Marley lay on her bed, iPod playing soft music; she was, however, barely listening to the gentle melodies that were echoing into her ears. The brunette's eyebrows were scrunched up, her mind wandering away in thought.

Earlier that day, Kitty had insulted her mother, as usual, but this time Marley had given her a glare that even Quinn Fabray would have been proud of, then simply walked away. Although it wasn't much, Marley felt like she'd stood up to the shorter girl in a way.

That wasn't what the girl was thinking about, though; Marley was thinking about the look of pain she saw in Kitty's eyes. It was almost as if Kitty didn't want to insult her. That she regretted it. Marley shook her head in disbelief at this thought; she knew that it wasn't possible. Kitty never felt bad, or showed any vulnerable emotions such as fear or sadness. All she did was ruthlessly insult everyone.

"Maybe it's just an act? Or a defence mechanism?" Marley slowly asked herself. She really didn't know why she was defending Kitty; the blonde was the closed Marley had ever come to hating someone. She would constantly insult her Mum, her clothes, her hair, her shoes and everything else there was to abuse.

Marley let out a sigh of confusion; she just couldn't figure Kitty out.

Kitty let out a tired sigh as she collapsed into her bed; the girl had just finished a three hour cheerio practice, and all she wanted to do was sleep. She was just beginning to drift off when she heard a loud yell coming from downstairs.

"Kitty! Get your fat butt down here right now!" Kitty's dad, Greg, yelled.

Kitty weakly flinched as she jumped off her bed, rapidly walking down the stairs. She knew she was in trouble, although she didn't know why. As soon as the blonde reached the lounge room her mother was on her case about taking too long.

"Kitty, I just went on your school website and one of your senior peers posted that you were seen making out with some computer club geek. Why would you risk your reputation like that and why would you disobey your mother? You worthless girl!" Her father roared at her.

"He's obviously just jealous, so he attempted to spread a rumour about me, Father." Kitty meekly whispered.

She knew that it was just a rumour; she was currently single, and would be until her Mum picked out one of the boys for her to date. She didn't want her father to do what he was probably about to. Kitty knew this was the case when her father rose from the couch and walked to stand directly in front of kitty.

"I know you're lying." He spat, despite that she was telling the truth.

The man then roughly pushed her; Kitty tried not to fall, but the harsh shove was too rough and she tumbled onto the floor by her father's feet. She closed her eyes in preparation of what would happen next, which was her Father giving her a hard kick in the ribs. Despite Kitty willing herself not to, she let out a slight yelp, causing her father to cruelly laugh.

"That should teach you a lesson; now get out of my sight." He smirked.

Kitty was up the flight of stairs necessary to get to her room in the blink of an eye. She quickly locked the door of her white bedroom before lying back down on her bed, rubbing her bruising rib slightly. As the blonde glanced over to the mirror next to her bed, she felt insecure. No matter what she did, she was never good enough for her parents. She was never pretty enough; never popular enough, and she never got the perfect grades that they expected.

Kitty felt like crying, but her mother had repetitively told her not to ever cry from a very young age. Instead she focused her energies on coming up with insults for the general population of McKinley high school. If she was insecure, they should be too. Kitty didn't like that she thought that way, but she couldn't help it. It was the only thing that made her feel slightly better about herself.

Kitty quickly ignored her guilt towards all the people she had upset today and instead grabbed her expensive phone and began to type a text telling some football player who to slushie tomorrow. So far she had 'the loser in the wheelchair', that Jacob kid who had spread the rumour about her (she'd make sure he was slushied at least five times tomorrow), most of the computer club and 'the girl with the fat mum'.

Kitty felt a little bad about throwing a slushie at Marley; she had already seen the taller girl come to school with a slight slushie stain on the back of one of her shirts, due to the numerous slushie attacks which Kitty had ordered. She knew that Marley didn't have many clothes due to the fact that she wasn't very rich; in fact, Marley was the poorest girl Kitty had ever seen.

The blonde suddenly realized that she and Marley were almost opposites. She, unlike Marley, had plenty of money to spare, while Marley had loving supportive parents, (well, parent, Kitty was not sure where Marley's dad was), while Kitty's parents were cruel mentally abusive people. Her dad sometimes even hit her. It was rare, but it still happened.

Kitty swiftly forced herself to stop thinking about that topic. Instead she angrily sent the text of slushie victims. Some part of her was satisfied that those teens would feel hopeless and humiliated tomorrow, and that she would be the source of it. A little voice in the back of her mind was telling her that she was turning out to be an exact copy of her parents, but Kitty dismissed it, banishing the thoughts.

Finally, the teen allowed the familiar feel of fatigue to overwhelm her, as her eyelids began to droop. Kitty quickly brushed her teeth, then drifted off into a deep sleep.

Marley had been thinking about Kitty all afternoon; not even doing her maths homework had fully distracted her from her thoughts about the short cheerio. Marley couldn't help but feel strangely drawn towards her; she really didn't know why though. The girl believed it could because she wanted to help Kitty after the vulnerable look she had seen in the girl's eyes.

Somewhere in her mind, something or someone murmured that it could be a crush; however all Marley did was laugh in response; She definitely couldn't have a crush on Kitty, could she?