Abercrombie & Bitch

Thursday, April 23, 2:24am – home

I didn’t know that dreams could possibly be so peaceful.

I was on a boat, in the harbor, just laying on the deck and getting a tan. Which was weird, because I get so seasick that I can barely step one foot onto a boat without wanting to barf. But I guess motion sickness didn’t apply to dreams.

Anyway, everything was totally perfect – kind of like the beginning of my senior year, when everything was, you know, normal.

“Shut up and put your money where your mouth is, that’s what you get for waking up in Vegas…”

I sat bolt upright in bed, blinking and staring around groggily. It was my phone ringing, I was dimly aware of that. As I reached for it on my bedside table, I glanced at the clock. My jaw dropped.

Who the hell would call me at 2 A.M. on a school day? On any day, for that matter?

Pretty much my only thought at that point – besides that I had better go back to bed, and quick, before Meg caught me up and demanded a banana or something – was that something was wrong with Riley. I mean, come on. Fourteen hours ago she’d told me she might be pregnant. That’s enough to set me on edge.

“Hello?” I mumbled, trying to wipe the sleep from my voice, but not really succeeding. It was two o’clock in the morning, after all.

“Miranda?”

Wait a minute. I knew that voice. But why was that voice on the other end of a call I’m receiving at two in the freaking morning? “Zach? What the fuck are you calling me for?”

I heard something shift on the other end of the line. “I… I wanted to talk to you.”

“Can’t it at least wait until morning?” I whined, burying my face in my pillow. I mean, really. It was too early for this. My brain didn’t start functioning until at least nine thirty. And that was after coffee.

“Um. Not exactly. Turn around.”

I raised an eyebrow, but did as he told me. Just my luck. There was Zach, sitting at my window sill, his cell phone pressed to his ear and his face deathly white. Wait. My window was on the second story, and Zach was afraid of heights, so…

Normally I would’ve slammed my curtains shut and hope he fell and broke his neck, but some little nagging part in me was controlling my actions. I threw open the window and yanked him in, grunting and eventually falling onto my carpet with a loud thud. I listened anxiously to see if Lindsey or Harper, who each had rooms next to mine, heard anything.

But then I remembered that they virtually became logs once the lights went off, so I was okay.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed, heaving Zach up from the floor by his hood. “Zach, normal people are asleep right now.”

He scowled and rubbed his neck where the fabric had rubbed against him. “I understand that, Miranda. I just…” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Mika told me about…Riley, and he’s kinda freaked, and I couldn’t sleep-”

“Wait,” I cut him off, holding a hand up and cradling my forehead with the other, “Back up. What happened with Mika and Riley?”

His cheeks flushed as he took a seat on my bed. I didn’t have the energy to tell him otherwise. “I don’t really know… Mika just came over to my house earlier, all smiley and crap because Riley told him she was… she…”

“Pregnant?” I offered, noticing Zach’s discomfort at saying the word. He was a guy; I didn’t blame him.

“Yes,” he groaned, flopping back against my bed. Darn. Now I’d have to burn the sheets. “He... He was all excited and stuff, and I guess I just needed someone to talk to who wasn’t all-”

“So let me get this straight.” I walked over to him and poked him in the chest. “You climbed up the terrace, at two-in-the-freaking-morning, just to talk to… me.” He nodded vigorously. I gave him a blank look. “Tell me the truth, Zach. Are you high?”

And then he did what I never thought he’d do. He snorted. Like a pig. I mean, I knew I did that every once in a while, but I didn’t think anyone, you know, normal did. “No, Mandy, I’m not.” I opened my mouth to say something else, but he held up his hand. “I’m not drunk, either. Or crazy.”

Damn. Am I really that predictable?

He smiled. It was a little strange seeing him in my bedroom at night with the lights off. I’m not going to lie. We used to do this when we were little, but we were also, um, ten. My room had been decorated almost exactly like his – boyish and completely like me. But over the years, it slowly evolved with my own tastes. And now it was girly, purple and a little messy. I guess the feeling of him being here… it brought up some unpleasant memories.

I sat down next to him, a little numb. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked softly, trying to read his expression.

It was silent for a moment. Then Zach sighed and slumped forward, holding his head in his hands. “I don’t know. I… I just…” He looked up at me suddenly, his turquoise eyes shining in the moonlight. God, did anyone else realize how cheesy that sounded? “Miri, remember a few days back? When we were talking in the kitchen?”

I nodded. I didn’t really see what that had anything to do with this whole thing. Even if my mind was, well, not functioning at full capacity at the moment.

“Do…” he continued, scratching the back of his head, “Do you ever wonder…what… what might’ve happened if we were still… I mean…” He didn’t quite seem to be able to get the words out of his mouth. But I could easily piece together what he was trying to say.

Do I ever wonder what would’ve happened to us if we’d stayed friends?

The thought caught me off guard. Of course I’d thought about it a few times over the years. I couldn’t forget much about Zach – after all, a girl never forgets her first kiss.

It was the last night of summer before freshman year. Zach and I were lounging on top of my roof, like always. He was laying a few feet away from me, with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. That was good. He didn’t know I was staring at him.

“Can you believe we’re going to be in high school?” he said out of nowhere.

I shook my head, gazing up at the stars. “No,” I whispered, wanting to keep the conversation quiet so that my Lindsey couldn’t hear. “I can’t. How awesome is it? I mean, we’re not in middle school anymore.”

He sat up and smiled. “I know…” His voice trailed off, as if he’d forgotten what he was going to say. He stared at my face intently – so much that I started to get nervous.

“Do I have something on my face?” I asked, hugging myself tighter because of the cold. It was surprisingly chilly for summer.

Zach just chuckled and lifted his hand up to my cheek. “Yeah.” Like a parent would, he wiped off a spot of dirt with his thumb. “There. All gone.”

It was strange. One second we were just sitting there, staring at each other in our scruffy summer clothes, not kissing…

And the next, Zach’s warm lips were on mine, sending shivers down my spine and making my skin catch fire. Suddenly the night wasn’t so cold. His hands were cupping my face, and my hands were limp on his chest, and all I could think about was how his lips tasted like the chocolate chip ice cream we’d had after dinner…
Just the memory of that sent another shiver through my spine. But at that same moment, I also thought about the last thing he said to me before we started… becoming whatever we were. The very last day of the Romeo and Juliet project.

The bell blared through the hallways, and Zach and I leapt up from our seats in English class. It was the last one of the day. As I walked out the door, I caught Zach’s eye and waved him over.

He rolled his eyes and sauntered toward me, with Ashley Hotchkiss staring after him fondly. In fact, his entire circle of friends was watching him like hawks. I can’t honestly tell you that I’d noticed – I’d been almost head-over-heels for Zach at the time and only had eyes for him.

“Hey,” I mumbled nervously, shuffling my feet and adjusting my nerdy, freshman glasses. “Um, I was wondering…Do you want to hang out this weekend? My parents are having a BBQ.”

And unreadable expression flickered across Zach’s face for a moment, but he regained his coolness. “Why the hell would I want to hang out with a loser like you?” He threw his head back and laughed. “God, you’re such a whore.”

My jaw dropped. Zach just walked over to his friends, all of whom were slapping him on the back and cheering.

This. Means. War.

And then I was back in the present. Zach was looking at me expectantly, his hands clasped together and his elbows on his knees. He looked exactly the same as he did as a freshman. Heck, he acted pretty much the same as he did as a freshman. But me? I’m a different person than I was then.

Back then, I was just some loser freshman, with loser friends and an invisible status. I had glasses, and acne, and long stick-straight blonde hair. Now I’m the girl whose bad side no one wants to be on.

The new Miranda Gregory.

I exhaled loudly. “Of course I do.” Well, it was true. I’d thought about it a hell of a lot.

If my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me – and they sometimes do – I could’ve sworn Zach looked relieved. “Yeah… Me too.” He stared at the carpet again, thinking. “Do you think… do you think we could be that way again?”

My breath caught. The look in his eyes when he asked me that… it was exactly like the expressions he had in those two moments. Some unreadable, unfathomable expression that had to mean something, but I sure didn’t know what it was. And I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know, to tell you the truth.

But that second memory…

“No,” I whispered, taking a deep breath in order to calm myself. “Zach, I don’t think so.”

That definitely wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. His head snapped up quickly with a confused expression. My face was just a stony mask. Almost as if he were reading my mind, he seemed to catch on to what I was thinking about. That Day.

“Miri,” he said hoarsely, his eyes widening, “I’m so sorry…”

I shook my head. “Zach…” I looked into his eyes and sighed. “Look. I’ll pretend to date you or whatever for the talent show thing. Just until it’s over. But after that… I think we should go back to the way we were.”

I glanced at his face. He looked like he was in some serious pain. “And…If you were really sorry… I don’t think you would’ve said it in the first place.”