Artifacts (a serialized story part 65) He stayed in the stairwell until the halls were quiet. His eyes burnt with tears and he was sniffly. He couldn't go to class like this. Things were bad enough for him as it was. He'd been beaten up, basically, by a girl, even, and worse for him personally was what felt like a betrayal on Kerry's part. True, they hadn't been friends, if they were friends, all that long. He stared at his sneaker as he ran over recent history in his mind. There was a small frayed hole that was slightly crescent-shaped with a fringe around it. He dug a pen out of his pocket. But they'd been on the path to friendship at least and then that might lead to him getting the nerve to tell her how he felt, and then... He doodled a small face around the hole, a curved nose, wide round eyes, comma-shaped ears. Perched above the hole, they made the tear into a beard-fringed grimacing mouth. It wasn't that she'd turned away from him, he knew. It was the other guy.