Nine

Mike was having a week that would have made for a good episode of The Twilight Zone. Chloe Hart was talking to him. Frequently. No--Chloe Hart was confiding in him. And Sam was acting strangely, as if something about his newfound role as Chloe Hart's confidante bothered her.

Now, Mike was not a complicated boy by anyone's stretch of the imagination. Perhaps his most unique characteristics were his affinity for chess and his obsession with working his body to near collapse. But there was very little up in his head that was even remotely interesting, which may have been a sad state of affairs, had Mike not been completely oblivious of this fact. And so he lived a quite happy existence, cheerfully believing that Chloe wanted him and that the reason Sam was so upset was that she'd only been playing hard-to-get.



Well, he'd show her.

In reality, Sam hardly noticed that Mike had disappeared from her lunch table, from her locker after school, from her life, really. A sharp contrast to her former brainless admirer, she was engrossed in watching every movement of Chloe's, to decide whether or not she really ought to say something about Elena's mysterious email. She watched to see who else Elena may have known, who else deserved the information more than that bimbo.

Because Chloe really was quite the airhead--perhaps that was what made her begin to form this fledgling affection for Mike, now that he'd given her the attention she craved. She was an airhead and an idiot and a hopelessly stereotypical blonde, but she was quite sweet. She wanted to help people. She cried over homeless cats.

Chloe Hart wanted to change the world. She just didn't know how. So, to stop herself from losing her mind, she focused on things she could change, like the color of her hair, and how her best friend (she became very upset whenever she thought about Elena, nowadays) always forgot to bring tampons when she had her period.

Without ever meaning for it to happen that way, Elena Harrison began to change things by leaving. She hadn't expected to change things for anyone but herself, but the people she left behind began to, ever so subtly, shift to the side with her gone.