Shannon seeked solice in the beanbag in her dorm. Chloe was headed towards school, so Shannon had no interruptions. She wept tears of shame, regret, and humiliation. She couldn't believe that her secret had finally been revealed.

Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door. Shannon ignored it, continuing her sobbing.

"Shannon, I know you're in there," Marlo's shrewd, piercing voice came through the door.

Shannon picked up the nearest drinking glass and hurled it at the door. "Get out of here now! Don't you ever come back!"

Marlo shook back her thick black hair. She wasn't about to give up that easily. "I just want to talk. You seemed upset earlier."

"Can you take a hint?" Shannon yelled back, forcing herself to look up towards the door. "I don't have anything to say to you!"

Marlo huffed impatiently. She thought for a moment, then smiled. "OK, Shannon. Have it your way. I'll leave," Marlo walked in place, making her footsteps grow increasingly softer each step as if she were walking away.

To make sure that she was all alone in the hallway, Shannon got up. She didn't bother wiping her tears before opening the doors. She was greeted by Marlo's smirk.

"I knew there was something wrong. You do have a secret after all! Tell me what it is, Shannon!" Marlo persisted.

Rage filling her, Shannon's fist balled up. "I'm warning you, Marlo," she said through clenched teeth.

"What's the matter? Miss High-and-Mighty finally getting brought back down to earth?"

Shannon's fist flashed out before meeting Marlo's jaw squarely. Shannon hadn't taken karate classes for recreation, that's for sure. Marlo reeled back before grabbing her jaw and running away, tears gushing from her eyes.

The tears had left Shannon. Slowly, she began to put things into perspective. As if sleepwalking, Shannon made her way downstairs. Noticing the school newspaper rack, she walked over to it. Shannon numbly picked up the thin copy, and saw the screaming headline about her drug problems. Without saying a word, without shedding a tear, she slowly folded the paper and put it under her arm. Her eyes were glazed and her body was cold. "It's time for Jakoby to pay for what he did to me."

Kate walked down the hallway with Sharon. Her eyes were puffy from shedding so many tears from the night of Madison's Ball. All of her hopes and dreams had been shattered.

Sharon, meanwhile, was doing some serious thinking. She'd received three letters the previous day: one from her mother saying how selfish Sharon was, another from her father saying how disappointed he was in Sharon, and the last from her little brother, simply saying "I miss you." Those three words ripped Sharon's heart in two and had kept her sleepless that night, and she knew that it always would. "You OK?" Sharon said blankly, the words devoid of feeling. They merely required a simple answer.

"No," Kate responded, equally as unemotionally. "You?"

"Same," the two continued in silence.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Kate questioned, brushing a stray hair from her eyes.

"I don't know. I can't think right now. Things hurt too much. How about you?"

"How can I continue to see Zach knowing about his past experiences?"

"Did you ever think that maybe what happened in the past should be left alone? Why don't we just enjoy the present and forget the past! It doesn't even matter!" Sharon said with such ferocity that Kate was stopped in her tracks.

"Because we have to learn from the past to prevent the same mistakes from happening in the future," Kate responded after a few moments in thought.

Sharon scoffed. "Is it really? I'm going to tell you what I've learned over the past few months, Kate. Value the present. My little brother could die in the next few months. What kind of future is that? I only have now with him, and I'm going to make it the best 'now' that he and I have ever had. Maybe you should think of doing the same with Zach. You never know what could happen to keep you two apart. It's no secret that your mother hates the boy, not to speak of his parents. You have too much else to worry about than to let some misunderstanding like this to stand between your happiness."

"This is not just some misunderstanding, Sharon. Who's to say that he won't try to sabotage my life if something in our relationship goes wrong? Zach's always painted himself out to be this hero, this nice guy, but now..."

"It's your decision, Kate. But you know deep in your heart that Zach really is a nice guy. We all make bad decisions, you know that. Isn't Zach allowed to make one?" And with that, Sharon walked off towards her locker, leaving a troubled Kate behind.

Zach stormed over to Randall's locker to confront him. Zach's normally serene eyes were now filled with fire and fury. He grabbed Randall's shoulder and turned him around. "Who in the he** do you think you are?"

Randall curled his lips back over his straight white teeth. "Randall Bentley, at your service."

"How could you pretend to be my friend when you were working against me the whole time?" Zach demanded, his voice edged with anger and hurt.

"Whatever are you talking about?" Randall inquired innocently, the smirk still present on his face.

"You know what I'm talking about!" Zach shouted, grabbing Randall's shirt collar. "I oughta slug you right now!"

At that moment, Matt Vincent rushed over to the two boys. He hastily pulled the two apart. "What's going on here?"

"I just found out Randall's a traitor, that's what! I really thought he was a good friend, but in the end he turns out to be an enemy."

"Looks can be deceiving," Randall said coolly while smoothing down his green sweater over his khakis.

"Shut up! Both of you shut up!" Matt snapped at both of them. "Let's all just take a deep breath."

"Yeah, Randall. You might wanna take a really deep breath, because it might be your last!" Zach growled, balling up his fists.

"Don't even try it," Randall warned, taking of his glasses and cleaning them with his sweater.

"If there is one thing I can't stand in this world, it's betrayal. I confided in you, man," the anger had drained out of Zach's voice, and was now filled with intense hurt and disappointment. "I thought that we'd be best friends forever. I was upset when I learned that you were on your way out of Midway Prep, but now I'm ready to jump up and praise Jesus that you'll be out of our lives. I've seen you cause a lot of pain in our school, but I stepped back because I thought that you knew the boundaries. If I would've known that you would do something this hideous, I would have gone straight to Mr. Kellogg to tell him about you machinations. I've been such a fool...not only to think that you were my friend, but because I actually believed that I'd find someone that I really liked and could spend a long time with. You've torn that apart, Randall. You've torn my dream apart."

The coldness in Randall's eyes faltered for a moment. He looked quickly down at the floor. Could Zach be right? Had he turned into a vengeance-filled maniac? He shook his head slightly, and raised his head to look at Zach again. "You never should have crossed me. None of you should have ever crossed me. You tore my dream apart, Zach. It may not have been you, but it was your friends, the people you interact with. So you're guilty by association, and that's a bad as if you would have done it yourself. I didn't want to have to take it this far, but I want everyone in this school to feel the pain that I felt when I lost my opportunity of a lifetime. Am I sorry that it had to be you? Yes, because believe it or not, I treasured you as a friend. When this happened, though, I had to put all of that aside. Now you have felt a fraction of the hurt I felt when my hopes were stolen in the night."

Kim sat sullenly in the bleachers, waiting for the tennis coach to arrive. The last thing she felt like doing was hitting a yellow ball back and forth across the net. She turned to her red-eyed friend next to her. "It'll be OK, Mere."

Meredith shook her head violently. "No, it won't! Not only did I lose the guy I liked, but now I'm losing all of my friends and my family. We've been like sisters since kindergarten, Kim! Now I'll be lucky if I get to wave to you going down the street."

"Nonsense!" Kim snapped, folding her arms together. "We'll visit each other. We'll go shopping every weekend, or we'll go see a movie, or we'll do something together. We won't just let our friendship die off. After all, Midway isn't that big of a town."

Meredith sniffled before finally allowing herself to smile. "You're right about that. But I'm going to have to face Mark there. I'm not sure I can do that."

"Of course you can, Meredith Coe! Don't let Mark bog you down, girl. I'm sure that you'll find a hundred new guys at Midway Academy, and I'm sure you'll be happy. Just enjoy the ride, and don't worry about anything that's happened. You're starting over again with a clean slate. Be glad of that," Kim said, suddenly thinking of her own misdeeds. She shrank away from Meredith.

"Is something wrong? Come on, tell me," Meredith scooted closer to Kim.

"No. I'm fine. I was just thinking about what I'm going to do after you leave. Kate and Sharon are the only ones left. Life's going to be pretty dull with you gone, but I'm still happy for you!" Kim was closer to tears than ever now. "What time are you leaving?"

"Right after lunch," Meredith noticed the tears in Kim's eyes, so tears re-sprang back to hers. "Don't start me up again!"

Kim laughed. She took out a kleenex and wiped her eyes. "Okay, okay. But you'll see. Everything will work out fine." Kim smiled again before turning away from Meredith. Her heart nearly skipped a beat when she saw a shadow in the doorway of the gym. Kim had a feeling that something wasn't right. She squinted to get a closer look at the person. She held her breath during her search, and was stunned to find that it was Randall. It wasn't the Randall she knew. This Randall looked dark, dangerous, and ready to stir up some trouble. What frightened her even more was that he was looking straight at her. After a few moments of looking, Randall left. Kim knew that she was finally in for it.

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