So, due to the fact that it would be less interesting otherwise, Eli decided not to tell any of the other guys my answers, just so that they could waste their most-likely repeating questions. Eli and I talked any chance we got. Not to mention him and Jasmine...They had chemistry and Jasmine couldn't wait to go out with him on Saturday. If I knew Eli had a thing for her, I would've told her at our hang out last night.

Speaking of going out, Thursday I went out with 'Their-Friend' who was formally known as Mason Russell. He seemed weird to me. Not to mention that he hung around Jerk-face more than Eli and Stare-guy. Therefore my Alicia-façade of the night was some hyperactive nerd who wanted to stress him out. Let's just say, I had to do some research prior to the engagement...

We just went to some empty field and talked. It was a successful night for me though. Even though I was just about bored with myself after I answered a question with the hugest run-on sentences:

"What's your favorite color?" Mason hesitantly asked.

"Well I don't really know, I mean there's a lot of colors...and shades...and contrasts...and names, and did you know most people's favorite color is associated with their main feelings or memories, because that's how our mind works—anyways, I think I'll have to choose white since it reminds me of all the colors because light is white and when light bounces off at a certain angle of something white or clear, it'll make MORE colors and you can never have too many colors because colors remind me of feelings and memories and who wouldn't want to remember everything? I mean, that's life right? So yeah, I'll go with clear and/or white...even though it's not really a definite color and—"

"I get it!" Mason interrupted in a roar as he covered his ears with the palms of his hands.

I had laughed on the inside as I realized that I had driven him to insanity. And with all of my paragraph-long answers, he had to cut our hang-out time short since he was called to do something. So I just walked home, laughing at my success.

But now it was Friday. I was happy and pissed all at the same time. I was happy that I managed school for a week, but pissed that I'd have to go out with stupid Jerk-face tonight. Just to personally contradict him, I would be a goody-two-shoes, optimistic and peppy Alicia tonight.

"Really?" was his first question of the night when he pulled up to me at the school in his black sports car.

"Whatever do you mean?" I asked him innocently, as I hopped into his car. He gestured to my body. I giggled. I had worn a colorful shirt with some skinny jeans tucked into a pair of bright pink, knee-high Converse that belonged to Jasmine, not me.

"Whatever," he shook his head and drove off.

He. Took. Me. To. A. Club.

"Why here?" I asked once we arrived.

"I believe that you can tell all about a girl by how they dance," he shrugged. "Nice first question by the way, Alicia."

I looked away, containing any insults. Optimistic, Alicia. Optimistic, I tried to convince myself. Oh lord, this was gonna be a long night. We entered the neon-lit club that was flooded with music and people.

"This way," he said with a hand on the side of my waist. I stopped in my tracks and removed his hand as fast as I could. I continued to walk to the table he led me to.

"What—" before I even got to ask my second question, he pulled the ponytail out of my hair, set down my small backpack that I used as a purse, and then pulled me to the dance floor. I stood there, weirdly.

"Come on," he said as he danced in small movements.

"Come on what?" I asked. He held up the number two. Meaning that was my second question. Ugh. I refrained from rolling my eyes.

"Well I don't expect to dance alone," he revealed. I still stood still as bodies danced around me on the checkered dance floor that lit up in various places. I looked to Jerk-face as he glanced at other dancing girls. I then turned and headed to the table we were just at.

"Hey," he called, grabbing me and spinning me around. "You can't bail on me."

"No one said I was," I glared up at him. His eyes softened, but not enough for my liking.

"Then what's your problem?" he asked, angrily.

"I'm not dancing with you until you answer five more questions," I decided, crossing my arms.

"Five more..." he whined. "You did not seriously leave the dance floor for questions, did you?"

"Too bad. I did," I smiled, evilly. I turned to sit in the table. I patted in the seat next to me as he stood there, confused.

"Just ask your damn questions," he grumbled as his hair covered his eyes.

"What's your name?" I asked. Although Eli spared me some questions, he didn't tell me anyone else's name but his.

"Wes," he answered, looking away from me as he drank something out of the shot glass that was on our table. I just looked at him. I studied his face and associated it with his name. I hated to admit that he was an attractive boy, but why would I try to lie to myself? He was just a beautiful idiot. "Take a picture; it lasts longer. Unless you have a problem with looking away from me, is that it?"

"No. But obviously your problem is wasting questions. You're at three," I informed with narrowed eyes and a sarcastic smile.

"So are you," he replied as my smile dropped. "Carry on..."

"Why do you have to be a jerk to me?" I asked. I really wanted to know his answer. He got close to me before he answered.

"It's not just you. It's you and pretty much everyone else I don't like," he muttered in my ear. To be honest, that kind of hurt for some reason. "Did you expect me to be some nice, suck-up like Eli?"

That made me mad.

"No. I have nothing to expect from you, but your ability to piss me off," I replied, honestly. Tell me: were you born a dick, or do you act like that because it's what controls you?"

"Babe, please. If you wanna talk about dicks, I rather do it at home," he answered with a smirk.

"Why? Because then you have that privacy to tell me that your dick is an inch and no more?" I dissed. Any chance of me being an optimistic group member tonight was ruined the second I sat down in his car and now things were personal. His smirk dropped.

"What makes you think that just because all of your boyfriends' dicks were that size, that mine is?" he asked. My jaw clenched and he noticed it as his ever-so-un-welcomed smirk appeared on his face again. "Oh wait. You don't have a boyfriend, do you?"

I didn't answer him.

"You know what? It doesn't surprise me," he said as he stood up. "Because who in their right mind would ever want to get with you? Let alone go that far with you."

"When I met you, I knew what a real dick was before anyone even had to drop their pants for me," I retorted. He didn't crack.

"Oh, ouch, was that supposed to hurt?" he replied as I was mad and hurt. "Did you ever just think that I'm a jerk to you, just so I'll see how you'll respond? Huh? Because there's no other reason I'd ever mess with you out of pure interest. You're nothing to me. Ever wondered why you only have one friend? You're nothing to everybody."

That's it. I punched his jaw, but my hand hurt in return. It tingled as I stormed off into the night as I walked home. I hated Wes with every fiber of my being. Not only that, but now my hand felt like I shattered every bone in it. Damn, I could've sworn I had a good punch on him.

"Alicia?" a voice asked in the dark as I walked home with my backpack on my back and arms crossed as the wind blew. I looked up to see Stare-guy carrying a medium sized box under his arm as he walked along the streets past the park. "Alicia, what's wrong?"

I don't know why, but I quickly walked over to him and hugged him around his waist, causing him to drop the box so that his muscled arms could tighten around my shoulders. I felt the same warmth that Eli had. I didn't know why I thought I'd find comfort within someone so foreign to me, but it pulled me in like a magnet and felt familiar.

"Alicia, what's wrong? Where's Wes?" he asked me in a whisper. Just hearing my name was transforming my sadness back into anger that would soon be misplaced. With my good hand, I pushed Stare-guy off of me and he looked at me with a questioning look. "What did I do?"

"This is your fault!" I accused.

"What is?" he asked. I noticed that he had slight dimples on either side of his cheeks that concaved as he nearly shouted.

"Making me go out with each of you alone—like I needed to be out with Wes!" I answered. And then his eyes softened as he looked to me, but then hardened as he looked away with a clenched jaw.

"What did he do?" he growled.

"Gee, I don't know, what would other jerks in this world do?!" I yelled. I shook my head and continued to walk home. Then, he grabbed around my right hand and pain shot through it as I pulled away from him.

"I'm sorry," he immediately said to me as I turned up to glare at him and cradled my hand to my chest.

"You don't even know what you're sorry for."

"I'm sorry for suggesting you to go out with all of us...especially with someone like Wes," he mumbled. "And I'm sorry for hurting your wrist."

"My hand isn't your fault," I notified as I looked away from him.

"Then whose is it?" he asked, closer to me than I realized. He looked down to me and I still looked away. I didn't answer him. "It was Wes, wasn't it? What did he do?"

"I never said that," I stated.

"I know it's true, so why don't you just say he did it?" Stare-guy said down to me. I flashed my eyes up to him in silence and slight annoyance. "If he did something, tell me—"

"Why does it matter?" I asked, looking up at him. Originally, I rushed over to him as if he was some familiar beacon of comfort and protection, but now, I was shutting down.

"You getting hurt matters," he whispered.

"I don't see how," I replied, honestly. I wasn't stupid enough to put my safety on the backburner, but why did he care? Despite that uneasy feeling of attraction to him for some reason, I didn't know why it would matter to him. We didn't know each other.

"You should," I think I heard him whisper, but my phone vibrated so I reached my left hand to my right pocket to answer Zoey's text. Without a goodbye, I turned to walk home.

"That's it? I can't give you a ride or walk home or help you with your hand?" Stare-guy called after me. "You didn't even tell me what Wes did—!"

"After the shit that's happened tonight, you and all your friends have done enough," I assured as I kept walking. A tear slid down my face from both eyes and then eventually my tears hit my pillow when I finally returned home, only to skip greeting my family. I just wanted to go to sleep.