{{Dedicated to @frailflowers, because she left a really sweet comment that made me smile}}

It was getting dark outside; the night was fast approaching, bringing with it a chilly breeze. Rhea sat next to Floyd on the couch she'd slapped him across the cheek not long ago. She'd been cautious to put a reasonable distance between them when they'd first sat down. She mentally gave herself a pat on the back for managing to be back here in such a short period of time, especially when the images from that night were still seared inside her brain.

"I'm glad you agreed to come," Floyd said, angling his body to face her completely.

"Me too." Rhea forced out a smile, but the undeniably heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach grew by the second.

"Will you come to my room for a second? I have something to show you."

"Floyd, I don't... I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Come on, we will just be a minute."

She let out a weary, inaudible sigh but followed him out of the living room nonetheless. They passed a narrow, short corridor and came to a halt in front of the door at the end of it.

He opened the door to what had to be his bedroom and within the two seconds that went by before the flicking of the light switch, Rhea noticed a phosphorous glow to the room.

Tilting her head up, she noticed... glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling that had lost their power to illuminate the room once the light had been turned on.

Before she had a chance to ponder what that meant, she was pulled into a solid form.

"What the hell?" she shrieked.

She tried to push him away, but it was as if she'd lost control of her limbs, because no matter how hard she tried to push him away, he just wouldn't budge. It was happening all over again and this time she was powerless to do anything about it. The desperation grew within her as seconds passed and her body remained in close contact with Floyd's. He wrapped his arms around her body in a way that would limit the movements of her own arms, decreasing her change to fight back even more.

"C'mon, I'll be good to you," Floyd breathed against the exposed skin of her neck that was already coated with a sheen of sweat from all the struggling and she felt her skin crawl.

This wasn't happening.

This. Was. Not. Happening.

***

Rhea woke up, tangled up in her sheets from all the thrashing she'd done. Her chest was heaving and her heart was beating erratically against her ribcage. A sob lodged itself in her throat as she sat up in the darkness. She tried to shake the dream off, but it was an impossible feat.

It had been an entire week since the incident, as she and Willa often referred to it around Wade, who remained blissfully ignorant about the details of it. It was for the best, really; all he'd known was that Floyd had somehow upset Rhea, causing her to skip school and he'd tried to punch his face in so Rhea didn't want to think about how he'd react if he knew the whole story.

Even though Rhea was a month older than Wade, he always treated her like the little sister he'd never had, and while it was good to know someone had your back no matter what, it could get suffocating to be babied all the time.

It had been an entire week since the incident, the details of which were only known to a select few. Caleb, for sure, was among those who were oblivious to them, as was Wade.

It had been an entire week since the incident, and Rhea still had a hard time coping with it. Even though she'd told Floyd she'd try being friends with him, it was still hard for her to even look at him, let alone talk to him. Their interactions at school were limited to awkward nods when they passed each other by on the hallways. He approached her a few times, but Rhea's answers were always short, clipped and designed to let her get the hell out of having that conversation as soon as she could. Eating lunch together was a no-go until Rhea could make sure she'd be able to maintain her appetite while sitting next to Floyd.

On Tuesday, the day after her confrontation with Floyd, Caleb had casually plopped down on the seat next to her at lunch. Upon the questioning look in her eyes he'd simply said, "I couldn't let you third-wheel on your own, it was way too heart breaking to watch," though she could tell from the look in his eyes that he'd realized she had a problem and that her problem was Floyd-related.

Rhea had figured out a while ago that Caleb had a tendency to try and take of others around her, and she welcomed it. Being the odd one out at their table -even though her friends tried their damnedest to make sure she didn't feel that way-was way harder these days, now that she knew what it felt like to have someone sat beside her just like Willa had Wade. And while Caleb wasn't next to her in the exact same sense, it felt good to have the moral support.

She was having a hard time coping with the whole thing in so many different ways, yes; however, nightmares were taking it to a whole new level. Her subconscious was acting up in ways she didn't need it to. Her days were plagued as they were, if she couldn't have a little bit of peace as she slept, she felt she might just go crazy.

Her mind was still going a mile a minute because of the intensity of the dream, her hair was a tangled mess atop her head, and she was sure her skin was flushed crimson.

She let out a long sigh and blindly reached for her phone to check the time. It was two thirty in the morning, meaning she'd only fallen asleep a couple hours ago. Usually after such a nightmare, her knee-jerk reaction was to wake her father up and talk to him until she'd calmed down enough to go back to sleep. But she knew her father had an important meeting at work tomorrow morning and she didn't want him to lose sleep when she didn't even know if she could talk to her father about what happened.

Still, she needed something to take her mind off the nightmare.

Without thinking too much about what she was about to do, she tapped in her password to unlock her phone, went through her contacts for a couple seconds and tapped on the one person she knew she wouldn't be rousing from sleep at such an ungodly hour.

He picked up after the second ring.

"Hey Caleb," she said tiredly.

"Hey, is everything okay?" His tone was etched with worry, and she could almost see the small crease between his brows that made an appearance whenever he was concerned or deep in thought. Yes, she'd taken to noticing the smaller details about him during the past week.

"Yeah, everything is fine. I... had a nightmare and I didn't know who else I could talk to. Because, you know, normal people are asleep at this hour."

"Well I'm sorry my dad left and I had to provide for my family."

Rhea let out a horrified gasp at his words. "Oh my God, Caleb, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..."

Caleb boomed out a laugh. "S'okay, I'm just messing with you."

"You're mean," Rhea whined. "Anyway, could you, perhaps, talk me to sleep?"

"Talk you to sleep?"

"Yeah, my dad used to do it when I was little. But he's got an important meeting tomorrow morning so I didn't want to bother him. I thought you might have a little free time at the supermarket. That is, unless people are preparing for a zombie apocalypse or whatever. In that case, they'll need a lot of supplies and you might be busy..."

"Rhea," Caleb interrupted. "If you keep going at this rate, you're going to talk me to sleep."

"Oh, sorry." She grinned sheepishly in the darkness, finally relaxing enough to fall onto her back and comfortably wrap herself in her comforter. "So, tell me a story."

"Okay... what do I... okay." He inhaled a deep breath. "Once upon a time-"

"Seriously?" Her tone was incredulous; she hadn't expected him to go into full on story- telling mode.

"Tsk tsk, please don't interrupt."

"Fine," she muttered sullenly.

"As I was saying, once upon a time, there was a young, beautiful woman who lived on a farm. She liked to order around the resident stable boy, but the stable boy never complained. Over time, they fell in love. They decided to get married, but before they could do that, the stable boy needed to earn some money. As he was working overseas, the young woman received news that his ship was attacked by a vicious pirate captain who took no prisoners. She was devastated by the news..."

"Hold on," Rhea cut him off, "is this the plot of The Princess Bride?"

"Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't notice." He chuckled.

"It's one of my all-time favorite movies."

"Yeah? Caroline loves it too. I'm pretty sure I can recite it from memory, we watched it so many times."

"That's cute. Now tell me a real story," she demanded.

"Yes ma'am," he replied, then he launched into a lengthy story about the one time he had lost a bet to Xander and had to walk up to a brawny, tatted guy and ask for his number Rhea couldn't stay awake to hear the end of.

***

The next day, Rhea had a particularly hard time getting herself out of bed. That's how it always had been with her, once her night's sleep was interrupted, she'd surely suffer for it the following morning even if she'd woken up just to use the bathroom real quick. To make the whole thing worse, it was a Monday morning. Oh, the joys of being an overworked high school student.

Anything from getting out of bed to getting ready to getting herself to school was a feat. She and Willa miraculously ended up arriving ten minutes earlier than they usually did so they put the time to use by idly standing around their lockers and chatting.

Five minutes before the bell, Caleb walked through the doors, looking as tired as he always did. When he spotted Rhea -who was already looking at him-, he gave her a smile and approached the two of them.

"Hey Willa," he gave her a nod. "Hey Rhea, how was the rest of your night?"

"Hey." She grinned at him. "I slept like a baby, thank you."

"Glad to hear it. I'll see you in class." He tugged a little at the straps of his backpack before he gave her a toothy smile and turned to leave.

"How about at lunch?" she called after him.

He turned around and continued to walk backwards as he replied, "Alright, I'll see you at lunch."

"What did he mean 'rest of your night'?" Willa inquired once Caleb had rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight. "What are you doing, Rhea? I thought you said he had a girlfriend."

"I had a nightmare last night so I called him. And I invited him to have lunch with us. He has had lunch with us before, y'know. It's not like I'm trying to seduce him or something." She was growing irritated by the second, and it had little to do with her best friend and a whole lot to do with this frustrating predicament she'd found herself in.

"You know there is no way this is going to end well," Willa said with a cautious tone.

"Look, I know, okay?" She let out a defeated sigh. "I know that he has a girlfriend. But he is my soulmate. You know what that means. It's going to be over between them sooner or later. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to play a part in that, because I'll hate myself if I do. But the idea that I have to wait it out is just... it's been bugging me so much."

"Sweetie, it sucks. I wish I had some kickass advice for you right now, but you're right. You do have to wait it out, because you can't build a relationship over the ruins of another. Not one that'll last anyway."

"Why am I stuck with something so complicated?" she whined. "My parents had it so easy. They knew they were it for each other from the start."

"Now where's the fun in that?" Willa grinned at her and she couldn't help but grin back at her.

When the bell rang, she let out an inaudible sigh, feeling defeated yet again, just like she felt whenever she thought about the situation she was in. It was just like quicksand, if she tried to struggle, she'd, without a doubt, sink further.

***

Lunch was... interesting to say the very least. The conversation flowed quite naturally, though she received looks from Willa whenever she and Caleb laughed over an inside joke they had or she playfully nudged him with her elbow. But that wasn't the most interesting part of lunch. No, the most interesting part of lunch was the way she kept making awkward eye contact with Floyd every couple minutes, who sat a couple tables away from them. He watched their table with a sullen look on his face.

She could tell by the way his sad looks morphed into glares whenever they were directed at Caleb that Caleb replacing him at the table bothered him. That was the thing though, Caleb hadn't replaced him; he was just trying to fill the shoes for Rhea's sake. If Floyd hadn't pulled the shit he had, she'd probably be sat next to him oblivious of certain facts, laughing at his jokes and looking at him with adoration in her eyes.

After lunch, Caleb offered to walk to Chemistry together, which she gladly accepted. This way, she could be certain she wouldn't be approached by Floyd. Plus, she'd come to enjoy Caleb's company more and more over the past days and she'd take whatever of it she could get.

Caleb cleared his throat once before he spoke, "Hey, I was wondering... uh, my friends and I have this Halloween thing every year."

"Like a party?"

"More like a get-together. It'd be cool if you came, you could meet Yasmine, Xander and everyone else." He looked at her with a hopeful expression on his face. It was obvious he genuinely wanted her to meet his friends, which she should have thought to be flattering, but she just couldn't think like that. His girlfriend would be there for Pete's sake.

"Halloween isn't for another three weeks." There, that would buy her some time while she tried to figure a way to get out of going.

"I know, neither is the get-together. I didn't want to spring it on you last minute."

They entered Mr. Martin's classroom, making their way to their usual seat. Rhea busied herself with setting her stuff down to put off replying.

"When exactly is this get-together of yours?" she asked finally.

"The Saturday before Halloween. Will you come?" She hadn't thought she'd yes, but the expression on his face did her in.

"Yeah, I think I can make that happen."

"Great." He gave her smile.

Great's one way to put it, Rhea thought to herself. She'd meet the girlfriend when she couldn't wait for her to disappear off the face of the earth.

***