The Abbie Diaries: The Complete Series

by Amelie Stephens

  Now, however, Abbie seemed to want to spend time with just the two of them – no Maggie in sight. She had not come out with them last Saturday, and he had not really seen much more of her than a glance or two as he was picking up or hanging out with Abbie. He should be glad. That was what he wanted, but it still was upsetting. Maggie was cool. He wanted to keep being friends with her, but it would be awkward without Abbie around. Besides, who was going to help him keep Abbie in line if Maggie wasn’t with him? He was going to be left to Abbie’s crazy antics all by himself. It was going to be exhausting, and she still wasn’t allowing them to be anything other than friends. Still, this is what he had wanted, and so he was going to do his best not to complain. Abbie was great, after all. He really liked her. This wasn’t just a line he was feeding himself.

  When Toby returned home a couple of Maggie-free dates later, he fell on the couch and sighed. It shouldn’t be this hard, he thought, to spend time in public with your girlfriend.

  “What’s the matter?” Parker asked from the recliner. Toby hadn’t seen his friend in a while. He had been working a lot. Since their truce, though, when they did see each other, they made a point to take steps towards their old relationship. They hadn’t, however, mentioned Abbie even once since. Toby couldn’t really break their pact now, so he said nothing.

  “Come on. Something is upsetting you. You can tell me. If it is about,” he paused as he decided how to word his sentence, “her, I’m fine. Really. You can tell me, and I won’t use it against you. I just want to help.”

  Despite everything that had happened between them, Toby had no doubt his friend was telling the truth. He said he wanted to help, and Toby believed it was the truth.

  “Have you ever met,” pause, “her friend Maggie?”

  “You mean the fiery fairy?” Parker asked with a crinkled forehead as if that was not the question he had been expecting. Toby smiled softly to himself. He had never thought about it, but fiery fairy was the perfect way to describe Maggie.

  “Yeah,” he told Parker, “that’s the one.”

  “I’ve met her,” Parker told him. “She’s nice. Why?”

  “She’s been hanging out with me and Ab. Her,” Toby tried to correct, but Parker put up his hand.

  “This is crazy, Toby,” he said. “We aren’t children. We should be able to say her name. So Maggie has been hanging out with you and Abbie?”

  Toby smiled.

  “Yes. And at first it annoyed me, but then I kind of liked it. Abbie can kind of be a lot,” Toby paused because he noticed his friend winced, and he felt bad about saying anything negative about the girl he had won over his friend. He quickly changed the subject. “Maggie helped me deal with my fears of public displays by helping reign in her more exuberant friend. She kind of grew on me. But now, Abbie wants it to be just the two of us.” Another wince from Parker. “And that’s good. Only do you think it would be weird if I became friends with my girlfriend’s best friend, separate and apart from my relationship with said girlfriend? Because I like Maggie, and if the three of us aren’t going to hang out together, then I don’t want that to mean I don’t get to hang out with Maggie.”

  Parker kind of half grinned, “I don’t know about that, Tob. It might be kind of strange. I doubt either of them would go for it.”

  Toby nodded.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  26

  The thing about having a real and lasting connection with someone was that you could sometimes read the other person like a book. This was where Parker found himself now. When Abbie had first turned him down in the park, he had been so hurt he had not been thinking straight. Eventually, however, the initial stages of grief had passed and it helped him get the bigger picture, which was that Abbie was lying.

  The facts, as Parker saw them, were that Abbie had wanted him, not Toby, just a short time before she made the public announcement that she had forgiven Toby and taken him back. Why would she turn him down before she knew he had done something wrong only to take him back after she found out what he had done? The answer, in Parker’s mind, was that she wouldn’t. Also, she had chosen Parker and asked him to be exclusive right before the humiliating park experience. So how could she not realize that he would think she meant to forgive him? Once again, the answer was that she wouldn’t. Which meant she was playing her own little game and was toying with both of them.

  He could be mad, he supposed, since she was tricking his friend into thinking they had something genuine and using that trickery to drive him crazy, but he wasn’t. Hadn’t they been doing the same thing to her? Or, at least, hadn’t they given her reason to believe they had done practically the same thing to her? Besides, he thought, it was a little bit brilliant.

  Once he came to this realization, he had to decide on his next plan of action. He could A.) Give up on Abbie and decide she wasn’t worth all of this hassle. He did not like choice A. He could B.) Confront her on what she was doing, and let her know he was onto her. Choice B seemed like a great way to keep her mad at him. She needed to get back at them both for what they had done to her in order to stop feeling so hurt. He didn’t see choice B working that well for him. Or he could C.) Play along with her, make sure she knew he still was there for her, and bide his time until she cooled down and was willing to listen to him, forgive him, and start all over with him. He had decided that choice C was best for everyone. Even Toby if only Toby would come to realize that he and Abbie shouldn’t be together. So that is what he had been doing until he had had his little talk with Toby.

  However, after that talk, he began to slowly form an option D. Get Toby and Maggie together so everybody would be happy when Parker finally won Abbie back. Only, how was he supposed to do that when he didn’t have any contact with any of them?

  Fate was on his side, though, because later that week, opportunity fell into his lap in the form of a fiery fairy.

  Parker had been working a long shift at the hospital. He was physically exhausted. He was tired. His brain was no longer working and all he wanted to do was sleep.

  “Hey,” Dr. Coleman interrupted Parker’s half comatose state, “there is a girl looking for you in reception.”

  Parker’s heart started to race. Abbie? Could she have finally come to her senses? He went to reception at a much faster pace than he would have thought possible even moments before. Only it was not Abbie that greeted him. It was the girl he had been trying to figure out a way to contact for the last several days. It was Maggie.

  “Hi,” she greeted him rather shyly. “I’m Maggie. Abbie’s roommate. We’ve met bef…”

  “I remember. I know who you are. May I help you with anything?”

  “Yes. Um. Is there somewhere we can talk in private? I. I didn’t know where else to find you. Abbie once mentioned you worked here and I took a risk at finding you. I hope it’s okay. I didn’t want to have to bother you at work.”

  “It’s fine. Yeah. Follow me.”

  He led her to the courtyard, and they sat down on a secluded bench. He could tell she was nervous, but he was not sure how to make her feel more comfortable. So he just let her sit there in silence until she built up her confidence enough to speak.

  “I’m a horrible friend,” she finally said, and he had to admit it was not quite what he was expecting. Not the he really had any idea what to expect with this unexpected appearance.

  “I doubt that,” he tried to console her even if he was still unsure of why she needed to be consoled.

  “It’s true, though. I am. And I need you to be a bad friend with me. Ironically, I think being bad friends is the only way we can be good friends in the long run.”

  “What?”

  She laughed in derision.

  “That wasn’t clear enough for you?”

  “Maybe you could give me a little bit more of an explanation.”

  She smiled, and it made Parker feel a tiny bit better to relieve her of even a little bit of stress.

  “Toby
and Abbie aren’t right for each other, and I think they both know it but are too stubborn to admit it.”

  Parker held his breath. Of course he agreed with this premise, but he couldn’t play that hand quite yet. He needed more from Maggie. Perhaps this was all a part of Abbie’s ultimate plan.

  “I can’t tell you how I know that Abbie knows she and Toby shouldn’t be together, because I’m not that bad of a friend yet, but I can say I am very confident in my assessment there.”

  Parker took this to mean Maggie was aware of Abbie’s subterfuge, but couldn’t tell him about it for obvious reasons.

  “However,” she continued, “I can tell you why I think Toby knows he is not right for Abbie. Because I think he realizes how great the two of us would be together, and I think he is too scared to admit it.” Maggie was blushing, and Parker remembered Abbie telling him how she kept her emotions close to her chest and had a hard time opening up to people emotionally. This whole thing must really make her uncomfortable. He was going to put her out of her misery, but before he could, she continued.

  “I know what a horrible person it makes me to want the guy my best friend is dating, but I know he isn’t who Abbie wants or who she should be with, and I’m also pretty sure that he is who I want and who I should be with. And I thought you would understand that more than anyone, and besides, you are the only one I know who can help me. If you still want to win Abbie back, anyway.” Her blush was getting deeper, but she sat there looking at him with big eyes, and even if Parker wasn’t fully on board with whatever her plan was going to be from the beginning, he would’ve had a hard time turning her down.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked her, and a slight grin appeared on her face.

  “I knew you’d help me,” she said this quietly, and he almost didn’t hear it. He liked the faith she put in him, and he hoped that one day her friend would do the same.

  “I think we should start dating.” He had been so lost in his reverie that he almost missed what she said.

  “What?” he asked her incredulously. “What?” he repeated.

  “Not really date,” Maggie stammered out in a horrified voice. “I mean. I. I’m not asking you out. I. I’m sorry. This isn’t coming out the way I mean for it to.”

  She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “I think we need to make them jealous. I know it’s high school and immature and we should be able to do almost anything else. I know it sounds awful. But I think it’s the only thing that will work. People always want what they can’t have, and right now they both know, or at least strongly suspect I think, that they could have us if they want us. We need to change that. If they think they’ve lost us, they will realize how important we are to them, and I think that’s our only shot.”

  She stopped talking and sat there, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

  “If we did this,” he asked her, “how exactly would we go about it? We can’t say we ran into each other at the grocery store and decided to go out. That wouldn’t be believable. How can we start dating without making them both hate us and/or suspect we are up to something?”

  “That’s easy,” she surprised him with saying.

  “It is?”

  “Yep,” she grinned at him. “It just takes a little bite of humble pie, some fairly decent acting skills, and a genuine desire to repair the relationships that all of this drama has wrought.” She paused there for dramatic effect.

  “You have to pretend to be over Abbie, say you want to be friends with Toby again – which I assume isn’t even a lie – and then say you want to apologize to Abbie. You start hanging out with them. I start hanging out with them again. And then let the rest take care of itself. We can even ask both of them for permission. They can get mad at us, but they can’t say no because what would be there reasoning? Neither of them is interested in us after all, right?”

  Parker had his doubts as to how successful this ill-conceived plan would be, but when he was desperate, he was desperate. Plus, he had already wanted to get Maggie and Toby together. He might as well join forces with the fairy. After all, maybe she had some magical fairy dust that would save them all from the messes they had made.

  “How do we get started?” he almost surprised himself by asking. But the more Maggie got excited about the plan, the more he thought it just might be able to work.

  And the winner is…

  And the Winner Is … (Everybody Because Jo’s Gone, But Here Is the Contest Winner …)

  Abbie Baker | May 16, 2015

  Hello guys. It’s getting close to party time! And we have officially picked a date, a caterer, and, of course, a theme. But more on that later. First, let me dish about everybody’s favorite subject: my relationship status.

  He – he still doesn’t like me using his name on here, or talking about him in general really, but we have to compromise somewhere – is still great. Or pretty much great, at any rate. It’s good. It’s … it’s okay, at the very least. Part of the reason that we aren’t fully syncing, I believe, is that we are being too platonic. But while we still haven’t done anything in the way of a physical relationship, we are getting closer and closer every day. He just needs to hang in a little bit longer, and we’ll get to that place.

  Just last night, he came over and I made him dinner: steak, mac and cheese, and homemade biscuits. I know my way around a kitchen after all. I even made cookies for dessert. Then, he hung up a picture I painted with him at a paint class. There we were in my bedroom. On my bed. Happy and full. And I thought to myself, This is it. We are about to do this, finally.

  And then he leaned in to kiss me, and I sneezed. Really. It wasn’t fake or anything, though I am fairly confident that he thought it was. Who can blame him after the way I have been treating him either? So there we were about to kiss and all of a sudden his face was covered in spit. Did I mention I didn’t get my arm up in time? It really was very unexpected, you see. I hadn’t even felt it coming on.

  I felt terrible. I apologized, and he said it was fine, which I thought was very gentlemanly of him. And then I went to get him some tissues. He cleaned up, and I thought we would start out where we had left off, but it did not work out that way. Instead of trying to kiss me again, he said, “Now that it’s up, you wanna watch a movie? I’ll even let you pick. Only, can we make it an action movie? I’m not really in a RomCom type mood.” And then we went into the living room where we watched something with a lot of shooting and explosions that I apparently had chosen. Funny, it didn’t seem like my type of movie.

  And then he looked around and asked if Maggie was home. I thought it might be because he wanted to make sure the way was clear for the two of us, but he didn’t seem that excited when I told him she was spending the night at her parent’s house that night.

  And I realized that I was getting a little bit paranoid. Because I even imagined that maybe he wasn’t as upset with our chaste status as he once was or as he probably should have been. What do you think it means? Did he not want to be alone with me? Maybe he thought that it would be too tempting to be alone with me when I had made it clear that I didn’t want us to do anything. Only, maybe I have changed my mind. How could I let him know about my new change of opinion? I suppose that I can do just what I just did: write about it to you where he and everyone else will read it. I am sure he will be happy to know that I feel this way just as I am sure he will not be happy that I talked about it here.

  Is it possible to put yourself firmly in the friend zone with the guy you are dating? It seems as if I’m about to have to find out. I’ll report back soon with my conclusions.

  On another note, I have not had as much contact from the scorned other. So that’s good. It really is. I’m happy for him if he has moved on. I certainly have. So here is to him forgetting about me and finding someone who is better for him. Because we both know it’s not me he’s meant to be with.

  Now on to the main event. Here are the top five party themes for the Jo Bash (which is also
one of the top themes, though sadly, Speezo54, not the winner.)

  5. The End of a Terror

  4. Taking Out the Trash

  3. Wish Upon a Star

  2. The Jo Bash

  And now for the grand winner: Ding, Dong, The Bitch Has Fled! Congratulations, Dizzy360. I hope you have already begun working on that speech.

  So there you have it, people. This Friday night it’s going down Wizard of Oz style. Wear your favorite Dorothy costumes – those of you who are invited – and come help us rid the toxins left by the witch that was terrorizing our place. We plan on having a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and at least three noise complaints and a visit from the cops.

  Though honestly, we actually might be able to avoid all of that. Jo didn’t have many friends on our block, and when we told our neighbors that she was going, their one reaction was to ask us if we were going to celebrate and could they come. Even Ms. Lynch, who has to be eighty if she’s a day, asked me if she could bring over a congratulations cake. You see, guys? This was not our imagination. Josephine really was the epic wicked bitch of the street.

  Until next time,

  Abbie

  27

  Abbie had sneezed on purpose. She wasn’t proud of it. And she felt terrible about it because she had to admit, if only to herself, she wasn’t mad at Toby anymore. He was too nice. And yes, he had some problems, but who didn’t? Certainly not her.