Do They Bother You? (Editing)

Chapter Four

Early- Mid February

Despite my crap-shoot of a seventeeth birthday, things started looking up for me after that. Kam brought me shopping and insisted on paying for everything with a very official-looking gold credit card, even though I assured her it was unneccessary. Where she thought I was doing to wear all these clothes, I had no idea- not a single item fit the dress code.

"A girl needs to have options." Was all she told me, pushing me toward the dressing room with armfuls of clothing.

James and I were practically inseparable. He acted as both bodyguard and best friend, though the first turned out to be rather unneccessary. No one at Lincoln Prep treated me any different than they treated each other. Everyone was friendly- or at least civil- to one another and tended to stay out of each other's way. It was oddly refreshing, and I was finally, finally becoming comfortable here.

But day always gave way to night, and the nightmares persisted. I'd been having them for years now, at least since Thomas died. Even when I felt safe, it seemed, they would return every night to wreak havoc on my sleep and leave dark circles under my eyes. It was better than the alternative- the pills I had to make them go away left me with terrible depression and no desire to do anything.

"Are you sleeping alright, Lena?" James brushed his thumb under my eye, along the dark circle there. He did that a lot- small touches here and there, all of them gentle and with just enough pressure to let me know he cared. I smiled at him, nodding.

"Yeah, I sleep fine." Lying had grown easy for me over the years.

I hated lying to him- he was always honest with me, brutally so at times. But I just couldn't bring myself to worry him, and old habits died hard. So I resigned myself to saying as many half-truths as possible, so that it wouldn't seem so terrible.

Kam's roommate moved out at the end of the next week, leaving her and Mercury alone. It quickly came to light that Jessica had been the peacemaker between them, as Kam was continuously coming to lunch in a furious, pent-up ball of barely contained spite. On one such day in early February, she seemed quite a bit more angry than usual.

"Ugh!" She slammed her bag down on the table, collapsing between Finn and Asher. "I'm going to murder Mercury. Do you understand? She's not going to be in fifth period tomorrow, because I am going to kill her in her sleep."

Ash set down his water bottle. "What did she do?"

"WAIT!" LJ yelled when Kam opened her mouth. "Does it have anything to do with clothes, shoes, or your hairdryer?" She shook her head. "Okay. Continue."

"This morning she took my lipstick and snuch down into the bathroom on the second floor, where she wrote 'Kam slept with Finn' in big letters on the mirror. Not only does everyone think I'm sleeping around, but that was my last tube of 'Claret from Heaven'!"

Finn choked on the gatorade he'd just taken a drink of, his chest heaving and his forehead knocking into the edge of the table as he coughed. LJ thumped him on the back, alarmed.

When he got his breath back, he looked at Kam with wide eyes. "Was that what everyone has been congratulating me for? I didn't realize..."

Kam's eyes widened. "What did you do, Finley?"

He winced, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well...no one really specified what they were congratulating me for, they just kept asking if it was true, and I thought they meant the party on Saturday..."

All expression dropped from her face. "You didn't."

He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm sorry, Kam. I kept saying it was true because I didn't know what they were talking about."