A/N: Yay, I finally updated, I thought I did, but apparently not. Sorry for keeping this from you guys. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it :)

Chapter Five - That Sucks

School on Monday was like a completely new experience for me because I had leveled up my self-esteem. It made me feel like that was a game the way I said it. And I guess gaining self esteem sort of was like a game. You win some you lose some. Ramina made me stoop down a level and Jared brought me back up two. I’d thanked him for that. He knew that he was just a friend to me though; he laughed and said, “But hey, if things don’t work out with that Garret guy, just give me a call.” He’d said it as I got out of his car when we finished the movie and he took me back home.

I hadn’t called Angel back on Sunday so I figured she’d have some new stuff to tell me at school like she always did. Something about how her cat scratched her or some ‘idiotic’ mistake her mother made. It kind of irked me that she talked about and too her parents like that, seeing as I was quite respectful with mine, but I also admired the fact that she could speak her mind to them too.

At break I was searching for Angel, she was kind of hard to spot with how short she is. But the flaming red hair of an extremely tall boy caught my eye. Dietrich. He was leaning over slightly, his arm extended, and when the person in front of me moved I saw that it was Angel, I kind of expected that.

I walked closer and pretended like I was interrupting something. “Hey Angel I- oh I’ll come back later.” But I couldn’t hide the grin on my face or stifle the giggle that wanted to come out.

Her head snapped over to me, her hair slightly messing up with Dietrich’s hand still on her head. She narrowed her eyes and pointed at me. “Don’t you even think about it. I forbid it!”

“Sure,” I said, “What are you? My mother?”

“No, I’m your best friend and seeing as I’m older, I’m telling you that I forbid it.” She seemed to forget about Dietrich at the moment as she spoke to me.

“You might be older, but I….” I paused for a moment wondering if I should say it, and if I did, what would she do? I made my decision. “I’m a little bit taller.”

But it wasn’t Angel’s reaction that surprised me, Angel didn’t even react to me, she reacted the to the exact same thing I did.

Laughter.

And it wasn’t from either of us.

We looked up to find Dietrich actually laughing.

“Wow, is he laughing?” an oh-so familiar voice came from behind us. I turned to see Garret. He was looking extremely adorable today in a gray hoddie, faded skinny jeans and his usual black cap, hair curling out from underneath it.

“You must have said something pretty funny.” He said, “half the time I cant even get him to laugh, and trust me, I try.”

“All I did was make fun of Angel’s height.” I told him shrugging my shoulders. It was amazing how suddenly I wasn’t as shy in front of him anymore. Thank you Jared.

“Yeah, that usually gets him.” Garret smiled.

“Hey!” Angel whined, “That’s not funny!”

“I’ve been looking for you all morning.” Dietrich said acknowledging Garret who simply shrugged his shoulders and grinned, “Nothing like a little game of hide and go seek, eh?”

The two boys left in one direction and Angel and I headed in the opposite one.

“So how was your day with Jared?” Angel asked me. I was a bit taken a back. I hadn’t told her about hanging out with Jared, how’d she know?

“How do you know I was with Jared?”

“I saw you guys.”

“I thought you were on house arrest?”

“Hey, what my mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

I laughed, typical Angel.

-

Summer was fast approaching. We get out of school in June, and it was April. I was thoroughly relieved. That meant a whole two and a half months without Taylor. And a whole Two and a half months of having fun with Angel at Rainbow’s.

Most teens hate work, but being at Rainbow’s wasn’t really work. It was like Angel and I had too much fun together for it to even be considered work. And then you throw in Garret and Dietrich, and it’s a full house, there are constant jokes and watching Dietrich tower over Angel by a whole foot and a half almost is pretty amusing.

Another plus was that since Garret was always at Rainbow’s I wasn’t necessarily nervous around him anymore. Sure my heart still almost beat out of my chest when he was around, but I now I could control my tongue. I could talk to him without stuttering or getting super embarrassed, and that made things just that much better.

The lunch bell and school had rung bringing it to a close, Angel and I lingered as much as we could not wanting to go to class, but I convinced Angel that if she didn’t hurry up Dietrich would have her head. She’d gulped at the thought and rubbed her neck, given me a hug and practically took off running to the other side of campus.

My class was fairly close to where we hung out at lunch, so I took my time with my steps, not in any particular rush, for some reason I was in an extraordinarily good mood today. Besides, my teacher, Mr. Hodges, never ever parks anyone late, so it didn’t matter to me.

I rounded the corner near the classroom but came face to chest with someone. Someone with a rather hard chest, my nose hurt from it.

“Ow.” I said rubbing my nose; I looked up to see Garret. “Oh, h-hey.” I said kind of embarrassed I ran into him.

“You okay?” he asked looking down at me with a smile and concerned eyes. I nodded, “I was just spacing out a bit, didn’t see you.”

He laughed, “that’s so you.”

I smiled. “Where are you headed?” he asked.

“Geometry, Mr. Hodges.” I answered.

“Ooh, fun.” He said.

“Yeah, right.” I said rather sarcastically. Geometry sucked. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be in class already?”

“Nah, actually, I was going to try and sneak off campus, it’s always a challenge to get past Dietrich and his eagle eyes. But he’s already in class, so what my man doesn’t know, won’t hurt him”

I smiled, “Angel said something similar to that today, except it was about her mom….”

He smiled, and we stood there awkwardly for a moment. “Hey-“ “I guess-“

We started our sentences at the same time. He smiled, “Go ahead.”

“I was going to say, I guess I should get to class.”

“Huh, I was going to ask if you wanted to ditch with me.”

“And if Dietrich catches us?”

He laughed, “We say it was your idea.”

“That doesn’t really make me want to ditch.” I said crossing my arms.

I mentally smiled. Angel was awesome, if she had never gotten us these jobs, then I never would have even talked to Garret, let alone be able to talk to him like this.

“Come on! Dietrich won’t punish you as bad as he will me. He’ll probably slap us with a detention and we’re off the hook.”

“Hmm…” I was trying to suppress my smile, but the grin on his face and excitement in his eyes was making it rather hard to do that. So I gave in and relented, “alright, let’s go.”

His grin widened. “And we’re off.”

We walked to the edge of campus and checked for the security guards, and most of all for Dietrich. We grinned at each other and took one step off campus before we heard, “What are you doing?”

Stopping dead in our tracks we turned around to see Dietrich, his arms crossed and a smug look on his face. Garret and I looked at each other.

“Um…Hi Dietrich.” I said smiling as innocently as I could. “Hi.” He said. “What’re you guys doing?”

Garret and I glanced at each other again, the excuse was up to me, and I knew it. “U-um, we were just going to pick up that dollar on the ground over there.” I looked at Garret, he had a grin on his face, and his stance shifted, we were going to make a run for it.

“Over where?” Dietrich asked looking ahead of us to see if there really was a dollar, and then Garret shouted, “Run!”

And almost in sync we began to run.

“Hey!” Dietrich called out.

If we kept running he wasn’t going to come after us, but if we started walking while we were still in his sight, he’d use those immensely long legs of his to catch up with us.

We ran all the way down the street and around the corner until we reach the bus stop in front of a small Café. We were both hunched over laughing and panting, trying to catch our breath.

“Brilliant.” Garret said beaming at me. I smiled, this really was awesome. I think Angel was rubbing off on me. Always doing things on an impulse, and now, here I was just having run off campus from Dietrich and now Garret was standing here, smiling at me, telling me I was brilliant. Could it get any better?

“What now?” I asked.

“I say, we head to the mall, and I buy you a drink for your brilliant distraction.” Garret said as he pulled his sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. I decided to do that same.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Garret put his arm around my shoulder and mine automatically slid around his waist, and we began to walk.

-

“So after we ran off campus we went to the mall, and that’s pretty much it, we hung out, he bought me a drink and we just walked around, like normal people.”

“I’m proud of you little sister.” Shawn said and ruffled my freshly washed hair, after I took a showed I decided to inform Shawn about the best day of my life.

“Thanks.” I smiled. Shawn was honestly the best older brother anyone could ask for. On occasions he was a little bit of a jerk, but most of the time, he was there for me, he made me laugh, he comforted me when I needed it.

I decided that after I told Shawn about everything I should fill Angel in on the little stunt Garret and I pulled. So I dialed her number.

“Hello?”

“Hey there.”

“So,” she said, “how was your little escapade with Garret?”

“How did you know about that?”

“I had detention with Dietrich.” She said with much disdain in her voice.

“He told you?”

“Our best friends cut school together, of course he told me.”

I laughed, “So you guys can actually have a civil conversation once in a while?”

“Oh, you know, as civilized it can get for us, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not very civilized is it?”

“You’d be surprised at the conversations we can conjure up.”

I laughed, “Today was fun though.”

“Oh do tell, do tell! I want to hear it al !”

“Okay, okay! Calm down. Where do I start?”

“After you guys ran away.”

I laughed again “okay.”

-

“You have detention today.” Dietrich said to me, it looked like he was suppressing a smile.

“Aw, but wouldn’t you rather just let me off the hook and get Angel on something again?” I asked hopefully.

“Garret has one too.” He said with finality in his voice and turned to walk away as the bell rang. I pouted. Dumb Dietrich, but I couldn’t help smiling. Yesterday had been worth a half an hour detention.

“Hey.” Someone tapped my shoulder from behind and I cam face to face with the one girl who hated my guts.

“Hi Taylor.” I wasn’t about to let her know that she still intimidated me. Hopefully I could pull off this act.

“So I see you’re getting pretty friendly with Garret and Dietrich.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, they come by my work pretty often. We just chat.”

“MmHmm.” She examined her French manicured nails. “Well, listen up, okay? Stay away from them.”

“Why?” I challenged.

“Because I said so. Okay? Garret and I aren’t over yet and I sure as hell am not going to lose him to a pathetic bitch like you, okay? So be a good little girl and do as I say, got it?”

“Fine, I’ll stay away from him, but it isn’t my fault if he doesn’t stay away from me.”

Her eyes narrowed and she took a step forward raising a hand and as she opened her mouth to say something again I was saved. “Is there a problem here?”

The principal was standing next to us now, tapping his foot, waiting for an answer. I smiled and looked at Taylor who did the same to except hers was as fake as fake can get.

“Not at all Mr. Gary, Lindsey here just has something in her hair, I was going to grab it for her.”

“Uh-huh. Get to class you two.”

“Okay, bye Mr. Gary.” Taylor said going off in one direction, Mr. Gary smiled at me and nodded in the direction of my class. I smiled and headed off as well.

“What happened?” Angel asked me at lunch. I was peeved, sure I was glad Principal Gary came to the rescue, but I mean, one word from her hitting my ears ruins my entire day, but I was rather impressed with my self, but I couldn’t even enjoy that much knowing that Taylor was out to get me, probably no matter what it took.

“Taylor is what happened,” I huffed.

“I knew, it, I saw her heading towards you, but I forgot you were there, and I’m sorry I just couldn’t have prevented it.” Angel said

“No, no, it’s alright, I handled her pretty well, if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah? How so? ”

“She told me to stay away from Garret and I said I would but it wasn’t my fault if he didn’t stay away from me.”

She held thumbs up to me, “I still think you should have kicked her ass.”

“No, that’s what you do, I use words sweetheart.”

“Good job! You have learned well, young padi-one.”

“You suck at Star Wars impressions.” I told her flatly, it was only the truth, but I couldn’t suppress my smile.

She laughed, “Ha, ha, shut up! I’m still practicing!”

“Really?”

“Yep, in front of the mirror all the time.”

“I can so imagine that.” I said laughing and shaking my head.

“Do you have detention today?” I asked her as we walked from the lunch line with our food to our usual standing spot.

“Nah, I was here on time, early actually, I haven’t cut and I’ve been on my best behavior today, Dietrich couldn’t give me a detention even if he wanted to.”

“I think he always wants to.”

“Shut up.”

“Dang.” I said a little bit disappointed.

“Why?”

“He gave me one for yesterday.”

“What!” Angel exclaimed almost dropping her carbonated Izzie drink. “You got a detention on the day I’ve been doing good not to get one! Do you know what he made me do yesterday? He made me pick up trash! A bunch of it too! I can’t let you go through that alone! I couldn’t call myself a friend if I left you alone around that heartless jerk! He might brainwash you and turn you against me! Then, then I’d be Lindsey-less!”

“You really think anyone could ever turn me against you?” I asked taking the drink from her hands and taking a sip for myself.

“No, but I mean, come on! You never get detention and the day I don’t have it you do! That’s so damn ironic I a way… Gawd! I want a detention now!”

I laughed. “Then you should go do something to get in trouble.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will.”

-

“So what did you do to get a detention?” I asked her when she sat across from me at the table in the detention hall.

“Psh. I didn’t even have to try. I forgot my binder for fifth period and so I got a detention for that.” She grumbled.

“That’s pretty lame.” I told her in all honesty. “You think?” Sarcasm audible in her voice. “I was trying to think up some big plan to get in trouble too, but no, instead I get a detention for forgetting my binder.”

I patted her hand, “It’s okay, love, its okay.” She smiled at me and shook her head.

“Hey! Angel! I didn’t know you had detention today!”

We turned to the door and found Garret approaching our table. He grabbed a chair from another table and placed it at the end of ours, he plopped down into his seat and grinned at us for no apparent reason.

“This detention just got so much better.” Angel said with a grin. Then Dietrich walked through the door and her shoulders slumped and her face changed as if she’d smelled something foul. “Detention just got so much worse.”

“Is that the way to look at someone who stuck up for you in class today?” Dietrich said in a flat tone of voice. There was something about Dietrich, one minute he was pissed at Angel, and then next, the next I just didn’t know, sometimes it seemed like Angel actually hurt him, but he was always so cool, so calm, so collected and had great comebacks that worked out so well with his slight accent. I could never really tell.

“Wait, what? Did I hear that right? I questioned myself, had Dietrich really just admitted to sticking up for Angel?

“Stuck up for what?” Garret asked just as confused as I was.

“None of your damn business.” Angel grunted, like she was irritated. Wow, it was so odd how Dietrich could turn Angel into a bipolar person.

When the attention was shifted off of her, she pulled on my sleeve and whispered, “I’ll tell you later.”

For the moment, none of us had anything to say, so I just took a look around the room and thought, my eyes flickered from wall to wall, and they landed on the red head who looked peeved and he was glaring as if he wanted to burn a whole through the wall, at the rate he was going, I wouldn’t be surprised if he accomplished that. Dietrich had never glared like that at me. He’d done it to Angel, to Garret, to Taylor and even his fiancé Ramina, but never to me, and I was glad I might melt like the Wicked Witch of the West does in the Wizard of Oz when she gets water on her. Oh no wait, that’s what, happens to Taylor.

I smiled to myself at that thought and Angel tilted her head to the side curiously, “Did I miss something?”

“Nah, just a funny thought.”

“Care to share?” Garret asked and smiled folding his arms on the table and resting his head on them. “Cause you know, sharing is caring.”

“That’s lame.” Angel said. I laughed. “I was just thinking about how Taylor reminded me of the Wizard of Oz.”

“The Wicked Witch of the West.” Angel and Garret said together, the three of us laughed and Dietrich even cracked a smile.

-

Angel and I were at Rainbow’s. It was a Saturday and we had some business today. Maybe about every hour or so we’d have a group come in but in between it was completely empty.

So angel and I would just sit around or dance to our iPods. Jared would just watch and be amused. Angel seemed to have made peace with Jared; she was no longer glaring at him constantly. I couldn’t say the same for Dietrich. Who just happened to come waltzing in with Garret.

The four of us sat at a table and Angel was talking animatedly; I couldn’t help but notice that Garret wasn’t exactly acting normal. He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t smiling as often as he did, and even Angel began to take notice of it. Dietrich appeared annoyed by the fact he wasn’t acting normal.

“Tell them.” Dietrich said suddenly out of nowhere. “Just get it out already, the longer you take doesn’t matter, it won’t change anything.”

“Tell us what?” Angel asked tilting her head to the side and looking back and forth from Garret to Dietrich.

“I’m not going to be here all summer.” Garret said looking down at his hands. He sounded really down. And my heart just about dropped. This summer, I had been looking forward to working at Rainbow’s hanging out with Angel and getting to know Garret more, and maybe, just maybe making him fall for me.

But so much for that Idea!

“My mom is sending me to live with my grandparents like they did over the eighth grade summer.”

“Aw. That sucks!” Angel said stating the obvious.

“Yeah, I know.” He said solemnly. “I had certain reasons I wanted to stay.” He said and his eyes glanced at me, my heart stopped, did that mean me? He wanted to stay for me? Was I insane? Or did he really want to stay for me? I felt the butterflies in my stomach now.

“But” he continued, “they’re getting old and my uncle who normally takes care of them has a business trip and so I’ll be there as long as he’s gone. But it’s okay I guess. I always liked old people.”

“Me too!”

Everyone stared at me. It had been an outburst. I hadn’t meant to do it. I felt my face flushing I was going to die. I just had an unexplainable love for old people. They fascinated me. They always told me stories from ‘when they were young’ and I loved them. I hadn’t meant to bust out with it. It just happened.

“That was utterly adorable.” Garret said.

I blushed harder and Angel laughed, Dietrich even smiled. “It really was.” Angel said putting her arm around my shoulder.

“But seriously dude that really sucks.” Angel said focusing her attention on Garret again. He nodded. “I’m going to miss you guys.”

I don’t know what happened right there in that moment, but it was like all the happiness in my world just faded… all the rainbows and unicorns and butterflies that pranced around in my little world, just like dropped dead. It was sad. Garret made me happy, I was in love with him, and then, then all of the sudden he’ll be gone. And I’ll have to go back to just thinking about him and then we he comes back it’ll probably be the same way. Admire him from afar. He’ll go there meet a pretty chick, forget about me if he ever even thought about me and then he’d come back, Taylor would get him back, and then this whole couple of months will have been erased. I wanted to cry.

Angel and I were closing up shop for Alfred and then I was sleeping over at her house tonight. Her mom was coming to get us soon. Garret and Dietrich had hung out with us all day. It seemed like Garret kind of perked up through out the day, but I seemed to have been getting worse and worse.

“Earth to Lindsey!” Angel was waving her hand in front of my face.

“What?”

“What’s up with you? You’ve been spacing out for a while now.”

“Nothing, just bummed about Garret.”

“Yeah, I know. That totally sucks. I was planning on hooking you guys up this summer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”

“What are we even going to do this summer?” she asked tilting her head to the side. I shrugged, “How should I know.”

“My mom and my uncle wanted to take us to Universal Studios.”

“How would we get there?”

“Probably drive.” Angel said untying her apron.

“That’s a really long road trip.” Driving all the way to Florida that was insane!

“You’ve never driven to L.A before?” she asked me.

“L.A?”

“Yeah, Universal Studios is kind of in L.A, you know, along with Disneyland?”

I began to laugh. “What, what’s so funny?” she asked.

“I thought that you meant the one in Florida!”

“You’re so stupid!” Angel laughed. “Drive to Florida, yeah right.”

Angel and I shut the lights and then we locked the front doors, Alfred was still in the back, so we dropped the key off with him and then we went outside to wait on the curb, in the cool, crisp night air.

Summer was just around the corner. And who knew what was going to happen? Angel would be a senior, along with Garret and Dietrich; I’d be a junior. And then sooner than we’d expect it’d be summer again, Angel would be enrolling in a college near by, or at least I hoped she would, I really didn’t want to be far from her. Dietrich would probably go away somewhere fancy, and I have no idea what Garret wanted to do, but I couldn’t help but feel like I might be getting left behind. Of course, I still had Jessica and so many others, but Angel was Angel. She was irreplaceable, and it just wouldn’t be the same without Garret to gaze at, and Dietrich to torture Angel. The thought of everything changing faster and faster kind of made me sad as well. I didn’t want to let go of right now; I was enjoying it too much.

A/N: Review?