After I've talked to my parents and eaten, I announce I'm going for a walk. I change into a short black dress and pull a hoodie on top. I replace my contact lenses, then fix my hair, and clean my face properly. Then I leave.

I know where I'm going. I've seen Luke out here plenty of times. Between nine and eleven, he'll be out on his own, kicking around a ball at the courts. Sometimes he's playing squash, too, or basketball. I've seen him plenty of times. He's never seen me.

Even though I promised Seth I wouldn't do this, I need to talk to him. I need to fix this, and I need to fix it myself, too. Not anyone else. Within ten minutes I'm there. Much to my glee, he's there. It's almost eleven o'clock, so I have to be quick, too.

Slowly but steadily I make my way over to him, getting closer and closer to him. When he sees me he turns, obviously not recognising me immediately. He stops playing, picking the ball up and taking a couple of steps towards me.

When he sees me his lip curls in disgust and he takes a couple of steps back.

"Z-zoe?" He says cautiously.

"Before you resort to violence, I wanted to talk to you." I say, coming bravely up next to him. He flinches as I get closer, but I ignore it. "Is that okay?"

"Uh." He grunts. I'll take that as a yes.

"I'm not coming here with threats, even though I could be coming with them. I'm not coming here to tell you Seth and Nate are twenty feet behind me and they're both ready to beat you until you are quite literally black and blue." I say. He winces. "I came because I heard what you said before, to me. You thought I stole your friends." I finish.

He nods slowly, and I start walking. He falls into step next to me, kicking the ball idly in front of us. I don't quite understand where I've gotten the courage to do this from.

"And I guess it's true. I've been thinking about it. It's true. Before you had Seth, and Caleb, and Nate, and a bunch of girls after you and a bunch of guys and you all lived happily ever after beating up the Zerd."

He winces again, but somehow, I don't think my words are affecting him as much as he's making out.

"But the tables have turned, and everything's changed for you. It's been like a daydream for me. If you're angry about what's happened now, try to think about how I felt. My days were worthless. I hadn't had a boyfriend since I left the UK.

I barely had friends in the beginning which then progressed into no one even talking to me, which then, as you better than anyone know, turned into the whole school hating me for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Then Seth took an interest in me. We'd been dating for the whole summer in this kind of awkward way. I didn't understand anything. But I understood, that, after everything, I was happy. I've been happy this week, Luke. It's been one of the best weeks of the past five years for me."

I breathe out to steady myself, trying not to get this too emotional.

"I'm not coming here with the sob story. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, or anything. But even after everything, I feel bad about what's happened to you now. I've had years of practise of living like this. You'd never experienced anything like it in your life, am I right?" I say. He nods, slowly, as he's not quite sure where I'm taking this. .

"I wanted to propose that we leave things behind us. I'm not that bad. I can help you in plenty of ways. I just want a shot at a teenage life too. If you don't want me in this, and you decide to resort to violence again, I always have Seth and Nate with their boxing gloves as a backup plan. But I don't want it to be like that, because I don't feel you deserve that."

"Oh, and about the videos and all of that, it wasn't me who did it. My social media is none existent. It was Seth, but he didn't actually mean it in a nasty way. It was funny, but you couldn't just accept I looked nice that day and that's it?" He goes bright red. So bright, I can see it in almost complete darkness. You can imagine.

"Basically, to sum that up, I'm sorry, but can we make peace?"

There's a very long silence. Probably the longest of my life. I almost start running in fear of him turning on me.

"I don't know... The way you're putting it out, you're not really giving me an option. Either accept the Zerd or get beaten up by your friends."

"BUT WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU?" I shout finally.

He looks seriously taken aback this time, but I don't even stop to look at his expression.

"What have I ever done to you, Luke? I barely uttered my first words in class and I was already getting beaten up at break. I'm giving you an option. You just laid them out yourselves. Trust me, it's not me who wants your friend to beat you up, it's your friend who wants to beat you up. He doesn't know I'm here. He was all for coming to find you as soon as I woke up, though." I say.

"What you do has an effect Luke, and it's not like I'm asking you to throw yourself off a cliff. I'm not asking you to be friends with me. I'm not asking to even talk to me. I'm just saying. Why?"

There's no long pause this time. "Zoe..." I think this may be the first time he's ever said my name. "I'm sorry." He says. Woah.

"I didn't come here looking for an apology, Luke, I just wanted a truce."

"I know, but I'm sorry." He repeats. "I guess I just didn't realise... What I actually caused." Then he's on top of me, not in the way I expected. He's hugging me. What?

He pulls away. "For me, it's always been a life of being the popular one and being the one... In charge." He says. "God, I'm not good at this whole speech thing like you are."

I smile slightly. This is going how I hoped it would, but not how I actually expected it would go. I made a kind of chances table, and it was -

30% chance he beats me up and runs away

50% chance he walks away as soon as he sees me

10% chance he's not there

9.000000000000099 % chance he ignores me

0.000000000000001% chance he accepts what I'm asking for

So yeah. One could say it went well.

"Basically, to sum my five words up, I'm no good at speaking, but I'm sorry and yes, I accept your truce thingy."

This time I hug him. And he hugs back. And it dethrones Caleb's hug as the weirdest and scariest experience I've had recently.

~

"So you just..." Seth runs a hand over his face in despair. "Walked up to him and made a really long speech and offered a truce and he accepted?" He says incredulously.

"Yep." I say, leaning back against my headboard, sleeping my phone and chucking it onto the bed next to me.

"Woah."

"I know you didn't want me to talk to him face on face, but I had to, Seth."

"You did well." He says, running a hand through his hair. "This means... Luke is back?"

"Whatever that means, I guess so." I say, turning towards him. It's Saturday. This morning, after I slept on everything, I found a load of texts from different people, including one from Eliza and Ashley asking if I wanted to hang out at some point.

Also, I've been added into a group chat with only a few select elite members of our year, including Seth, Eliza, Nate and Caleb. Not Luke. No one knows about what happened yesterday yet except Seth, myself, Luke, and anyone the latter's told.

"I still can't believe you had the guts to do that, though." Seth says.

I glare at him. Maybe everything will be okay, now. Maybe. Hopefully.

"Thanks." I say, my face grim but my eyes smiling.

"You're welcome." He says, plopping down next to me and kissing my nose. I laugh, pushing him away.

I think my parents think he's pretty much moved in. But that's fine. They don't seem to mind. 

A/N - And so it becomes a little less cringey... gah. 

By the way, notice to the 40 people who read this!!! I've unpublished my other books Letters, Meme Girl and No Words Left in order to focus on finishing this book and planning my new one. 

Thanks for reading! :)