by Ruth Houston
"Well, this is a nice view," he commented cheerfully.
"Gavin, you shouldn't be talking to me. You hate me, remember?" I mumbled.
His green eyes registered surprise. "What? I don't hate you. I like you, remember?" He winked at me.
I really wasn't in the mood. "You hate me."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"We are so childish."
"You only just noticed?" he snickered. "I don't hate you. Know why?"
"Why?" I muttered.
"I can't afford to hate people," he said simply.
"And why's that?" I asked listlessly.
He looked at me in surprise again. "What? You mean I haven't told you yet?" He slapped his knee, appearing quite astonished. "That's right, I haven't told you yet!"
"Told me what?" I asked, the question mixed with a weary exhalation.
"You can't tell anyone," Gavin said in a hushed voice, emerald eyes wide. "Promise?"
"I promise," I said, too tired to roll my eyes.
"It's all part of…the Master Diabolical Plan!" he cried, flinging his arms into the air dramatically. "I'm planning on taking over the world," he informed me solemnly. "That's why I can't afford to hate people. I'll need all the allies I can get. And I suppose it doesn't sound very pleasant, when you think about it," he said thoughtfully, "Hating you." He made a face. "Yeah, that's no good, I can tell."
I couldn't help it – I cracked a small smile.
"That's what I want to see," Gavin beamed.
"When you take over the world," I asked softly, "Can I do it with you?"
"Yes!" he shouted, jumping up and pumping his fists victoriously. "Gavin Pennington scores again! Yes, you can help me! I was hoping you'd say that! I need all the help I can get. You can be the brains behind the operation. You can be my trusted lieutenant. I'll just be the evil and merciless yet dashingly handsome and rugged leader figure. Sound good?"
I laughed. "Sounds really good," I smiled as he sat back down next to me.
"Winter, I'm sorry about yesterday," he said seriously.
"I am too," I said, then realized what he had said with a start. "What? What do you have to be sorry for?"
"I didn't accept your rejection with the best of graces," he admitted.
I laughed humorlessly. "Under the circumstances, I would say you did."
"So, no hard feelings?" Gavin grinned.
"None over here. You?" I asked.
"Of course not," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "You're gonna help me take over the world. I can't have hard feelings when it comes to you." He patted the top of my head happily.
"I hate it when people do that," I griped. "And somehow everyone likes to do it. Even Eva."
"I'm just reasserting the fact that I'm taller and eviler than you," he replied merrily.
"Oh, freude," I said sarcastically. That's the one word I know in German.
He laughed. "Hålts maul, little one," he said cheekily.
"What's that mean?" I asked curiously.
"You don't want to know. Now tell me. Why are you still so sad?"
I sighed and was about to speak when he said, "No, no, no, don't say anything, I can see it on your face. Zack, right? He didn't show up for practice today."
I nodded.
"Should have figured it'd have something to do with you," he said, but not in a mean way. "What happened?"
"I punched him," I said.
Gavin took one look at the regretful expression on my face and was immediately roaring with laughter.
"It's not funny!" I declared, though tell that to my mouth, because it was twitching upwards at the corners.
"You punched him!" Gavin was beside himself, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes. "Are you being serious?"
"Well…don't look at me like that! Yeah, I'm being serious!"
And he was off again, laughing like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
"Wow, you are brave," he said appreciatively, once he composed himself enough to be able to speak. "That is why I want you to back me up when I become Evil Overlord of the universe," he said matter-of-factly.
For the record, I don't think I've ever met anyone more incapable of being evil than Gavin.
Then he turned serious. "Why'd you punch him?"
"I was mad, okay?" I said, distressed, wringing my hands. "I grabbed him before he could go to practice and shoved him here into the parking lot so I could talk to him, because he'd been avoiding me all day! I couldn't think of how else to get him to listen. And he didn't even listen," I said, feeling fed-up and depressed all over again. "He just got angry. I'm no good at handling people when they're angry because I get mad too!"
"And violent," he said with a ghost of a smirk.
"And violent," I agreed, rather aggrieved. "It's a lose-lose situation all around."
Gavin patted me on the back. I almost expected him to say, "There, there, sweetie, everything will be okay," but luckily for the sanity of the universe, our Evil Overlord may be crazy, but he isn't effeminate. "I'm going to go have a manly man talk with him on Monday," he said firmly.
"No, you're not," I said. "He's really mad I socked him. He'll be looking for any excuse to pass it on to someone else, all the better if it's you."
"I don't care," Gavin said. He sounded like he really didn't. "He can hit me all he wants. I think he's got so much stuff bottled up inside of him he'll be glad of the release. He needs to get rid of all of it somehow anyway."
I was shocked. "I'm not going to let you go get beat up by him! That's like sending you to the firing squad! Have you seen him when he's mad? He's scary!" I said wildly. "He's like – psychotic! He'll beat you up until there's only scattered molecules of you left! Not even molecules – atoms! Or even less – electrons and protons and neutrons!"
"Now that's not a very nice way to talk about your future husband, Winter," Gavin said reproachfully.
"Zack's not my future husband!" I snorted.
Gavin smiled mischievously. "Wanna bet?"
I gave him an incredulous look.
"Thought so," he said jovially before I could speak.
I clamped my mouth shut. I'd been had. I hate it when I've been had; it's such a stupid feeling.
-Zack-
Victoria was staring at me, open-mouthed, when I entered the kitchen.
"Why aren't you at practice? And what happened to your jaw?"
I would have grimaced, except that it would have been painful. "Got punched," I said shortly, grabbing a Ziploc bag and dumping some ice cubes into it from the freezer.
"By who? Come here and let me have a look at it."
"Winter," I said, allowing her to run her fingers along my red, swollen jaw. "She has one helluva right hook." I almost smiled.
"What did you do now?" Victoria asked exasperatedly. "You'll be okay, just ice it."
"What do you mean, what did I do now?" I asked huffily, trying to move my lips as little as possible. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
She gave me one of her appraising looks.
"Okay, okay," I grumbled. "We just got into an argument, that's all."
"That must have been quite an argument," she said, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into her hairline. "Apologize tomorrow."
"Is there no one in this world who loves me?" I asked the ceiling in a rare moment of melodrama.
"Life's tough, kid. Suck it up." She was grinning.
"Tell me about it," I muttered.
Victoria gave me a gentle push in the direction of the refrigerator. "Eat something," she urged.
"I'm not hungry."
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "You're a growing teenager. You're supposed to be always hungry."
"Well I'm not," I said. "And besides, I think it'd be more painful to eat than to go hungry right now."
"Then go to sleep or something,
" she said. "You always look so tired these days." Her brow was furrowed in concern.
"I'm not tired either," I replied haughtily.
"Don't use that tone of voice with me," she said sternly.
"But Victoria, I wasn't using any tone of voice with you," I said innocently. Zackary Crowne is a lot of things – i.e. charming and good looking – but unfortunately, innocent is something he's not, and consequently, he really can't pull it off all that well.
Ah…I really need to stop talking about myself in the third person, don't I?
"Get out of here," Victoria said good-naturedly, shooing me out of the kitchen. "I need to start making dinner. Chicken or pork?"
"Doesn't matter," I responded automatically, shifting the ice pack on the left side of my face. Any food Victoria makes is good.
"Chicken it is," she said.
"I probably can't chew anything," I pointed out.
"Something else, then," Victoria said agreeably.
I left the kitchen and jogged upstairs to my bedroom. Once in my little sanctuary I kicked off my shoes and flopped back onto my bed, groaning when I accidentally applied a little too much extra pressure to the ice pack. Winter really does have a very nice right hook. I could probably learn a thing or two from her.
I sighed. The moment I had seen that fist coming for me, I had thought, oh god, this is it, this is the point of no return – I'm going to be so furious after this we'll live the rest of our lives ignoring each other.
Somehow though, I hadn't been as angry at her as I thought I would be. Okay, so maybe I was seething for the whole car ride home and nearly got a speeding ticket, but after I cooled down a bit, I realized the only thing I felt was…regret. Regret and a different kind of anger: the quiet, contained kind that you hold bottled up deep inside, the kind that erodes your heart and kills you slowly – anger at yourself.
And boy, I was livid with myself. There were so many 'if only's running through my head right now. If only I hadn't been so moronic and consumed by emotions. If only I had just listened to her. If only I hadn't been such a heartless jerk, and had returned the chance that she gave me. And she was being patient with me too, I knew, because I hadn't even explained to her the reason I had stopped sending letters – in truth, I didn't really know how to approach the subject, and even if I did, it sounded stupid to my ears. "Oh, yeah, you know why I stopped sending letters? That's because my dad was monitoring my mail." Yeah, great explanation there. She's really gonna like that one.
No matter how pissed off I was at myself though, in a twisted way I still believed myself justified in some areas. She didn't have to lie, so why did she? Why had she even put up a front of not believing me when I told her Gavin liked her? Why did she even like him anyway?
Or was it possible she hadn't been lying at all? That would have too good to hope for though.
And then I remembered how angry I was at myself again. Here was something else we could add to the list: why had I even left her in the first place? If I hadn't left for Italy maybe she wouldn't have met Gavin at all, maybe she would be madly in love with me instead of him, and we could have gone to college together and gotten married and had beautiful kids…
Whoa, okay. A little too far there.
But that brought me back full circle: furious with myself, still confused about where Winter stood, and unbelievably sad that there would never be an "us" because there was the matter of Gavin Pennington in between.
Gavin Pennington. What an ass. I despised him.
Just then the phone rang. After two rings it was obvious Victoria wasn't going to pick it up, so I did it grudgingly.
And nearly had my ear blown off.
"Zack Crowne, you fucking son of a bitch!" A very familiar voice roared in my ear with a Southern drawl.
"Yeah, why'd you leave us hanging like that?" Another very familiar voice asked laughingly.
"Seriously, now we're not the totally cool and original Fantastic Five."
"Yeah, now we're like…the Not-So-Fantastic Four."
One of them made a sound of blatant disgust.
"Let me guess," I said, pretending to be nonchalant while in reality I was trying hard not to grin ear to ear like I wanted to because it was quite painful. "Leo, Darius, Langston, and Andy. I only have one question."
"What?" All four of them asked at the same time.
"Why the hell didn't you guys call sooner?"
I could tell Darius, Andy, and Langston were laughing, but Leo countered, "Why the hell didn't you tell us you were leaving?"
"Sometimes a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do," I shrugged, even though they couldn't see it. "Where did you guys get my number anyway?"
"Miss Bonetti."
"Yeah, I think we might have given her some white hairs because we were bugging her so much at the beginning of the school year for your contact info."
"Well, that's not our fault," Leo said, "She kept saying it was against school policy to give out your information but we got there eventually with a little sweet talking from Langston."
I chuckled lightly. "Very nice. But you all are rude. You didn't even say 'hi' or 'how are you, Zack, our beloved friend?'"
"Buon giorno," Darius said graciously with a perfect accent.
"'Sup man?" Andy and Langston chorused.
"Beloved friend? Who are you shitting?" Leo said, though I knew he was grinning.
I laughed then winced.
"That sounded like a painful laugh," Andy remarked.
"That would be because I got punched today," I said, reapplying the ice.
"No way," Langston said.
"Seriously, who would want to waste their time punching a piece of crap like you?" Leo wanted to know in a good-natured way.
Now would be the time to change the subject, methinks. "How's school?" I asked quickly.
"Shitty," Leo complained. "I have a new roommate! Why the fuck did you leave? He's a huge slob."
"It's okay," Andy replied. "Except for Leo whining all the time."
"Hey!"
"It's good," Langston said. "The freshman girls this year are cute."
"I'll second that."
"In conclusion, it's quite boring without you," Darius said, and I could hear a smile in his voice.
"Man, I miss you guys, crazy though you lot are," I confessed.
"Aw, the man misses us!" Andy cooed.
"Zacky-Wacky, we miss you too," Langston contributed.
"How sweet," Darius commented with a chuckle.
"How untrue," Leo sniffed. "Guys, he doesn't miss us. He's got his girlfriend."
There were outraged cries in abundance and a lot of swearing and laughing following this statement. I had to hold the phone away from me. Then on second thought, I pressed the intercom button so my ear wouldn't have to directly suffer decibels so high I was almost sure I was going to go deaf. The voices of my four friends filled my room.
"What girlfriend is this?!" Andy demanded.
"Yeah, when did you get a girlfriend?" Darius asked.
"Is she hot?" That was Langston.
"She's hotter than hot," Leo laughed.
More outraged exclamations came, this time directed at Leo.
"How do you know?"
"Have you met her?"
"Wait, does she live in California or what?"
"Or does she go to our school? Who is it?"
"IS SHE HOT?"
"Yes, I already answered that. She's veeeeery hot. I saw a picture of her."
"Hey, unfair dude!"
"Un-cool Leo, un-cool. Why didn't you notify us about this A.S.A.P.? I'm very disappointed in you."
Andy seemed to demonstrate just how disappointed he was by shoving Leo, because there was scuffle on the line.
"Hey, hey, hey!" came Leo's incensed shout. "Get off, Andy! Langston, get off! Don't you fucking dare put me in a head-lock!"
"Break it up, guys, come on now, we're seventeen, not seven! Please don't try to push me Andy," Darius said, ever the peace
maker.
I chuckled quietly. I really did miss these guys more than I thought, even (or maybe especially?) my crazy roommate. I managed to get them off the topic of Winter by inserting a teasing comment about how I was all caught up to the American mainstream things while they were not. The phone conversation carried on for more than an hour before I remembered the time difference between California and Italy.
"Hey guys, what time is it over there?" I asked suddenly.
"Two in the morning," Langston said grumpily. "We're not even supposed to be out of bed. Leo's been keeping us awake 'cause we really wanted to talk to you."
"Jeez, two in the morning? You couldn't have called me on the weekend, could you?" I said, rather touched that they would break probably about eighty school rules and force themselves to stay awake just to talk to me.
"It is the weekend over here, dumbass," Darius laughed. "That's why Langston's so upset. He usually sleeps in until noon."
"Liar!" Langston snapped.
"He's not lying," Andy interjected. "Darius never lies."
"Yes he does!" came the heated reply. "I sleep in until 11:45, so take that! Ha!"
I knew there must have been a collective eye rolling at this.
"Big difference there, Lang," Leo said.
Someone yawned.
"You guys should go to bed already," I chided them.
"Yes, mom," Andy said.
I chuckled. "Thanks for calling. Seriously. You guys made my day better."
"I'd imagine that your day must have been pretty crappy if a rowdy bunch like us can make you feel better," Darius observed.
"True," I said with a grin. Hey, it didn't hurt anymore! Ice is now my new best friend. I couldn't feel my left jawbone at all, it was so numb.
Someone yawned again.
"Yeah, we'd better go," Leo said. "Take care of yourself, you bastard," he said affectionately.
"I will," I promised.
"Later, Zack. We'll call you again some other weekend."
"Yeah, that'd be awesome," I said.
"Later man."
"Bye."
"Bye," I said, and hung up, shaking my head slightly with a grin.
xxxxx
That phone call was the only good thing that happened that weekend. I spent a torturous Friday night wondering if Winter and Gavin had gone to the Halloween dance after all. I had half a mind to drive over there and surreptitiously check the ticket list.
