.o9.

By Friday afternoon, I was definitely going to a party at some junior’s house with Amelia. I’d given her my address, and she’d said she’d pick me up at nine o’clock then drive us both to the party. Incidentally, I received no note of reply from A Helping Soul until that very afternoon.

Lindsay,

You’ve heard of that Shakespeare, right? That really famous playwright? From the Elizabethan Era? Yeah, well, he said “Brevity is the soul of wit” in one of his plays. Hamlet, I think. And loquacious means talkative. No offense, but I can’t believe you didn’t know that word. It’s not that difficult.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—that’s your philosophy on life? Kind of vindictive (that means vengeful) if you ask me. Does that mean you condone (that means support) capital punishment? Since they murdered (that means kill) someone, they get murdered in turn? Besides, that’s Old Testament. Jesus says you should forgive people. Or are you not religious?

Mysteries. You want to be friends with Thrasher because he’s a mystery. Oh yeah, fantastic reason. . . . No seriously. Poor guy. He may be scary, but that’s not exactly the nicest reason to be interested in someone’s friendship. You don’t think Thrasher really wants to be lonely? Hah, that’s a laugh. Though you guys did seem pretty cozy at lunch on Thursday. (I’m writing this note Thursday night, so I wouldn’t know how it goes on Friday. Although by the time you get this note on Friday afternoon, you’ll have had lunch.)

Does my gender really matter? I’m a helping soul. Shouldn’t that be enough for you?

-A Helping Soul

After reading her note, I reflected back on the past two days with Thrasher. After that smile I’d seen on his face after school on Wednesday, he’d told a few more jokes until I asked where he’d gotten them all from. That had shut him up immediately. The smile had vanished and he’d reminded me that he didn’t know yet whether he could trust me—then he’d refused to speak again until I’d dropped him off at the mall, where he’d merely muttered a thanks and nothing more.

Yesterday at lunch he hadn’t said much. Mostly just monosyllabic answers, and even then it was usually just Yes or No to some question I’d asked. He wasn’t outright hostile, yet not openly welcoming, either. More like simply accepting that I was there, and that I was going to talk, no matter what he did about it.

But then today . . . Today, he’d finally given me a real challenge to earn his trust. I’d come up to the table and offered my usual greeting as I plunked into the seat across from him. His head whipped up and his purple eyes sparkled mischievously.

“I got another challenge to prove your trust,” he told me smugly. He had a book today, but it was closed and pushed off to the side. The title was one of those shiny deals printed into a hardback cover, and with the way the light glinted off the words, I couldn’t read what it said.

“You mean to prove I’m trustworthy?”

“Yep.” He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest.

He didn’t say anything, so I took the obvious bait.

“Okay, then. What do I have to do?” I queried.

He smirked. I started to feel a bit nervous. “I want you to invite me to that party you’re going to tonight.”

I hesitated, knowing how unhappy this would make people—especially if they found out that I was the one who’d invited him. But what choice did I have? I wanted to earn his trust and become his friend.

“Fine,” I agreed. “You’re invited.”

The look did not go away. “And I want you to meet up with me there.”

I frowned. It wouldn’t look good for me to leave Amelia and go find him. By going to the party with her, I was hoping to make real friends and become a part of what I’d been a part of at my old school. Back at home. The sort of girl who has friends and hangs out with them and goes to parties. Before I’d even decided I wanted to be his friend, I’d classified Thrasher under something different. He did not strike me as the party type, and I planned on keeping him a different part of my life entirely.

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“If you want to be my friend, you can’t be ashamed to be seen with me in public.”

Right away, he hit the nail on the head, for this was exactly why I didn’t want to seen with him at the party. I didn’t want to ruin whatever reputation I’d been building myself, with the potential to befriend others besides just Amelia.

“I’m with you in public right now, aren’t I?” I countered boldly, but I shifted uneasily in my seat.

“It’s different at a party,” he explained, and indeed, he was right.

“Okay then,” I eventually responded. I wouldn’t be able to get around this one, and I did want his trust. Besides, I reasoned, it couldn’t hurt me that much to simply go find him in the middle of a crowded party where half the people probably wouldn’t even recognize us. I hoped. “I need your cell phone number.”

“Not all of us have cell phones, Lindsay.” He fixed me with a stare that made me uncomfortable.

“So you don’t have a cell phone.” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice. None of my friends had ever been without a cell phone. Obviously, I knew that not everyone could afford a cell phone, but I’d never really talked to anyone who didn’t have one. For me, cell phones were a fact of life: everyone had them, and everyone used them. It was hard to imagine that Thrasher didn’t have one.

“I do.” I cocked my head to the side. “But I can’t use it.”

“Okay . . .?”

“It doesn’t have any minutes on it.”

“So why don’t you put more on?”

“My job only pays me so much an hour. Besides, it’s not like I have anyone to talk to.”

That shut me up. My mother had always paid for my cell phone fees, for it was mainly for her benefit that she bought me one in the first place. Of course, now I used it more to contact my friends than her, but at first, it had been a means for me to contact her when I was out. I had to pay for most everything else on my own, like clothes or going out with friends (which was why I needed to find a job, so I had my own income), but she at least paid for my cell phone.

“Chill out, Lindsay,” Thrasher spoke up, pulling me out of my embarrassment. He was smirking. And then I wondered if I’d heard him right. Chill out? Since when did Thrasher say anything along those lines?

“I’m chill,” I informed him snippily.

His smirk stayed in place. “Okay. How about we meet at the upstairs bathroom at nine?”

“You mean at the party?”

“No, at the NASCAR race.”

Of all things to use for sarcasm, he decided to use NASCAR? I actually giggled, but when he raised the pierced eyebrow at me, causing the barbell to twitch, I immediately stopped.

“But how will you know what time it is if you don’t have a cell phone?”

He stared at me, then held up his arm and pointed to his watch. “There’s this really neat invention called the watch. Maybe you should check it out sometime.”

I colored a bit, feeling stupid.

“Besides, my cell phone works. I just can’t make calls on it.”

“So I’ll see you at nine.”

“Nine.”

.x.x.x.

I was standing by my car with my arms crossed over my chest, waiting for Thrasher. Actually waiting. I’d eventually agreed to take him home, mainly because of his stupid challenges. Seeing as how he’d always been right at the bus stop when I drove him to work, I expected him to be at my car before I was. But he wasn’t. So I leaned against the driver’s side door and pretended that people weren’t giving me weird looks as I waited. All around me people were climbing into their cars and hightailing out of the parking lot in that dangerous and reckless way of teenagers. I watched all the cars fly by me enviously, for as much as I wanted to be Thrasher’s friend—and as much as he’d actually not been completely cruel to me—I wasn’t so keen on driving him home. Lorraine would pitch a fit.

I spotted Thrasher trudging across the parking lot at a pace fit for snails. He was easy to spot in his all black clothing, bright red hair gleaming in the sun. Sometimes, when he turned his head a certain way, the sunlight would flash off his lip ring, a sunburst on the most unlikely individual.

Upon nearing my car, Thrasher didn’t even stop near me. Instead, he walked straight past me and yanked opened the passenger’s side door. I sat down in the driver’s seat next to him, with the cup holder and some other console for which I did not have a name between us.

“So.” I stuck my key in the ignition and twisted, and the engine came to life. “Where do you live?”

“Go pick up your sister first.”

“But—”

“I’ll tell you once you pick her up.”

I gave him a long look. “You’re not the one driving, are you?” I snapped, annoyed.

He smirked back. “No, but I am the only one here who knows where I live.”

“I could always just not drop you off and make you walk home.”

“But you wouldn’t do that, would you? Because then it would be oh-so hard to earn my trust back.”

I scowled; I was stuck. He was right. Ultimately, he had the power in almost anything for the simple reason that I wanted him to trust me so badly. I only hoped that this all wasn’t in vain, and he eventually would come to trust me—not just using these challenges as a way to order me around.

“Fine,” I retorted, and backed out of the parking spot.

.x.x.x.

My sister was not happy to see someone riding shotgun next to me. She was even less happy when she took in his appearance—his Ronald McDonald hair, his piercings, his black clothes, and, of course, his purple eyes. As I would have expected, a large scowl made its way onto her face as she climbed into the backseat and angrily slammed the door shut. Nevertheless, I was glad to have her in the car. Somehow I’d forgotten the middle school got out later than the high school, and Thrasher and I had sat silently in my car waiting. It had not been a happy experience.

“Who is he,” she demanded of me, obviously not caring that Thrasher was right next to me and well within hearing distance.

I glanced over a Thrasher, unsure how to explain his relationship to me. We sure weren’t friends, but he wasn’t a stranger either.

“Someone from school” was the answer I decided to give, in order to give nothing away.

“I thought you didn’t have friends,” she announced bluntly. I winced and glanced once more at Thrasher, but he hardly even seemed to be paying attention.

“I don’t,” I told her. “Which way?” I asked Thrasher when we reached the exit.

“Right.”

“Then who is he?” Lorraine pressed further.

“Just someone from school.”

“Not a friend?”

I tried to shoot her a look in the rearview mirror, but she wasn’t looking at me. But then Thrasher surprised us both.

“I won’t let her be my friend,” he interjected. Lorraine, startled, let out an uncharacteristic squeak. In my rearview mirror, her face bobbed up and down as she jumped. “But she wants to be,” he added.

“Why won’t you let her?” she asked with a childish curiosity. For as old as she acted and sometimes even looked, she was only thirteen. She was still a child, as far as I was concerned.

“Because I don’t want any friends,” Thrasher replied simply, as if it were perfectly natural for a seventeen-year-old boy to say that he didn’t want any friends. Although now that I thought about it, I didn’t actually know his age. He may still have been sixteen. Or could even have been eighteen.

“You don’t want any friends?” repeated Lorraine. “Why?”

“I just don’t,” he muttered threateningly. To me, he added: “Make a right at that light up ahead.”

“That’s stupid,” Lorraine groused huffily. In the rearview mirror, I spotted her scowling at him.

“It’s not stupid,” he argued, actually getting worked up. “It’s safe.”

“Safe?”

“You can’t trust people,” he answered sharply. “They’ll just betray you. So why trust anyone?”

Another glance in the mirror showed Lorraine looking like she’d just been hit over the head with a bat. “But—” she stuttered as her brow puckered above her eyes. “How can you just wanna be alone?”

“Easily,” he responded. “People suck.”

I neared the light where Thrasher told me to take a right and slowed down, putting on my right blinker. This was the same way I usually went home from the middle school.

“Not all people suck,” she told him, still sounding bemused. “And besides, you can trust my sister. She won’t betray you.”

With my peripheral vision, I spotted Thrasher throwing me a glance. I kept my face a mask, betraying no emotion.

“Keep on this road for a while,” he mumbled to me.

“What’s your name, anyway?” queried Lorraine, ever curious.

“Thrasher.”

“Thrasher? Is that a nickname?”

And then, for the first time, he unleashed his sarcasm on my sister: “No, my parents named me Thrasher.”

Lorraine was undaunted. “You don’t have to be rude,” she snapped right back at him. “I just wanna know your real name.”

“I don’t tell people my real name,” he replied, equally vexed. To be honest, I was actually kind of amused at how Lorraine and Thrasher were acting around each other.

“It’s—” I began to say, but Thrasher interrupted me.

“Don’t,” he warned darkly.

I glanced at him. “Why not?”

“I probably won’t trust you as easily if you do.”

I scowled. “Thrasher, you can’t lord over me with this trust thing.”

“Why yes, actually, I can,” he answered lightly.

“What are you talking about?” Lorraine piped up from the backseat.

“Nothing,” I replied quickly.

There was a moment of silence, after which Thrasher turned around and, I’m assuming, looked directly at my sister. In the rearview mirror, I saw her defiant look mix with fright. Those purple eyes could scare Hitler, if he were still around.

“Your sister has to earn my trust,” he explained to her.

“Earn it?” she echoed.

“Yeah,” he replied. I nudged him with my elbow to get him to shut up, but he did nothing of the sort. Actually, he seemed to relish what he was saying. “She has to do a bunch of stuff for me to prove her trust.”

“Like a servant?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Like a servant.”

I could feel him looking at me for a reaction, but I refused to look angry. In the calmest voice I could muster, I announced, “I am not a servant.”

“Don’t listen to her,” he told my sister. “I basically get to order her around, and she has to do it if she wants my trust. She was late picking you up yesterday and Wednesday, right?”

“I guess, yeah. . . .”

“That’s ‘cause I made her drive me to the mall where I work. She didn’t want to, but I made her so she could earn my trust.”

And I couldn’t even defend myself, because what he said was true. It was like I had decided to live a life of servitude when I asked Thrasher for his trust. Or more specifically, to let his guard down.

Lorraine was quiet for a moment. “You’re mean,” she spat at him crossly. To me, she added, “Lindsay, I don’t think you should be his friend.”

Thrasher laughed humorlessly. “Lindsay,” he began as he turned around, “I don’t think your sister likes me.”

“I don’t,” she retorted.

“I wonder why,” I intoned monotonously, forcing the anger out of my voice. It would not do for me to lose my control right now.

We approached a light that I’d never seen on my way home, and I realized I’d already passed the turnoff into my neighborhood.

“Left here,” Thrasher told me, and I stopped at the red light in the left turn-only lane with my blinker on. The car was silent except for the sound of the blinker until Thrasher’s hand darted forward and turned on the car radio. A soft, soothing song filled the speakers, but he immediately switched to another station playing some loud, headache song with too many guitars and some guy who sounded like he was screaming at the top of his lungs. Of course, I instantly reached forward and changed back to the soothing song, which was on a station that was one of my presets. Thrasher changed it back to the headache song. I changed it back to the soothing song. Headache song. Soothing song. Headache song. Soothing song.

“STOP IT!” Lorraine screamed. “I’m getting a headache! God, you guys are like three-year-olds!”

“Lorraine, don’t—”

“Use the Lord’s name in vain,” she finished for me in a weird voice meant to insult me. In her normal voice, she continued: “Jeez, Lindsay, it’s not like we’re religious or anything.”

“I know, but you just . . . shouldn’t.”

“See?” Thrasher interjected. “I’m not the only one who gets annoyed at your politically correctness.” Then he turned it back to the headache song.

“This is my car,” I seethed, and turned the radio off. “My music.”

“Green,” Thrasher told me, and I accelerated through the green arrow I’d just received.

“You’re a jerk,” my sister told Thrasher. “No wonder you don’t have any friends.”

“Or,” I offered, “he acts that way so he won’t get friends.”

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” he grumbled. “My neighborhood’s right around this curve. On your right. You’ll see the sign.”

“The sign?” I asked, but as soon as I rounded the bend, I saw exactly what he was talking about. There were trees that had blocked it from my view before, but now, it was impossible to miss. It was massive. Probably about as long as my car, and twice as high. Higher, even, than an SUV. In large, capital letters, it announced that I was turning into “Meadowview Acres.”

But that wasn’t the only thing that was massive. The houses were gargantuan. Well, maybe not that gargantuan—probably only slightly bigger than my friend Casey’s from back home—but they were still pretty large. A lot bigger than my small, one-story house. And certainly bigger than my split-level home back in Pennsylvania.

“You live here?” I asked incredulously as we slowly drive by the mammoth houses.

“Holy crap,” Lorraine exclaimed from the backseat, her face pressed up against the window. “These houses are, like, ginormous.”

“Make a left at the first intersection,” Thrasher told me, clearly uncomfortable.

I glanced over at him. “Who the hell—” Lorraine made a noise from the backseat “—I mean, heck. Who the heck do you live with?”

“See, Lindsay? You cuss,” she rejoined indignantly.

“I’m older,” I responded simply. “Seriously, Thrasher, are your parents multimillionaires?” As soon as I said it, I realized how wrong it was. Thrasher’s mom was dead, and his father was in prison for killing her. Crap. I sucked in a breath and waited for his scathing remark.

But all he said was “I live with my grandmother,” and nothing more.

I reflected back on that Friday night when I had called him. “Is that Sittou?” I stopped at the stop sign at the first intersection and made a left turn, like Thrasher had directed.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, slinking down in his seat.

“You call her by her first name?”

“Sittou’s Arabic for grandmother. That house up there. The white one. With the blue shutters.” I followed his finger and saw the house in which he lived. It was, granted, slightly smaller than the rest, but not by much. Meaning that it was still pretty big.

I pulled up the driveway to the house he had pointed at and squinted at the doorway, trying to read the number there. 6014. He lived at 6014 Holly Street, in Meadowview Acres.

Thrasher swung open the door and looked at me. “If you think,” he started menacingly, “that this ride would make me not wanna drive with you again, you’ve gotta another thing coming.”

“It’s think,” I corrected automatically. “It’s another think coming. Not thing.”

He made a terrible face and climbed out, slamming the door shut. He had hardly gone three feet before Lorraine scrambled out of the backseat and into the passenger’s seat next to me.

“He’s not very nice, is he,” she observed as she watched him walk towards his front door through narrowed eyes.

“He’s just not a people person,” I explained tiredly, although I had no idea why I was making excuses for him. I watched him swing open the door to his house, where I got a short glimpse of the inside, before backing the car out of the driveway.

“Lindsay, he’s a jerk,” she declared distastefully. “A miss—a miss—a missa—a missarope?”

“A misanthrope?”

“Is that those one of those people who hate everyone?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s what he is. A misanthrope.”

And despite myself, I smiled.

.x.x.x.

I knew Lorraine. I knew she would tell my mother what had happened today in the car—that I was befriending a really scary guy with lots of piercings, freaky hair, and freakier eyes, and that I was letting him treat me like a “servant.” So as we were pulling into the driveway once we finally arrived at home, I asked her to please not tell anyone about him.

“Why not?” she asked, sounding upset.

“Lorraine, do I even have to tell you why?”

She was quiet for a moment. “No. But do you think you should make friends with someone like him?”

“I can take of myself, Lorraine. I’m a good four years older than you.” I pulled my car into the driveway, next to the empty space that my mother’s car would occupy as soon as she came home from work.

She scowled. “I know. But it’s not like you can hang out with him or anything.”

“I’m gonna hang out with him tonight,” I replied just to spite her. Even though the truth was that I only planned on meeting up with him as planned and then vanishing once more.

“Well then it’s not like you can ever bring him home.”

And that was where she hit the nail on the head. I didn’t want my mother to even hear about him; I’d never be able to let her actually see him. All sorts of chaos would ensue, and I’d probably get forbidden from hanging out with him. I mean, it still sometimes felt like I was taking my life in my hands when I was around him. Like today in the car, he had been particularly hostile, although Lorraine hadn’t helped matters anyway.

“See?” She sounded triumphant. “I’m right.” With that, she hopped out of the car, retrieved her backpack from the backseat, and flounced inside. I followed behind her, ambling into the kitchen to grab an apple for an afternoon snack. Lorraine was pouring herself a tall glass of milk and piling a fairly large amount of Oreos onto a napkin.

“So.” I studied her. “You haven’t mentioned that kid you like. The freshman.”

“Oh.” She grinned as she twisted the cap back on top of the milk. “I’ll see him tonight. With everyone else and stuff, but Ellie says he’ll probably ask me out. Lindsay, I’m so excited! Do you think you could help me with my makeup? I mean, I’m okay at it, but you’re better. Oh man, I can’t wait! He’s so cute! And he likes me!”

She dunked an Oreo into her milk and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. I just stared, dumbfounded. My sister did a lot of things, but gush was not one of them. She did not squeal like this in a fashion that was stereotypically girly. My sister was not, to say, “girly.” But there she was, going on and on about some guy, asking me to help me with her makeup when she’d never ever before asked me for help with anything even related to her appearance.

“Um.” I stared as she stuffed another milk-drenched Oreo into her mouth, though she wasn’t completely finished with the first one. “Sure.”

She beamed. “Fanks!” she cried gratefully as Oreo sprayed out of her mouth, and then rushed into the family room to watch TV. I eyed the doorway to the family room like it was the reason for her change before retiring to my room.

.x.x.x.

A Helping Soul,

Don’t patronize me. I am not a child. I know who Shakespeare is. I know what vindictive, condone, and murdered means. I am not an idiot.

Just because I said an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, it doesn’t automatically mean I condone capital punishment. (I’m not Christian, or religious in general, so please do not throw this Jesus/Bible/New and Old Testament stuff at me.) Although when you think about it, it does kind of make sense. I mean, if they took a human life, why shouldn’t we take theirs?

Well, would you have rather me lied to you and said I wanted to befriend Thrasher because he seems like a kind-hearted soul who would take pity on poor me, new from Pennsylvania? And I don’t think Thrasher wants to be alone. He told my sister today that he’d rather be lonely than trust people, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. If I could just get him to trust me, he wouldn’t have to be lonely anymore. And we weren’t cozy at lunch on Thursday. He was barely even talking. I was the only one who said anything substantial.

I never said your gender mattered. I’m just curious because you strike me as a girl. And I wanna know if I’m right.

-Lindsay

I reread my note, then stuck in my backpack to tape to my locker on Monday morning, after which I stared at my cell phone deciding whether I should call Toni. We hadn’t talked since we’d bickered on Tuesday over whether or not Thrasher was dangerous.

“Hello?” she answered distractedly when she picked up the phone.

“Hey, Toni,” I replied as I reclined back in my bed, prepared for a long conversation.

“Oh, hey, Lindsay.” She still sounded distracted. I thought I heard typing in the background, but I wasn’t sure so I ignored it.

“What’s up?” I asked, almost anticipating some long-winded speech of something someone had most recently done.

“Nothing. I just . . .” I definitely heard typing in the background now. “Drew is being such an asshole!”

“Drew?” I repeated, confused. Toni and Drew got along famously. Well, Toni got along with everyone famously, but that’s not the point. And Drew wasn’t exactly what you call “asshole” material. I hadn’t known him entirely too well, but he’d always seemed like a nice guy to me.

“I clearly told him no, but he won’t leave me alone!”

I was suspicious. “Told him no about what?”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“He asked me out on Wednesday.”

“Oh.” I digested this for a moment. Back in Pennsylvania, I would have been the first person to find out about something like this. I figured that, even with the three-hour car ride between us, I would still be the first person she came to with any sort of exciting or not-so-exciting news. That I would still play the role of her best friend. But here was an instance where she had clearly not told me about it as soon as she could.

“Well,” I continued, my voice betraying nothing, “we haven’t talked since Tuesday.”

“Oh. Really? Well, jeez, you missed everything. Drew asked me out on Wednesday, which was actually the same day that we all found out about his one-night stand with Lissa. Remember her? That really obnoxious girl that we both hated? Yeah, well, I found out about that before he asked me out, so of course I said no, even though I probably would have said no in the first place because honestly, it’s Drew.”

She went on to tell me that ever since then, he hadn’t left her alone and begged her to agree to go out with him. Lissa, on the other hand, managed to convince herself and all her friends that Toni was trying to interfere between her and Drew, and started badmouthing Toni to anyone who would listen. I was surprised to find out how much I’d missed, and even more surprised—and hurt, even—that Toni hadn’t called me earlier to tell me all this. In fact, I was hurt that she hadn’t called me at all, and I was only finding out because I’d called her.

When she finished telling me everything, she apologized hastily and explained that she had to go.

“Oh.” I tried to keep my voice emotionless. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you.”

“Yeah.” She was back to sounding sidetracked. “Talk to you later.”

She hung up the phone, and I slowly snapped my cell phone closed and stared at it. It was like I was no longer Toni’s best friend. Like she didn’t really have time for me anymore now that I was in Maryland.

But I was probably just making a mountain out of a molehill. So I tossed my phone back into my backpack and busied myself with TV.

A/N: Chapter Ten next Saturday, as per usual.

Okay, before anyone says anything: Lindsay’s beliefs are Lindsay’s beliefs. They do not necessarily reflect my own—they help demonstrate who Lindsay is as a person. So when she speaks about capital punishment, it has nothing to do with what I personally believe about capital punishment. I might be for it, I might be against it—either way, it does not relate back to this story. So please, keep your comments to yourself.

Sorry about that. I just don’t want a bunch of highly opinionated people bashing me for being pro-capital punishment just because my character is.

Anywayy, thank you so much everyone who’s reading! Especially my reviewers. We set a new record last chapter. :) Seriously, you all are amazing.

Vampiric Obsession, sweets555, superficialSagacity, Alice Heist, x3Mishna, sarahrules336, Evelyn Bleu, P1nkBerry please, luv me like no other, capricasix, JammyMacca, Summer Deyze Starfield, Inky-Angel, Ruby, mia5081, stargazerlost, The Cat Died Nobly, Vinyl Cupcake, She Had Somewhere To Go., iluv2lol, deny.me.not, Dazedandconfuddled, Good luck!, woodstock1969, PrematureLlama, Essevera, wandless, Kelsci, ThatOneKidWhoDoesn’tLikeSalami/maryy, SparklingStar25, quaebah24, smdx, substitute angel, skybell, Ambergirl1029, insanity-ward, notebaggage, xonea, Operationiva, sleepiedreamer, urjellingcauseimevil, HelloLonely, Carica

Special thanks to Good luck!. (He/she reviewed anonymously so I can’t reply to him/her.) As silly as it sounds, you actually made me feel a lot better about my exams. So thanks. :)