

"You should tell Freddie you're this flexible," Carly giggled, and I tried to resist the urge to smack my palm against my forehead. "He'd have a field day with the things a flexible girl could do."

oOo

I sat on the concrete floor of the basement, sliding my foot into my pointé shoe. After yoga, I slipped tights on under my shorts, giving my legs a pale sheer. I pulled the ribbons up, then crossed them over and wrapped them around my ankles tightly until there was just enough to make a good knot. I tucked the knot into the layers of the ribbon, making everything look seamless. My pointé shoes were slowly wearing down, making this my longest-wearing pair of Grishko pointé shoes I had ever owned, already reaching its nine-month birthday. The pale pink satin had dark scuffs at the tips, but I didn't have enough balls to dye them clean on my own. I didn't even trust a cobbler with my babies like that.

After both shoes were secure on my feet, I stood up and grabbed the barré with my hand, stretching out the shank and having my feet mold to the shoe, as if it were my second skin. I placed my ankle gracefully on the barré, my posture unshakeable, and reached for my leg, keeping my neck long and my arms loose. After that yoga class, I felt like stretching and warming up wouldn't be that much of a need, so I jumped right in. Running through the five positions and doing relevés without ceremony, I felt energized enough to jump right in. Walking to the center of the room on my one-fifty-degree turn-out, I rose up into a basic pirouette, going three revolutions before landing perfectly into fourth position. Fouettés were one of my personal favorite things to do, so I attempted yet again at thirty-two fouettés en tournant. I found a point ahead on the wall, in this case it was the reflection of my face, to minimize dizziness, spun up onto my pointé, and whipped my legs around, rotating again and again, keeping my posture completely linear. I inhaled for a spin, exhaled on the next one, keeping everything even and clean.

The stereo played Ludwig van Beethoven, Turkish March, and I rose onto pointé with every down beat, alternating into a Pas de bourrée. Following the routine, barely keeping up with the choreography, I pushed myself to keep up with the speed, yet remain completely accurate and in control. While I focused on modern and contemporary, I just peaked at the highest level of ballet that my company could offer. I was the baby of that section, so I had a shit ton of pas, or steps, to learn. I pushed myself harder, feeling the rumble of Beethoven's orchestra in the pit of my stomach. One of the moves I was required to do was a jeté, nothing out of ordinary, except that I had to land en pointé, then roll off my demi pointé. I held my arms and chest ouverte, coming into a pirouette, landing into fourth, which lined me up flawlessly for my jeté.

I sprung off the front-half of my left shank, going airborne and holding my right leg straight in front of me, pressing my back against my derriere leg, and suddenly, I felt my entire body weight meet up with gravity, and my entire right pointé shattered. I felt a crack and an unthinkable pain was radiating off my big toe. I already knew it was a split toenail, but the pain was horrible. Maybe I just didn't have a high pain tolerance, but I let out a scream, followed by a loud and drawn-out fuck.

I fell onto the floor, untying my pointé shoe, hoping to bandage it up before I had no choice but to peel off my entire toenail. I was still wincing and screaming, since I was the only one down here, let alone in the building on a Saturday. By the time I had the pointé shoe off, the door to my room burst open, and there stood Freddie, all sweaty and panting, wearing no shirt. He saw me on the floor, wincing and a fair amount of blood on my feet. So much for being the only one here.

"Oh my god, Sam," He rushed to my side, attempting to reach out for my feet, but stopping himself. "What happened to your foot!"

"I cracked a toenail," My teeth gritted as I pulled the shoe entirely off. I had never cracked one before, so I had no clue what to do. Other pointé shoe dancers had, and I saw them simply wrap gauze around the toe tightly, take a painkiller, then get right back up. So I figured that's all that was to it. "No big deal."

"Is there any way I can help?" He looked completely horrified at the sight of a bloody toenail and I couldn't help but smile through my pain a little bit.

"Yeah, actually," I remembered that I had no first-aid kit in the room, and since he was playing Rocky in his room, I figured he would have something. "Help me up so I can get some gauze on this."

"Sure thing," He rose to his feet, towering over me as he lent me a hand, helping me onto my left foot as I hobbled behind him into his room. The smell of sweat and testosterone hit me in the face almost instantly. "Go sit on the ring while I go get you the kit."

I weaved my way through the three ropes of the ring and sat in the middle, the pain in my toe dying down to an irritating throb. Freddie dug around his bag and came up with a first aid kit, which looked to be anything but brand new. As if a professional, he pulled out a narrow roll of gauze, specifically designed for fingers and toes, and reached for my foot, gingerly wrapping my booboo into the gauze tightly and securely. His eyes were narrow with focus, and I saw his brows furrow. His lips were in a soft line, and I could see a light dust of freckles across his tan, sweaty skin. I took a sharp breath at the sudden pain in my toe. While he worked on my injury, I looked around the room, then back to his concentrated face. "So what do you do in here, exactly? Boxing, or something, right?"

He let out a breath and tore off the gauze from the roll, wrapping the end securely around my toe one last time. "Nothing, really."

A pang of hurt hit me, way deep down. It was obvious that nothing was anything but whatever he did in here, and I wondered why he felt like I didn't need to know. I mean, he knew about me dancing. Sure, he didn't know the details, but he at least knew. "Nothing? C'mon Fred, tell me."

Dropping my foot against the floor of the ring, I saw his jaw tighten. He flexed his hand, whose knuckles were wrapped in fabric, then closed it into a fist. Since the moment I met him, I always could tell when I hit a nerve with him, just like this moment. "Sam," He met eyes with me, his voice calm. "It's nothing. Leave it at that."

That weird feeling in my stomach came back, and it felt wrong that I was getting shut down by Freddie so simply. Internally, though, I wanted to find out what was up, and I was going to figure it out one way or another.

oOo

"There's my beautiful girl," Mikey's shaggy hair was brushed nicely and he wore a button-down plaid shirt, ironed out to a crisp, almost as if he spent the entire previous night preparing for this. In one hand was a bouquet of a dozen roses, each one a beautiful shade of velvet red, the feminine smell radiating off the collection, and in the other hand was a generously-sized box of gourmet chocolates. I stood in the archway of my front door, eyebrow raised, unsure of how to react. "I love you, Sammy."

I stood there, keeping the weight off my bum toe, and stared hard into Mikey's eyes. He kept his smile gentle and voice cheerful, but his angered demeanor from that Friday night was still in the front of my mind. He noticed my hesitance, because, after all, it was the elephant in the room. He stepped closer to me, putting the roses and chocolate in my hand, pressing his lips against my forehead. "Sam, Sammy, Samantha… I love you, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry and you know I would never do anything to hurt you, baby. You're my girlfriend, the only one I love, the one thing I need, and I'm sorry. I'll never act the way I did again, and I'll make it up to you, no matter what it takes, I'm sorry."

His monologue ended with heavy sighs, and my eyes blinked with tears, only to match with my clouded head. My throat was tight and it hurt to swallow. The roses and chocolate dropped to the floor before I sprung my arms around his neck and releasing my confused tears into his chest. "I love you, too, and I'm sorry."

"Shh," His hand stroked the back of my head, his fingers gently tugging through my hair. His other arm wrapped around my waist, his hand resting on the small of my back. "Don't be sorry, Sammy. It was all me."

And as he held me on the front porch of my house, repeating his wrong-doing, I held him, too, sniffling into his chest, his apology making my heart sink, I thought about Freddie. In the middle of my confusion of Mikey, the thought of him hurting me like that again, the denial of thinking he's the perfect guy everyone saw, the throbbing in my foot, I thought about Freddie. Freddie and his reluctance to tell me about him, Freddie and how he saw more of me than my best friend and boyfriend combined, Freddie and how he does calculus homework in chemistry and how it bugs me that I don't know why he does and how it bugs me even more how I actually care about what he does in class, Freddie and the fact that when I was in my boyfriend's arms, I was thinking about him, Freddie and the fact I couldn't stop thinking about him…

oOo

"Alrighty," Ms. Waters stood at the front of her class, shuffling papers on top of her podium. I sat at my place, opening up my notebook to the last set of notes I took, using my free hand to munch on a green apple. Freddie's seat beside me was empty, and I couldn't help to wonder why he was absent for the third day in a row. "I finished grading the papers from the last lab we had, and overall, the grades were good. Which is perfect, since we're going to continue to build off of acids and bases in today's experiment. So, with your partners, get started," She placed a stack of yellow papers inpage protectors on Jenna Meyer's table. "And Jenna, here, will pass around the lab information. So get started."

I internally groaned, having to work this lab by myself. Once I got the lab information, I glanced over it, groaning out loud this time, only to see it was a complex lab. So I took out a sheet of paper, writing down the materials and preparing the formal lab outline. My hands fumbled around the Bunsen burner, unsure how it was supposed to work. Freddie was the one who handled setting things up. It took me a good ten minutes, but I finally had the six test tubes set up, the Bunsen burner going, and two beakers patiently waiting with two equally patient pipettes.

Reading off the lab instructions, I pulled on a pair of goggles, then cautiously filled three of the test tubes with two-centimeters-deep ethanoic acid solution, and the other three with equal amounts of hydrochloric acid. I focused on writing down the procedure neatly and tried my hardest for the lab to stay as true to the instructions as possible.

The door to the classroom opened, causing me to look up, and there stood Freddie himself, handing his tardy slip to Ms. Waters. He half-smiled when he looked at me, and my stomach dropped. His left eye was swollen and deep blue, a white bandage holding together two opposite edges of a cut above his left eyebrow. A scabbed-over cut ran from the right corner of his lip to his mid-cheek. Pulling out his own chemistry notebook, he caught up with my pace in the lab without skipping a beat. I simply sat there, debating whether or not to call attention to his face. Luckily for me, he was the first to say something. "Miss me?"

I wanted to rip his face off for being so shockingly cavalier, but it seemed that someone had clearly beat me to it. So I batted my eyelashes sarcastically, and let out a sneer. "What, you were gone?"

"Took a personal day," He shrugged, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater to his elbows, peering over to the lab outline to pick up where I left off. "You know, nothing major."

So I sweetly played along with his banter, brainstorming ways to appropriately address his face and his absence for the past two days. From the corner of my eyes, I scanned the rest of the classroom, all of them more interested in Freddie's face than their own lab, and I became angry. I had no clue where this anger came from, and I felt angry from being so angry. I mean, Freddie was my lab partner, my friend, so I had a right to know about what happened to him more than any other person in the room. Even more than Carly. And a lot of the anger was fueled by the fact that I felt like I had this right, and even then, he wasn't exactly quick to volunteer a story.

The muscles in my hand tensed from gripping my pen so tightly, and I frantically scribbled the results of whatever Freddie said happened. After everything that had happened between Freddie and me, I thought I'd be a little entitled to a part of his life, especially since I was suddenly in it three-fourths of the time. "-out like that?" I heard Freddie finish saying, tuning back into the real world.

"Huh?" I dropped my pen, flexing out my fingers from working so hard. "What'd you say?"

"I asked why you are zoning out like that," He repeated, his gaze unwavering away from mine. I only shrugged, letting out a breath that made my lips vibrate against each other. "Hm?"

As if my internal mental trance came to life, I took in another breath and simply narrowed my eyes at his injuries. "What happened to your face?" Before he could respond, I sharply added, "And no bullshit this time. You've been gone two days, and I know you box or something, and suddenly you come back, your face looking like hell. Tell me."

Once upon a time, writing this chapter thoroughly destroyed me. The end.

So, this chapter sucks. 'nuff said. The majority of it, however, is based off of true stories that happened to me in the course of writing this chapter. For example, I split a toenail the other day and… holy crap, it is seriously the worst pain I've felt, and the pain keeps coming back until the toe is completely healed. And I know, I know, you're technically not supposed to land a jeté en pointé, or, at least that's what my ballet teachers have taught me, but I was always the type to push boundaries and break rules, and I figured, why shouldn't Sam be any different?(;

Hey, guess what! I made a twitter specifically for my writing! Whatttt? Hahaha, so follow me pleeease. I currently have no followers, so whoever is the very first will get a special prize or something(: haha, my twitter is sammypaigesays and I'll definitely follow you if you follow me, regardless of who you are. So yeah, do that.

Once again, I deeply apologize for the bullshitty-ness of this chapter, and ESPECIALLY THE DELAY. But tell you what. The next chapter will be up tonight, tomorrow, or next week, I promiseeeee, and it will be ridiculously better in quality and much more interesting and everything. But you gotta review, okay?

So yeah, read and review and enjoy and follow me(: seriously, I like follows(:

Love, forever and ever,

SammyPaige xoxxoxoxox

P.S., sorry about the cliff-hanger. I figured that could be the least I could do to make this chapter the slightest bit enticing. Next chapter will compensate, promise(:

P.P.S., I watched iLove You… I liked the ending, and am I the only one? I feel like Dan sort of forced the end of the relationship a little too much, but omfg, Freddie said I love you first! That is seriously all I've ever wanted!(: