Carter grabbed Meli's stuffed donkey and threw it back onto her bed. "Dammit girl can't you ever pick up your stuff?"
"Ha. If that isn't the retarded pot calling the kettle black."
Carter raised an eyebrow and looked around. "Zac?"
"Yeah."
She turned around and looked at the closed closet door. "What are you doing in my closet?"
"It's an experiment. I'm seeing how long I can go without human contact."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Dammit."
Carter laughed. "Zac... couldn't you do this experiment in your own closet?"
"No. Last time you opened it for me there was a live animal in there. And my closet smells like cheese."
"That because there's 5 year old cheese in there."
"Details."
"Zac, I'm done cleaning my room and now I have to clean out my closet. That means you're gonna have to get out of there."
"Oh come on Car! I'm an hour into the experiment, can't you clean your closet out some other time?! I have to have the complete survivor experience."
"Fine... You aren't like... eating bugs in there are you?"
"No, but I haven't eaten in an hour so it's getting pretty tempting."
"Could you imagine Taylor being in there? That boy starts to twitch if he doesn't eat every half hour."
Zac laughed. "Ok you're cracking me up but you could go away? You're screwing up the experiment."
"Wow. You really know how to sweet talk a girl." She laughed. "I'll be back later. Lemme know if you need anything. Like... brain cells or something."
"Cute."
Carter smiled and left her bedroom. She went downstairs and plopped herself onto the couch but before she had a chance to get comfortable the doorbell rang. She grumbled and pulled herself off of the couch to get the door. When she opened it she saw an unfamiliar face, a short girl with thick, long, blonde hair and a great smile. "Hi."
"Hi, are you Carter?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes I think I'm a faerie though."
The girl widened her eyes and nodded. "Yeah me too... uhm... I'm a friend of Gabi's. Well, I was a friend of Gabi's."
"Great."
"Look I know you didn't like her and I know why you didn't like her. But I was friends with her since I was a baby and I knew sides of her that nobody else knew."
Carter nodded, knowing what she meant. "So what's your name?"
"Tanis."
"That's a cool name."
"Yeah I hate it."
Carter laughed. "I'm not too fond of mine either. So uhm. I don't mean to be mean or anything but..."
"Oh! Right. Why the hell am I here." Tanis nodded and pulled a book out of her large black messenger bag. "Here. This was Gabi's... book."
Carter took it from her. "Oh."
"I just wanted to let you read it so you could know that, she really wasn't a bad person. She just thought differently from other people."
Carter opened the book to the middle and widened her eyes at a picture of herself. "Uhm. Nice." She didn't know what to think.
"She wanted everybody to think she hated you but she really didn't. You just had everything she wanted."
"Tay."
Tanis nodded.
"But... You're saying she admired me?"
"No. She thought you were a total bitch. But she wanted what you had. Gabi wasn't the kind of person to hate somebody. She'd fake it. But she never had the kind of power for hatred. She... well it doesn't matter cause you won't believe it anyway."
"I have no reason to believe that Gabi was this great person."
"She wasn't. She had seriously problems. But she had it in her to be a great person."
"So..."
"So all I want is for you to read her journal and realize that she wasn't some insane stalker freak."
"Okay. She climbed a ladder up the side of my house to spy on me and Taylor."
"Yeah that was Justine's idea."
"You're kidding me."
"Nope. Justine's got a few screws loose too. I think it runs in the family. But they're both basically good people."
"And you want me to give Justine a chance and forgive Gabi for all the crap she put us through."
"I want you to read the journal and then decide."
Carter sighed. "Geez I figured all of Gabi's friends would hate me."
"No. We hate your sister."
"What?"
"Look, if Mel would have kept her pretty little mouth shut Gabi would still be alive. She took all those things about Gabi that made Gabi insecure and shoved them down her throat."
"My sister didn't kill Gabi."
"Not with her hands."
Carter closed the book and handed it back to Tanis. "I'm not interested in reading this. Gabi hated me and she wanted to hurt me. Melissa only told her the truth, everything everybody else wanted to tell her."
Tanis sighed. "Fine."
Carter closed the door and plopped onto the couch wondering why Tanis would show up at her door trying to convince her that Gabi was a nice person.
Later that night though, after pulling Zac out of her closet, she found Taylor, sitting at his desk, reading the book. "Where did you get that?"
"Some cute girl dropped it off. She said it was important and that I should read it."
"You actually took it!"
"I didn't see why not."
Zac smiled. "How cute was she?"
Carter nudged him, signaling for him to shut up. "Tay why are you reading it? It's just Gabi's friend trying to convince us that Gabi was some kind of saint and that it was all our fault."
Taylor stood up. "Car, quit being such a raging bitch. It's just a journal."
"DON'T CALL ME A BITCH, TAYLOR!" Carter grabbed the book from him. "Tanis accused Melissa of killing Gabi! She said it was all her fault."
"Who's Tanis?" Zac asked.
"Cute girl." Carter continued. "So what do you think Taylor? You think it was Meli's fault? You agree with Tanis now that you've read it?"
"No, I still think Gabi was a whack job. But it didn't hurt to read the thing. You don't have to be such a bitch to people all the time."
Carter growled and threw the journal at Taylor. "Bite me."
Zac followed her as she stomped off into his bedroom. "Car... Uhm... bad day?"
Carter turned around and faced him. "I don't like the way that girl accused Meli of that. Melissa was just being honest. She didn't kill Gabi. She didn't put the razor blade in her hand and run it across her wrists. Nobody cried more than Meli when Gabi died. Nobody. But does your whore of a brother realize that? Nooooo."
Zac put his arms around her and hugged her. "I think you've had too much sugar today cause you're spazzing out."
"Zac I'm serious. Everybody is pissing me off the way they keep saying things about Meli and Gabi. It waasn't her fault." She hugged him back.
"You've gotten really protective of her haven't you?"
"I've always been."
Zac nodded and sat down on his bed patting the spot next to him. Carter plopped down and leaned against him and he wrapped his arms around her. "You gotta stop letting people get to you. You let people hurt you that don't mean to hurt you. And Tay... well like you said, he's a whore. So don't worry about it."
"Yeah he's scum." Carter smiled up at him. "We don't like scum."
"No. Scum is bad." Zac laughed and kissed her lightly on the lips.