Hide and Secret (Wattys2015)

(22) Serena's POV

Three days after Taylor stopped speaking to us, I sprinted up to Jill when I saw her in the hallway, practically mowing her down. "Hey, Jill! So, how's it going? What have you been up to?" I fired questions at her as fast as lightning.

I was pathetic. I was like that annoying little puppy that you just wanted to go away. I hovered around Jill daily now, unsure of what to do with myself and who to associate with now that Taylor was freezing all of us out. When Taylor had started to walk away with the iPhone, I got really upset. Seeing her turn her back to us made me truly realize how much we had relied on one another while the sender was still torturing us.

Back before I went to rehab, people were only friends with me because of my popularity. They only cared about me to climb more up the social ladder. And after I returned from rehab, those so-called friends had vanished (But I did forgive Jill for vanishing, especially now).

Taylor had been my first genuine friend, even though it hadn't really started out that way.

And... truth?

Now that she was gone, I was in desperate need female support. I mean, Theo was great, but I needed a girl to talk to. And at this moment, that was Jill.

Those she didn't seem too thrilled. "God, Serena, don't you have somewhere to be?" she asked, annoyed. Jill had been understanding the first few times I'd latched onto her, but now, her patience was clearly wearing thin. Which I could understand completely.

So I backed off. "Sorry, Jill." I didn't want to irritate her. She was the closest I had to a friend at this point. Yes, Jill could be sassy, bratty, whiny, and short-tempered, but she had grown on me. I think that the sender had given us a whole new perspective on each other.

Jill's face softened, and in a surprisingly tender move, she patted me on the shoulder. "Taylor will come to her senses soon enough. And when she does, we'll be waiting for her."

We had actually considered going to the police and telling them about the iPhone, but we knew that without the actual phone, we wouldn't have any proof. So now, all we needed to do was wait for Taylor to cough up the phone.

Later on, I walked home alone. Jill had offered to take me to the mall, where she, Kai, and Emory were picking out dresses for her party that was in a week, but I had declined. I still didn't feel very comfortable around Kai or Emory yet. Emory was still a bit shady in my mind, despite her helping us out. And as far as I knew, Kai was oblivious to what was going on. But I didn't really know them, so that made me uncomfortable.

When I opened the door, my mom was sitting on the couch, a cup of tea in her hand. Unlike Jill's mother, who lived on coffee, my mom preferred tea. I was a coffee drinker myself, but I had tried tea once, when I was fifteen, in hopes of gaining my mother's approval. That didn't work out so well. I had hated the taste of it and ended up turning in my tea for something alcoholic. I don't remember what it was, though. "Hi, Mom."

"Hello, Serena," my mother smiled at me.

I sat on the edge of the loveseat across from her, unsure of what I wanted to say. "Um... where's Johnson?"

"Out. Working late. He's picking up takeout for us on his way home."

There was a very long, awkward silence, where I wasn't so sure what to say. This was the perfect opportunity to come clean to my mother about the sender, and how everything was still going on. But for some reason, I couldn't tell her about the stalker. Mom and I had just gotten back into a good understanding with each other. And plus, this was something I needed to fix on my own.

Of course, I could still ask Mom for help.

But not about the stalker. No. This was about simple friend drama. "Taylor and I got into a fight," I blurted out.