The last time Briar was this quiet, I learned that it was because she didn't get enough sleep. This time, it seemed like more than that.

There were obvious signs of exhaustion from the dark circles under her eyes or the fact that she didn't pay much attention in class. She didn't talk and didn't offer any answers like she usually did.

I look at her when the class shifts into free time work. She doesn't notice me at all at first, she just taps the eraser of her pencil on her notebook.

She's thinking really hard about something. I know that not only from the faraway look in her eyes but because she's tugging on the underside of her hair and slowly running her fingers through the strands.

She does that a lot when she's working. She's not working now, so something else was knocking her nerves.

"Bear," I finally try. She blinks as if she were waking from a trance. Her eyes find mine and she lifts her brows in question. "Hm?"

"You sleep okay last night?"

She looked even more tired from my question alone. "I've had better nights." She offers me a small smile. "You?"

I shake my head at her. "This isn't small talk. Why didn't you sleep?"

Something sparks in her attitude. "You know, I'm not a big fan of your tone, pal." She stretches her arms out on the desk and hides her hands in her sleeves before resting her head on them.

I lean my head down to block her eye line of the wall. "What's bothering you?" Just like that, the spark was snuffed out.

There's just a moment that she looks at me before she speaks. Just a moment where I could see some of what she was hiding. Something darker than what she let on.

"Why should something be bothering me? I'm just tired, Roman." Maybe there was some truth to that, but...

"You're not just tired."

"Okay, maybe I'm stressed out then. From this presentation we have to do on Wednesday."

"No."

She whips her head around to look at me. "No?"

"That isn't it. You cheer for a bunch of jocks in large crowds, you don't have stage fright."

She leans back in her chair and crosses her arm in a huff. "Well, why don't you tell me what I'm upset about then?"

I would usually find her sass mildly amusing in another scenario. Right now however, I shove it aside. "So you admit that you're upset?"

Her frown is immediate. She doesn't like I caught her off guard. "I'm fine, Roman."

Her words are just in time for the release bell. I don't move to get up until she's halfway out the door. By the time I make it to the hallway after her, she's nowhere to be found.

>><<>><<>><<>><<

The day went by without me seeing her again. She didn't meet me in our usual spot in the library. Either something came up or she's avoiding me altogether.

I don't know what to do in these situations. It's always just been me and that's what works best... for me.

And now there's this girl and I don't know how to handle a girl or what to do when she's like this. Why can't girls just say what they feel? Why do they-

My thoughts are cut off as something whips across the back of my head. "What the fuck?" I reach across my neck and turn around to find a fuming Valentina.

"Don't what the fuck me, what the fuck you?" She's about to beat me with the wad of paper in her hands before I grab it away from her.

"Val, if you don't tell me what the hell you think you're doing, so help me god I will-" She glares at the wad of paper that I raise above my head at her and cuts me off.

"Don't you act stupid with me, Roman. What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything to her Val. I've been trying all day to figure out why she's been so off."

She makes a face at me and stops to think for a moment. "Yeah dumbass, not everything bad is led back to me," I say.

"Well if it wasn't you, then why is she acting so weird today?" She mumbles and deflates against my locker.

"Weird how?" I ask. I know she was weird with me and now I'm trying to hear it from another point of view.

She gives an exasperated roll of her eyes. "You know her. The girl's a fuckin ray of sunshine and she doesn't even have to try. And today there was nothing. No spark, no rays, nada. It was a different type of not trying... if that makes sense."

"No that makes sense," I let out and lean back on the lockers beside her. "How long was she like this? Did you see her over the weekend?"

Val frowns and opens her mouth to say something when Myles appears down the hall. She redirects her thoughts and calls out to him. Myles doesn't waste a second.

"What can I do for you m'lady?" he smiles, deepening his dimples in the process.

"This weekend at the party, I got a ride home from Briar, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you were pretty slammed, Valentine. Briar came to pick you up because you called her shit-faced and begged for a ride home." He smiles at her then. "Not that you can ever be shit-faced. You're like- you know... you're like beautiful all the time."

I stare straight at him hoping he can sense my direct and unmasked judgment. He ignores me of course.

"Nice, Myles," Val quickly acknowledges. "Anyway, I remember locking myself in a bedroom. I remember being super happy to see her... but," she bites her lip. "That would mean she had to come inside and she hates parties. Specifically because of the crowd."

"I'm sorry, what are we trying to figure out here?" Myles cut in.

"Briar hasn't been acting right. Myles, you were with her that night. Did she seem okay?"

"Uh yeah. I found her downstairs, she couldn't have been alone very long. She just looked concerned I guess because she was looking for you. And then she asked me to help her find you and I didn't see her again until we were all in that room together."

Which meant she was roaming a goddamned house all by herself in a crowd of people who obviously didn't like the girl. "How did she look when she came to the room with you two?" I ask Myles.

"Happy, I guess. Super relieved to have found Val. She latched onto her and they hugged it out for a while. Then she took Val home." He stops and watches up as we both take that in. "Is she okay?" he asks slowly.

"Naomi must have found her. Or one of those other girls, or-" Val stops as she runs her fingers over her temples and she takes a minute to curse. "Just let me get to the bottom of it, okay? I'll talk to a few others I know that were there that night."

Valentina jumps on another thought. "You guys have to meet up again, yeah?" I nod my head. We had one last session to tidy up our presentation. "Okay, don't push the subject. That'll only push her away further. And I don't trust you enough to make her feel better so get your work done and leave it be, got it?"

I roll my eyes and give her a blank stare. "Just don't push the subject, please," she tries again. "I'll try to figure it out on my own and if that doesn't work, then we'll talk. Okay?"

She wants me to trust her on this. I feel my jaw grow tense while thinking about it. I don't like being this useless in the situation. But Val has known her the longest. Not only would she get to the bottom of this but she'd know what to do after.

I roll my jaw out of its tense position and give her a tight nod. "Wait," I say when she tries to take off with Myles.

They both look at me. "Tell me what happened. Tell me why everyone gives her a hard time."

They look at each other, a silent conversation passes with their gaze. Then Valentina turns to me, pulls out her phone, and settles beside me as she scrolls through something.

It takes her a moment and I don't understand what she's looking for.

"This," she says and passes the phone. It was a picture from a party of a couple kissing. I'm about to ask Val what the hell this has to do with anything until I realize.

The girl in the picture is Briar. And she's kissing that shithead Axel. I look up at Val. "So they dated?" I ask. I had to work carefully to make my tone neutral. Even though I felt the very fucking opposite of neutral.

"No," she replies and takes the phone back. "This was taken when Axel was dating Naomi. Briar told me that he kissed her and someone was there to snap a picture before she could even push him off of her."

"Listen I know that seems far-fetched to some people but look at this picture closer." She brings the phone back up to my face while I try to process. "Look at her hands. They were already on his chest to push him away. And look how he's holding her."

The longer I look at it the more her words click. His grip around her arms are a little too tight. Her body position isn't all that natural for someone who would lean into a kiss. I push the phone away, not wanting to look at it any longer.

Valentina goes on. "And Naomi sees this picture of one of her closest friends and her boyfriend kissing, shuts Briar out without even talking about anything, and both her and her stupid boyfriend let people jump to all sorts of conclusions."

"Yeah not only that," Myles pitches in. "Axel started bragging about it to all his friends. Not just about a kiss either," he made a pinched expression on his serious face.

"But it was just a kiss. So now people either hate her, don't care enough to hear her side, or they're too worried about their social image to be on her side." Valentina lets out a long and aggravated huff.

"Where was Axel?" The calmness of my tone felt unnatural when I felt something very opposite building up in my blood. "Did you see him at this party over the weekend?"

Myles shakes his head. "His buddies left pretty early that night. I'm sure he would have been gone before Briar even got there."

I stick that in the back of my head. Maybe he wasn't there when Briar was, but I've seen the way he watches her. Knowing what I know now, there's no way in hell I'm letting that fucker near her again.

"I got to go," Val says, already turning to leave. "But remember, let me handle it first. Don't bring it up."

A/N: I'm like a whole hour early on this update.

I wish wattpad was still poppin like it used to be. If you're here reading this, a special HELLO to you <3