"It's been a while," he greeted me. That was the way he always greeted me. Rain or shine, light or dark, that was how he said hello.
"Yes, it has," I grumbled in annoyance, shoving my hands in my pockets and kicking a tin can down the street. It made a foreign sound in this night full of crickets' song and the scent of flowers, oddly chaotic in the middle of the calming chatter.
"How is she?" I asked, looking up at him through my eyelashes.
"You're worried about her?" he asked me, chuckling lightly. A silence stretched on between us, while I went over my next words carefully in my mind.
"The misfortune that must have plagued me the day the introduction was made is unfathomable," I hissed. I was almost seeing red as I said these words. I was so angry with everything that had happened. He gave me a questioning look, but kept his mouth shut as I continued. "For the love of heaven, why did you ever think that I'd enjoy that? Selfish, spiteful, egotistical little... I couldn't even breathe again until the drive home!" I finished in a rush, grinding out the last words grudgingly. He stared at me, looking shocked. I took a breath to compose myself. "But you were with her, and you wanted me to accept her. We've been friends a long time, Caleb – heck, we’re practically family! - and I'm glad that you value my opinion, but it isn't my choice what you do with your love life."
"Do you even care?" he asked me slowly.
"Of course," I said, wandering away. I sat down on one of the many benches that were in the park and crossed my legs. My closest friend soon joined me.
"She wasn't like that around me," he explained. "She was kind and gentle. I thought you were just judging her. I didn’t know she was keeping a secret."
I laughed mirthlessly. "She made it very clear that she wanted you all to herself and if I got near, it would be my blood that she would shed."
"She'd never." I gave him a look, the one that he knew very well. It was the one that seemed to say "Are you really that stupid?"
"I give up," he sighed, leaning back. "Yes, she's got anger issues."
I rolled back my sleeve, revealing clean white bandages all the way up. "Issues?" I asked. He looked sadly at my arm, then looked away. Tears rolled down his face. I turned my back on him, giving him his privacy.
"There was nothing you could do," I told him. "Insanity isn't something you can fix for someone else. Usually you can't even fix it for yourself."
"She wasn't insane, though. Just angry." I tried to ignore the sob I heard.
"You have to forgive yourself," I murmured gently. I focused on a black cat that sauntered by, mewling at my contentedly before trotting away in search of food.
"I can't," he replied quietly, reaching down to hold my hand. I gave his a reassuring squeeze, still turned away. I pulled my feet up on the bench and leaned against his shoulder, like I always used to when we were kids. I couldn't separate from my memory the time when I first did this during our childhood, but he'd told me once that my trust in him comforted him, so now I always did it when he was sad or angry.
"So is she okay?" I asked finally.
"Oh, yes, all settled into the mental institute. She won’t talk to me. Says it’s something to do with ‘seeking solace in the comfort given to her by the kind doctors’. Her obsession with you and pictures is being handled. I can't believe I didn't see it before!"
"Calm yourself," I murmured, leaning my head back and looking at the stars.
"How can I? I can't forget what she did."
Neither could I. He'd found her in her room with a pair of scissors, cutting my face out of old pictures of me and him. There were hundreds; enough to fill five photo albums, and they dated back to when we were in preschool. When she'd been caught, she ran out and drove to my house. She'd burst in and started breaking things, and then she'd attacked me with the broken pieces of a mirror. When Caleb got there, she'd been laughing like a lunatic, and when he asked her what she'd done, she'd just turned around and said "Mischief managed," like it was all some sort of joke. I was out cold on the floor, and Caleb had dragged the giggling Claudia back to the car. He'd gotten the neighbor to guard me while he drove to the police station.
I'd woken up in a white room with a beeping machine and stinging arms and Caleb asking again and again, "Can you hear me?"
When I'd gotten the strength to reply, I'd told him to "Stop yelling, or you’ll get a swift kick in the head." He'd then asked me if I was dying.
"I remember," I chuckled, "me lying on the bed and you standing there, and you were all scared for me, and I was telling you that you were being a royal pain and that it was in your best interests to stop talking about it.” I glanced over my shoulder and caught a small smile on his lips.
“Now that’s a precious treasure,” I told him, smiling back. He laughed a little.
“Look at it this way,” I suggested. “There’s no time for sorrow. You’re standing still in the middle of two roads. One will lead to happiness, but you won’t know which until you start walking.”
“Kind of like ‘you’ll suffer from thirst until you drink and suffer from starvation until you eat’ things?” he asked.
“Yes. Think of this as a test of life,” I added.
“I think this might take a little teamwork,” he told me.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t think you trust me.”
"Are you challenging me?" I asked. I turned to him, looked deep into his eyes, and said “I trust you.”
“And so I walk the road of solitude,” he said dramatically, shifting. I turned back so that I was facing forward, but still held his hand. He lifted my arm. “How’s the pain?”
“Not too bad. It’ll heal.” I looked at him, and he seemed to be deep in thought. There was trouble lurking in the depths of his blue eyes.
“Let’s go to the abandoned mall,” he suddenly suggested, standing up. He pulled me up with him.
“Did your brain take a vacation?” I asked dryly.
He looked at me, his face holding the perfect illusion of innocence.“No, I’m happy, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, and I know that you’ve forgiven me. I want to do something.”
“You always did enjoy breaking the rules. For you it’s almost like a sport. You’ve exceeded my expectations of bounce back time,” I informed him, referring to his emotions.
“Why stay sad?” He asked with a laugh.
He led me to a chain link fence with a broken old lock. It sported a sign with diagonal yellow and black stripes, a red triangle and the words “danger ahead”. There was no way out except for here, a fact made obvious by the scuff marks of shoes and litter from the security that used to be here when the town still thought that they’d rebuild the mall after the fire. They hadn’t, and had just left the place to rot.
The building itself was a horror to behold, a huge plain square with a tower for the penthouse suite of the hotel. It had been built with fortitude in mind, and not practicality, so when the fire hit the bottom floor the whole place went up, and most of the greedy shoppers ran through the fire to grab the merchandise. There were some things to salvage, and the candy store was perfectly unharmed, which was the reason for so many kids trying to break in. It looked like a bad guy’s fortress from a fairytale, like someone had stolen all the good magic and joy from the place. It had been a secret hideout for a gang at one point, but now it was just an empty place with candy on the second floor. Its creation had been followed by one month of use, but then a big mall opened up downtown, and everyone went there instead. In the end, it was the saddest place I’d ever seen.
When we stepped in, the floor was drowning in weeds and wild flowers as if Mother Earth were reaching out to claim her land back from the progress of humans. Field mice skirted the traps that had long ago been laid out. The far wall was crumbling, the small stones breaking away and rolling down the hill into the street on the other side.
There was an open door leading down a staff hallway into an office. Caleb held me back when I tried to step in. “Safety first,” he told me, and waved his hand around inside the room. I listened for alarms, but there weren’t any, so I stepped inside.
The usual office supplies cluttered the room. A pen and paper, the words scrawled in royal blue ink in a fancy script long ago faded by the weather; a ruined leather swivel chair; a file cabinet with rusted corners and a keys hanging out of one of the locks. A “do not disturb” sign hung from the door knob. Quickly bored with the place, I walked out.
Caleb followed me as I wandered over to inspect an advertisement in front of a games store, which boasted the hardest puzzle anyone had ever seen. I laughed at it, considering I’d completed that puzzle in minutes, and had immediately rated the toy for ages three and up.
I wasn’t even seeing the building in front of me anymore. I’d forgotten my conversation with Caleb. I was seeing what this building had been, how beautiful the inside was in the past compared to the outside. I was thinking of how the old stores and charred walls emanated rejection, as no one had realized that we could still salvage the old fortress.
I led Caleb to the hotel, and stood waiting at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I could see lightning flash across the sky where a wall should have been blocking my view. I started climbing the stairs quickly, Caleb barely catching up to me in time before I reached the penthouse suite.
The sky was gray with storm clouds. The rain, so far, was light, and the wind had yet to pick up. I let the rain soak my clothes, loving the feeling of it, while it was still warm. Thunder cracked from miles away, and lightning lit the world on fire. It was ugly and boring, and so, so beautiful.
"Have you been thinking about our little talk," Caleb asked from behind me, "or have you only been thinking about the rain?" I stared out at the world over the broken walls.
"Um... I've been multitasking," I lied. I turned to him. He looked troubled.
"I haven't told you the whole story," he admitted, walking towards me. He stopped a step or two away. "You should always be the hero of your own dreams, right?" he asked, like I would know.
"Yeah, I think so," I said.
"Well, for a long time, I've been in my dreams, but there's been someone else. With all that's happened, I realized that this person is my last hope. I've loved them for a long time, and I just haven't admitted it to myself. The truth is..." He broke off, and bit his lip. "The truth is, I'd give all that I have to be with this person now. I'd sacrifice everything just for them to konw how I feel, and for them to feel the same way."
I raised my eyebrows at him in surprise, and looked out over the horizon. The moon was out by now, just visible in the east, and a faint rainbow was showing just underneath. The rain seemed to be playing the melody of relaxation, and I didn't want to think about serious things. I didn't want Caleb to think about serious things. I just wanted him to be happy, for once. After all the girlfriends he'd gone through, all the horrid breakups and grudges, I just wanted him to happy.
I looked back at him, and realized that even in the storm, he could do something cheesy like kiss me. I knew this, because that's exactly what he did.
When he pulled away, I asked him softly, "now who taught you to kiss a girl under the rain?" In that moment, I knew another thing: somehow, everything was going to be alright.
"It was you, Jen," he said with a smile, and he kissed me again.
********
OMG! Horrible cliche, falling in love with the best friend! Sorry it took so long, but writing a story around words is a new experience for me. Wow... I just noticed that I didn't put whether the narrator was a boy or a girl until the last couple of lines. Did that confuse you? Ha ha! Hope you enjoyed it!
~Mocha
"Oh, you don't want that," Grandma said, snatching the shiny plastic ribbon from my hand. It was blue with a shiny gold trim on the outter edges. "I've got something much better in my attic."
The old woman had been telling me for years that there was something better in her attic for everything that didn't spoil. She'd let me have the odd chocolate bar, but when it came to dresses, ribbons, necklaces and the like, there was absolutely no way to stop her from taking it away and telling me she had something better. The worst part was that she never even brought me to the attic. She kept it locked up all the time.
My mom died of child-birth and my dad died Romeo and Juliet style, sinking into depression and finally hanging himself when I was a month old. I lived with Grandma, and never saw any other relatives of mine. Apparently, I didn't have any. When I went to school, all the others kids talked about how my grandma was beautiful and young, unlike their wrinkly, smelly old farts that gave them money and knitted them ugly sweaters. Truth was, I found old people fascinating, especially because growing up and looking at the pictures, it seemed as if grandma hadn't aged a day.
I hit my head when I entered the low car, a stylish and insanely fast Lambergini. "For goodness' sakes, child! You're sixteen and you still can't get into the car without injuring yourself? Holy bible!" Grandma also had a strict rule about swearing. I used words like "son of a biscuit," "mother father, daughter and son," and "holy bible" regularily. It was a habit, one which got me laughed at by the other high school students. Thinking about this, I sunk lower into the seat as I buckled up.
Grandma was a speed demon. She went at least thirty kilometres over the speed limit at any given time, except when the authorities came calling. When we arrived at the house I had dug my nails so far into the seat that the leather bore tiny crescent moon gashes. They'd be gone within the hour, but all the same, I felt immediately bad for marking the seat.
The house I lived in was an old Victorian style mansion, passed down through my family since the eighteenth century. We'd settled in New Orleans, (or so I was told,) and stayed there. We hadn't moved out once. I was told that when I grew up, I'd be cursed if I moved in with my husband somewhere else. Here was where I was, and here I would stay.
I picked a magazine clipping from my pocket, the picture showing a tall blonde woman with a lengthy dress. Grandma grabbed it and said her usual line, which I'd planned for and interrupted perfectly. "You keep saying that, and et I've never even been up to your attic!" I'd gone over the conversation a thousand times in my head, in which grandma always got mad or sad.
So of course, I was flabbergasted when she said, "well why didn't you just say so?" Grabbing my hand and dragging me to the door, she hurriedly unlocked it and started running towards the pull-down stairs for the attic.
She unlocked the door and pushed me away, catching the heavy stairs as they thundered down. The attic was the newest part, originally a loft but converted into storage space. Grandma all but threw my up the stairs, clapping her heads happily. I scrambled up, both from slight fear of my crazed guardian and from the excitement of finally reaching the mysterious attic.
It was dark up there, with only one window, and that was boarded up. Grandma pushed the stairs up and jumped down, cackling wickedly. I turned just in time to see the door close and lock from the outside. I screamed.
"Gran, what are you doing?" I cried, pounding on the door. "Grandma!" But all was still on the other side, and the door wouldn't budge. By the feeble light that entered through the spaces between the boards, I could just see a hulking figure. I got behind it and cowered, not sure what I was going to do. Breathing deeply, I took out my little pen light and switched it on.
I couldn't see the far wall or the close one. In fact, I couldn't see any sort of wall or ceiling. I shone my light all around, catching figures covered in white sheets. I started pulling off the sheets, finding manequins dressed in big dresses with fans and masks, and others with ties and dress shoes and coat tails. Bundling up the sheets in my arms, I shone my little light to figure after figure, each one dressed in fancy, expensive ballroom attire, each outfit older than anything I'd ever seen. The clothes looked like they'd been up here since the day we'd moved in, sometime in the seventeen hundreds.
When I finally finished, there were thousands of manequins. The loft had to have been as big as the gym at school, and I wasn't entirely sure how that was possible. I climbed some stairs that weren't supposed to exist, and found myself on a balcony. I shone my pen light at the ceiling, the light glancing off of crystals in an old chandelier, and I continued to look around until I looked down in front of me, and caught sight of an old match box. I struck a match and looked up again, seeing a string leading to the chanelier. I lit it and the small flame travelled upwards, until it branched off onto other strings that lit the candles and finally, the light hit the crystals and I could see the whole room.
I hadn't noticed before, but each manequin was in a position like they'd been dancing and then had frozen in their places. Many of the girls were being twirled, and a good half of the men were dipping their partners at the waist. This place, (and by now I was positive that it wasn't a attic,) would have been beautiful in its day, and held many a party. There was the odd musician and jester in the bunch, and now that I could see everything and had nearly forgotten about my grandma's odd behaviour, I decided to join the still figures on the floor.
I came up short as a manequin appeared in front of me. I'd probably dodged around him without realizing it, and had just passed him off as one of the rest when I noticed that he seemed to be holding out something to me. I looked at what covered his arms, and saw a dress, a fan, shoes and a mask. I wanted to try them on for some reason, so I grabbed them and headed for the heavy red velvet curtain by the side.
"Wait, what am I doing? I'm alone up here." I stripped down and climbed into the dress, just managing to pull the cords of the corset into place myself. I fit the mask over my eyes and slipped on the shoes, and fanned myself after the effort of getting dressed into this lacy tent of a gown. I turned back the the manequin and raised my eyebrows. I must have just not noticed that this man was blushing a bright pink. It couldn't have changed. Manequins don't change, right?
Not wishing to linger on that thought, I lifted my skirts and shot down the stairs. Reaching the floor, I found a man, alone, his hand outstretched in my direction. He look precisely like the manequin in the balcony, but I didn't want to scare myself, so I stepped forward and took his hand anyways. I spun in a circle, lifting the cool hand over my head. I laughed at how silly I must have looked, then turned to inspect my dancing partner.
He had realistic looking features, with eyes so rich a brown they were almost red. He had a cocky grin and long-ish black hair, and pale skin. He seemed to be leaning towards me. I danced away.
I felt oddly bad, so I went back. But the manequin wasn't there anymore; a living man, flesh and blood, looked me up and down, and held out a hand. Somehow, I didn't find it odd, so I took his hand, and we began to dance.
He was a very good leader, and I was suddenly glad that grandma had forced me to take dance lessons. I was spun and dipped and held and the other statues on the floor almost looked like they were moving with me. But that was impossible. Manequins don't suddenly wake up and move!
I stopped, chilled by the thought, and saw that I was dead wrong. Each manequin in his or her ballroom attire, were dancing and laughing and having a good time. I giggled hysterically, clinging to my own partner fearfully.
"Is something wrong, miss?" he asked in a deep and darkly smooth voice. I glanced back at him, just barely catching the songs of the musicians. But the songs got louder and clearer, and I got braver and decided to have fun. This was the strangest thing had ever happened to me, but it was intoxicatingly thrilling.
"Nothing, mister...?" I trailed off, grinning.
"Aurele, miss?" he said, tilting his head.
"Natasha," I replied, spinning just within reach. We danced for a time, and I ate the pastries and drank the punch that sat waiting at a table. I laughed and talked to other people, and forgot totally about where I was, who I was, and how scared I should have been.
After what could have been hours or only a few minutes, I looked at Aurele, smiling happily. A tear ran down his cheek, and he turned away. "I'm sorry, Natasha," he murmured. I paused and stood in front of him, looking up worriedly.
"For what?" I asked.
"For not telling you sooner." He grit his teeth and clenched his fists.
"Telling me what?" I asked suspiciously, stepping away. He reached out for me and I backed up, bumping into a tall, beautiful girl, who sneered at me and slipped away. Momentarily distracted, I'd given Aurele time to catch my hand and lead me to a tall window.
"Listen to me," he said somberly. "Your parents didn't die, they were murdered. By your grandmother."
"That's a lie!" I cried, slapping him. He flinched away, but cuahgt my hand and held it to my side.
"Listen, I told you!" he growled, which shut me up immediately. "She is not your grandmother. She is a witch that has been living for centuries, who kills people and steals their children. When they're old enough, she locks them up here. She gains their youth and beauty and lives another lifetime, while the child is still stuck here, frozen."
"You're crazy!" I hissed, trying to pull my hand away.
"Am I? I was the first, and I've seen every person get caught here, unable to escape."
"There are other men here, too," I told him matter-of-factly.
"The next was a girl. After that, it was one after another after another. I'm just glad I could catch you before one of the other men, who are angry and want to make others as miserable as them. You have to leave. Right out this window," he said, pointing hurriedly.
I stepped closer, having remembered my fear. I opened the latch and watched the panes of glass swing out, and looked down into perfect blackness. I prepared to jump.
"Wait! Take off the mask!" Aurele called. I undid the ribbons obediently, then pulled on the mask.
It was stuck.
"What's happening?" I screamed, drawing the attention of the others. They glared at me, smiling wickedly, reaaching out to try and pull me back to them. Aurele stood in front of me protetively, just managing to turn around and hook his fingers around the edges of the mask. He gave a mighty tug, and it came off. I stared at the inside.
Inside the mask, my face looked out at me. I screamed again.
I touched my own face gingerly, fearing the worst. I didn't have a nose or eyebrows or hardly anything, just a slit where my mouth was and one lidless eye. The face on the mask seemed to be winking at me and smiling, and I saw a body unfold beneath her slowly. I touched my waist and felt it gone. My hands were gone, as were my hips and my foot. I kicked off a shoe and the grinning face in the mask that Aurele was holding snarled.
I ripped off the dress, unabashed. Aurele threw a white sheet over my head and I wrapped myself in it, feeling each part of my return to the sound of the anguished shrieks of the mask girl. I peeked out of the sheet just in time to see a disembodied hand lift a dagger from someone's pocket and stab Aurele in the heart.
He stumbled back, his mouth open in a surprised "O", being drawn back towards the crowd. I grabbed his hand and leaped out the window, falling forever. I landed on a sidewalk by the Lafeyette cemetary, and tried to hold the bloodied body up as he coughed blood.
"You know, Aurele technically means 'golden one'," I joked weakly.
He chuckled a little. "Let's just get to the hospital, please?" he said.
We really freaked out the nurse, me with my mess of chocolate brown hair and naked body beneath a white sheet, and Aurele in his old-style gentleman costume and bleeding chest. All I could do was laugh nervously.
********
16 Years Later
"You keep saying that, and yet you never brought me up to the attic!" the young girl cried, glaring at her grandmother.
The wrinkled hag laughed and asked "why didn't you just say so, Natasha?"
"Who's Natasha?"
"Oh, no one. Just the one who got away. Now come on."
Somewhere far away, a woman with brown hair sneezed. "Someone must be talking about me," she told her pale skinned black haired husband, who nodded and smiled.
********
Sorry, I guess that wasn't so scary. Nonetheless, hope you enjoyed!
~Mocha
I woke up when the room was washed in a bright light. Sitting up in bed, with the sheets twisted around my ankles, I glanced at the window hopefully. Headlights didn't really reach up high enough to show in my small, drafty room in the loft. That could mean only one thing.
There was a storm tonight. Vaulting out of bed, with the first day of freedom tomorrow, (the first day of summer,) I didn't care about sleeping. I had to watch this. I always missed the good storms because of sleep. That wouldn't stop me tonight.
The lightning tonight didn't stay in the clouds. It came down at jagged angles, nearly striking the earth. The thunder was deafening and it shook the house each time. Aunt Lucille downstairs was probably trying to calm down bratty little Sheila, who would be throwing a fit about the noise. She wasn't afraid, it just annoyed her. I didn't see how anyone couldn't enjoy it.
Bright lights cracking open the atmosphere, gone so fast that if you were to see one out of the corner of your eye you might wonder it you're seeing an afterimage or going insane. Cool spray on your face from the rain that hits the roof, and loud thunder to shake you up and calm you down at the same time. Thunder always had that effect on me. It could put me right to sleep in seconds. That's why I always stood up and went to the window.
My parents had loved lightning. They were storm chasers and sci-fi novelists, traveling the world for their hobby as well as their stories. My only sister was Sheila, a snot-nosed little ten year old. She didn't understand storms. I was afraid of tornadoes, but not this. This was a natural beauty unlike any other.
Suddenly, the room was lit up by very close lightning. Right in the tree outside my window, to be exact. I fell back, landing hard on my butt and wincing at the thunder that followed. I stood up shakily and checked out the window.
A boy at my tender age of fifteen sat in the tree. He had pure white hair and storm cloud colored eyes. He had fang teeth and funny clothes, all chains and leather.
I should warn you now, I've never been accused of being normal.
"Hello!" I chirped, flicking my eyes towards another lightning strike farther away. "Can I help you?"
"Help me?" he asked, not as if he was asking what I meant but actually asking for help. I popped the screen out and reached for him, leaning out the window. He took my hand and I hauled him inside, and took a good look at him.
He had an angular face, a little elf-like. He wasn't buff, but he was muscular in a stringy, sinewy way. The best way, if you ask me.
"I'll get you a towel," I muttered, turning around to hide the blush that spread across my face at that thought.
Emerging from the closet with a clean towel in hand, I saw the boy sit down at my desk and stare blankly at my drawings. They weren't very good; they were a mix between realism and cartoons, and the faces were all screwed up. I'd started drawing X characters, people with Xs for faces, because I was sick of trying to draw them.
"I like this one," he said, pointing. It made me happy that he had the courtesy to not touch the paper with his wet hands. I glanced at the picture; it was the one of an X boy sitting in a tree. It resembled him greatly, and I shivered at the thought.
"Thanks," I said, throwing the towel on his head. He hunched his shoulders for a moment, and then relaxed. While I toweled off his hair, I asked, "so what were you doing sitting in my tree when lightning struck?"
"I'm a demon. I didn't know where else to go, so I went somewhere that felt right." He shrugged.
"Why aren't you in the underworld?" I asked.
"I need to learn to be bad," he replied. I pulled the towel away from his head.
"You're serious about this, aren't you?"
"Of course." He held up a hand. Static wove through his fingers, pausing to dance on his palm, and then disappear. I gasped.
"How did you do that?" I asked.
"I told you," he replied, with a confused tilt of his head, "I'm a demon."
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I was hoping to stay here, if you don't mind," he replied, giving me a goofy and very un-demon like smile.
"Then you're sleeping on the floor. And try not to let anyone know you're here."
"Will do," he said, curling up with the towel as a pillow. I tossed an extra pillow and the comforter at him, and straightened out the sheets so I could go to bed. I suddenly didn't have the energy to watch the storm. It was over anyways.
I kind of wondered what would happen at the end of school. Would I tell him I liked him? Maybe. He wasn't a close friend, but he was my friend, right? Could I tell him, or would it ruin the little closeness that I did have with him?
"Dean!" I cried, without thinking. He turned around, looking at me like I was a lunatic, as I ran up to him. The buses idled on the curb.
Raising his eyebrows high enough that they disappeared under his blond hair, he crossed his arms and said "Morgan," like he was disappointed in me.
"I have a challenge for you!" I chirped, poking him in the chest. His friends, my friends, leaned in to hear what I was about to say.
"What?" he asked.
"If you go and tell the person you like that you like them, or ask them out, I'll do that same!" I babbled, grinning triumphantly.
He rolled his eyes at me. "Why would I want to do that?" he asked.
"Do you really want to leave and never see them again without telling them?" I asked.
He shrugged and said "fine, but this is only because I want to see who you like." He walked up to Guerty, the most annoying back-stabbing fake twit I'd ever met. They talked for a moment, she laughed, (her laugh sounding to me like that of a banshee, as it always did, jealousy or no jealousy,) and he smiled. I caught the words "tomorrow, at noon." Tomorrow was Saturday. A perfect day for a date.
"Alright, you go ask the guy you like out," he said, smiling. I shook my head in a no.
"What?" he hissed. "Why was I the only one who had to do that?"
"You're not," I muttered, backing up.
"Then why? Why don't you go talk to him?" The bus driver beeped, yelling out to me that he was going to leave right away.
"Because he just asked out Guerty and she said yes," I reasoned, stepping onto the bus and gripping the guardrail.
"...What?" Dean looked up at me with confusion on his face. "You like me? Why would... why would you tell me to do that if you liked me?" he asked. The bus driver was just reaching for the lever to close the door.
"If I've got no chance, I'd rather leave here knowing that you're happy," I answered. The door closed. I waved good-bye, a tear running down my face. The bus started to leave.
Dean looked at me, then turned around and walked back to his friends and resumed talking to them. I walked to a seat and sat down. I wasn't rejected, and I still managed to tell him, in the end, I reasoned. Why does it still hurt so much?
My cell vibrated in my pocket. Lucas' number popped up, and I opened the text message and read it. Don't think this is over. One of these days, I will find you and make you explain yourself. -Dean
At that, I smiled a little despite myself. Maybe I did have a bit of a chance after all.
********
I do wonder what would happen if I were to tell the guy I like that I like him. I ended up thinking of this. 
I changed the names, of course, but the guy I like does like the girl I hate. Just a fun fact.
I'm noticing more and more often that I always put my characters through physical pain. Oh well, enjoy!
Dedication to----> ChibiSasuke, who co-wrote this. (At four in the morning. What were we thinking?)
Nothing happens except a hug...
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