The few who either wanted nothing to do with it or weren't drunk enough to forget that they wanted nothing to do with it quickly excused themselves, and everyone else formed a large circle, sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room. Lindsey, of course, grabbed Caitlin before she could get away and conscripted both her and a confused Chase into the ring.

The circle that formed was a good mix of guys and girls. Chase looked around the ring, from face to face. Some of her classmates were quiet, most were joking around and laughing, but there was an embarrassed, nervous edge to all of it.

“Man, this is like some kind of Seven Minutes in Heaven all-star game,” commented Caitlin nervously.

Chase didn't know what an all-star game was, but she got the idea, and she had to agree. Not only did the girls include a big swath of cheerleaders and other popular girls, the guys portion was also stacked, with a bunch of guys her squadmates would gab about ad nauseum. There were a bunch of guys on the football team (including Kirk) and there were also other athletes, like Lacrosse Captain Hugh, a couple guys from the basketball team, etc.

“What Sev Hev, Cait?” asked Chase.

Caitlin looked most embarrassed and nervous of them all. “It's...it's a party game. Basically, one person spins the bottle, and then they go in that closet with whoever the bottle points at when it stops spinning. Then when they're in there, they have seven minutes alone to do...” she said this delicately, “Whatever they want.”

“Why go in clothes room? Us can do what we want out here,” said Chase, not getting it.

“Well, it's...private there,” said Caitlin. “And dark, so you don't have to look at each other too much...it's less awkward. It's for, you know, romantic stuff.”

“Oh. Like kiss,” understood Chase.

“Yeah. Or more. Whatever you want,” said Caitlin. “It's kind of...the idea is to let your hair down a little, do something a little crazy.”

Chase looked around. “Tor not here, not want kiss no one else.”

“Then you don't have to,” said Caitlin. “If somebody spins you then just go in and sit there for seven minutes. That's all I'm gonna do.”

Lindsey was playing hostess from somewhere far away in whatever drunken fog she was lost in. She almost fell over as she set the bottle in the middle of the circle. “Alright, now, let's pick our first contestant!” was her drunken call to order. She put a hand above her eyes like a sailor looking for land as she scanned the assembly. “Let's seeee, who looks like they're trying their very hardest not to be noticed...”

“She's going to pick me, isn't she?” realized Caitlin.

“I chooooose CAITLIIIIIIIIIIN!” announced Lindsey, pointing at her.

Caitlin moaned and turned slightly red. She thought about turning and running, but once everyone started chanting at her to 'do it, do it,' she decided if it was her duty to break the ice, so be it. She reluctantly crawled out to the center of the circle, put her hand on the bottle, and gave it a twirl.

The guys watched its revolution closely. Caitlin was not the sort of person they usually saw doing stuff like this at parties, and it was well known she and Marcus had just broken up. The game was just starting but the stakes were high right out of the gate.

The bottle gradually slowed and stopped, rolling slightly to one side as it did. It was pointing at Marcus.

“BOOOOOOOOOOO,” booed all the guys, disappointed with this stale outcome. Marcus looked just as unhappy as they did.

“Oh, what a shocker! What drama! The room's reaction says it all, as Caitlin ends up with her ex!” commentated Lindsey, ever the showman. “Shall an old flame be rekindled on this night?! In seven minutes, we'll all know the answer!”

“You're loving this, aren't you?” asked Caitlin. “Can't I please just spin again?”

“Yeah, can't she?” asked Marcus uncomfortably.

Lindsey shook her head. “Sorry, you two lovebirds! I'll take this opportunity to remind the room that in this game, there are no re-spins!”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. Marcus remained sitting as long as he could, wanting to believe she'd somehow get them both out of this, but when it became clear it wasn't going to happen, he got up and warily followed Caitlin into the closet.

The door closed, and Lindsey started a timer on her phone. Immediately the circle became alive with hushed chatter, gossip, and speculation. Chase wasn't sitting near anyone she knew very well, so she just sat there silently, taking in this new, odd experience.

There were a lot of cheerleaders in the circle. Sitting almost directly across from Chase was Melissa C. They made eye contact, and Melissa C. gave Chase a small wave. Victoria was also there, chatting with Brittany, acting her usual confident self. Beneath that veneer, even she seemed nervous, though, and not just because she was constantly casting worried glances at...

The fake Alicia. She was also in the circle, acting somewhat bemused and above the whole thing, but participating nonetheless.

Who was she? What was she here for? This strange ritual had distracted Chase, but now she was reminded of this phony's threat.

However, she didn't want to get up and just go after her. She didn't want to ruin Lindsey's game, for one thing, and for another, she had no real proof that the girl wasn't the real Alicia. If she just attacked this girl or accused her out of nowhere, her classmates would completely misunderstand the situation. They didn't have her nose, her awareness, her hunter's perception of fine details. No, if she wanted to confront her, she'd have to wait until she had the chance to do it discreetly.

For the first couple minutes, things seemed to be going pretty well in heaven, and the circle's collective imagination was alive with all the unspeakable things the exes were probably rekindling in there. Who knew what kind of savage, fiery make-up makeout they had underway?

These fantasies dissipated once Caitlin and Marcus started screaming at each other.

At around the three-minute mark, some heated voices became audible behind the closet door. They started fairly hushed, (“I don't know what you want me to say,”) and quickly ramped up into an impassioned shouting match (“I'M BEING IMMATURE? ME?! OH, THAT IS RICH!”).

“Uh...” said Lindsey delicately, putting on a cheery tone for her contestants. She knocked on the door. “Don't forget you two, this is supposed to be fu-unnn...!”

“See?! There you go, you're ruining Lindsey's game!”

“Really? You're giving ME credit for something?! I didn't think you knew how!”

This bickering went back and forth for a little longer, until all joy was thoroughly sucked out of the room and replaced with an uncomfortable, painful silence. Only when this was achieved did the door fly open, Marcus and Caitlin storming out. Lindsey decided not to enforce the seven-minute rule.

At first, the furious-looking, clenched-teeth Caitlin looked like she was going to unceremoniously abandon the game and head for the backyard, but that was where Marcus went, so she just sat back down next to Chase.

“A-Alriiiiiiight!” cheered Lindsey, an edge of desperation to her enthusiasm. “Wasn't that fun, everybody? And we're, uh, just getting warmed up!”

Chase instinctively put a comforting hand on Caitlin's upper back. The brunette was absolutely fuming. “You okay?” asked Chase, concerned. “Hear much yell of mad Cait.”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” said Caitlin. She eyed the cup in Chase's hand. “May I?” Chase handed it over, and Caitlin took a big gulp. She coughed at the taste.

If Caitlin's job was to break the ice, she should have been fired with no severance package. All she and Marcus had done was add another foot-thick layer. People were anxiously excited to go in the closet before, but now they seemed just anxious. A few looked like they were getting ready to leave, and the whole room had a tense, uneasy ambiance.

Lindsey wasn't going to just let things end this way, though. “Okay! Listen up, everybody! ORDINARILY, Marcus, being the person Caitlin landed on, would get to choose who spins next, but since he took off, I shall do the honors!”

She made the best strategic use of this opportunity she could, picking out one of the most eligible, gossiped-about guys in the room, a cute guy from the soccer team. Her reasoning was that if he were spinning the girls would stick around, and if they stuck around then the rest of the guys would stick around. This wasn't her first rodeo.

He landed on a girl on the school paper. Their turn seemed to go well, both emerging from the closet a bit flushed. From there, despite the bumpy beginning, the game got its momentum back.

Even though it was a simple game on the surface, Chase soon discovered from listening to and observing the people around her that the real fun came from speculating about what had gone on in the closet solely from the way the participants looked as they returned to the circle. After a few spins, she felt she had a good handle on it. When Victoria and Lacrosse Captain Hugh's seven minutes were up, Chase could tell by the somewhat hurried, crumpled fit of his shirt that it had come off for some reason, probably because he'd gotten hot. Then, when Lindsey and Wide Receiver Randy came out, Lindsey was discreetly wiping her mouth, which could only mean they'd found some kind of snacks in there.

Melissa C. got paired off with the class clown, the guy who wore the costume of Sunnycrest's mascot, Simon the Saguaro. She was a good sport about it. They went in, came out, and as they returned to their seats, she blew him a little kiss, which got a laugh from the group. Kirk ended up going to heaven with a girl on the tennis team, but she came out looking sort of disappointed. Apparently, he was in the same boat as Chase about there only being one person he wanted to kiss.

The fake Alicia, of course, was completely unconcerned about him going in, which Chase thought should arouse people's suspicions, but it did not. It would never occur to them to suspect Alicia of being a fake. The idea would seem so absurd that any other explanation for her erratic behavior would be more plausible to them. She could do anything and act any way she wanted and they would just write it off as Alicia being drunk or in a funny mood, until Chase somehow showed them exactly what they were dealing with.

As the game went on, the heavengoers seemed to grow more and more open and comfortable with what the game demanded of them. At the beginning of the game, there were a lot of people who couldn't wait to burst out of the closet as soon as their awkward seven minutes were up, but now there were plenty of people who Lindsey had to get stern with in order to keep things moving. By the time Danielle's and Foreign Exchange Student Mateo's seven minutes in heaven were up, it was more like nine-and-a-half minutes in heaven. As she took her seat on Chase's right, opposite Caitlin, she cheerfully tagged Chase on the shoulder. “You're up next, Chase!”

“Am next?” wondered Chase. She looked at the bottle. “Oh! Dan pick me to spin!”

“WOO! GO CHASE! YEAH!” shouted Caitlin. She'd never been truly drunk before, but over the course of the game she had achieved a level of drunkenness sufficient to scrub her encounter with Marcus from her mind. On her first try, no less.

The reaction from the circle was very positive. Not just the cheerleaders, but the other girls and the guys as well rooted for her. Chase had the impression everybody had been secretly wondering when she would get a turn.

A bit nervous, suddenly thinking of Torey, she crawled out into the middle of the circle and spun the bottle. She followed its mouth with her eyes as it flitted from face to face, until it came to rest on one she knew very well, except it was being worn by someone else.

“What, seriously?” asked O'Connell with a laugh. Indeed, it was so. The bottle was pointing directly at her.

This got another big, positive reaction. The other thing everyone was waiting for, naturally, was for someone to spin their own gender.

“Booo!” criticized a guy. “That's even worse than Caitlin landing on her ex! They're friends, they're just gonna sit in there and talk for seven minutes!”

“Re-spin! Re-spin!” concurred another guy.

“I said no re-spins and I meant it!” said Lindsey. “If Chase gets off easy, thems the breaks!”

O'Connell smiled convincingly. “Aw, c'mon, let her. I'm sure Chase doesn't want to waste her spin just hanging out with me. She can do that any time. She's been waiting forever for a turn.”

Lindsey thought about this. “Wellll...” She looked at Chase. “Is that true, Chase? You wanna spin again?”

But Chase realized this was her chance. “It fine, Leash. Want go in clothes room with you!”

Another entertained reaction from the circle. O'Connell gauged Chase for a moment, as if suspecting something, but then smiled for the room. “Well, if you're sure, Chase...then it'd be my pleasure!”