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[color=pink]“That was great, Carter! I haven’t danced like that in a really long time!”[/color] Stella smiled gleefully at her boyfriend.

Looking at him made her smile. Seeing him next to her made her smile. The way he smiled back at her, in what she was going to assume a case of I’m happy because you’re happy, made her smile. Everything about the evening right after they talked out in the garden and how Stella was just overwhelmed with emotions after the fact was bringing such a jovial grin to her face that her old self was starting to return.

And she was starting to realize it.

Before Chrissie did what she did, before all of the stress that came after her ex-best friend’s betrayal, everyone knew her to be a wholesome, unproblematic person. She never did anything out of spite. While that might still ring true to this day, she’s definitely changed. Sometimes when Stella looked at herself in the mirror, she didn’t always like the person staring back at her. She knew it was the direct result of how much she hurt when her cousin betrayed her. Slowly but surely, she was starting to come back from it. She knew it was because Carter had a positive influence on her even before they became official.

Which now had her thinking about something that was kind of weighing heavily on her heart. Maybe Carter noticed it or maybe she had become such a different person that she was able to hide certain things from him. 

As they reached the beverage table, they were near the end of it so Stella could take a seat in a chair that was no longer being occupied by one of the students at the dance. She let out a heavy, almost exhausted sigh. [color=pink]“Whew, those last couple of songs sure wiped me out,”[/color] she admitted, leaning her head back against the wall. Her heart was still beating rapidly, sos he had to take a couple extra breaths to calm herself. [color=pink]“Carter…”[/color] She looked up at him. [color=pink]“Do you think I’ve been too harsh with Chrissie? Today before the dance, we had a pretty terrible argument. We said a lot of really ugly things and it got to the point where the water boiled over. And, well I think the point of no return was reached, but if not..”[/color] She let the thought trail off as she looked down, fiddling her index fingers and thumbs. [color=pink]“If not, do you think it’s possible we--I mean, her and I--could work some stuff out?”[/color] 

If she was being completely honest with herself, Stella missed having her best friend but she also felt extremely hurt by what she did. Stella was so angry when she spilled her Paris trip secret to Carter without her permission and held onto it like the pain was the human body her leech-like grudge was holding onto, but Stella was starting to reconsider everything. Maybe finally being someone’s girlfriend again was putting some things into perspective for her. Or maybe Stella missed her best friend that much. 

[color=pink]“I don’t know, maybe I’m just being stupid,”[/color] she said somewhat low.[/indent][/indent][/indent][/color]