Abercrombie & Bitch

Saturday, June 20, 9:01pm – Club Nocturne

There was no spotlight in the club, but if there had been, I'm almost certain it would have been on me. Or, at least, I imagined it that way. In reality, everyone besides Jay was more concerned with watching the blonde-haired boy on stage than with looking for the poor girl he was talking to.

Zach. Looking nervous for the first time, glanced around the room. I tried to slide down in my seat inconspicuously, hoping not to attract attention to myself, and was beginning to plan my escape out the back door. That is, until Zach's ocean blue eyes found mine, and a hesitant smile stretched across his face.

He cleared his throat. “Well, if she is here, I want to tell her that I'm sorry.” A bunch of girls in the crowd 'aww'ed, and the boys mumbled things under their breath. I made a slight move to get up and hopefully escape, but Jay grabbed my forearm and yanked me back down.

“So, here's the thing,” Zach continued, oblivious to all the attention he was attracting. Or maybe not so oblivious, based on the fact that he was standing up straighter and looking directly into my eyes. “I made a big mistake. I let my girl – Miranda, in case you were, uh, wondering – leave without even saying good-bye.” More aws from the girls. I rolled my eyes. “And I may have said a few things before that, and misunderstood a few things, but... I want her to know that...”

I stared at him, open-mouthed. It was the first time in a long time that I'd really looked at him – perfectly spiked blonde hair, turquoise eyes, and the facial structure of a model. How could I ever even compare to him? He had everything. What did I have? Too much emotional baggage.

He smiled sheepishly. “I just want her to now that I've always, always cared about her. And that no matter what happens, I'm always going to be there, Miranda. I love you.”

I was completely frozen. I watched Zach hand the mic back to the performer, but by then I'd completely forgotten what they had been doing. He jumped off the stage, landing gracefully on his feet as the crowd parted to let him pass. The girls all swooned as he passed them, but he didn't seem to notice. In fact, all he seemed to notice...

Was, well, me.

It was almost like time had slowed down as Zach made his way towards me. His steps were painfully slow, almost hesitant, as if he wasn't sure how I was going to react. The music had started back up again, and most of the people on the dance floor had completely forgotten what Zach had been saying a few moments ago. I didn't know whether that was good or bad.

As he approached, Jay stood up. “Hey, dude. Nice going.”

I turned my shocked gaze to him as he shook Zach's hand and gave him one of those weird man-hug type of things. Zach smiled shyly as he pulled back, still eying me with a strange expression on his face. Jay said something to him, but I couldn't bother myself with listening. I would feel bad about it later, but at the moment all I could focus on was Zach and the way his hair was just a little bit messed up from where he'd run his hand through it and how he had gotten a few freckles on his nose from being in the sun since the last time I'd seen him.

Jay glanced back at me, smiling, and pulled me up by the wrist. He pulled me into a hug. “Go with him,” he whispered into my ear, so low that I almost couldn't hear him. “Believe me, Panda, he really means what he says.”

I didn't even have time to question him as he let me go and, with one last wink, hopped down from the booth and disappeared into the crowd. I could barely see his head of messy brown hair as he went in the direction of the front door, but I had no way of knowing exactly where he was going.

Zach cleared his throat and awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, Miri, I-”

I cut him off by putting a finger to his lips and shaking my head. “Let's go outside. I can't hear anything over the music.” That part was true – I almost couldn't hear myself think over this racket.

He just nodded silently and took my hand, curling it around mine. I couldn't help grinning at the way it fit over mine perfectly, like it was made to be there. He took me down, gently, from the booth and led me into the crowd. Bodies pressed against me from all sides and I held Zach's hand tighter as I started to have flashbacks from the prom.

Before I knew it, we were outside. I took a breath of air and shook my head slightly to clear it as Zach pulled me towards his car, which was parked right next to the building. “Where are we going?” I asked hesitantly as he unlocked the doors.

He turned to me. “Nevermind that for a second,” he said slowly, taking my other hand in his so that he was holding both of mine firmly. “Look, Miranda, I just... I messed up, okay? I know that. I screwed up. I know you didn't mean what you said... the way I took it, anyway, but I was just... I was confused, you know? And I-”

“Zach,” I whispered, cutting him off. He clamped his mouth shut. “Why are you doing this?”

He looked at me, confused. “Doing what?”

“This!” I gestured to the club, and to his car. “Why do you even bother? It's not like I'm any big catch or anything. You could do so much better than me.” I could feel my voice becoming uneven and my throat burned with oncoming tears, but I tried to fight them back. “All I've done is hurt you. I don't even know what I did to make you care so much!”

He was silent for a few moments, just staring into my eyes. I bit my lip and looked down at my shoes, suddenly finding the pattern of the pavement very interesting.

He slid his finger under my chin and lifted my head up to look at him. “I know I don't have to do any of this. I wanted to.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. “If I knew... If I knew why I cared so much about you, I'd tell you. But I don't. All I know is that you were my best friend for years, and then all of the sudden... I was attracted to you. And that scared me. But at the same time, it was like...” He grinned a little. “Like you were the only one I could think about. The only one I wanted to be with.”

I just stared at him blankly. This was all a little bit overwhelming. How did we even get to where we were? All the drama, the lies, the crap that had gotten in the way. And some how, we ended up falling for each other. Things don't usually happen like that. I never thought, in a million years, that something like this would happen to me. I mean, what had I done to deserve this? I'd been mean to many people, and the ones I was nice to were the first ones to point it out. I'd hurt so many people, intentionally or not, because of the fact that I always over thought what I did.

At that moment, I realized that I was done thinking things through. I was done worrying.

So I did the only thing I could think of: I kissed him.

-[-]-

Sunday, June 21, 1:08pm – Holiday Inn

“So, Miri, where are we now?” Zach asked, twirling a pitifully short lock of my hair around his finger.

I smiled up at him and snuggled closer to his chest. The little object Jay had given Zach was a room key – typical boy move.

As it turns out, Zach told me, Jay had been in on the whole thing. Well, not from the start, of course, but he'd known about this for about a week. He'd talked his brother – who turned out to be best friends with Zach's older brother – into letting him pull his little stunt, so long as Jay managed to get me to the club at the right time. Everything had worked according to plan.

“What do you mean?” I mumbled, turning over onto my back and stretching. I glanced over at him in the dark, silently praying that he couldn't see the blush on my cheeks.

He shifted so that he was on his side and propped himself up on his elbow so that he was looking down at me. Even though we had no lights on, the moon shone brightly through the open window above the hotel bed, casting the entire room in a pale blue light. Zach's eyes looked even better in that light – note to self.

“I mean... what are we now? A couple? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Lovers?” He smirked boyishly as he said the last one. I rolled my eyes.

But I thought about what he said. I didn't know what I could call him. I guess he would be my boyfriend... but I hadn't thought about it much before. Now that I do think about it, I don't know if that's the right thing to call him.

To me, boyfriend implies that he's just a friend, if maybe a little closer. All my other boyfriends – however few they were – were just that; friends. I knew all along that they weren't going anywhere, and they probably felt the same way. We were just together to pass the time until one of us found something better.

But what do you call the person who is the something better?

I'm sure Zach's that. After everything he's done for me, there's no doubt in my mind. I think before, when I pictured my life in the future, I was trying to see if I could see myself with Zach. I should have been trying to figure out if I could live without him.

I think I probably could. But really, truly, I don't want to find out just yet.

“Hmm...” I sighed, a small smile pulling at the corners of my lips. “Tough question.” I cracked an eye open. “What do you think?”

He smirked. “That's why I'm asking you, smarty.”

There were thing in my life that I had to deal with. Summer school, my mom, how the hell I was going to explain all of this to Riley and Donelle... But none of them bothered me at the moment. I was oddly at peace with myself, content to just lie here in Zach's arms and spend the rest of my life that way. Things had changed between us – for the better. Maybe I had trust issues before, maybe I still have them. Now, though, I'm just going to try and put the past behind me. Start over.

I think that's what we all need to do.

I smiled up at Zach. “I think-” Something caught my eye. I sat up a little bit and examined Zach's polo shirt, which I had somehow ended up wearing. I eyed the little embroidered symbol on the chest and laughed out loud.

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“It's a moose,” I whispered, pointing to the little logo on the shirt. “Abercrombie. I always thought you should model for them, you know.”

I felt my face heat up after I said that, but Zach just laughed and shook his head. “So what does that make you? Fitch?”

I shrugged, still chuckling, and lay back on the bed, curling myself into Zach's chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, sighing contentedly. “Nah. I think that makes me... Bitch.”

I felt his chest vibrate deeply as he laughed, stroking my hair. “Abercrombie and Bitch.” He pulled back a little bit, just so I could see him, and grinned like a little boy who'd just gotten a present. “I like the sound of that.”

You know what? So do I.