A crisp, late September wind whirled around Greg's black Lexus as they pulled into Frost Valley's back parking lot, the bashe gym doors busted open and music booming out, the bass thumping extremely loud against your heart, just one decible away from knocking approaching students from their Chinese Laundy heels and Oxford dress shoes. Greg shifted into park before him, Jessa, Celeste, Chris, Ashley, and Jesse exited the car and banged the doors shut at the same time as if practiced.

"Thanks for pulling through the last minute, guys," Celeste thanked Chris and Jesse as they trotted onto the sidewalk, looping her arm through Chris's, the slits of lace about her white dress like little angel wings ready to fly her to heaven.

"Our dates backed out," Ashley replied in a severe tone, her green scoopneck dress flowing down around her knees, her perfectly, crafted curls at the hands of Celeste bouncing in front of her hazel eyes to block any tears.

"I don't understand why," Chris responded earnestly with a shrug, giving both of them a well-deserved glance over, "You girls look stunning tonight. Both of you." Chris reached across dark air and brushed his hand against Ashley's arm, Ashley glancing over shyly as she read the truth in her eyes, Chris knowing he hadn't paid much attention to Ashley that summer, Ashley clearly a youthful beauty.

"Beautiful, as always," Jesse continued, leaving an unexpected kiss on Ashkey's cheek, crimson rising to her skin.

"Greg?" Jessa asked, her voice cracking, her face contorting in pain as Greg's hand clamped harder over hers as they slowly paced toward the gym doors, "What's wrong?"

"What?" Greg asked, his mind only focused on where his eyes were jetting to as if he was looking for someone with night goggles, not realizing how crippling his grip was against Jessa's.

"You're hurting me," Jessa whispered painfully, Greg peering down at their hands as he quickly let go, him and Jessa just stepping into the door frame, everyone dressed in scantily dresses and buttoned-down shirts with the ties hanging loosely around their necks like nooses, blue and yellow streamers and balloons scattered around the bleachers and atop the white tables, patriotism for the Frost Valley Cougars blazoned through the gym with hours of work and dedication. As if Jessa and Greg were tanned with green and scales, everyone turned toward them with scowls and whispers, Jessa and Greg placed uncomfortably in the spotlight, Celeste and Chris peering over their shoulders to figure out where the sound had gone as Ashley and Jesse casually walked in beside Greg and Jessa as if they were the only two people gracing the gym that night.

"It's only us tonight," Jessa whispered into his ear, her breath warm against his soft skin, this treatment not uncommon for her. She felt she had the right to do whatever everyone else did, everyone else too proud, ignorant, or rich to give her and her friends a chance. Like they'd accept that chance, anyway. "Don't pay attention to them." Nonchalantly, after giving the mass of teenagers a look that could stun a blood-thirsty beast in its ravaging path, not willing to let their stares get to her like unruly children at her nerves, her and Greg walked arm and arm to a round table Ashley and Jesse already claimed as theirs, Chris and Celeste trodding behind as the original momentum of the partiers crawled back up in hype, the rhythmic, seductive beats of Tweet's "Oops (Oh My)," diffused around the gym, sex without the sheets being executed through grinds and banging of thighs, Jessa looking about them with the same diguist they had for her, they judging her on her mother, she judging them on the odvious.

"I'm ready to boogay," Celeste announced boisterously over the music drumming against their ear drums, Chris not even getting 5 second's relief on the white chair before being hoisted up by his blue dress shirt, "Let's go, sexy."

"My wish is your command," Chris responded obediently with a smirk like a genie as they mingled their way through the masses, flickers of light loosing track of them as they disappeared into the music.

"I'm hungry," Jesse complained, rubbing his stomach as it grumbled like an earthquake under his hand.

"Doesn't your mother feed you?" Ashley asked, her tone sprinked with sass, smiling her pixi smile as Jesse looked up at her, wisps of blonde hair cutting in front of his gorgeous blue eyes.

"Not enough," Jesse replied like a smart alleck, Ashley rolling her eyes as she grabbed his hand, the two ambling side by side to the food table adorned with yellow stars and overflowing with fruits, a long American and Italian hero, salads of various kinds, drinks and pastas, their eyes eager with anticipation of a good meal.

Jessa could tell fans were beginning to surround the table, trying to look unsuspicious as they talked with their girlfriends cooly and calmly, their eyes glimmering with wonder as Jessa's face resembled a dog's snarl, the girls immediately backing off in fear. As selfish as it sounded, she wanted to spend every second with Greg, the week or so they spend apart without seeing each other with the rekindling of school and Dream Street Mania slicing deep into their juvenile hearts.

"Are you OK, Greg?" Jessa questioned with concern, rubbing her fingertips on top of his knuckles, cocking her head to thrust herself into his misdirected field of vision, his eyes overexerted to the point where they could pop from his head, Jessa getting the impression that Greg was a spy that was followed to this evening with his girl.

"I'm sorry," Greg apologiesed, shaking the image he just was viewing from his head and turning back to her, her eyes wide with curiosity as blurred bodies danced and moved behind her and the music, a sincere smile spreading across his face as he cupped his hands over hers, the scene simulating two lovebirds only encompassed with themselves at a chic cafe in Paris, the darkness with twinkles of light enhancing the romance, "I'm fine."

"I can't get used to not being with you 24/7," Jessa admitted sheepishly, shrugging her shoulders with an innocence Greg never witness Jessa express, another fine attribute, her eyebrows raised in interest, "It's not like I can walk next door to wake your ass up anymore."

"Is that what you did?" Greg asked skeptically with a chuckle, his smile glinting in the dimmed lights, glancing out into the crowd, the people as roudy and rambuncous as rabid fans at one of their concerts, not having any control over their bodies as the music stole the remote like magic, hands and shakes obscuring faces. "You usually just crawled in with me until I woke up."

"You were so warm, though!" Jessa countered, slipping one of her hands from the pressure of his hands and grazed his cheek gently, his cheek toasty to the touch, her fingers zapping the sweet shocks of serentiy through his body like electricity, his eyes sedating from its alarmed state as she continued, her lips looking as if they were kissing every word goodbye from her mouth, "So cozy, so natural, so safe..." Greg silenced her with a pouty kiss, the two of them two fishes kissing softly in the light water of the festive times.

"Mmmm," Jessa's voice wedged between the kiss, Jessa breaking from him and skimming her tounge across her lips, Greg leaving one last smooch on the tip of her nose, the moisture of his lips diffusing into her blood, her eyes closed as if to genually experience the thrill. "I'm ready to dance, Greggles," Jessa announced vivaciously, the bottom her chair scratching like nails to a chalkboard as she rose, nibbling at her bottom lip as Greg stood from his seat, the magnetism of her cat green eyes blinding his vision as he accidentally tripped over her chair and knocked like a bumper car against a white wall into a girl with a blossoming head of curly black hair, the Coke from her blue cup dropping to the ground before her cup did, a hollow bounce launching the cup to Greg's feet.

"I'm so sorry," Greg apologiesed earnestly as he bent down to pick up her cup, "Did I get you..." His voice dropped with his mouth to his knees, his eyes buldging with his veins from his body as the girl peered at him wickedly, her light pink manicured fingernails pinching the cup from his loose grip with a thumb and forefinger, her black Versachi tube top dress dazzled in sparkles, mezmerizing him from moving, mezmerzing him from thinking. Jessa rushed to his side to make sure he was OK, throwing her arms around him as she stared befuddled into his stoic eyes.

"Baby, what's wrong?" Jessa questioned softly, her words not pushing to his ears against the restraints of music, following the invisable trail of his eyes to someone else's, Jessa's face stricken with surprise, her insides flairing with anger, her grip tightening around Greg's arms like a wrench as she gaped at Heather Tobin, her thin lips twisted in a pleased smile, her small eyes almost ink drops behind her smooth cheeks, Keith Rodgers standing miles higher than Heather in a pale yellow dress shirt and khaki slack, his goofy face compared to a giant's constrained against his defined veins as a result of his anger and sorrow towards Jessa.

"Well, well," Heather began on a breath of vitriolic air, tapping her fingers against the cup as her eyes conversed from Greg to Jessa and back again. "Frost Valley's finest is back in town. And I see she brought back...sloppy seconds."

"Nice to see you too, Heather," Greg gruffed under his breath, trying to be as polite as possible, not wanting confrentation on a night granted to be what he was supposed to be, ateenager.

"You knowher," Jessa asked him intensely, pointing at Heather as if Greg couldn't see her plainly standing in front of him.

"We've had our...time," Heather replied with a lift of her left shoulder and a smirk, "But...as much as I hate to admit it, Jessykins...looks like you won, again." Heather dugged through her black purse embroaded with a black beaded butterfly and taking out her silver and turquoise cross, Jessa folding her arms under her armpits as Heather offered it to her in good sportsmanship, Greg switcing expressions of confusion between Jessa and Heather, Heather raising her eyebrows at Jessa's silent denial. "What? The best girl won...isn't that how it goes? The more seductive, more sadistic..."

"Stop," Jessa demanded in a harsh tone, her face red with blinking lights, glancing up at Greg with cold eyes, eyes trying to plead through her diminished pride.

Heather glares at the two, the two gazing with confusion at each other, their silence saying it all. "How sweet," Heather dramatically quipped, wiping an invisable tear from her eye as Jessa and Greg pivoted back towards her, "Jessa actually fell for him. Too bad you can't love him as much as you think you want to. Your mother will always be with you, that slut, that worthless piece of trash."

"What is she talking about, Jessa?" Greg demaned, more offended than Jessa, his brows furrowing from the extinquishing of befuddlement and rising of anger, Jessa warily looking up at him with helplessness, "How can you let her talk about your mother like that?"

"Aren't you lost, Sonny," Heather interruped with a roll of her eyes, fastening her hands to her hips as she blew a tight spiral of hair from her charcoal eyes, "Let me put all this in terms you can comprehend." 'No, no, no,' Jessa's voice shattered like glass in the mushy caverns of her head, echoing against the millions different thoughts lodged in her brain, an aching beginning to pound like a sledge hammer at her life, at her love as Heather continued with am austere twinkle putting life in her dead eyes and death in her hallow heart, "Miss Jessa here thinks she's the shit, thinks she can play with boys and throw them away like she did with my friend Keith just because that's her mother's expertise, being a 'high-class' prostitute and all," Keith's grim line of a mouth dipped into a frown. "I knew you were a hard catch, Greggy. Why else would you leave me? So I bet your girlie there that she couldn't make you fall in love with her." Like a mastered storyteller, she circled around the three of them like a shark stalking vulnerable prey, her hands folded behind her back as she revealed her intentions, "I was thinking 'Sweet...Either way, no matter what the rules were, I win.' If you fell for her, you would be crushed by the news. If she fell for you, which was unlikely, she'd feel lost, confused, stupid because of her past and mother's desolate future. We've all seen what your mother has done to you without even knowing it, Jessa, making you so insecure, so desperate." Heather's fingertips danced across Jessa's cheek in a taunting, friendly manner, Jessa backing away with a jerk as if her touch held Lepersy. "You shouldn't fuck with people's feelings. It will get you in the end...it got you both."

The emotions bottling up inside Greg were indescribable. Heather's loyalty and resentment mizxed into this ugly scheme that would end in tears. With music blocked from his ears with built-up rage, He disorientally grappled for a seat and slowly lowered himself down, all this biting, stinging, poisoning information attacking his body and brain so rapidly, he didn't know how to respond, or if he even could. "You used Jessa...to do your dirty work?" Greg asked with disguist, Jessa ramming her hands through her hair with fustration.

"If you must look at it that way, then yes. I really liked you Greg, maybe even loved, you were too self-involved to find out," Heather accused, bending down towards him to belittle him, her face dangerously close to his.

"You sick bitch. You knew music was, is, and always will be first in my life," Greg responded evenly, his eyes shrunken into his head as his vengeful gaze ambled to Jessa, Jessa stading there dunfounded without any words, her insides screaming with this tragic end.

"I don't think your princess knew that," Heather's voice crawled like claws into his ears, making them bleed, her hand skimming his shoulder as Greg bored emotionless at Jessa, Jessa's mouth opening then closing with the dismissal of proper words, his eyes burning with white coals of anger, betrayal, grief ready to singe Jessa's hallow heart.

"Greg...I," Jessa began in a stutter as Greg briskly approached her, smoke billowing from his nose and ears, his eye irate with Jessa's audacity, frightenging Jessa down with callowed love. It all made sense now, her resistance to talk of her mother, the seldom words shared about her family, her eyes always full of lust and now, he realized, nothing more, her empty eyes mimicking her empty heart. He felt like an idiot, like a toy, like scum.

"Lies, it was all lies," Greg spatted at her, the word "lies" stumbling from his tounge as if it was naturally clumsy, Heather looking on with no remorse and all sadistic satisfaction, "Your smile, it was a lie...Your trip, it was a lie...Your words...lies..."

"No," Jessa desisted, clamping her hands to his arms as if to keep him at bay, desperate to keep him by her side, "It may have started like that, but..."

"That's all that matters!" Greg differed, raking her hands from his skin like they were lice, hurt slapped across Jessa's face, "You had no intention of being with me. You just wanted to win some stupid little mind game with my ex, play with my mind, my heart. Well, you won, congradulations. I hope your prize is worth...is worth..." Tears welded in his dark eyes, two blinks pushing them to cadcade down his cheeks, every one of his tears a cut to Jessa's heart, a heart who was just beginning to taste the sweet fruits of unity, togetherness, love. Now that taste was sour and acrimonious to Greg, Greg's nose hair burning with every prolonged gaze at Jessa's face, Jessa looking as if she was told she'd die tomorrow, and she very well may...

"Greg," Jessa whimpered with impotency, reaching for him and tugging at his arms to get him to stay, Greg resisting as a wave of grief splattered on his cheeks, as if he was caught in a drunken daze and was afraid of everyone, Heather taking a sip of Keith's Spirte as the drama unfolded before her like a pop-up book.

"I can't even stand your voice anymore," Greg told her with a jagged frown, her once melodious voice now raspy and hoarse, covering his ears with the palms of his hands, Jessa's eyes dampening with tears. He couldn't stay. But he couldn't leave Chris and Jesse here. Besides, as much as he was deteriorating inside, he didn't want to spoil Chris and Jesse's, let alone Celeste and Ashley's fun. Determined to reach the outside without any more words being thrown at him, determined to think clearly without any distractions, he elbowed his way through the sudden crowd swarming to the food table, the students looking back at him with fiery eyes and disbelieving frowns as he reached the bashe gym door, releasing a breath of relief from himself before storming into the darkness, Jessa right on his tail as he began to walk out of the parking lot without turning back, leaving Jessa with the reprocussions of her poor judgement.

"God Damn you, Greg Raposo," Jessa wailed after him, anger and sorrow rising the color in her cheeks, her teeth gritting with fustration, not being able to talk rationally with Greg. She loved him. Period. She felt absolutely horrible for not telling him sooner, she might have saved their relationship. "I'm sorry!"

Her words were like a brick wall in front of his path, his shoulders hunched foward with depression as he muttered to himself, one last tear bouncing against the springy ground, "It's not enough," he whispered to himself, whiping his nose with his sleeves, "Not enough."