“This is the greatest thing that has happened in all of human history,” Sienna tells me on Monday as we’re in the food court eating breakfast before classes.

I let out a small laugh and nod in agreement. “Yeah, it’s pretty great.”

“I can’t believe that you two finally worked things out,” Mason says. “Well, I mean, I can believe it but it’s just so great. I’m definitely not going to miss all of your fighting. This is so awesome.”

“Speaking of Andrew, where is he?” Sienna wonders, taking a bite of her pancake.

I shrug. “Probably with Bryan or something, I don’t know.”

“He’s probably talking about you,” Mason sings.

“Maybe,” I say with a laugh. “Anyway, we went to an aquarium for New Year’s Eve and then he took me up to the roof and it was pretty amazing.”

“That does sound so romantic,” Sienna coos and Mason eagerly nods her head in agreement. “And I want to see the bracelet. It sounds so pretty, the way that you described it over the phone.”

“Oh yeah, let us see it!”

I let go of my fork and push my wrist out towards them so that they can see the gold bracelet dangling from my wrist. “His initials are engraved on the inside,” I tell them. “Isn’t it cute?”

“It’s adorable,” Sienna smiles. “He sure does know how to splurge on jewelry.”

“I’m pretty sure that his mom helped him pick it out,” I say, going back to eating my breakfast. After we kissed on New Year, we decided that it was the perfect time to get back together. We’d been getting along miraculously well for two full weeks and I didn’t want to be without him anymore. So after that, nothing really changed between us except for the fact that we kissed. A lot. He spent a lot of time with his parents though, since they barely get to see him and once we left New Mexico, I had him all to myself.

“And I’m sure the makeup sex was amazing,” Mason grins teasingly at me.

“Yeah,” I nod in agreement. “I’m sure that it will be. It hasn’t actually happened yet though. We only got back last night and before that, his parents were always home so it’d be weird and last night, we were both so exhausted from the flight that we just went right to bed.”

“That’s unacceptable,” She says, shaking her head at me.

“I agree,” I say with a laugh, noticing Sienna look down at her phone and then her face noticeably drops. “Something wrong?” I ask her.

She looks up at me and then shrugs. “No. It’s just Penn’s sister. Ana, they’re having issues with her again.”

I remember Ana from a while ago, she’s Penn’s little sister, only a year younger than us. I don’t know too much about her story but I know that she was depressed and suicidal so her parents sent her away to Alaska or something but she came back home over the summer but I guess she isn’t completely better- I don’t even know if there is a ‘completely better’ in this situation.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mason asks.

“I don’t know, I’m going over to Penn’s tonight to see,” Sienna tells us. “He’s really worried about her.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Mason tells her with an assuring smile. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help out or anything.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll do that. Right now though, we have to get to class.”

Mason checks the time on her phone and then nods before we all stand up and throw away our now-empty trays and then make our way towards the academic building for first period. Everybody is so mopey today because it’s the first day back from winter break, but I’m in such a good mood because of my fixed relationship with Andrew so it’s kind of weird to be the only chirpy one walking down the hallway but I’ll get over it.

I’m walking with Sienna towards our calculus class when we’re bombarded by a tall person jumping in front of us. Andrew grins down at me and I hear Sienna giggle beside me.

“Why aren’t you in class?” I ask him with raised eyebrows.

“Because I don’t feel like doing to class,” He tells me with a shrug. “Come on, let’s go do something. Everybody here is so depressing with their bad moods and everything.”

“We have class though,” I remind him with a small giggle that escapes my lips.

“Oh, come on, Stell, you can skip just for today,” Sienna chimes with a wide grin as she starts walking away, into the math wing of the building. “I’ll see you guys later.”

I wave to her before turning my attention back to Andrew and then we side step so that we’re not in the way of anybody that’s walking through the hallways. “Where would we go if I agreed to skip with you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. We could go get ice cream or something. Whatever you want to do.”

“Ice cream does sound good,” I decide with a long sigh. “You’re being a bad influence on me, you know.”

Andrew takes my hand in his and then leads me out of the math wing towards the front doors of the building. “Yeah, I think I can live with myself. I mean, it is only one day and we can come back for dance practice.”

“It’s still bad though,” I tell him.

We walk out of the academic building and make it all the way into the field behind the building before the first bell rings. We can’t go through campus because there’s a security guard that walks around to make sure that nobody is skipping. Fortunately, though, they haven’t caught on to the fact that people just cut through the fields and get out that way pretty easily. It’s such a nice day outside that instead of going for ice cream, we decide to just sit in the field behind the rec center under a shady tree. I’m wearing capris so the grass only manages to feel scratchy on my ankles.

“So how has your day been?” Andrew asks me as we’re sitting in the grass, facing away from the bright morning sun.

“It’s only eight in the morning,” I remind him. “The only thing that I’ve done so far is wake up and eat breakfast. What about you?”

He shrugs. “It’s been okay. I got you something though.”

“You did?” I repeat. “We’ve only been apart for less than twelve hours, what could you have possibly gotten me in that time period?”

He grins at me and then pulls a colorful bunch of flowers out of his school bag. “It was really hard for me not to smash them in there but I managed pretty well, I think. Do you like them?”

I take the fresh flowers from his hand and then examine all of the beautiful colors- yellows, reds, purples, pinks, blues. “It’s gorgeous,” I tell him with a small smile before leaning over and pressing my lips to his. “Thanks, Andrew. I miss getting flowers.”

“I know, that’s why I got them for you,” He smiles at me. “I was trying to be spontaneous.”

“Well, it is very spontaneous,” I chuckle. “Skipping school and flowers- it all just screams romance.”

“Doesn’t it?” He jokes. “I’m basically Romeo.”

“Romeo and Juliet died though,” I remind him. “I don’t want to be like them.”

“I didn’t mean exactly like them,” He laughs. “Just a little bit.”

“Okay then,” I chuckle, leaning into his side causing him to reflexively wrap his arm around my waist. “Sienna and Mason really like the bracelet that you got me.”

“Oh, that’s good. I really only got it for them,” Andrew says jokingly.

“They wish,” I scoff but I’m obviously just kidding because that’d be really weird if Andrew bought me a bracelet just to impress my friends. “Have you talked to Charlotte yet?”

I can feel him tense up beside me as I change the subject to something thornier for us. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

I shrug. “Just curious. I think she’ll try to make a scene in rehearsal today when she finds out that we’re back together. She doesn’t seem like the kind of girl that’s used to losing.”

“I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Andrew tells me. “And if not, then it’s not really our problem.”

“Since when don’t you like her anyway? You used to want to be her best buddy but you never told me what changed your mind,” I wonder.

“Okay, right before the Christmas show, she tried to turn me completely against you and then when I told her that you weren’t a bad person and that I still loved you, she had a fit and it was just obvious that she wasn’t as nice as I thought that she was,” He explains to me.

“I told you that my psycho girl instincts are spot on,” I sing. “Like with Gianna- I immediately knew that she was an incredible bitch but nobody believed me until she started dating Anthony.”

“Well, I know now so that’s all that matters, right?”

“Yeah,” I agree with him. “That’s all that matters.”

“You don’t have to worry about Charlotte,” He assures me.

“I know,” I sigh, leaning farther into him. “I trust you and everything, I just really hate that girl. I’m tired of dealing with her.”

“Let’s just not talk about it,” Andrew suggests. “She’s not going away so it’s just going to make it worse by talking about her even more.”

“You’re right,” I sigh. “Let’s talk about how we should go out to dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?” He echoes. “Why do you want to go to dinner?”

“I feel like it’ll make tonight more special if we go out to dinner first,” I explain, moving so that I’m laying down and my head is resting on his lap.

“Wait, what’s happening tonight?” Andrew wonders, obviously a little confused, seeming to feel a little bit panicked that he forgot something that was supposed to happen tonight.

“Well, I just figured that we’re back together and everything and we’ll finally have some time to ourselves, so I just figured that we’d make the night… special,” I explain to him with a shy smile playing at the corners of my mouth.

“And by special, you mean…?” He trails off and I can see that he’s leaning over, his face getting closer to mine.

I sit up and grin at him. “I mean that we should go out to dinner.”

He presses his lips to mine for a quick kiss. “Just dinner then?”

“Of course,” I joke coyly. “I don’t know what else we could possibly do.”

He doesn’t even justify my remark with a response, he just presses his lips to mine again and then rolls us over in the grass, causing me to giggle and then respond to his kiss.

We lay in the grass like that for a while just making out, and it gets pretty heated, but we don’t go too far because I’m too paranoid that somebody would find us and that’d be really, extremely awkward. 

So we make out and talk for a little longer before we decide to actually get out of the grass and walk over to get ice cream just before it’s time to make it back to campus for dance rehearsal, since it’d be really stupid to skip dance because we’d miss a lot more than just some notes like in a regular class room.

I give Andrew a quick kiss once we get into the dance studio for class and then head into the back where the girls’ locker room is but just as I get to my locker, somebody steps in front of me.

I let out a soft groan when I recognize Charlotte’s obnoxious frown in front of me. “Stella,” She says my name as some sort of greeting, crosses her arms over her chest, and then continues. “How was your break?”

I toss my gym bag onto the bench in front of my locker and then start opening it. “Oh, it was fantastic, thanks for asking.”

“I saw you with Andrew out there,” She tells me as if she has caught me in some huge lie or something.

“Did you? That’s really surprising considering we walked in together holding hands in front of everyone. Super shocking,” I mutter sarcastically, hoping that she gets the memo that I don’t want to talk to her right now. Or ever. “Did you like the show?”

“You’re repulsive,” She sneers at me as I slip my shoes off of my feet so that I can get dressed in my workout clothes.

“Yeah, okay then,” I amuse her. “That’s nice. Good to know.”

“Hey, I don’t know you think that you are, but-“

I slide my pink “New York” shirt over my head to exchange it for my razor back tank top as I interrupt her would-be rant. “I think that I’m Stella Wayne. And I think that you’re Charlotte Whatever-the-fuck-your-last-name-is. I also think that you need to stay the hell away from me. And preferably Andrew too but if you want to talk to him then you go ahead but he’ll turn you down faster than Kim Kardashian’s last marriage. I know that you think that you’re hot shit but you’ve only got half of that right. And I think we both know that it’s definitely not the hot part.”

Her eyes widen, surprised at my long outburst as I start to change into my yoga shorts. She opens her mouth to say something else, but I’m not having any of it.

“I’m done talking to you now,” I tell her, sliding my shorts up and then throwing my hair into a pony tail, paying no attention to her but she just stays there. She doesn’t say anything, she looks like she’s still dumfounded by what I said and I don’t know why because I don’t think what I said was too harsh or mean or anything. “This is the part where you walk away,” I remind her slowly.

She blinks at me a few times but then finally listens to me and turns and walks away without another snide comment, which was a major relief.

I put my shoes on, put all of my stuff in my locker, and then leave the room, putting everything behind me for good.

*I'll post the epilogue when this chapter gets 250 votes! It's almost over!*