I sneezed. Again.

"Bless you." The three chorused at the same time.

I sniffled and reached for another tissue. "You guys are creeping me out with that triplet telepathy thing you got going on." I blew my nose and groaned to myself. My nose was already irritated and red. Not to mention that every time I rubbed it with a tissue the material felt like sandpaper against my raw skin.

I had slept in all day yesterday. It had been a long night, the only thing that had kept me awake was the sheer cold. It had been freezing, the rain hadn't helped much either. But when Blake found me I was too shocked and cold to register what was going on. Now it all made sense why he hated me. Every little piece of the jigsaw puzzle was put together to find the picture. All the bricks that formed that wall of mystery over him, toppled over. Sure he still had his secrets and he wasn't exactly nice like Cole and Shawn, but he was working his way.

Destroying Mr. Cuddles meant a lot to me. He knew that and that's why I was even more shocked when he gave me his fathers ring. Blake probably expected me to destroy it, to just hide it and never give it back. Truth be told, I was never going to take it off. Just because he did something bad to me doesn't mean I have to repay the favor. I wasn't going to stoop down to his level. When he cut Mr. Cuddles up he was at level negative infinity, now I'd say he's on level zero. Working his way up with his brothers, even though they were always going to be a step ahead.

Blake the Cake couldn't get out of my mind though. Everything I had remembered from elementary I had tried blocking out because it reminded me of my mom. All I remembered was Mark being my best friend, the shoulder to cry on. He is still my best friend and no one was going to change that. I love him too much to let him go to easily.

But when Blake told me he remembered, everything came back. The days him and I would lay down on the hill and watch the clouds. Or play hopscotch and jump rope. He'd sometimes play basketball with his guy friends and I'd join in. But Blake was right, I went distant in second grade. I wasn't sure why, mom hadn't even died then but it had something to do with Chief Deliv and dads job.

How could I have forgotten? Cake had been his nickname after I had stuffed a handful of cake on his face. Some kid in our class had his birthday at school and decided to bring in his birthday cake. I 'accidently' shoved some in Blake's face and was he angry. It almost made me laugh at the memory, knowing that even then he had that scowl on his face.

Cole chuckled and glanced over at Shawn. "You keeping score?"

About an hour ago Cole carried me downstairs to the basement where we all sat around watching a movie in the theater. Shawn had picked it out, which meant watching an animated movie. He chose Ice Age.

"Yup," Shawn clicked his pen and wrote another dash on his hand. The guys thought it'd be funny to keep track of how many times I've sneezed. "That's fifteen in twenty minutes. Now shush. I love Sid."

Blake smirked, "Course you do. He's your great great great great great ancestor."

"That means he's yours too." I said in a duh tone. My voice came out weird like someone was pinching my nose. I hated having a cold.

Blake laughed again, "Please I'm obviously Diego."

"Why do you get to be Diego?" Cole whined. "I want to be Diego."

"You can't be Diego." Blake said matter of factly, "I'm the sexy cool one. You can be the big fluffy elephant."

"His name is Manny." I told him.

"Why am I Manny?" Cole asked.

"Because your nice." Blake said. "And...you have brown hair. So ha! I win."

"You're a loser." Cole muttered.

"Tell that to all the girls that love me." Blake stretched his arms until they laid behind his head. Even in the dark room I saw him wink at Cole. Everyone rolled their eyes except Shawn, his eyes were glued on the Doo-doo birds that were trying to defend a watermelon.

"Shhhh!" Shawn said waving his arms at us. He placed his head back on his hands while his elbows rested on the knees. "I'm trying to watch a movie. Geez why are you guys so talkative? I mean you're worse than me. And that's saying something." We all stopped talking but Shawn kept going. "I mean seriously who has a right to call about who's who? Sure maybe when I was a kid I was jealous when Blake got to be a Power Ranger for Halloween. Then Cole was Peter Pan. Do you know what I was? I was a freaking paper boy. Mom wanted us to all go as something that started with a P. So I got the lame costume with the soot on my face."

Cole turned to me with a devious grin. "He pulled the shortest straw. At least he got to choose between a paper boy or Pooh. Could you imagine Shawn in a Pooh bear outfit? He'd roll down the hills."

I laughed at that which turned into a headache. I groaned, laying my head down on the arm rest. The blankets were pulled close around me while the mini trashcan beside me was polluted with over flowing tissues. The boy's went back to watching the movie while I closed my eyes trying to sleep. My head was throbbing and my nose was so stuffy it was hard to breathe. The cold medicine wasn't taking much effect, even though I've been taking the amount said between the times.

Suzie had been upstairs helping Lilly trying to recreate the Thanksgiving dinner. After sleeping all day yesterday everyone was still disappointed we weren't able to celebrate Thanksgiving like every other family in the country. After all they had bought all the foods we had asked for. Even from the basement and my congested nose, I was able to sniff a bit of the roasting turkey in the oven. I could only imagine how intense the smell was to the boys.

Everything around me was a haze though. I lost track of time when I'd slip in and out of conciseness. One minute the screen had Ice Age the next I thought I saw a panda with noodles like a mustache. Someone shook my shoulder softly so I opened my eyes and saw Shawn. "Dinner time Miss Gorilla."

I nodded and got up putting the blanket over my shoulders like a cloak. "Need a ride up the stairs?" Cole asked me while I stumbled over the blanket. I had just realized I hadn't eaten all day. Most of the time I was sleeping and drinking water to get rid of this cold as soon as possible. I simply nodded and Cole picked me up with ease.

"She looks pretty light for a gorilla." Shawn muttered as we made our way upstairs. I smiled at that and when we reached the dining table it was nicely set up with fall decorations. Lilly had even put candles which were covered in red and yellow plastic leaves. Blake was helping with setting the dishes around the table. Cole set me down on my usual chair while Shawn helped Suzie get the drinks. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to stay sitting up before my head would hurt more.

"How are you feeling?" Dad asked looking directly at me.

I shrugged keeping the box of tissues at my feet. "Better than this morning but I still feel sick."

"Of course," Lilly said, "You were in the rain all night. How would you not get sick?"

"Maybe if we dipped her in radioactive power she'd be fine!" Shawn blurted out with a crazed expression. "That is so going on one of my lists!"

"Dip Tori in some radioactive bucket of power?" Suzie asked confused.

Shawn nodded like a five year old, "Yeah!"

"I worry sometimes." Cole muttered. He took a seat beside me after helping setting the table. I had wanted to help because I felt useless doing nothing but every time I'd try to stand up Blake would push me back down on the chair and say he didn't want my infected germs over everything.

When everyone was sitting down I looked up to see all the food in front of me. The turkey was resting in the middle of the table while other side dishes went around. There was mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, gravy, mac n' cheese, vegetables, and cranberry sauce. Everything made my mouth water, the steam rising from the big turkey as we all sat around while dad poured our drinks.

"No wine for us?" Cole asked. I had forgotten it was already dark outside and when I looked out I felt a chill going down my spine like I could already feel the cold from outside.

Dad raised an eyebrow while he poured the wine in his glass along with moms. I smirked at the question knowing what my dad's answer would be. "Are you older than twenty one?" He asked. Cole shook his head. "Then you can't have any."

"But..." Cole sighed using his fork to push an asparagus back up the pot where it had fallen, "Stupid police dads."

Dad laughed and took a seat beside mom, "I'm just doing my job."

"Well?" Mom said looking at us. "Happy Thanksgiving redo."

We all smiled and started helping ourselves with all the food.

******************************

School was not gladly welcomed when vacation was over. Everyone was walking down the pale hallways, half asleep and tired from waking up early. Everyone's grave expressions made them look like zombies.There were yawns being passed down from person to person like it was some sort of contagious disease. Although the week off was a break from school, it didn't exactly relax me the way I had wanted it too.

I stood in front of my locker thankful that my cold had gone away. Pulling my books out I placed them in my empty backpack and swung it over my shoulder. "Are you headed to lunch?" I heard someone say. I looked over my shoulder and saw Hayden with his flashy smile.

I shut my locker and turned to face him, "Yeah, you?"

"Same," He looked down at his shoe for a second before looking back up at me with that same smile, "So can I walk you there?"

I gladly nodded and couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips. "What class were you at?" I asked as we walked with the other students.

"History." He answered with another shrug.

My eyebrows knitted together. All the history classes were at the end of the school. "How'd you get to my locker so fast?" I asked before another thought popped up, "How'd you know that was my locker?"

Hayden blushed slightly, "Well usually I see you at your locker when I'm walking down the halls." He finally looked at me, with a goofy smile. "Besides I jogged today so I could catch up with you before you left. I needed some Tori time after that fatting week." He patted his stomach.

I shook my head even though I couldn't shake off the smile. "Tori time?"

He nodded, "Time with the princess."

Suddenly my shoes seemed to be very interesting. I didn't know I had white shoe laces. They always seemed to be a little beige to me. When I thought I knew what to say to Hayden, the familiar ring of the intercom went off. "Hello?" Someone said, "If everyone could be quiet to listen." I nearly face palmed.

"Is that..." Hayden pointed at the ceiling where the voice was coming from, "Shawn?"

I nodded. The hallway went silent but everyone was still walking to the cafeteria. "Well for those that don't know me," Shawn spoke again, "Though I'm pretty sure a lot of you do. I'm Shawn Parris. Shawn Parris? Ring a bell? No, yes. Nah I'm pretty sure you know who I am. I'm the weirdo kid that sat crossed-legged on the water fountain trying to test if the water could go over my legs and not get me wet. Well it didn't work, in fact it got my jeans went making it look like a had a wee-wee. Which I totally didn't. Well now that I think about it, even if I did have a spill it wouldn't matter because you all think it was the water fountain. Totally adding that to my list of-"

"Get to the point." A different voice said from the intercom. It sounded like Blake. "I didn't get you in here just so you can rant about pointless stuff."

Definitely Blake. "Ok ok," Shawn said. "Well, one of my friends dared me. Because we were playing truth or dare. He chose truth, which is wimpy, I mean sure my dare consisted on running down the football field butt naked but still. Anyways, because I have balls I decided on dare. He said I have to go on the intercom and tell one of my most embarrassing...encounters."

The halls laughed a bit at the dare. By now Hayden and I were walking slowly just as everyone else was. The slow walking only seemed to add to my theory of being a zombie. We looked possessed as we kept looking up at the speaker as if it would hurry faster in talking. Shawn finally found his voice and kept speaking, "I was going to tell the story when I caught Blake and this girl-"

"What's the story!" Blake shouted at Shawn. Everyone laughed at how Blake had interrupted the story.

Shawn chuckled and repeated, "Ok ok." Before beginning is encounter. "I was showering one day. And this little girl was over because she's a daughter of a friends. Yeah she was so occupied with her sisters phone that she didn't hear the shower was running. Yup, she walked right in while I was showering." Everyone laughed except for me. I knew this story.

"Yeah..." Shawn said, "She wasn't scared. She didn't get my...front side. She got the moon. But it gets worse." The laughing at this point was so severe you could barely hear what Shawn was saying. "So she screamed, I got out as soon as I could, but when I was outside with her in the hallways I saw her laughing. Yeah, she was like seriously laughing. So I asked, 'What's so funny? I just mooned you!' She said, 'You have a triangle on your butt!'"

At this point I couldn't contain my laughter and broke down with the rest of the students. There was a muffled noise at the end of the speaker and we all realized the principle was trying to get her mike back. So Shawn quickly kept talking, "It's not a triangle! It's a strawberry shaped birthmark on my left cheek. I swear it's a strawberry!"

"Ok Shawn that's enough." Our principle said.

"Two more minutes." Shawn said ignoring the warning. "I named it Herbert and I have a freckle right next to it, he's Herbert Jr. So just so you know, it's a strawberry. And to all the guys that are in the locker room with me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't look at Herbert and Herbert Jr. when I get out of the showers. That's all." Before the microphone was snatched out of his hand he gave one last war cry, "It's a strawberry!"

The halls were filled with laughter while everyone tried fast walking to the cafeteria. Hayden had taken my hand and was guiding me through the crowd as we passed by everyone. When we did reach the cafeteria he didn't let go of my hand. "Look no line." He pointed with the free hand. "Made it just on time."

I looked up from his and my hand and noticed he was right. Usually there'd be a long line but now there was only three or four kids that were in front of us. We moved in behind them and Hayden finally let go when he went to grab a fork and some napkins. All I could say was his hand felt strange in mine, like I didn't know how to exactly think of it. It wasn't alien, but it didn't feel good in my hand either, so it was just strange. "I'll pay for you. What'd you want?" He asked me.

"You really don't have too." I said to him while I reached for the spare cash in my back pocket.

"I insist. Just pick some food Tori." He let me step in front of him. I got my usual sandwich with a side of baby carrots and an apple. Just as I was about to pay, because I felt bad if Hayden had to pay for me, he beat me to it and told the lady at the counter to include both meals into the price.

"You really didn't have to." I told him again as he finished paying.

"Honestly, Tori it's fine." He smiled at me and I looked down. It's that smile, with those shiny white teeth. It's like looking into a light or something. "So where do you sit?"

I looked over at the table where Mark and Em were sitting at. Cali was probably sitting with her other friends. Hayden followed my gaze and elbowed me lightly, "Those your friends?" He asked.

I nodded and started heading that way. Hayden followed me there, sitting beside me when I took a seat. "I'm pretty sure you know everyone here right?"

Hayden nodded, "Sup Mark."

"Nothing much," Mark lent over and fist bumped Hayden.

"Pleasure to finally speak to Shawn's lady friend." Hayden said shaking Em's hand.

"I don't know you. But I like you already." Emily shook her head a bit before turning her attention to me, "So I was wondering what you were doing this weekend?"

I shrugged, "Not a lot. Why?"

"Because I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping with me."

Mark laughed, "Tori and shopping? That's like putting a pack of piranhas in a pool with one piece of meat."

"So are you two really good friends?" Hayden asked me as he pointed at Em and I.

Em nodded, "Yeah we've gotten to know each other a lot in Home Ec."

"Yup," I chimed in, "Burning blueberry muffins with someone sure tells you what kind of person they are."

"One time," Em held up her index finger to show her emphasis, "One time I didn't read the instructions and you're haunting me like the ghost of Christmas past."

Mark chuckled, "I remember when Tori and I almost burnt the house down."

I covered my eyes with my hands and groaned. "Don't remind me. It was awful."

We both started to laugh and Mark shook his head, "See the way the story goes is-"

Shawn came from behind and wacked the side of Mark's head. "You are such a weirdo."

Mark started rubbing his head where he had been hit. Then his lips curled in a smile. "You agreed to it."

I sat there chewing on my baby carrot unsure what was going on. Were Mark and Shawn...friends? Did this mean I could tell Mark? Shawn would definitely take my side now. If he knew what kind of person Mark was, he'd know that Mark would never tell a soul if we asked him not too. I trust Mark with my life, he could keep a small secret.

"Wait," Em looked at Mark, "You dared him to do that?"

He nodded, "Yeah we were playing Truth or Dare in history."

"So a triangle Shawn?" A group of girls walked by and the one the middle had said that.

"It's a strawberry!" Shawn lifted his hands in the air with an annoyed expression. He turned himself around so his butt was pointed at the girls. "Would you like to see Herbert?" They giggled and walked off.

"I'd prefer you didn't show those girls your butt." Em muttered while pushing some yogurt up her spoon.

Shawn smiled and sat beside his girlfriend kissing her cheek. "I won't. Herbert and I promise." Shawn swung his arm around Emily and pulled her closer to his side. Her cheeks turned rosy but her expression seemed happy and pleased by Shawn's action.

"Ew." Someone said behind me. I looked up and saw Cole. "You're not seriously that kind of couple are you?"

"Go away Cole," Shawn reached onto my tray and picked a baby carrot throwing it at his brother. "We don't need your Herbert-less butt at this table."

Cole looked at is brother with a weird expression. There were just some things that Shawn would say or do that made everyone question what his sanity level is. "I saw you here so I came over. Why are you here?" Cole took a seat on my empty side and pulled out a brown paper bag.

"Getting to know my girlfriends friends." Shawn answered casually.