At least you'll be in a better frame of mind this time... you hope.

The next morning, the levels of mortal dread in the air are all too familiar. You felt them pretty much every day of your life until about two days ago, so it should be no big deal to you that they're back. The sense that you're wandering into a hostile environment is once again universal, pervasive.

Because... You're going to see Alex, and confront her. Whatever that entails.

You were never the best with directions, even when you weren't at your peak of feeling unsafe, so you try your best to retrace your steps from the previous Thursday, back to that long-abandoned classroom with its scraped wooden desks and wobbly chairs. Eventually you find it, though, just as 9 o'clock hits...

...and Alex is sitting there on a desk, facing the door.

The silence you hate so much, the one that nearly drove you to madness, is back. There's such a thick wall between you and Alex right now, that it seems impossible to pass around it, let alone break it down.

But Alex tries. "Hey, Rosie. I see you saw my letter. Go on, sit."

She pats a desk next to her, and you uneasily - and with a bit of difficulty - raise yourself enough to sit on it. You can't bring yourself to look at her, so you just look down.

For want of a response, she speaks up again. "I just wanted to speak to you, maybe help things get a little better... we haven't talked since yesterday, and I just wanted to work out what it was. I figured it was something that happened yesterday afternoon..."

"If you must know, it was." That comes out far more harshly than you intended. Once again, a silence sets in, and that's the perfect condition for your mind to tell you what you should believe. What if she really did want to help, and you just ruined everything?

You need to break the silence. "It was yesterday. With you, me, and Gracie. That just felt... wrong."

You hear Alex sigh. Good to know she hasn't run off on you, like you did to her. "I don't understand. She was being so nasty to you, I thought you'd want to get back at her."

"I didn't want to get back at her." Once again, you feel your voice coming out with more of a snap than usual. "I didn't want to hurt her."

"You both really enjoyed it, though..." From listening to Alex's voice, the confidence seems to have disappeared.

"Well, yeah. I was turned on, you got her turned on somehow... I didn't want to leave her like that. But it felt horrible afterward. I felt like I'd just seriously hurt someone, even a bully. And I wondered... are you the type of person who likes to hurt people? Someone I trusted... and you just don't care about people's feelings? That's what I thought."

Oh no. There's that silence again. And given time to think to yourself, you start to consider that you just want Alex back. And that's not possible. You've just screwed it all up again. You've lost the first person who cared about you in years just because you couldn't keep your negative feelings in check...

Until you feel a pair of warm arms wrap around you... and hear a soft crying.

"I'm sorry, Rosie... I'm so sorry, Rosie... I just wanted to make you happy..."

This is an entirely new side of Alex, one you weren't expecting to experience... is this something you brought on? Did you break her? This doesn't feel right.

She continues to **** out through cries. "I thought it was something you wanted... I just wanted you to be happy... I just wanted to be... the best person I could be... for you..."

You don't know what to think any more. All you know is, you're experiencing Alex at her most ****. And maybe you should let yourself be more **** too. The truth is, you really do just want to feel that connection again. To not let one misunderstanding drag you down, or let it make you throw away what's really important.

But for now, you're just thinking that. You should probably speak up at some point.

"You don't need to do things like you did to be good for me." That's probably not the best way to say it, but it comes out like that. "You don't need to act out. I'm just happy when you're here. I feel... safe when you're around. Not the you who ties girls up and presents them as some sort of toy. The real you."

You haven't looked up, still, so you only hear Alex take a deep breath as she continues to cling on to you. "I'll do my best, okay? Now... let's stand up, this isn't a good position for me..."

"Okay..." You get up, and soon you're hugging tight on to Alex. After a long day feeling you'd lost each other, you don't want to part from her. You soon lose track of time.

When you finally break apart, you have no idea how long you've been embracing.

"Well, that was fun. Nice to know we're on okay terms again, right?" She's right, it is. "So... made any new friends, while we've been apart?"

"A few, actually..." You wouldn't exactly call them friends, but think you know whom you'll bring Alex to, out of the people you've met so far...