Disclaimer- If I was SM I never would have stopped writing just so I could keep getting richer. Twilight books could sell well for a very long time.

Chapter 15- Don't blame yourself. Let me do it.

"Aww, that is so sweet." Tiffany said while she combed her hair into two pigtails in front of my mirror.

"That is not sweet." I glared at her reflection from where I had plopped myself into a lime green beanbag chair. "This is a disaster."

"I think disaster would probably be pushing it." Sara said, in between blows to her wet nails.

"Easy for you to say. It didn't happen to you." I grumbled

"It probably won't happen again." Ally tried to comfort me while she flipped the page in her history book, "I mean, the two don't really run in the same crowd, do they?"

In case you couldn't tell I had informed them of the Jared and Eugene fiasco in the care on the ride home. They didn't seem to think anything was wrong with it.

What horrible excuses for friends. What good are they if they won't panic with me? No good at all.

"I'd love to have two guys fighting over me." Tiffany sighed wistfully as she spun the vanity seat around so she was facing us.

"You see, in theory I'm with you," I informed her gravely, "But I just never would have picked Jared and Eugene to be those two guys."

"I can see your point." She said, before she stood up to rifle through my closet without permission. How rude.

"I would have liked for them to maybe be Johnny Dep and Brad Pitt, or something." Now there was a fight any girl would love to be the cause of.

"I think I'd pick The Rock and Van Diesel." Sara informed us. She had always had a thing for the beefy guys.

"That would be an awesome fight." I said, my mind already making it a cage match.

"You think anything will come of it?" Ally asked, "The whole Eugene and Jared thing?"

I sighed, hating to have to admit to making too large of a deal out of it, "Probably not."

Tiffany snorted, the sound muffled by the fact that her entire upper body was in my closet stretching to reach the dresses that I never wear because I look like I'm in drag when I try to wear girly type stuff, "Let's hope not. I don't think Eugene would survive that particular fight."

"I think you're right there" Sara agreed.

"Could you imagine if Amy caught wind of this?" Tiffany asked, coming out of my closet with a pair of heels I never wear, "I think she'd beat you to deaf with one of her pom-poms."

"Lord knows she has the insanity plea down pat," Sara snorted.

"I'll fight her off with one of Ally's textbooks. Book beats pom-poms every time. Everybody knows that.," I said dryly.

"How are things with Amy?" Ally asked, putting away her history book in favor of her chemistry one, "Has she made any other threats lately."

"Nope." I said. And it was true.

Amy hadn't really gone out of her way to speak to me since our little bonding session in the girls bathroom last week. The glares, however, have kept coming with increasing regularity.

"What was that all about, anyway?" Tiffany asked, "Doesn't she know that you could so take her?"

Ally snorted behind her large textbook, "I don't think Amy had some sort of physical brawl in mind."

"Well, what else do you think she had in mind?" Sara asked, while she packed back up Tiffany's nail polishes.

"Well, Amy deals more with social destruction." Ally said, laying her book down on her lap and looking contemplative, "That's probably what she was threatening to do. Ruin Kim's reputation or embarrass her or something."

I snorted, unconcerned, "She's a little late for that. It's not like I'm miss popularity or anything. You won't see me running for prom queen. I don't even think I have a reputation to ruin."

Tiffany laughed, "Actually since you kneed Jared in his man goodies that's pretty much been your reputation."

I grinned at her, reliving the memory. That was a bad day all together but that particular part of it was priceless. It's still fun to watch Jared wince when I get really angry at him. I'm surprised he doesn't shield himself.

"Exactly," I said, "So what can Amy do to me?"

"Hey, Eugene." I said, as I dropped down in my seat next to his and let my bag fall to the ground.

"Hey, Kim." He said, shoving aside his open textbook and looking at me.

Oh, no. The textbook has been shoved aside. Something bad is going to happen. He takes that thing with him during fire drills.

"What's going on?" I asked suspiciously.

Eugene shrugged still watching me like I was something Mrs. Turner had plopped down on a microscope slid in front of him, "Nothing. What's going on with you?"

"Same old same old." I answered closely. I hope he's not about to ask me out again. I've had my fill of awkward moments for the week.

Eugene, to my surprise, started to turn pink and reached up to adjust his glasses. He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat nervously.

Just as I was checking down to see if one of my boobs popped out or something (well, what else would make him act that way?) Eugene spoke in a nervous voice.

"So….have you seen any more of that one guy?"

"What guy?" I asked, stupidly.

There was really only one person he could be talking about and we both knew it.

"Jared." He said his name distastefully. You know, the way most people say 'vomit' or 'mucus'.

"Oh, him." I said stupidly. Damn you, Mrs Turner. Why did today have to be the day she decided to give us free time? "Not much of him really. Just a little bit at my locker this morning. And in the cafeteria. And in the hallway."

Eugene's poor little bright blue eyes started to bug so far right out of his head that I'm fairly certain they touched the lenses of his thick-framed glasses.

"Oh, it's not like that." I hurried to explain, because if I can make a situation as awkward as possible I like to live up to my full potential, "He's just stalking me, that's all."

Ok, his eyes are officially pushing his glasses off of his face now.

I waved my hands in the air as if I could erase my previous words. I didn't want him to call the cops or anything.

"Not in a horror movie type way!" I rushed out, "More like in a annoyingly-persistent-pestering type way. He's harmless really." I added when Eugene didn't relax any.

Eugene took a couple of seconds to process this before asking me, still pink in the face, "So….you're not like….going out with him? Jared, I mean."

"No!" I said, perhaps a bit overenthusiastically.

Ok, a lot overenthusiastically if the way a couple of our classmates twisted in their seats to stare at me was any indication. But could you blame me? The day I date someone like Jared is the day that Tiffany swears off guys and starts to bat for the other team.

Eugene didn't seem to mind, though. "That's good." He seemed to have realized the connotations of what he said because he flushed all over again and hurried to explain, "Not that you can't date whoever you want of course. I mean, it is 2010. Women are liberated and everything. I'm all for the girl power."

Did he just say Girl Power? Oh, lord help him.

"I just mean," he continued, "He seems like trouble, that's all."

Now, I want to make one thing abundantly clear right here and now. I do not, under any circumstances, have any feelings for Jared (unless you count annoyance, of course. In which case I'm just a well of emotions for the guy.) but something about Eugene referring to him as 'trouble' disturbed me.

The bastard had been flat out stalking me for almost three weeks now. He's memorized my schedule, he knows my address, he stares at me every chance he gets.

It's full blown stalking, alright. No doubt about it.

But, despite this, he has failed to live up to all the lifetime movie type stalking scenarios I originally cast him into. It's been weeks since I've even considered getting a restraining order. In fact, I usually feel completely safe and at ease around him.

Annoyed, but safe.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, trying not to sound defensive.

Eugene seemed surprised I would even ask, "It's just that whole thing with Sam Uley's gang. Everyone knows that they're not up to any good."

"Well, they haven't really done anything yet." I surprised myself by saying.

Less than a month ago I was accusing these people of running some sort of underground drug ring. Now I'm defending them? Maybe I'm wrong about Jared. He probably slipped something into my coffee when I let him hold it this morning while I got my books out of my locker. I think it's time to rethink that whole restraining order thing.

"Nothing that we know of," Eugene insisted, "But come on. You have to admit they're a little suspicious."

I made a non-commental noise in the back of my throat but otherwise didn't say anything as Mrs. Turner finally got around to starting the lesson.

I was the last person you'd catch defending Jared Ferdy.

"Go away." I said immediately upon seeing Jared hovering near my locker again.

Tiffany and Sara had gone at it again during lunch and had exhausted any remains of my patience. Apparently Paul had tried to pay for a very ticked off Sara's lunch or something. I wasn't paying attention. It was taco day.

Mmmmm, tacos…

"How was your day?" Jared said ignoring me and turning around to spin in my combination for me.

How does this bastard know my combination?

"Shouldn't you know already?" I asked as I tried to shove him out of my way before he could finish my combination. It was like pushing at a brick wall - Useless and it made me look stupid, so I stopped and let him open the door for me, "You pretty much follow me through every second of it."

He frowned at me as he stepped aside, "Not every second. We only have two classes together." He disagreed.

"Really?" i said, "It seems like more."

"We don't see each other that often." He said, like this was something he wanted to change. Dream on, meat head.

I snorted in a very unladylike fashion as I tried to jam even more of my crap into a locker that was in danger of overflowing, "We see each other plenty. Our only having two classes together somehow hasn't stopped you from meeting me outside of every class and walking me to my next. Not to mention stalking me all throughout lunch."

"I'm not stalking you." Jared sighed, like this was something he said a lot. Who knows? For him it probably was.

'Stalking' had become a bit of a touchy topic for us. Mostly because he refuses to admit to being a stalker and I'm getting a bit tired of trying to find alternate routes to all of my classes.

I rolled my eyes at him as I reached up to catch a small novel my locker suddenly vomited at me from its cluttered depths. "Let's review the definition of stalking here for a minute, shall we? Following obsessively, memorized schedule, waiting for me between classes? Yes, I do believe we have all the makings of stalker here, my friend."

Jared made a little sound in the back of his throat that sounded remarkably like a growl to me.

"Did you just growl at me?" I asked, obviously offended. How dare he!

He ignored me (aw, that brings back sweet memories) and racked his hands through his hair in frustration. "I'm not trying to stalk you. I'm trying to get to know you."

I slammed my locker door after having wrestled all of my books securely into place and whirled around to face him with my hands on my hips, "Excuse you?"

Trying to get to know me! It's a little late for that, wouldn't you say? That's like Paris Hilton deciding upon a life of celibacy. He certainly wasn't concerned with knowing me a year ago, was he? He wasn't at all concerned about knowing the girl he decided it was his right to jerk around and mess with because she was quite and he was popular.

He opened his mouth to say something else but I cut him off before he could, "Don't bother. There's no need to try to get to know me, cause' I don't want to know you. I know enough."

"What is that supposed to mean?" He snapped at me.

I tried to walk away from him but he kept talking when it became clear that I wasn't going to answer him.

"What exactly is your problem with me?" He suddenly burst out from behind me, causing me to turn around just in time to see him throw his hands up in exasperation, "You seem to hate my fucking guts and I just can't figure out why! I've tried being nice, being funny, being helpful. Nothing seems to work! I don't get it! Give me a clue here, cause I'm dying!"

I scoffed loudly at his little rant that had drawn the attention of the few students left milling around the hallway, "A clue? You couldn't get a fucking clue if it was clue mating season and you were in a field full of horny clues and you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance. You're hopeless!"

"You're such a…" Jared seemed to struggle with himself about something now.

"Such a what?" I asked stepping closer to him and drawing myself up to my full 5'11 height.

"Bitch." He said, glaring down at me.

The hallway collapsed into silence for a couple of moments before an annoyingly high voice broke the silence.

"Well, what were you expecting, Jared?" Amy's voice asked, causing Jared's eyes to snap away from me for the first time since our argument started and look towards where Amy came slinking out from between the small crowd that had gathered, "Don't you remember our little joke from sophomore year?"

It's times like this I really wished I carried a gun.

A/N- I know! Don't kill me! Put away the torches and pitchforks please! I have no excuse for being such a crappy updater lately. My muse decided to take a vacation in Florida with a hot cabana boy. But I'm back now and ready to accept my reviews….pwease?

Review or I'm going to make you stay in a room with Amy Fink all day hearing her talk aboutpedicures.