Ashley and Grace had gathered in the school lobby on Monday morning when Ashley first noticed something was off with Grace. Ashley hesitated to ask Grace if something was bothering her because she knew that Grace was overly sensitive when it came to personal matters. Jesse strolled into the building with Katie on his arm. They smiled and waved to Ashley and Grace before they continued walking.

Ashley noticed Grace's eyes drop and her expression become blank as soon as Jesse and Katie passed by. She finally spoke up to ask Grace, "What was that?" A thought crossed Ashley's mind, but she wiped it away in hopes that her assumptions would be wrong. She liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, despite that fact that her intuition was almost never wrong.

"What was what?" Grace asked, honestly confused by Ashley's question. Grace hadn't intentionally reacted to anything, and didn't understand why Ashley's interest was peaked.

"That smile. That was a fake smile." Ashley narrowed her eyes at Grace, and stared at her with a pointed look. Grace broke eye contact with her and pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, avoiding eye contact. "Grace," Ashley placed a hand on Grace's arm, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Grace's voice was barely a whisper. She coughed and increased her volume, "I have to get to class." She shook her head and left Ashley without saying another word.

"Well that was weird." Ashley muttered aloud. Ashley spent the rest of her day worrying about Grace and what had gotten to her. Ashley texted Katie, asking her to talk to Grace and find out what was up.

Katie agreed to Ashley's request and pulled Grace aside after the last bell of the day rang. "What is your-" Grace cut herself off when she saw Katie standing there. "Oh, hi Katie." Grace forced a smile on her face.

"Hey, are you busy right now?" Katie asked.

"Actually I am. I have to get home and finish my homework before my parents get home from work."

"Okay." Katie's eyebrows furrowed in disbelief of Grace's excuse. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." Grace nodded and disappeared into the crowd of students, leaving Katie waiting alone.

"Hey babe!" Jesse smiled as he swung his arm around Katie's shoulder. "Ready to go?" Katie nodded and Jesse gave her a look. "You okay, babe? You look a little weird."

Katie looked up at Jesse and thought for a moment. "Have you talked to Grace recently?"

Jesse thought about it and then shook his head. "I haven't really said much to her in like a week. Why do you ask?"

Katie shrugged. "She just seems off. I was just wondering if you heard anything."

Jesse shook his head again, unconcerned. "Nope. So, are you ready?" Katie half smiled at Jesse and nodded. Jesse drove her home, and kissed her goodbye just like any other day. "I'll call you later," he called out of the window before speeding away.

Katie waved goodbye to her boyfriend as she felt her phone buzz. She looked down to see an incoming call from Ashley, so she swiped her phone to answer the call. "Did you talk to her?" Ashley immediately asked, not even giving Katie a chance to say 'hello.'

"Yes I did, Ash. And I agree that Grace is acting slightly weird, but she's probably fine." Katie shrugged to herself as she walked through her front door, and dropped her bag as she closed the door behind her.

"I don't know, Katie. She's never out of it like this." Ashley's voice was full of concern. She cared about her friends. She didn't want any of them to be unhappy or feel like they couldn't be honest about how they felt.

"It'll probably go away soon enough. I know you care about her, but maybe she just needs her space for a day or two." Katie collapsed on her couch and tossed her keys onto her coffee table.

"You're probably right." Ashley admitted. She sighed, and then said goodbye and hung up on Katie.

Katie was about to set her phone down when it began to buzz again. Katie answered without looking at the caller I.D., assuming it was Ashley again. "Ashley, you just said that-"

"Whoa, babe. It's not Ashley."

Katie sat up after hearing Jesse's voice interrupt her. "Jesse? You literally just dropped me off. What's wrong?"

"What, a guy can't miss his girlfriend?"

Katie rolled her eyes at him. "What's wrong, Jesse?" She repeated, more sternly the second time.

"Did you have plans tonight? I thought we could do something."

"Why?" Katie heard how callous she sounded and quickly corrected herself, "It's just, why tonight? Don't you have like family bonding night on Mondays?"

"I don't think we're going to have it tonight."

"Then um yeah, sure."

"You don't sound like you really want me to. I don't want to bother you. I just thought that it's been awhile since we've spent time together." Katie could nearly hear Jesse pouting through the phone.

Katie felt involuntarily sighed, and felt herself just wanting to be alone tonight. "I'll see you tonight." Although she didn't have any desire to see her own boyfriend, she felt obligated to say yes to him. Katie knew that she was allowed to say no to Jesse, but she also felt guilty since she hadn't been actively seeking to spend time with him lately.

Katie pulled herself off of the couch and dragged her bag upstairs to her room. She forced herself to at least attempt to complete her homework before Jesse showed up later. A couple of hours passed without Katie noticing that Jesse had texted her. When she finally saw the message, she groaned, reading it aloud, "Hey babe, family night is back on. Rain check?" She started to text him back when she became aggravated and tossed her phone aside.

As if he had felt a disturbance in the force, Jesse called Katie. She took a moment to gather herself before plastering her best fake smile on her face and answering the phone, "Hello?"

"Hey babe, did you happen to get my message?" Jesse asked innocently. He hadn't noticed the tone that Katie had in her voice.

Katie paused and inhaled slowly. "Yes."

"I'm sorry for the mix up. Apparently my sister got the day wrong for her club meeting or something so she thought she couldn't make it tonight but now she can so my parents are adamant that we all-"

"Jesse," Katie said quickly, "you wanted to come over tonight. You can't just cancel on me. I already told my mom you were coming over so now she's headed to her boyfriend's house after she's done with work."

"Sorry Katie, I don't know what to tell you. I can't just leave now. And you know I'd love for you to join us, but I think pops is having a bad day and I don't want him taking out his moodiness when you're around him." Jesse waited for Katie to respond, but she didn't say anything. "Well, I got to go. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning. I love y-" Katie hung up on him without saying another word. Katie dove onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow to release a muffled scream.

"Boyfriend troubles?" An unexpected voice startled Katie. She looked around and saw that her window was half open and Dana was the one speaking to her from across the street. Dana hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but Katie's raised voice had echoed across the street, and Dana couldn't help but overhear part of the conversation.

Katie pulled her window open all the way and leaned on the windowsill. "I'm fine. Don't mind me."

"Katie," Dana's eyebrow rose, "I speak girl. I know that 'I'm fine' means nothing is and 'don't mind me' means there's some venting that needs to go down."

"It's not totally Jesse," Katie admitted.

"You want to go for a ride?" Dana found herself blatantly asking. "I was just about to leave."

Katie debated with herself for a second before smiling. "That sounds great. I'll be down in a second." Katie closed her window, grabbed her phone and keys and ran out the door. She texted her mom her change of plans, and hopped into the passenger seat of Dana's car. After her small argument with Jesse, Katie suddenly didn't want to be alone tonight. She needed to leave the house and spend time with someone. She needed to blow off steam because she didn't like wasting all her energy on negative emotions towards her own boyfriend. "Where are we going?" Katie asked Dana once they were already pulling out of the driveway.

Dana shrugged in response, "Anywhere." Katie smiled at the idea. "To be honest, I'm surprised you said yes."

"To be honest, I'm surprised you offered."

"Touché." Dana smiled slightly. "So, what's wrong?"

"I don't know." Katie answered honestly and glanced out of the window. "Things are just starting to get into a certain kind of routine, and apparently no one is liking it."

"What do you mean?"

Katie shrugged and looked back at Dana who was focused on the road. "I don't know. There's something going on with Grace, and she's usually the laid back one. Then there's me and Jesse and..." Katie trailed off.

"And...?" Dana searched for the end of Katie's sentence.

"You don't want to hear about my boring problems. So what about you?" Dana quickly glanced at Katie with a confused look on her face. "You're obviously taking a pointless drive for a reason. What's the reason?"

Dana hesitated to answer. "Eddie." She finally spoke up. "He's – Well we have both acting a little weird lately. Any more time with him today and it would've been ugly so I left."

"Do you do that often?" Katie absentmindedly asked.

"Sometimes." Dana admitted. "I usually end up in the same place though."

"Where?" Dana only smirked in response to Katie's question. That only caused Katie to lightly hit Dana's arm to teasingly scold her. "Hey, no secrets tonight. Where's your secret hiding place?"

Dana's smirk morphed into a small grin as she ignored Katie's question. "You'll see," she finally answered. Dana drove for about a half an hour on the highway before pulling off to a side street. She drove through a small, old town then found a dirt path and followed it up a small mountain. Dana parked and got out of the car with Katie following her lead. "Here." Dana looked at Katie and smiled, "I go here."

"This place is amazing!" Katie was in awe by what she saw. She and Dana were standing on a small overlook on the edge of the small mountain, staring down at the rest of the world.

"It's quiet up here." Dana pointed out. She slid onto the hood of her car effortlessly. "There's no one around to bug you or interrupt your thoughts. It's nice."

Katie noticed Dana and climbed onto the hood of the car as well, mirroring her position. "You can see that whole town, but it's like the world is on mute. How did you find this place?"

"I used to come here a lot before we moved. If you keep going that way," Dana leaned closer to Katie, reaching across her to point past the town below them, "you'll make it to where I'm from in about another half an hour."

"Really?" Dana nodded at Katie's question. Katie stared excitedly at the view, only turning back to Dana to say, "So you're telling me that this place was halfway in between us our whole lives..." she trailed off, losing her train of thought. Katie inhaled sharply, finally taking in the fact that Dana was so close to her. Neither one of them dared to move, and Dana's lips parted slowly, causing Katie's breathing to shallow.

Dana began to speak, and Katie had to force herself to tune back in and remember what she had been attempting to say in order to understand Dana's response, "And you never even knew."