From GuitarGuy92 to xoJadeBabyxo

The day after the fight was a Friday and neither Nick nor Allegra was looking forward to go to class—knowing that they would be seeing the other in two of their classes.

Nick didn’t want to see her because he knew that all he’d be able to think about was the idiot he had been. All that time the girl he was looking for was right by his side and he never figured it out. He wouldn’t be able to handle seeing her familiar black hair, looking into her piercing blue eyes, knowing that he was partly to blame for not figuring it out sooner and having Dawn catch him off guard that way. Both the girls he had trusted ended up being the same one and she had made a fool of him. She had lied to him and used him, played games with him. The part that hurt the most about that was the fact that he had let her in more than he had let anyone in before. He was going to ask her to be his girlfriend! And she had ended up being worse than any of the other fakes he had encountered—because she was successful in making him believe that she was innocent and caring, that she was different.

For Allegra, things were even more difficult. From the very beginning she had been hesitant in allowing herself to get too close to Nick. She had tried so hard to maintain her guard, but sometimes she let it slip and she would be herself around him, making her seem fickle in her actions. Charlie had warned her that she should be careful with him, but she had confidence in her judge of character. She thought that there might actually be more to Nick Jonas than the jerk that walked around campus with his friends with a holier-than-thou attitude. And for those few months she thought that she was right. He had been so nice to her, so caring. He was there for her when she found out about her grandfather’s heart attack. He stayed when she expected him to leave. He told her some of his secrets and listened while she shared hers. She had let herself trust him completely and didn’t even think twice about it. She even started to develop feelings for him, something she hadn’t let herself do since she broke up with her ex-boyfriend two years prior. Only to have him turn out to be worse than her ex. He had betrayed her trust, something she didn’t take lightly, by telling his friends about her secrets, her biggest burden. And that’s what hurt the most—allowing herself to trust him so blindly and then finding out that she had misjudged his character. The pain of that was unbearable for her.

She spent the rest of Thursday crying her eyes out to Charlie and Kenny. She didn’t think it was possible for the body to produce so much water—she cried for hours. She knew it tore her friends up seeing her that way, both of them wanting nothing more than to go find Nick and give him a piece of their mind. She had to plead with them so that they wouldn’t make another scene. She knew Charlie had a temper problem and would rip Nick to shreds with her words, so it had taken more effort to get her to swear not to go after him.

Kenny was probably more upset than Charlie, but he was easier to convince. She felt horrid doing it, but she knew that Kenny would do absolutely anything she asked him to, and she took advantage of that. He wasn’t happy about it, but he swore he wouldn’t beat him up the way he had threatened to do. Allegra wouldn’t have been able to handle that—partly because they were teammates and she didn’t want to see the baseball team suffer because of this, but mostly because she couldn’t handle the thought of Nick getting hurt.

And that thought had made her start crying all over again, because even though he had betrayed her in the worst way possible, she still had strong feelings for him and wished that everything were back to the way they used to be. But that was impossible and she knew it.

She woke up Friday morning with a headache courtesy to all her crying and with a pain in her chest that was too unbearable—so she stayed locked up in her room. The fact that she couldn’t pull herself together enough to get to class (Allegra never missed a day of class) made Charlie even angrier at Nick. But she had promised Allegra she wouldn’t make a scene, no matter how much she wanted to—and oh did she want to, badly.

Nick however, had managed to pull himself together and go to class. His anger had dissipated over night so he was able to manage it, though he was dreading walking into his first period English Literature class. He walked in at the last possible moment, thinking he was delaying seeing Allegra for as long as he could. But when he walked through the door, his eyes instantly travelled to her seat like they were accustomed to—and that made him angry with himself—only to find that her seat was empty. He felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach, and that made him angry too. How was it possible that even after finding out what she had done he was still disappointed by her empty seat, worried even?

He couldn’t focus much after that, wondering why she hadn’t shown up to class. Was she that much of a coward that she couldn’t face him after being called out on her lies? That thought stuck with him for the entire day and for the majority of that weekend as well. He tried to tell himself that it was better that he hadn’t seen her since the fight, that he would only get angrier if he did see her. But that didn’t explain the way he looked for her wherever he went on campus or the disappointment he felt when he didn’t see her with her friends during any meals.

But when he finally did see her Monday morning in class, a series of confusing emotions surged through him. At first a sense of relief surged through him when he walked into Mrs. Hoff’s class and saw her jet black hair right where it should be. Her back was to him while she spoke to another girl in their class. Said girl must have mentioned that he was there because in the next second he was staring at Allegra’s face. That’s when worry surged through him. Her eyes were swollen and red and she wasn’t wearing a hint of make-up. Her bottom lip quivered a bit before she turned away from him. And then that’s when the anger settled in again. His body was still reacting to her pain when it shouldn’t be, not after what she did.

So he had marched right to the back of the room and sat in his seat, not looking at her again. But half way through the class he couldn’t help himself. His eyes focused in on the back of her head, his heart yearning for her. The whole time he focused on his anger because he knew if he allowed himself to think about the way he was hurting, things would be worse. Because it did hurt. He wanted so badly for things to go back to the way they were before Dawn told him everything. He wanted to be able to look into Allegra’s blue eyes and see the smile in them. He wanted to bathe in the light of her smile. Listen to the melodic sound of her laugh. Feel the warmth spread through his body at even the slightest bit of contact. He wanted all of that despite the fact she had lied to him. And that made it worse, knowing that she had gotten so deep under his skin that there were moments where he decided to overlook everything and have her near him again.

For Allegra, seeing Nick again for the first time since the fight was heart breaking. She thought she’d be able to handle it. He sat behind her in both the classes they shared, so she figured it would be easy to be near him because she wouldn’t be looking at him. But when Erica had told her Nick had walked into class that Monday morning, she couldn’t help but turn around and sneak a peek. She hadn’t been expecting him to be looking at her at all. So when she saw that look of concern flash briefly in his eyes, she almost broke down again. She quickly looked away from him, blinking furiously to prevent any tears from falling. It had taken Charlie a lot of talking to convince her to come to class today and she had done a lot of mental preparation as well. So much for that. She couldn’t even look at him without wanting to cry.

She couldn’t focus for the rest of the period. She could only think about why he had looked so concerned for her when he had clearly been furious the last time she saw him. Was it possible that he still cared about her? That thought almost made her cry again, because even if he had been able to forgive her for lying to him, she couldn’t forgive him for betraying her trust. She had to keep reminding herself of that when she practically felt his eyes burning a hole into the back of her head. She had to remind herself that things wouldn’t ever be the same. And it worked just long enough for her to get through that class period.

The days that followed went pretty much the same way. Neither one of them looked at each other, let alone actually speak to each other. But that didn’t stop the rest of the school from talking about it. The first week all anyone could talk about was the fight that had happened right in the halls. The spectators had twisted the truth until ridiculous rumors were flying. Everyday Allegra heard a new one—she and Kenny had secretly been dating and Nick was making a move on her, so they fought it out; she was pregnant and both boys were convinced they were the father, so they fought it out. The rumors got more ridiculous as the week went by, but they were partially based on the truth—Nick and Kenny had gotten in a fight because of her.

By the next week, someone else had been involved in a scandal and rumors about them started circulating, the fight from the previous week being forgotten. That is, by everyone but the involved parties.

After that first encounter, things were pretty much as expected. Nick focused on nothing but his anger. He didn’t allow himself to look at her anymore, which controlled his urge to speak to her. It goes without saying that he returned to hanging out with his old friends—the socialites. They decided to overlook his ‘lapse in judgment’ and welcomed him back with open arms. Except this time things were different—instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching while his friends made fun of others, he joined in. It was a bit immature, but he figured if being the nice guy around Allegra hadn’t made a difference, then why not become the person she thought he had been from the very beginning? He went back to taking part in all the partying and rough housing that he hadn’t wanted to take part in before. It was his way of rebelling everything he had been around Allegra, everything she took advantage of.

And Allegra knew that he was doing it as a way to get back at her. He knew too much about her for her to not know the reason for his actions. And that hurt too. Even though he was no longer anything to her, it hurt that he was using information she had confided in him (again) to get back at her. He knew how opposed she was to irresponsible teens—so he went out and partied hard with his friends, doing things she didn’t even want to let herself think about. He knew how much she despised when his friends picked on others because they were ‘inferior’ to them—so he joined in, making the rudest remarks of them all. But most importantly, he knew how much she disliked Dawn—so he was cozying up to her, whether it was to make her jealous or because he wanted to get back together with her, she didn’t know, but it hurt—more than it should have.

And things continued that way, progressively getting worse as the weeks went by. Nick was on a path to self destruction! Any signs of the caring, sweet Nick Jonas were gone. He had become an atypical socialite. Partying hard, making the lives of other’s impossible, even letting his performance in school slip. He still had to maintain passing grades to be on the baseball team, but all his teachers could see a difference in him.

And his family noticed it too. The weekend after he found out the truth, Nick had taken a drive to UCLA to visit Joe. He had still been in the anger stage, so he had done all his venting to his favorite brother. Nick was the same as Joe and Kevin in the way that all three of them hated having fake people use them to gain popularity. So when Nick had ranted to Joe about everything that Dawn had told him, Joe had instantly taken his side. He was just as mad at Allegra for lying to Nick and using him as Nick was. He couldn’t believe that she would do that. And when Kevin was informed of the occurrences, he too was upset. Especially since Allegra had managed to fool him too and made him think she was a nice, innocent girl. Kevin had a bullshit detector and he couldn’t believe Allegra had slipped under his radar. So when the Jonas family started taking note of the instant change in Nick, they blamed Allegra for it. She had played such a nasty trick on their Nicholas that he was left heartbroken. This was the only way he knew to cope with his pain and it wasn’t something any of them wanted to see.

Allegra was also on a path to self-destruction—except she was doing the complete opposite as Nick. Instead of going out and rebelling everything she had been around him, she was keeping more to herself. She no longer felt like going out with her group of friends, no matter who it was that tried to convince her otherwise. She only went to class, yearbook meetings, and to the shelter. She barely ate anymore, only when forced to by Charlie or Kenny. Nothing held the same appeal to her. Everything would remind her of Nick somehow and that was something she wanted to avoid at all costs. She didn’t want to hurt over him anymore; she didn’t want to think about him.

But nothing was the same. She couldn’t pick up her camera without remembering all the countless pictures she had taken on their boat trip during Spring Break—which were waiting for her to upload onto her computer. She couldn’t even bare to admire the sunset anymore, something that never happened. But it always reminded her of Nick—the time she watched it by him on the beach the night after his friends picked on her at Derfs, the time he watched her admiring it on the drive to their first date, the time they watched it from her backyard when she went to visit her pop-pop at the hospital, and the time he caught her admiring it from her dining room window not all that long ago. She didn’t want to think of those memories, so she would shut her eyes tightly until she was sure that the sun had set.

She was even more reserved and closed up than when Nick had met her. Her friends were afraid she wasn’t going to overcome this. It was the first thing any of them knew about her, that she was shy, quiet, and reserved until you were able to crack through her shell. And it took someone special to be able to do that. And it didn’t happen overnight either; you had to work to crack through Allegra Cole’s shell. But Nick had managed to get through faster than any of her friends. And because of that they were all afraid that she wouldn’t be able to trust someone again. She wouldn’t let anyone in as easily as she let Nick Jonas in—if she even tried to let anyone in at all.

But there was nothing they could do to help. Nick’s family couldn’t say anything to him without him instantly getting angry at them. Allegra’s friends couldn’t say anything to her without somehow upsetting her even more than before. Both groups were at a loss as to how to help the ones they loved. And no matter how much they wanted to hate the person that had made them that way, they knew that that same person was who would be able to help them. All Nick needed was to have Allegra tell him that she was never fake around him and she held no interest in being popular. He wanted her to be the same, kind, caring, independent girl he had fallen for. All Allegra needed was to hear that Nick hadn’t told anyone about her family secrets and that it was all a misunderstanding. She wanted the compassionate, funny, sweet guy she had gotten to know.

But those people didn’t exist. They were altered by this event, never to be the same.

And all anyone could do was watch silently as they continued on their path to self- destruction.