Morning came fast, and before I knew it the sun was streaming into the room. I turned myself over, still half asleep, and reached for Jake. But when I put my hand down, there was nothing there. I opened my eyes, ready to get myself together and as soon as I did Sammy came into the room. "Morning sleeping beauty." He said, completely unphased by me being there. He dug through one of Jake's drawers and pulled out a t shirt. "Put that on, then we can fix you up." Sam couldn't have been a better surrogate brother, he always knew how to make me feel better.

"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" I laughed a bit.

"Yes, you have, but I wouldn't be against it if you said it one more time."

"Alright Mr. Cocky, I loooove you!" I smiled at him and pulled off my gross shirt, replacing it with Jake's nice Hard Rock Cafe t shirt.

"Come on now." Sammy said pulling my arm as he walked downstairs. Josh was sitting eating a bowl of cereal, Jake was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Jake?" I asked rather sincerely.

"Hannah's I think. Said he wanted to be there for a little while." Josh said. I looked at my fingers, a little uncomfortable. Josh came over and sat with me on the couch. He played with my hair, but I wasn't up for joking around, I felt horrible and to top it all off Jake had gone to his girlfriends house probably forgetting about what I said last night. Or at least disregarding it. It doesn't matter though, why do I care? Jake's like my brother right? They all are. Besides, even if he wasn't like abbrother, he would still have a girlfriend. I don't know why I'm trying to convince myself otherwise. I was snapped out of my thoughts by Josh. "You alright?" I nodded meekly.

"Yeah, just not feeling too hot." He looked at my face and touch his hand to my cheek where a bruise was now completely visible. I winced a little, but it was nice to have a friendly hand there. I can't tell you why, but I started to cry.

"Mags, what's wrong? You're never like this?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know, recently I've just felt so alone. All I want to do is leave this stupid Christmas

town and I don't know, do something. Make something of myself." I started talking and once I could articulate myself, I couldn't stop. "I feel alone at home, and pressured to be this perfect thing that I can't be. My dad has this obsession with me going to grad school and becoming a doctor or a lawyer, but I don't think I can do it." Josh watched me as I spoke, he was always good with things like this. "And then, I have all of these feelings for people I'm not sure I should have feelings for. Everything is so confusing. To top it off, look at my face. Covered in bruises, making it uglier than it was in the first place." Josh pushed my hair over my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. I let my tears go onto his shirt, not caring at the moment. Josh kept kissing my hair. "How did I get so lucky? I have all of you and I still need more, how selfish am I?"

"We're the lucky ones, Mags. You'll get away from here and when you leave I'll be there too. As for these people you have feelings for, TELL THEM!" He said shaking my shoulders. "You're beautiful, so beautiful in fact that it makes our lives harder because the girls we bring home to meet our parent will never compare and they will never like them as much. Now calm the fuck down, I love you, we love you, that's all we need." I hugged him again. The silence was comforting. The love fest was interrupted by Sammy walking back in. I wiped my eyes.

"It's about time, what were you doing up there?" I laughed. "Actually, you don't have to tell me if it's gross." Josh laughed at that, that's why we got along so well, we were so alike. Sam picked up one of the pillows on the big chair and chucked it at me.

"You deserved that."

"No way, you had it coming."

We packed up all of our stuff and headed for school, picking up Carmen, Sammy's girlfriend on the way. They sat in the back in their own world talking and I couldn't help wishing for someone to do that with. Josh squeezed my hand as if knowing what I was thinking. "You know you're a pretty amazing friend Joshy."

"They all say that, they all leave me!" He said in a fake crying voice. I giggled at him and we pulled up in front of the school. "Same plan at yesterday guys?" We all shared a mutual nod saying that we agreed to go back to Josh's after school and to meet in the parking lot.

The school day seemed slow. Everything was moving at a snail's pace and to make matters worse, everyone was talking about my face. You could tell who was at the party last night based on sunglasses, turtlenecks, and 'I want to die' faces.

"Hey I just wanted to make sure you were okay?" A girl named Mandy had asked me in study hall. I smiled at her, she was the only one who had asked if I was okay. Everyone else just looked and whispered about it.

"Oh yeah, I'm really fine." I responded, we both knew that I was lying, but it felt nice to just pretend for a second.

I texted my mom, knowing full well that I wouldn't be home for the weekend. I couldn't deal and hopefully Karen would just let me stay there for the weekend. With her blessing, I left school knowing I wouldn't have to see Jamie until Monday. I started to run towards the van, my usual.