malia.

“Um, I do, actually. I don’t want to like.. intrude.” Mia knew deep down that that wasn’t how those kind of parties worked, but honestly she just wasn’t quite used to that concept yet. The last party she went to was a birthday party back in second grade, and times sure had changed. She couldn’t help her sigh when Malia sighed out her name, knowing that the other girl had a fair point. Mia just couldn’t help but be in her head about these sort of things. Going to a party like this was well out of her comfort zone, and she wasn’t used to anyone pushing her like this. She wasn’t sure if she was that interesting to hang out with, but she decided not to argue with that. Malia would just go into more depth about how she was wrong. Mia sighed as she got up from bed and rubbed the back fo her neck as she walked towards her closet. And then a shirt landed on her and she laughed and grabbed it as she shook her head. “Well when you put it like that.. Okay, fine. My dad probably won’t mind so we don’t really need to sneak out. I’ll just.. tell him we wanna go eat at Beacon Burger.” It was pretty late to go get some food, but she knew her dad probably wouldn’t question it. Once she threw on a quick outfit, she walked out into the living room with Malia and said a quick goodbye to her dad before getting into Malia’s car. 

Malia grinned in excitement that Mia had been convinced. She thought it would be more of a struggle to drag her out. It wasn’t a long drive to the house where the party was located at. A perk of living in a small town: everything was close by. When they arrived, you could tell the party was already in full force. There was some teenagers outside of the house already puking their guts out. Others were just standing around and probably taking a break from the stuffy home. “Just like I remember it.” She laughed, shaking her head as she watched someone stumble. “Come on, let’s go inside.” She grabbed Mia by the hand and led them inside. No one even questioned who they were and she gave Mia a look of ‘I told you so’. She brought her straight to the drinks table. “Have you ever drank before?” She asked practically yelling so that Mia could hear her through the music. “Don’t worry, you can let loose because I can’t get drunk.” She grabbed the cup of the jungle juice they had in a container. She pushed the drink in Mia’s hands. “Drink.” She grinned. Malia pulled out her pen from her pocket and took a hit. She didn’t want to party completely sober. “Do you want to take a hit?”

Mia figured that she was gonna get a simple answer like that from Malia, knowing the girl, but it still took her by surprise anyways as she rolled her eyes slightly. Her dad wasn’t necessarily the strict type of parent. If Mia was being honest, she had a feeling he kind of forgot what it was like to be a parent. Based on what he’d told her, he seemed to be a lot less worried about her than he was for Nate given the fact that he’d go out late to parties on his motorcycle all the time. And she wasn’t the type to get into trouble. Her newfound friend definitely seemed to be, though. Mia’s mouth fell open when Malia shut her laptop, her eyes widening slightly. “Hey! I was using that!” She exclaimed, not even bothering to grab the laptop back as she laughed and shook her head at the mention of the party. “The lacrosse captain’s party? I technically wasn’t invited, you know. I told you I just heard people talking about it.” She figured Malia was joking, but then the werecoyote started to talk about sneaking out and Mia’s face fell when she realized that the other girl was dead serious. Suddenly her nerves started to kick in as her eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Why do you even want to go with me of all people anyways? I’m.. so boring. And I don’t even have any clothes for that sort of thing.”

“Who cares if you weren’t invited? Everyone always showed up even if they weren’t. That’s what high school parties are.” She wasn’t going to let Mia get out of this one. She would find a reason for anything and everything. Malia placed the laptop down behind her on a dresser. She crossed her arms over her chest when Mia began to worry and get nervous. Her chemosignals were overwhelming and hard to ignore. “Mia.” She looked at her with a serious look. “You’re not boring. You’re just a little shy. And a little anxious at times. But you’re a fun person to hang out with. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be friends with you. I really don’t like being around people who aren’t interesting to me.” If Malia thought Mia was boring, she wouldn’t be her friend in the first place. “I’m not that dressed up either! Just throw on a pair of jeans and whatever shirt. Half the people are going to be too plastered to even care.” She found a random shirt laying on her chair and threw it towards her face. “I will drag you out. We’re going. You can’t say no to me. This is payment for the training I’m giving you.”

Mia was thankful that things started to look like they were going up again– Lydia was finally speaking to her again, and it looked like she’d also made a new friend in Malia. The werecoyote was a couple years older of course, but that was okay. And now that school was out the blonde had a lot more free time, so she was working a lot on her powers whenever she could. The last time she saw Malia, the other girl tried to convince her to go to a party with her, and Mia tried her best to nicely decline. As excited as Malia was to go to an old BHHS party, Mia had no interest at all. Parties weren’t really her scene, unlike her brother apartmently. The only time she’d ever drank alcohol was when she snuck some bourbon from the liquor cabinet in one of her foster homes, and never again. That stuff tasted terrible and all it did was give her a headache. She was just too shy to put herself out there like that. By the time the day rolled around, Mia had completely forgotten about it and was sitting at her desk on her laptop, googling potential solutions for people losing their powers to see if she could present anything to Xavier for them to try and help Lydia. But unfortunately she had no success. And then she heard her door open and flinched at the voice, not expecting anyone as she swung around in her chair and laughed nervously. “I– Malia? How’d you even get in here? Go where?”

“Through the front door.” She pointed with her thumb in the direction of the door. “Your dad let me in. Well, more like I invited myself in, I just told him I needed to talk to you.” Malia shrugged, speaking in a nonchalant tone. She definitely did not give much chance to respond or argue about it being late for visitors. It worked out well for her because she made it to Mia’s room. She looked over her shoulder to look at her laptop screen. “Mia, no. Close that. You need to get ready!” She snatched the laptop from her desk and closed it down keeping it with her so Mia wouldn’t just open it back up. “You can search for answers later. You have other plans tonight.” She was already expecting for her to deny wanting to go but Malia was determined. She wanted to go out tonight even if it was to a high school party. She didn’t get to go to many of those so she was making up for it. She also thought Mia needed to have some fun. “We’re going to the party you told me about the other day. Do you have some clean jeans? Or shorts? Just wear anything but your pajamas.” She told her, waiting for her to listen to her orders. “Your dad isn’t going to make deal if you leave for a party, right? If he does, I can sneak you out.”

Malia and Mia had been keeping in touch ever since they last hung out with each other. They had set up a training schedule for Malia to be able to help Mia strengthen her skills in hand-to-hand combat. Since they were spending some time together, they were forming a bond. Malia began to pester Mia for personal details of her life even more than she already was since she began to consider her a close friend. This past week Mia had mentioned that there was a high school party going. Malia had insisted the necromancer went to the party to have some fun claiming that the girl needed to ‘live’ a little. Mia denied wanting to go but Malia had other plans in mind. It was the night of the party and Malia was dressed up in her usual shorts and flannel shirt. She had decided to come over to Mia’s house and force herself to step out of her comfort zone and go to the party. She knocked on the door. Mr. Sinclair opened the door confused to see the girl outside his home so late. “I just came to see Mia...excuse me.” She grinned, finding her room through following her scent. “Hey, so are you ready to go?” She burst into her room without warning.

“Yeah, I guess that everyone here has its own… And I can’t blame them.” Theo lowered his eyes. “I mean, I got a fair share myself… And I got raised by a trio of creepy ghost-like scientists…” Indeed, the creature would have a lot of material in case it decided to visit him one day. He liked to think himself as not easy to scare, after all the things he had seen and been through and yet, he knew that it wasn’t exactly true, especially his new self, that had so many more buttons to push. 

“Yeah makes sense, at least until we can figure out how to make the next move…” Or it does, which was much more likely and far from a relaxing thought.

“I do… honest here.” The young man smirked playfully again.

“Surprising I know.” He chuckled. 

“So that means we are friends?” Another smirk as his gaze met her own, it was a nice feeling, after all he had done, even the though that someone that knew him so well could have chosen to give him a second chance. “And yeah it surprised me too, it’s refreshingly normal though… I mean, friends, rooming up with someone, it almost felt weird at first.

“Name is Kole, he is a wolf too, so maybe you could have met him already, I mean it’s not like there are so many of us…” 

“Speaking of which, we should do a movie night sometimes.” He smiled. “I mean it would pretty much be the first one in my life, but I think I could handle it.” He laughed.

“Yes, surprising, indeed.” Malia laughed along with him. 

“Ehhh...” She began to say with a grin on her face. “I’m not so sold on the term friends yet, but we’re..possibly getting there.” She shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. Theo hadn’t done anything wrong since she saw him once again, but she would always be wary. She was trying not to get too close to him, but they had hung out twice already. “Oh, I know Kole. I met him when I was job hunting and I applied to Macy’s. He seems like pretty sweet guy.” She didn’t know him to well, but she remembered how helpful he was when she gone to him. “I met his twin sister too, I like her.”

“You never had a movie night? Even like before everything?” She questioned.

“Okay, well I appreciate what you’ve done to help but we can seriously seperate now. I’m not asking for anymore of your help.” In fact, Talia didn’t want it. She didn’t feel like she deserved to have anyone help her process any of this. What she deserved was to take up every morning, constantly remembering the blood she’d spilled back there. Remembering the life she’d brutally ended. She didn’t deserve her friend to hold her hand and hug her while she cried. “Yeah, I am.” She mumbled back roughly as she rolled her eyes and tried to keep a stoic expression as she stormed off, desperately fighting tears. She was on the verge of losing it again, and the last person she wanted to be around was someone she cared about. She deliberately ignored Malia calling out for her, honestly just hoping that the werecoyote would give up and go home. But then she heard footsteps and even though she tried to pick up her pace, Malia caught up to her and she felt a hand grab onto her wrist. She briefly met Malia’s eyes when the other girl yanked her in that direction, but almost instantly Talia yanked her arm back as hard as she could, hearing her shoulder snap a way it wasn’t supposed to but not caring as she glared at Malia and took a step back. “For the last time, I want to be left alone!” She shouted, tears welling in her eyes as she turned and threw her fist at the first thing near her, which unfortunately was a tree. The skin on her knuckles split open a bit with a gash and she quickly grabbed her hand and yelled again. “Ow, shit!” When she looked down and realized her hand was bleeding and not healing, she grimaced and tried to hold it away from Malia as she took a shaky breath.

“Is that what you’re going to do to yourself to make yourself feel better about yourself? Hurting yourself?” Malia asked her in a scolding tone. She didn’t expect Talia to reply. She was just trying to make her see that leaving her alone would be a mistake. Especially out here in the preserve. It would be better for her to be with someone at the moment. She sighed, realizing that she shouldn’t be antagonizing her tonight. She already went through enough. “Let me see.” She mumbled, not waiting for her response before taking her hand to see her injury. “You’re not..healing?” She looked at her confused after staring at open wound for a few seconds. It should have been closing up the moment it cut open. “Are you like not letting yourself heal?” Malia had heard that it was possible to not allow yourself to  heal. She remembered Scott telling her about it when he had thought Derek had died when they were dealing with alpha pack. “Please just come home with me, Tal. I can bandage you up and leave you alone in my room. But please just come with me.”

“It’s okay that you don’t know what you want to do forever. It’s normal for our age to not have it figured out.” He didn’t want her to feel bad that she didn’t know yet. He knew Talia didn’t know, either, so it didn’t seem unusual to him. “But, yeah, FBI. They started a supernatural division that will work with local supernaturals to help rid their towns of the bad ones. Because I have specific knowledge and friendships already formed with supernaturals, I’m a wanted candidate. I’ve already been to one training and I’ll be going to another in about a month. When I finish college then I’ll be in the full FBI program.” Stiles took a moment to think about what he thought Malia would do. “I think whatever you do has to be physical. I can’t imagine you sitting behind some desk all day.”

“Yeah, I guess, you’re right, I don’t know I feel like I pressure myself to know for some reason.” She shrugged. Maybe because she felt like she needed a plan for when she decided to no longer fight off supernatural villains. She knew she wouldn’t be in Beacons Hills forever, she wanted to see the world. “I also don’t see myself sitting in a desk. I think I would be bored in the first hour and then not my do my work like I use to be when I would study for math.” She laughed, remembering the memories of Stiles helping to tutor her. She hated math with a passion which made doing any kind of homework for it a big struggle. “But so are you to go to like these training, do they like make you want to do the job even more? Oh my god, when you do finish everything, are you like an agent like they say in the movies?” She felt pretty proud of Stiles. The waiter came back and Malia stopped their conversation for a moment to order her usual cheeseburger and fries.

“How do you not talk when you’re- oh!” Jake raised his eyebrows and found himself blushing when Malia had been so blunt about what she did with other people. Of course it went over his head at first. Not that he judged her for any of that- she had a right to do whatever she wanted. But Jake was just an awkward person in general and very uncomfortable with conversations like that. He scratched the back of his neck and tried to think of something else to say. Thankfully Malia continued to talk so he didn’t have to keep putting his foot in his mouth. “They could be shy!” He was a romantic, so he wanted to believe in the idea that Malia had a secret admirer. A totally non creepy and harmless one, of course. Jake didn’t wish for Malia to get into any sort of trouble. And he was getting flustered again. Jake rolled his eyes- mostly at himself- and tried to regain his ability to speak properly. That was difficult for him on occasion. “Ah, thank you.” He laughed, beyond grateful for the fact that Malia was an easy person to talk to. Jake wanted everyone to like him but sometimes his personality just didn’t work for certain people. Malia seemed to help make situations less awkward which was good. “Oh, yeah! I mean no, I wasn’t going to do anything. But yes we can definitely hang out.” He nodded his head with a bright smile. Jake didn’t like to be alone so he was perfectly content with spending some time with Malia. “I just finished my run and was going to head home. So whatever you want to do I’m free for the day.”

“Maybe? If it’s an actual secret admirer, I hope they don’t take too long to reveal myself, I’m too impatient to wait around to try to figure it out.” Malia would want the answers right away and in person rather than little gifts brought to her. She just really didn’t see herself having a secret admirer only because she tended to scare any stranger away. She wasn’t close to anyone but her friends. But if she did, she might assume one of the gym goers who don’t miss a day of working out and always see her during her shifts. Whatever, she would just have to not care about it for now and forget about it. “Do you have your own place here?” She asked curiously. She knew it was only recent that Jake came back into town again. Malia tried to think of what they could do. She wished there was more to do in this small town sometimes. “You don’t smoke like your sister, do you?” 

“Fine for me…” Theo chuckled. “Then again, there would be something very wrong if either of us had really experienced how it feels to be drunk anyway.” Yep, neither was in their teen when they changed, so yeah… either they would have to have very neglectful parents, or worse. 

“I guess that there are worse sacrifices.” He smirked. 

“I dunno, but those kind of things, they are rarely around for no reason, I mean, we had seen that by now… It must be someone, or something it is after. Assuming it’s intelligent of course, maybe it just a beast feeding on fear or whatever.” He scratched his chin. “But from what you have described it looks like it can reason, myself, I wouldn’t hang around a place full of creatures that can potentially find a way to fight back unless I had a reason… or was completely confident that they couldn’t harm me.” He shrugged. “None are exactly comforting ideas aren’t they?” 

“I have plenty of those, you know?” He smirked playfully. 

“Nop, I’m rooming in with a friend.” He smiled fondly. “Who would have expected it right? I mean… it sounds like such a normal thing to do and yet…” 

“He is a kind guy… I honestly don’t know if I deserve him.” He furrowed his brows. “So far, I’m trying to stay out of troubles though… How about you?”

“Probably. Might thrive on nightmares or something. Wouldn’t be surprised if the residents of Beacon are plagued with them with everything that has been going on.” Their town had gone through so much that there had to be some people with trauma if they had been caught in the crossfire. They weren’t so lucky of keeping everyone away from harm’s way at times. She shook her head at him. “No, not comforting at all. But I’m done stressing for it for right now. I can’t do anything else, I’ve done what I’ve could. Is that giving up? I don’t know.” She shrugged. She didn’t have the same perseverance in continuing to research as her friends did. She hated research. 

“Oh, shut up.” She rolled her eyes at him for his comment, knowing what he trying to get at. “But you have friends?” She raised her eyebrow. “Someone that isn’t me?” She wasn’t sure if she exact considered him a friend, but they were hanging out at the moment. “Who’s this friend?”

“No trouble. I am just watching Netflix shows or movies most days. Or bothering Talia at Sinema” She grinned.

Lydia smiled softly at Malia’s joke. She was proud of her friend for getting a job and Lydia wished she had said that earlier. She was just in such a terrible mental state recently that those things were slipping her mind. Lydia knew she had been a shitty friend but she wanted to try and move forward. Malia was important to her. “That sounds like a good idea.” She nodded her head in agreement. Getting away from the fire was probably the safest thing. Lydia was going to wait for Malia to come back but then her friend froze and Lydia was confused. Her heart sank when Malia mentioned they weren’t alone. The werewolf came out so fast and Lydia stumbled backwards as he attacked Malia. She was suddenly feeling the loss of her powers on a greater level. Normally Lydia could easily scream and just knock the omega out of the way but she felt utterly powerless watching Malia get hurt by the wolf. She couldn’t even try to fight back, Lydia just kept thinking about how she didn’t have her powers anymore. She blinked a few times and felt so frozen in place. This never happened to Lydia before. She was a fighter when she needed to be but now Lydia was so lost, with her confidence shattered. Her eyes just widened as the omega now jumped towards her and knocked her down. Lydia knew Malia was about to find out that she didn’t have her powers, since Lydia couldn’t do anything but lay on the ground as the werewolf brought his claws up in the air like he was going to kill Lydia. She had never felt so weak. It was like Lydia was completely forgetting that she fought ten orderlies as a human in order to get out of Eichen. Back then it was about survival but now she couldn’t think about anything other than the fact that she didn’t have her powers. 

Malia had expected for Lydia to scream and use it to push the omega off of her. She had been prepared to fight it off when she manged to get it away from her. But she watched as Lydia just laid on the ground, letting the werewolf overpower her. Thankfully, Malia was already rushing towards her to help. She watched as the omega was just about swipe her with his claws against her chest. She kicked the werewolf on his side, throwing him off of Lydia. She didn’t help Lydia off the ground because in the moment she just wanted to get this person off their backs. If she was distracted, it might lash at her again and definitely gain the upper-hand in the fight. The omega ran at her, throwing a punch in the direction of her face, but Malia swiftly dodged it. She use the moment he stumbled to knee her in his stomach causing him to double over. She threw a another punch at his jaw to knock him out. The omega stumbled fell to the floor out cold. Malia jostled his leg with her foot to make sure he was knocked out and wouldn’t get back up again. She turned back to Lydia, coming over to her. “Are you okay?” She asked first to make sure she was free of any injuries. “Also, why didn’t you scream? If I hadn’t been already running to you..”

The whole situation was really starting to settle in now that Talia was covering the car with gasoline, and she knew that once she did this there was no backing out. As soon as she moved the body there was no going back. But then again, there was no way she could claim self defense. Not when there was so many claw marks all over him. Sure, people like Sheriff Stilinski and Parrish might be able to put two and two together and come to the conclusion that a werewolf had done it, but most of the officers wouldn’t. And while she knew she was more than likely safe from actually facing any legal repercussions from this, there were definitely mental ones that would now be with her forever. First the jogger, now this. It just seemed like she was spiraling farther down the hill of becoming what her father was rather than separating herself from him. Really she was no better. God, she couldn’t get Lydia and Malia’s faces from seeing the body out of her head. It all just kept flashing, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it. And the longer it went on, the tighter her chest felt. Until she heard Malia say something. “What?” Talia mumbled quietly when she heard her name, and then she glanced at the lighter and nodded slightly, clearly pretty out of it as she simply lit the lighter and tossed it towards the car, and within a few seconds it was engulfed in flames. “I’m fine on my own, actually.” She lied, hoping Malia would just finally drop it as she turned around and didn’t hesitate to just try walking in the other direction. She was grateful for Malia’s help and would never fully be able to make it up to the other girl, but in that moment she just wanted to be alone. She felt like punching something, but not at any outwards anger anymore. All of her anger was now directed onto herself, and she didn’t really want Malia to see her spiral any further. She’d already shown too much weakness.

“You’re the absolutely fucking opposite from fine, Talia.” Malia could not believe Talia was going to pull this lie right now. She had just seen her sob her heart out and spew out the contents of her stomach. She knew that she was not okay. No one would be okay after dealing with something like this. Malia would have nightmares just from seeing and carrying the dead body of the orderly. “You’re seriously walking away from me right now..” She scoffed, crossing her arms but following after her friend. There was no way she was going to leave her alone right how. She was worried that she might do something stupid or hurt herself to try to fight off the guilt. It would just be safer if she dragged her back to her home. “Tal.” She called out again when Talia didn’t turn to look at her. Malia grabbed onto her wrist to get her to stop walking away. She looked her right in the eyes before speaking again. “That’s not how you get to my apartment. Let’s go.” She said sternly. She felt like she was acting like a mother; she was usually the one acting restless. Malia didn’t try to wait for her to walk but was dragging her in the opposite direction.

Lydia knew she was being insensitive. She tried to think about how she would feel if one of her friends was in pain and they were saying she couldn’t do anything to help. She’d been in situations before where she felt completely helpless and it sucked. Lydia understood that, but she was still unable to stop the harsh words that were slipping out of her mouth. The strawberry blonde took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. “We’ve been friends now for a long time. I didn’t actually expect you not to try and ask questions.” Lydia said lightly. It was like she was fighting her brain and her heart for control. Her heart was telling her to not lash out at Malia and maybe even let her in. Lydia’s brain on the other hand kept saying push, push, push. Her brain was winning just because her heart felt like it had been destroyed one too many times. Lydia wasn’t completely giving up though. “I called you for a reason, Malia. Not because there was no one else to ask or because I just think of you as someone who might want to light things on fire. I mean, maybe I do. But that’s not all I think of you as.” Lydia tried to smile softly. “I wanted to hangout with my friend. Still do.”

“We can hang out anytime. You saw, I work now, I can actually afford to go out now instead of watching my bank account drop.” Malia joked as she couldn’t help herself. She felt bad for being harsh with Lydia but was glad they were able to have this conversation. She would have to trust in her friend and that Stiles would be able to help overcome whatever she may be going through. “Maybe we could put the fire out and go get some milkshakes? Let me go get the water in my car.” Malia was going to walk away from the clearing but stopped when she caught scent of someone other than Lydia. Her body went stiff trying to listen in and see if she could spot them. “I don’t think we’re alone anymore..” Malia said, turning back to Lydia. “We should leave--” Malia barely got to finish her sentence before she felt another body fling themselves onto her. She barred her teeth and let her werewolf side appear. It was another werewolf, probably an omega. The omega tried to claw at her face, but blocked with her forearm, the skin breaking from their clothes. Malia kneed the guy in the stomach, quickly rolling out under him and getting up. He got up after a few seconds, but turned to Lydia this time. “Lydia, watch out.” She yelled, following after the other werewolf to help Lydia fight him.

Jake was relieved to know that Malia was okay. He tended to crack under pressure, so he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if she needed help that involved anything other than just talking. Talking he was good at- except when he fumbled over his words. And let his mind wander, which he was definitely starting to do in that moment. “Don’t think I saw anyone walking by.” Jake replied back as he listened to Malia’s explanation. “But honestly I wasn’t completely paying attention so they might’ve.” He had been told he needed to be more aware of his surroundings but that hadn’t changed yet. Jake knew it was a dangerous trait to have in a town like Beacon Hills. “Flowers?” His smile widened when Malia said what had happened. “Maybe you have a secret admirer! That’s so sweet.” He definitely always looked on the bright side instead of going to the worst case scenario. But Malia also seemed spooked and he wanted to ease her mind. Unless she thought he was the one who gave her the flowers and now she was thinking he was a total weirdo. “Wait, they weren’t from me! Just to clarify.” He began. “I wouldn’t do that. I mean- not because you don’t deserve them! I’m sure you do. You’re very.. pretty. Very deserving of flowers.” God, he just didn’t know when to shut his mouth sometimes. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I just started thinking about how it looks weird that I’m the only person here and I was nervous you thought I was some sort of creep.”

“I figured you might not have been, it’s okay.” She shrugged it off. Guess she could just keep the flowers. But she felt more inclined to just toss them. Malia really didn’t want anything to them especially if she a secret admirer or something. “I don’t think so..I don’t think I’ve really talk to anyone like that. Don’t really do much talking if I am with someone.” She said bluntly not caring to be ashamed of her words. She just didn’t see herself in a relationship anytime soon. Malia was open to it but she wasn’t wishing for it, she just liked to have her fun with one-night stands. “If it is a secret admirer, I have no idea who the hell it can be. Kinda weird if this is how they want to get my attention. I like them to be more direct. Didn’t even leave a note!” She knew it was probably nothing but it felt a little creepy to her. There was a gut feeling in her stomach telling her it was something cute. But there was nothing to worry about at the moment so she pushed it away. Malia struggled to hide her laughter as Jake stumbled his own words. “Wow, Jake, I thought we had something.” She teased with a grin on her face to fluster him some more. “At least you saved yourself by saying I’m pretty.” The interaction made her feel a little better. “Nah, I don’t think you’re a creep, don’t worry, too pretty for that..” She replied using his own words against him. Malia was going to leave him to continue doing whatever he was, but felt a little uneasy going back home alone. “Um, were you going to do something? If not, you want to hang out? Or if you are, can I join you?”