Chapter 9

Ashley's incident continues to be a sore spot for Howard as Tiffany continues to try to find out the truth, causing a rift to form between them. But Howard doesn t seem to be the type of person to leave a friend when they re in need, even if he may not call her a friend by name just yet.

Daniel and Victoria watch the completed music video for (Breathe) when Howard comes in to see them. Daniel wants to show him the music video and updates him on the company s plan to make him and Tiffany a national couple. However, Howard? breaks the news that he doesn t want to release the song, fulfilling the promise he made to kengsington, despite telling him that there s no reason other than he doesn t want to.

At school, Bernice friends tell her that they heard that Howard and Jeff were with Tiffany, which is why they didn t celebrate her birthday with her. She then swears that she ll make Tiffany's life a mess.

Jeff is in the library when Tiffany? comes up to him and pins him against the bookcase. She s not doing it because she wants to, but because she can t stand because of her swollen ankle. Still, she gets to the point of her seeking him out, which is to ask about the situation involving Ashley. Tiffany reveals that she heard her name at the amusement park and that the two had almost gotten into a fight over the same and automatically assumes that Jeff would know something about it. He doesn t tell Tiffany much, only that Howard and kengsington completely changed after her death and if she wants any more information, she should ask Howard.

Speaking of him, he s in the classroom playing games on his phone. Tiffany hobbles over to her desk and he asks about her leg. It appears he has a change of attitude as he wants to study math but Tiffany says she s not tutoring him. He goes to play basketball then and reminds her to put the snacks in his desk, but she stops him before he can get too far since she has an important matter she wants to share with him. She brings over a white board and turns on the projector to begin her discipline committee regarding the issue about what happened the previous day with kengsington. She begins bringing up the information that she has about it but Howard already looks kind of uncomfortable regarding it and ultimately wants out of it. Tiffany doesn t understand why and he begins to get angry.

She argues that she was kidnapped and Howard argues back that her injury was only an accident. She wonders if kengsington has something against Howard but things take a turn for the worse when she brings up Ashley's name as Howard's attitude completely changes. He demands to know how she knows about her and unplugs the flash drive, slamming it on the ground as he warns Tiffany not to meddle in the affairs of others.

Alone in the classroom Tiffany wonders to herself why she cares about Howard and begins to sketch her anger out. She s still in a terrible mood, though since she put so much effort into the presentation yet it got her nowhere.

The fangirls saw Jordan's newest material and comment that it seems like Jordan really understands Howard and that maybe they should reach out so they can get exclusive news about him.

Jeff also looks at the drawings asking Howard if he saw it. Jeff? comments on how cute the drawings are and also comments on how the artist seems to understand him, wondering if it could be someone they know. Howard warns that they better not let him find out who he is but Jeff just can t believe that someone other than Tiffany can tolerate him.

It s math class and Howard is called up to answer the question. He tries to look at Tiffany's answer sheet but she slams, leaving him helpless. Professor winfield then tells him to go to his office after class. Once they have a break Tiffany goes to deliver snacks and Howard offers to help, but still annoyed at him for how he treated her, she tells him not to bother and leaves, leaving him at a loss. When she s back in the classroom, with no Howard next to her, she gets a text from him asking to go to dinner with hom, to which she agrees. She meets him that night at a restaurant, in her usual Jessica's style, but with her ankle slightly bothering her because of the high heels. He? compliments her and she wonders if he s nice to every girl, which he denies because he doesn t like to lie, therefore if he says she s pretty, he really means it. He informs her that he ordered some dishes already for them and she goes to try some of the soup. Howard does pick up that her eating style reminds him of someone and when asked if it s a friend, he refutes it.

But he explains that the reason he asked her out is because he decided not to release the music video for Breathe. He question s her lack of reaction but she assures him that he must ve had his reasons and he thanks her for understanding.

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et somehow he starts revealing the truth to her by saying that releasing the song will cause harm to someone. Tiffany asks what Breathe represents, not wanting to pressure him into it, but Howard reveals to her that he wrote it for a very important girl who passed away three years ago and that releasing the song will cause those memories to surface and also cause discomfort. He apologizes for talking so much but says that the company loved her acting so there may be a chance for them to work together in the future.

Tiffany thanks him for his honesty and he tells her that they re friends, which she questions, wondering what she is to him then if he thinks of Jessica as a friend. They toast to their friendship and after downing the rest of her wine, she excuses herself as she has things to do and declines Howard's offer to send her home. As she walks on the street alone, she wonders why he told Tiffany everything yet told her to ignore what he said, wondering if it s because he s only friends with beautiful women.

It s a new day at school and Tiffany? texts Jeff about advice, she tells him that the friend told a secret to a stranger but not to her. Howard starts to get curious and begins to look over her shoulder but gets caught. He tells her that he was just curious thinking she must ve done something shady but she just gets angry at him. It also turns out that she s stopped supplying him with snacks and when he tries to help her deliver them, she tells him not to and goes to do it herself, leaving him confused.

When the school bell rings, Bernice? and her gang visit Tiffany's desk. She tells them to get straight to the point since they re not friends but they ve come wanting to become friends and buy snacks from her.

The following day, after looking at the date, Bernice and her friends begin eating the snacks and passing them out. One of the girls, one of the Goddesses, begins to talk about her stomach hurting because of the snack and when Bernice looks at the date on the box, complains that Tiffany sold them expired snacks causing the others to want to boycott her and to have Bernice stand up for them. The girls give a sly smile to one another.

Laurence and Tiffany are approached by them who give them the expired snacks and call them out on it. Tiffany assures they re innocent but Bernice has already framed her as a liar and tells them their service is doomed. That night Laurence and Tiffany discuss it in their room about how strange it is that one of the Goddesses had a stomach ache and how it didn t seem like they were sick when they confronted them, but they re in a struggle because the products were definitely theirs with the expired date. Tiffany promises to try to figure it out, though.

As she calls to set up her meeting time to find out the source of the snacks, she finds Howard waiting, perhaps was waiting for her? She tries to walk the other way and when he catches up to her, she just starts bending his arm telling him she s in a bad mood therefore he better not mess with her. He just wants to know if she needs help and she just tells him to control Bernice as she continues to bend his arm, and tells him to stay away from her unless he wants to get slapped. He tries to argue that he was being nice but Tiffany's not having any of it and ends up throwing him to the ground before walking away. She storm into the class and greets Jeff but ignores Howard. When Laurence? asks about the supplier, she says that he said that it s impossible that the snacks are expired yet there s no way to prove it since the receipts don t exist anymore. Her bad mood only worsens when Laurence tells her that there s no business for them, meaning that the rumor must ve traveled. However, Howard curiously hears about all of this.

He ends up going into the surveillance room and asks for the video of the class. It s against the rules for him to see it and so he understands his circumstances but notices that the security guy was watching a video of him, discovering that he s one of his fans. That s his opportunity as he asks if he s willing to help and the guy requests that he dances for him.

Jeff comes to find Howard wondering why he skipped class and notices his dark circles are getting worse. Howard is only focused on watching the security footage pointing out that someone came into the classroom. Jeff wonders if that means he was watching the footage for the past few nights which he denies. Jeff can see right through it and asks if they should patch things up since he worked so hard for her. Howard ignores him on that and? tells him not to tell Tiffany that he was the one who got the security footage. Jeff begins to talk about Tiffany but Howard is already out in a deep sleep.

A meeting is called regarding the creation of a statement for Tiffany's business where Jeff reveals the security footage showing someone coming into the classroom and although the reason is unclear, it s enough to at least clear their name. As expected, Bernice is shocked to see they have the footage and is unhappy to hear about their name being cleared. By the side eye Tiffany gives to Bernice, I? bet that she knew they somehow meddled with her business.

Howard is called away to Professor winfield office and when asked, Tiffany tells Jeff she doesn t know what s going on. She and Laurence do, however, want to take him out on the weekend as a thanks for clearing their name. He does agree to it but seems a little nervous.

The purpose of Howard getting called to the office was about his poor math performance. Professor winfield said that it s okay if he can t solve it and wants to know why he wrote down lyrics instead. She asks him what an idol is and points out that he had the opportunity and capability to be written into the school s history books yet wasn t able to do it. She assigns him to go to the archives to look at the stories of the seniors of the school.

That night Bernice assigns Tiffany to clean the archives by herself and, as part of her petty revenge, locks her in the building. But Tiffany isn t all that upset to be there since that was the place she wanted to go to in order to learn more about her parents, specifically her father. As she s looking and wandering around, she runs into Howard, who is reading the stories as assigned on the ground, and they both jump and scream in surprise. After establishing why they re both there, he tells Tiffany to continue since he s going to go, but he finds the doors locked. He calls her over and obviously she can t get them undone either, effectively leaving them both locked in there. They both sit on opposite sides of the staircase with Howard just staring into space and Tiffany looking through a book about her parents. He notices her wiping her eyes and wonders if he should get her a tissue, but gives up figuring he already cut ties with her. In the book, Tiffany figures out that Professor winfield might know something about her parents as the three of them are in a picture together. Tiffany? then begins to hear some squeaking and freaks out that there s a rat in the place. She runs around the place and ends up jumping on Howard's? back. He manages to get her down and puts his headphones on her to help her block out the noise. It slowly turns into a romantic moment until Tiffany yells that she can t hear what Howard is saying. He was telling her that he ll call Jeff.

Jeff is doing some paperwork with Bernice who seems annoyed that he got called but changes attitude when it s discovered that Howard is together with her. Tiffany leans on Jeff for help since she was scared by the rat and Howard, suddenly in a bad mood, demands his headphones back and asks Bernice to give him a hand, but standing up perfectly fine by himself.

It s the weekend and Tiffany is out with Jeff. Laurence is unable to join them because of something sudden and Jeff begins to tell Tiffany that he needs to tell her a secret when they spy Howard and Bernice, who suggests they join them. Jeff accepts their offer and the two sit down, Howard eyeing both Tiffany and Jeff. Someone is jealous.

But it could be something like how it s easier to reveal everything to a stranger than it is to someone that you re close to.? For Howard, it s probably not as easy for him to reveal himself to Tiffany because he knows her, they know each other and she knows the people that are technically involved in the entire thing. Since he doesn t really know Tiffany that well, and I guess since he doesn t really intend on meeting her that often in the future, it s easier for him to tell her some things of the past. It s not that he means to deceive her, it s just that it s kind of still a raw subject for him as he didn t even really give Jessica much information. Since it s harder for him to open up to her, that means that at least he might be considering their friendship to be at the same place she is. However, he doesn t understand.

Howard does care for Tiffany and I wonder what she will do, if she does anything, when she finds out that it was actually Howard who cleared her name regarding the expired snacks. It did seem like he was waiting there for her to ask her if she needed any help, but she just took it as him making fun of her in a way. As Jeff said, Howard denies himself even though he can tell that Howard goes great lengths for Tiffany.

Jeff is the one who can completely see through Howard, though. It seems like they ve been friends for a while and that he just knows when Howard is lying, like about staying up all night watching the security footage, but just goes along with it anyway because it might hurt Howard's pride. Instead of calling him out on his bluffs, which he does sometimes, he never takes it too far. I think that if there were anyone before Tiffany who could make Howard wake up, it would ve been him and he probably hasn t so far because of what he s seen and because he doesn t want to push Howard off of the edge or perhaps destroy the friendship.

Bernice is definitely annoying. Just her and her friends. Her only reason of hatred towards Tiffany is because she s close with Howard and that s really like it. Tiffany's never really done anything to Bernice, other than get on her nerves, so it s not really like they have a reason to hate one another. Tiffany, on the other hand hates Bernice because she s annoying and tries to outdo her in everything. Bernice tries to be the best but clearly it s not happening, not in Howard's eyes.