When she finally leaves the locker room she can hardly call herself free, in less than a second Anastacia gets surrounded by all of the cheerleaders, some of them seem sad, others are angry, but the only common denominator is the worry they feel for Anastacia's safety. One of them holds both of her hands saying.

"You are so strong for managing to keep yourself calm!"

"She is crazy, nobody thinks you're wrong," One of the cheerleaders says while patting Anastacia on the back.

Olivia continues, "If you need we can try to talk to the school, they don't deserve the privileges they have!"

"We should tell the school to lock them inside tomorrow!" Another one screams from the back of the group.

Anastacia has no idea what is happening, but she realizes that there is some gossip running around the school, she wants to ask what exactly is going on and why they waited until now to talk to her about it but one thing she learned with the hidden desires she feels for Iara, is that some things are better left unchecked.

"No... it's fine, I just want to keep going like usual, let's get to work, girls!" whe tries to straighten her posture and keep a firm but calm voice. It seems to work as all of the people say some small supporting words and leave her alone, the only one who hasn't said anything but stayed after everyone left is Carol.

Two thirds of the Trio stay behind, as usual the brazilian helps Anastacia with bringing every equipment they need, while Carol grabs the two thermal bags Anastacia holds two of the floor mats. They slowly make their way out of the gym, leaving enough time for a small conversation. Anastacia expected a follow up explanation about the two penguins, but Carol had other plans.

The smaller girl leans forward, lightly brushing shoulders with Anastacia which gets the attention of the other girl, when their eyes meet and Carol seems the raised eyebrow of her friend she for a moment wants to let it go, she knows her friend enough to know that she won't be very welcoming of what she is about to hear.

"So... I was thinking, and this is just kind of an idea, but do you think Iara is pretty?" Carol's words barely leave her mouth and she can already perceive the disgust written all over Anastacia's face.

The response is quick, sharp and on a lower pitch than her usual voice. "You must be high? How could I possibly find Iara hot? I don't think she is remotely close to good looking, you should pray that God gives you eyes that can see when someone is pretty and when someone is not!"

Carol does not pride herself on her ability to read people, but when she sees the small undertone of red showing on Anastacia's cheeks, the way she stumbles over her words and her eyes seem to avoid any kind of confrontation. Carol got the first confirmation she wanted, now she just needs to find a way to probe a little deeper.

"Yeah sure, she is so ugly ew, ew, but the circumstances of the school made it so you guys had to spend some time together, so correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't she remind you of Rihanna when she had short hair?"

Anastacia takes a moment to remind herself how Rihanna looks, looking up in silence for a moment searching for memories of the singer. She doesn't really see the similarities Carol is talking about, but she does think they are both beautiful women.

"I don't see it, yeah their faces are similar, and they have almost the same smile, but Rihanna's short hair was red and had a lot more volume..." she argues.

"Oh yeah what was so wrong of me," Carol says before giving her best fake laugh, not bothering to keep the laugh for more than two seconds, unfortunately for her, Anastacia was not engrossed enough in her own thoughts to not realize the strange behavior the brazilian displays.

"Do you have an undisclosed reason to ask me things about Iara? It seems that not only do you hide what you were really doing with Lily, you also want to find a way to befriend the other one? Are you that willing to throw me out?" Anastacia's words are calm and slow, she tries her best to maintain a cold tone, even if she is gripping the mats with every ounce of strength she has.

The other girl gets a little surprised by the sudden confrontation, in her mind she did a great job pretending not to have any ulterior motive, already being able to see the rest of the girls, Carol decides she needs more time before giving an explanation on why she thinks Anastacia may be in love with Iara.

"I don't wanna throw you out, I love our friendship, I just sat down next to her and saw some similarities, you know me, I love Rihanna, there's no hair in this egg, I promise!" she answers with a small smile, trying to comfort her friend in some way.

Anastacia doesn't buy it. Her eyes squint as she tries to focus on Carol's face looking for any kind of hint of what she may be hiding, she is about to ask again when she hears Olivia yell her name.

Deciding to keep up this conversation later, Anastacia tries her best to forget her worries, ignore the implications of Carol's actions and have a nice after school activity, it is already hard to get her mind off Adam and Iara when one of them is training just a few feet from her and the other somehow managed to rent a three store bedroom on her mind.

The cheer practice is the same as always, the only difference is that most of the people were way more respectful towards Anastacia, once or twice she saw Iara running around the school accompanied by her shadow, Lily, after the hours spent learning the new routine for the next game she is happy to finally rest.

Anastacia leaves the school ready to go on a date with Adam, while Iara and Lily try their best to get everything ready for the anniversary, they are all doing something they don't want, while Iara and Lily have to organize something for the whole school to see, Anastacia has to hide something so that no one, not even herself can notice.

The days pass quickly without a lot of problems for anyone, Anastacia did stop making fun of the weird people on the school, not because she is scared of what Iara will do, but because if she does something there's a chance she will have to talk or touch Iara again and the best way to avoid any kind of impure thoughts is to avoid the source of it.

Saturday, thirty minutes before they are supposed to meet the two helpers in the school, Lily has already picked up Iara and they both sit in the car in a heated argument while getting close to the school.

"If we were to hit him with your car right now going at like 50 miles an hour, with this car weighing 5000 pounds... we would hit him with..." Iara takes a second to calculate the exact numbers, when she finishes the math her voice comes out proud and victorious. "5 thousand joules. A human dies with 1 hundred. Are you saying Naruto is 50 times stronger than a normal human?"

Lily rolls her eyes gripping the steering wheel, "he fought the susanoo! Which was huge and he still won!"

"And he would still get absolutely rocked by a car! You literally ignored my full explanation on why he would die! Even if he doesn't die immediately he would have so many internal injuries that not even praying to Kurama would help!"

"You are an internal injury!" Lily screams while circling around the parking lot of the school finding the closest parking spot to the door.

They leave the car, still arguing if Naruto would die if hit by a car, Iara hugs her own body trying to keep herself warmer, while Lily happily walks to the door. The former wears a gray hoodie and jeans, while the latter wears a black skirt with small stars and an oversize gray crop top.

"Oh, I already see them, damn they got here first? That 's crazy. I usually like to think I always get places first.." Lily exclaims before making her way to the two figures she sees waiting in the school doors.

Iara knows that her friend is always early at everything, the first time they were supposed to go to a party together Lily showed up to her house one hour earlier. As they move closer their eyes finally adapt to the darkness, for Iara it's almost a jumpscare, instead of seeing Dylan and River they see two girls, Carol and Anastacia, both of them are quietly waiting for something, or someone.

Carol wears a sheath blue dress that shows her arms and a small amount of cleavage, she has simple makeup on her face giving her a natural look,while Anastacia wears a black shirt with the words "Jesus Saves" occupying most of the shirt and pink shorts.

When the four girls finally meet each other there is a moment of silence, Carol is unimpressed, Lily and Anastacia are horrified and Iara is annoyed. Anastacia's eyes move from the two girls to Carol, for a second, and before she can actually say anything Iara says it first.

"Gosh, It's so hard having so many stalkers..."

Lily smiles at how tired Iara's voice sounds, the former locks arms with the latter saying, "It comes with the fame, don't worry, we will give them an autograph and they leave."

Anastacia's right eye twitches at Lily's words, she tries to keep a straight face clenching her jaw and closing her hands on fists, she gives a small fake smile to the two without showing her teeth and then turns to Carol, the actual reason of her anger, she leans closer to her friend and whispers.

"Why did you betray me like this? I thought they weren't coming." Carol looks at her friend and with a sly smile she says.

"Don't worry, it's for the best like this."