"What do you mean you are not going to Church?"

Brady glared at his father and then pulled the covers back over his head.

Mr. Carson called for his wife at once. She came at a run.

"What is it?" she asked immediately.

"Brady refuses to go to Church," he explained.

Mrs. Carson's eyebrows furrowed. She was not so much concerned about her son's unwillingness to go to church but more so by his complete disinterest in life all together.

"That's okay, leave him be," she said quietly.

Mr. Carson took a deep breath as they closed the door to Brady's room.

"What are we going to do?" he asked with tears in his eyes.

Mrs. Carson sighed. "I don't know, maybe the psychologist will know what to do."

"The appointment with the psychologist is on Monday," he said to his wife. "Who knows how they will even communicate."

"The psychologist assured me he could work with nonverbal patients," she insisted.

Mrs. Carson put her arms around her husband comfortingly. "It will be okay," she whispered. "Maybe Hayden can take him out for some fun after we come back to Church."

Elsewhere, Julia was getting ready for dance class. Well that was what she was supposed to be doing. In actuality, she was texting with Hailey.

Jackson was telling everyone at school that Julia was a prude who only liked attention. Julia understood that Jackson might have been upset but this was taking it a bit too far.

Julia was seeing red as Hailey fed her updates on the spread of the gossip.

"Juliana, you're going to be late," Liliana called for her daughter.

"Yes, I know," she said back irritatedly.

At ballet class she couldn't even focus on her technique, she was too busy coming up with a way to prove him wrong and show everyone Jackson was just a loudmouth.

After a grueling class, Julia went home where Hailey met up with her.

"Revenge plan?" Hailey asked.

"It is so on," Julia muttered.

Julia went up to her room and found her most stunning outfit. It was a soft pink jersey dress with a small triangle cut out of the front on her stomach. Julia could not remember where she had gotten it from but she paired it with her most slutty heels and got to work on her hair and make up.

Hailey, who was already dressed in a tight and revealing outfit, sat next to her as she got ready.

"Did you hear about Brady and Alison's car accident?" Hailey asked.

Julia, who was in the middle of curling her blonde hair, almost burned herself at the mention of her old friends.

"Yeah, crazy," she murmured.

Hailey was about to say something else about it, but thankfully she got distracted by the eyeshadow Julia had picked up.

"You're going to do eyeshadow?" Hailey asked. "Are you going to get it right?"

"Obviously, I mean A-" Julia paused. She had been about to say that Alison had taught her. Julia quickly recovered. "My mom taught me."

Hailey shrugged and put it down. "Let's hurry, Lauren says everyone is already at the mall."

Julia nodded and after a few minutes she finished her makeup and hair. She checked herself over in the mirror. She looked hot.

Jackson was going to regret messing with her.

As they drove to the mall, Julia went over the plan in her head over and over. It was perfect.

When they arrived Hailey called Lauren. She then hung up the phone after a few minutes and grinned.

"Okay, so Jackson and a bunch of his friends are at the food court, Lauren invited a ton of people, and I'm going to record it and put it on Instagram too," Hailey explained.

Julia nodded and they made their way over. It wasn't hard to spot Jackson, he was always the loudest one around. Julia searched around for her target. Liam Roberts. A lesser version of Jackson really. If she were to call Jackson a misogynistic pig, Liam would be a sly dog. Cunning, manipulative, but a total heartthrob. He was also an avid drug user and with Alison missing for a year, he had taken over the troublemaker title at the high school. Julia knew when given the opportunity he would betray his best friend. She was counting on that.

With an encouraging nod from Hailey, Julia went over to him. He was standing by the back wall waiting for his order from the restaurant next to him.

Julia made sure to pass Jackson's table as she walked over to Liam who was leaning against a wall. He spotted her rather fast and let out a low whistle.

"Looking hotter than ever, Evans," Liam called out as she approached him.

Julia smirked. She moved a little closer to him.

"You're not too bad yourself," she said in a soft purr.

His lips curled into a small smile. "I know what you're trying to do," he teased.

"What's that?" Julia asked as her fingers trailed over his bare arms.

"You're trying to prove Jackson wrong. That you're not a prude," he said as his eye trailed from her cleavage to the ends of her short dress. "And you're using his best friend to do it, that's cold," he added as his eyes met hers.

Julia bit her lip and twirled her hair just as Alison had once shown her.

"Are you going to help me or not?" she asked in a sexy voice.

He smirked back at her. "You're lucky Jackson just pissed me off, and that you're insanely hot."

Julia resisted the huge grin forming on her face and leaned forward. Liam let her kiss him and slipped his tongue in her mouth, better than Jackson, but still not right. She let it go though, she had a plan. As Julia ran her fingers through his hair, she felt him wrap his arms around her waist and held her, one hand over the small of her back pushing her even closer to him. Julia could hear people whistling and cheering behind her. Just as Liam tried to slip his hands under her dress, she broke the kiss.

She glanced over at Hailey to make sure she got the video. Then, she looked for Jackson, who to her pleasure, was gawking at the two of them. For once, he had nothing to say and simply sat there with only an angry look on his face.

"Thanks for playing along," she said with an inevitable grin.

He chuckled. Something in his eyes worried Julia though. It was this little mischievous twinkle she often used to see in Alison.

"What?" she asked wearily.

He took a piece of her blonde hair between his fingers and twirled it aimlessly.

"Well, jeez, Julia. If you were trying to prove something to two ex's I would have gone all out," he said with a small smile.

Julia's eyebrows furrowed together. "What are you talking about?" she asked slowly.

Sure Julia had played the field a bit this year, but she only had two official boyfriends. It disgusted her to think Jackson was one of them, but still. The blood that had been rushing to her face while she was making out with him turned to ice as Liam's words finally made sense to her.

Slowly, she turned around and scanned the crowd of teenagers that had formed. In the far back by the end of the food court, she saw him.

He was standing there with his brother, Hayden, and Alison. The color drained from Julia's face as she saw the excruciatingly painful expression on her ex boyfriend's face. Brady was the last person she had wanted to hurt today. It pained Julia even more when she saw the disgusted look on Alison's face particularly.nJulia watched as Alison tugged on Brady's arm and she and Hayden began to pull Brady away from the scene.

Julia fought back against the bile rising in her throat as she pushed away from the smirking Liam and over to Hailey.

"The video is everything!! I just posted it!" Hailey said excitingly.

Julia felt sick to her stomach. She just nodded.

"Let's go rub it in Jackson's face," Hailey said.

"No forget it, let's just get out of here," Julia mumbled.

Hailey frowned. "What's wrong?"

Apparently, no one else had seen Brady and Alison.

"Let's just go, better to leave him gawking, right?" she finally managed.

Hailey gave in. "Fine, but you're paying for food," she said as she threw her arm around Julia.

As Julia left the mall, she felt sick to her stomach again.

That was a terrible thing to do and she knew it.

***

"The mall is the last place I want to be at right now," Alison said to Hayden who was standing at the door to the guest house once again.

"Please?" he begged. "I need you to convince Brady."

Alison rolled her eyes. "Why would I do that?" she asked. "He would also hate going to the mall."

"Because my parents asked me to, we are all worried about him, please?" he begged again.

"Why are you worried about him?" Alison asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hayden was surprised by the genuine curiosity on her face. "Isn't it obvious? Because we care about him. Your father is probably worried about you as well by the way."

Alison scoffed.

"Maybe if you didn't always see the worst in him you would realize that," he pointed out.

Alison glared at him. Hayden seemed to be the only one willing to fight with her these days. Most people gave into her. Even Max, who Alison used to spend days fighting with sometimes, seemed to do anything to appease her, anything but what she actually needed.

"Fine," she said. "I'll come, but don't get mad at me if Brady hates it."

Hayden shrugged. "As long as we can get him out of bed, I see it as a win."

Alison quickly changed into black jeans and a Blink-182 shirt. She put her still dyed black hair up into a ponytail. When they arrived at the Carson's, Alison was surprised to see how beated down Mrs. Carson looked to be. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in front of her and a sullen expression on her face.

Avery frowned. Normally on Sunday afternoons, Mrs. Carson hosted a late brunch for members of the church. It saddened Alison to see her so upset.

When they got to Brady's room, she noticed some major changes. All of his trophies and medals were gone now, his walls had been painted white instead of blue and the only things on display were an American Sign Language book on his desk and bottle of water on his dresser.

"It looks like a psych ward in here," Alison commented.

Brady, who was laying in bed, glared at her.

Hayden chuckled at his brother's angry expression.

"Dr. Potter didn't like that Brady was so insistent on ripping off his old wallpaper and smashing his trophies, he said it wasn't healthy behavior. He asked us to redecorate," Hayden explained. He turned to Alison. "Dr. Potter is his therapist, they're meeting twice a week now"

"Oh, I'm guessing he also gave you the ASL book too?" Alison surmised.

Brady only rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, because no offense to your tapping system, but ASL is a little more well known," Hayden said.

Alison scoffed. "The only two people who need to understand the tapping do," she pointed out.

"But it's not just the two of you anymore."

The second the words came out of Hayden's mouth, things got awkwardly silent.

Alison and Brady were both well aware of that. It was just hard to adjust.

"Well, let's get going," Hayden said after a while.

Alison looked over at Brady who had not moved an inch. Hayden's eyes were pleading with her to do something. Alison sighed.

"Brady come on, the mall could be fun," she coaxed.

He glared at her again.

"Okay fine. It won't be fun, but you have to come with me," Alison insisted. "Please?"

Brady looked over at her again. He tapped something to her. She tapped back with an angry expression.

Hayden was not sure what they said to each other, but he was pleased to see Brady roll his eyes as he threw off his blanket and got dressed.

"Let's go," Alison said, trying to smile cheerfully, although it looked more like a grimace.

They went to the garage and Brady seemed all too happy to see the damaged Porsche under a tarp in the far right.

"Are you going to fix it?" Alison asked, pointing to the Porsche.

Hayden flinched at the mention of the car. "Maybe," he said stiffly.

If Brady picked up on the animosity in his older brother's tone, he didn't comment on it. Alison sensed the tension though and quickly hopped into the front seat of the Audi. Brady got in the back and Hayden drove.

It was quiet, so Alison turned the radio on. A song she hadn't heard before was playing. She changed the radio station to something else, she continued to change the station and slowly began to get frustrated as none of the songs were recognizable to her. Angrily, she turned the radio off and looked out the window.

Hayden noticed her frustration and at a red light, he took out a CD for her.

"You like Blink-182, right?"

Alison nodded and he put the CD in.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

Alison let some of her favorite songs soothe her frustration as they drove the rest of the way to the mall.

When they arrived, it was clear to her that Brady was going to drag his feet.

"Let's go to the sports jersey store," Alison suggested.

That seemed to slightly perk him up.

"It's through the food court," Hayden said as he guided the other two.

They made their way in and noticed a huge crowd.

"What's going on?" Alison asked.

They all curiously looked over and Alison froze in place. A couple was having the steamist make out session of the century on the other end of the food court. She recognized the dress on the girl, Alison had bought that dress. She had ordered it online in black but they had mistakenly sent her a pink one. She had passed it on to the one person who was girly enough to wear it.

Alison watched as the girl finally pushed away from the boy and turned her head.

"Is that-"

Alison punched Hayden in the arm, who was a little late to understand. Both of them looked over at Brady. He looked miserable.

Quickly, Alison grabbed him and she and Hayden led him away. As she turned back to look one more time, she saw that Julia was walking away with yet another familiar face: Hailey. Alison tried to control her rage.

They got back in the car and Alison looked back at Brady. His face said it all and Alison was thinking the same thing: Now they knew why Julia had not spoken to them yet, she had moved on, from both of them.