Social Order *Private*

[Cloudsong]

Kelly turned back towards her, looking quite smug. She had gotten what she wanted now. "Excellent," she said, her voice showing the satisfaction she felt. "Let's go then, shall we?" Without another word, she flounced off towards the beach, where the rest of her group was waiting. They were the same people who had played with Kurt earlier, except some of the fan girls had left when he had. Her two bootlickers followed her close behind, taking care to not trail behind, shooting looks of pure venom at Heidi. It was obvious that the two weren't very intelligent, and it was for that reason that they followed Kelly around; perhaps they thought that her popularity and good-looks would somehow rub off on them.

+~+~+

Kurt silently sighed, his eyes traveling up and down the long sidewalk that stretched around the cove of the beach. It was still early, and he knew that his 'friends' would still be by the beach playing. Not wanting to meet up with them, though knowing that Heidi would be around there, he decided to walk by anyway. It was the only way to find her, after all.

[FoldєdPapєrHєarts]

Heidi sighed as she followed the three girls towards where the volleyball nets were set up on the sandy beach. She was already regretting her decision to say yes to this. She was going to make a complete fool of herself; she had never even played volleyball! The small sliver of hope that she might have some sort of hidden talent at the sport had vanished and had been replaced with nerves and fear.

When they finally reached the courts, Heidi had to fight the urge to lower her gaze as she felt dozens of eyes on her. Well, it was too late to back out, now. Much too late.

[Cloudsong]

Kelly led Heidi to the courts, and caught the volleyball that one of the guys threw her. "We have a new member," she announced. "This is Kurt's new - well old, according to her - girlfriend." She laughed out loud, and everyone else joined in. "So I asked her to join our game, and she accepted." She motioned for Heidi to be on her team. "You'll be on my team," she announced. "Our serve." Before waiting for Heidi to get ready, she hit the ball towards her, expecting her to throw it to the other team. But, perhaps on purpose or by accident, it went a little too high, heading straight towards her face.

[FoldєdPapєrHєarts]

Heidi felt herself narrow her eyes and scowl. This was going downhill fast. "I wasn't his girlfriend," she muttered, shaking her head. Suddenly, she found the volleyball coming straight at her face. She brought her hands up to cover her face and the ball hit off of them just in time. As it did so, she flinched. The ball fell to the ground with a muffled thump as it was buried into the sand. Shooting a look at Kelly, she silently picked up the ball, then faced the net. Swallowing her nerves, she held out the hand that held the ball, then swung her other hand-which was balled up into a fist-forward, hitting the bottom of the ball. The ball soared forward into the air, towards the other team. Well, she'd gotten it over the net, it seemed. Heidi just hoped she had done the serving right and that for the rest of the game-which she hoped would be short-that the ball would come nowhere near her.

[Cloudsong]

Everyone laughed out loud as the ball hit against her arms, and the guys on the other side hit the ball back, this time towards a girl on their team who seemed like the only sympathetic one. She whacked it expertly with her fists, and sent it sailing way over the other team's head. Everyone went running to get it, and she turned towards Heidi, smiling slightly as Kelly went to gossip with her friends for a moment. "Sorry about her being so stupid," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "But a word of advice... she seems pretty dead-set on getting rid of you. This isn't a good idea for you to be here, being Kurt's girlfriend..." She trailed off, and winked, having been the only one who believed her when she said that they weren't together. "I'm Iza, by the way," she said, grinning. "And I'm only hanging out with them because-" Her voice was cut off as the ball came back soaring towards them, hitting Heidi in the stomach. "Oh- sorry... didn't see that." The hit made quite a smack, and Iza cringed, knowing it would have hurt.

As he came down the beach, Kurt narrowed his eyes as he saw Heidi being hit in the stomach by the ball. What the... Angrily he jumped down into the sand, approaching them quickly, giving Kelly the death glare. She flinched, and looked away, obviously intimidated. "What the hell is going on here?" he hissed, taking a place next to Heidi as he glared at all of his friends. "Are you okay, Heidi?" he added, obviously concerned. His voice turned gentle as he addressed her, though his eyes were still hard as he glared at his friends.

[FoldєdPapєrHєarts]

Heidi watched as the others ran to go get the ball, which had soared overhead and had landed a distance away. Turning back to the girl who had smiled at her, she smiled half-heartedly back. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks," she said, her voice soft. "I'm Heidi," she replied back. She opened her mouth to say something more, just as the ball slammed into her stomach. She flinched and groaned and crouched down in pain. The ball had hit Heidi hard and there would most certainly be a welt, or at the very least a bruise. The features on her face crinkled in pain and she took a deep, shaking breath. One knee was in the sand as she crouched down.

Suddenly, Heidi felt a presence beside her. She looked up to see Kurt there, looking quite angry. As she glared around at his so-called friends, Heidi found herself slowly standing up. She noted how no one-especially Kelly, who couldn't even look him in the eye- wanted to answer when he asked what was going on. Of course not. She looked down as Kurt asked if she was okay. "I'm fine," she said, softly. Why did he care, anyway? Heidi had thought Kurt had been mad at her, for whatever reason.

[Cloudsong]

Kurt glared at them all as they approached, forming a ragged line in front, looking at him uneasily. Kelly alone stayed back. "What exactly were you trying to prove here?" he asked coldly, crossing his arms as he swept his hard stare across all of them. They seemed quite intimidated by him, but none ashamed. Kurt almost never got angry, so this was shocking to everyone. It was mostly that reason that everyone liked him so much; he was so 'cool', and easy-going. A quality that not everyone had. As he looked them all in the eye, his gaze finally landed on Iza, who looked quite ashamed at herself. "Well? I can't believe you out of all people would be part of humiliating someone, Iz."

"I wasn't," she argued. "I didn't realize what was going on until after..."

He didn't seem to believe her, just scoffed. "I can't believe this. Apparently I was falsely deluded into thinking that you all were good people." Silently he nudged Heidi gently with his elbow. "Come on, Heidi-"

"Where are you going with her?!" Kelly burst out, eyes narrowed to slits as she pushed her way past them. "What's so special about her, anyway Kurt? What's she got that I don't?"

"A heart," Kurt replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "I'm done here. Come on, Heidi." Ignoring everyone's incredulous stares, he began to walk away, not caring what would happen to his status in their clique.

[FoldєdPapєrHєarts]

Heidi watched in shock as the others seemed to almost cower before Kurt, as if they were scared little puppies. It was odd, seeing anybody being scared of Kurt in any way, but that was exactly what she was seeing before her. She frowned slightly. Why were they so scared of him? Sure, he could be intimidating at times-as he was being right now-but...it was Kurt. Would he really do anything to any of them? Heidi had no idea, but she doubted it.

As Kurt began to walk away, Heidi found herself hesitating. She knew that Kurt was making a bad decision by doing this, by going against the people to whom he had titled as his friends for so long. And what was he doing this all for? For her? Heidi shook her head. No, she wasn't going to be the cause of this.
Despite what Kurt had said earlier, that he had hated these people all along, Heidi found it hard to believe that. If he had really hated these people, he would have left them long ago. There was no way someone could fake liking a group of people for so many years without cracking. He had to like them at least a little.

"No," she said, loud enough for Kurt to hear. She studied her friend, her eyes soft. "I don't want you to do this for me. And plus, do you think this is going to stop them? I'm always going to be treated like this, whether you or I like it or not." Heidi sighed and shook her head once more. "You'll regret doing this, I know you will."

[Cloudsong]

Kurt stopped as Heidi objected to what he had said. Slowly he turned to face her, tilting his head slightly, an almost confused look etched on his handsome face. "I won't," he said slowly, as if savoring the words that he had kept in for so long. "Because I really did mean it. After all these years just watching without saying anything, I've had enough of this stuck-up attitude that everyone has here." His voice was bitter, and he crossed his arms, watching them all carefully. "I won't put up with this bullying any longer... this belief that some people are better than others." He shook his head.

"All these years, I guess that I've just been blind to all of this, just following along with everything, not caring what was going on around me..." He hesitated before continuing. "You made me realize, Heidi. People that act like this can't be my friends." Again, he shook his head. "Not at all."

[FoldєdPapєrHєarts]

Heidi studied Kurt as he said this. She couldn't detect any traces of lying in either his face nor his voice. He was definitely telling the truth. Heidi couldn't believe, however, that any person could have faked that for that long. However, she had to believe it, whether she wanted to or not. It was Kurt, after all. Kurt, her old best friend, the one she ha wanted to see for so long. She had to believe him, it was just second-nature for her to do so anymore, just as it had been long ago.

"All right...if you say so." She shot a look towards the group of people behind her, who were staring at Kurt with wide-eyed expressions. It was pretty obvious that they were shocked to hear these words coming from their 'leader'. Her gaze traveled over to Iza; she was standing there, looking regretful. "But, just so you know...Iza was really the only one who was nice to me. Don't be mad at her." Heidi felt bad for the girl, considering she had been the one who had spoken to her and had been quite nice to her...unlike the others.