You Can't Fight Fate

“Are you sure you want to do this…its in front of the whole school practically,” Storm reminded me as he put up his DJ equipment. We had just spent the last two hours creating a completely new performance song. It was a risk, but I didn’t care.

“Yeah, besides, it’s only the talent show, its not like I'm trying to win,” I replied to him.
Storm looked at me cautiously, confused at my intentions. I couldn’t help but laugh, Storm and I had known each other the longest which meant he could usually tell what was on my mind. This time was different; I didn’t even know what I was going to do.

<->

“Baby! Where are you?” I heard Rachael call, I quickly ran to my bathroom and locked it.
“I’m not feeling really well…Rachael, um, I’m just gonna stay in here awhile,” I called out, hoping she would leave.

She was one of the reasons I didn’t get involved with someone impulsively. Stevvie always joked with me about how obsessive she was about me, but I didn’t believe just because I had known her so long. However, now I understood, she never let me out of her sight and I felt suffocated by her. I had to get away from her immediately.

“Oh, how about I stay here and take care of you,” she whined.

I rolled my eyes at her irritating, nasally voice.

I quickly rummaged around my bathroom for something to imitate puking, and finally settling for a bottle of mouthwash. I quickly poured it into the toilet in bouts to gross her out.

“Ummm, sure…why not,” I replied.

“N-never mind Nick…,” she stated shakily, “umm, I got to go…”

Once I heard the door slam, I smirked at my success. Yet, I still groaned just because I knew she would open her mouth to someone eventually, I was just praying that the media didn’t find out since I was already rumored to be dating Stevvie. I was still upset with Stevvie, but not mad. I honestly had no idea if I was going to talk to her again. She had lost my trust and I didn’t know if I wanted to even take the time to let her regain it. Rachael certainly didn’t help either, being with her just made me realize how much I wanted to be with Stevvie.

I decided taking my mind off girls and actually focusing on school would be the best thing to do now. Since it was nearing the end of the semester, finals week was coming up faster than I had intended and now I was forced to cram. I quickly grabbed my backpack and headed out the door. Before closing it, I looked back at Storm’s side of the room and shook my head I hadn’t seen him since my fallout with Stevvie. I didn’t hangout with any of the gang ever since, and truthfully, I missed them, especially Stevvie. I was never the touchy-feely kind of person, but for the first time, I craved her touch. Just looking at her hurt. It sucked.

I strolled over to the massive library in the 2-inch snow that had just fallen, not really in a rush. Once I got in, I shook the snowflakes from my curls, and then deciding that I needed a haircut.

“Hey Nick,” Lesley, a blond girl said as she passed me.

“Hi, Nick!” Janet a red head acknowledged me as I walked past her.

“Hey cutie,” a brunette girl who I had never seen cooed.

“Welcome to Northwestern University Library,” the librarian told me, “if you need anything, you know where I’m at.” She winked at me.

I smiled at her politely, and then quickly inched away from her.

“It’s always the librarians and the secretaries,” I muttered a shook my head disapprovingly. One thing that I never could get used to was the attention from women I got, not to mention the um, older women. I really never understood what I had that women loved so much, but I certainly didn’t mind it.

As I settled into a private study booth, I heard a loud rush of giggles and squeals. I brushed it off to my mind playing tricks on me and continued to read over my English book, only to get disturbed by loud flashes of a camera. Gaining suspicion, I looked up to the stares of no less than twenty teenage and tween age girls. All of the girls had wide smiles on their faces and most of them had my face on their shirts. After having a mini heart attack, I shyly waved at them and went turned back to my booth. As I predicted, I felt a tap on my shoulder immediately after.

I looked up and smile at the teenage girl whom I put off as their leader.

“Hi, I’m Alex!” she introduced herself, “we’re so sorry to interrupt your studies, but we’re your biggest fans and we were wondering if you could maybe speak at our meeting…we’re the official Nick J and the Administration Chicago fan club by the way, I’m the president.”

I looked up at the stick skinny, young girl. She had bright blue eyes, dark long hair and braces with pink and purple bands on them. She held her hands together pleadingly with a shy smile on her face. I had to give her propped for coming up to me, let alone asking me to join them for a meeting. Surprisingly, some fans were scared to approach me. All of her girls stood about ten feet away from me, with the same pleading eyes.

With a defeated smile, I gave in to them. Now, I was going to have to cram even more.
“So, how old are you Alex?” I asked as I followed them.
<->

“Um, I actually don’t know when our next album is coming out,” Nick answered all of the millions of questions each fan had as he attended the fan club meeting. He was now spending his third hour with those 21 young girls and was about to have an estrogen overload, all he wanted to do was get some alone time away from girls.

“Girls, I’ve had a great time, but I really have to go,” he tried to reason with them for the fourth time, “I have a class at seven…”

All of the girls let out an over exaggerated awe, almost causing Nick to give into them once again, but he too a deep breath and did not.

“It was nice meeting you all, but you guys have to remember, I’m not working for awhile,” he reminded them as he gathered his stuff, “I’m just a regular college student right now, which means…I have a lot of studying to do.”

<->

Stevvie tapped on the table with a pen as she watched her dad and his little prodigy go on about how awesome her album was going to be. Stevvie loved Pixie to death and all, but sometimes she was down right annoying. Pixie was a girl her dad discovered in central Park last year when they went for new years, after that she was around all the time. Pixie was straight from France and had no parents, no money and no place to stay. Luckily Todd took her under his wing and now Pixie lived with them and borrowed Stevvie clothes…a lot.

“With Stevvie’s songs, you’re bound to be a hit!” Todd exclaimed, throwing Stevvie out of her daze.

“What do you mean ‘my songs’?” she blurted.

Pixie and Todd looked at each other before returning their eyes to Stevvie.

“Well…I thought that you wouldn’t mind letting Pix cut one of your songs for her record,”

Todd informed her shocked daughter innocently, “I mean, you recorded then when you were fourteen…and since you don’t want to be a singer I thought we could put them to good use.”

Stevvie glared at her father in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that her own father was trying to use her personal demo songs for some girl.

“Daddy, you know what those songs mean to mean,” she exclaimed, “no offense to ‘Pix’ or anything.”

“Oh Stephanie, s'il te plait!” Pixie pleaded, “Please, I love your songs, they have much meaning and I cannot write as…shallow as you do.”

Stevvie chuckled as her misspeak, “You mean as deeply as I do, Pix, and I’m flattered, but just not those songs okay, they’re kind of personal.”

Stevvie watched as Pixie’s green eyes and bright pick lips pouted and Todd’s too.

“I guess I maybe could write a new song for you guys…” she offered, just to make them happy.

Pixie lit up in delight as she kissed both of Stevvie’s cheeks, “Oh, Stephanie, you are wonderful! I would love that!”

“I would too!” Todd exclaimed, “You know what…Pixie, you could perform the new song at the talent show!”

Stevvie rolled her eyes and groaned, Ever since Todd made that exorbitantly large donation to the college, they allowed him to advertise around it. Now, Pixie was their special guest performer.

“It’s bad enough having you guys there, but having her performing the very song I’m going to write…please don’t daddy.”

“Wait! I have an even better idea! How about we all perform together, you on the piano, Pixie singing and me back on the guitar! It’ll be a family affair!”

Pixie and her dad smiling widely and both agreed with the idea…Stevvie…not so much.

“Dad, that’s no-, “She gave them both another look and being the pushover she was, agreed.

“What did I just get myself into?” she question loudly as they laughed at her.
<->

I made my way into the student center to meet the gang to go to our usual hang out spot without Nick. It was weird to not have him there. In fact, he had merged himself into my life so easily that I didn’t even realize it, now I was alone and I didn’t like it.

“Hey! Stevvie!” I heard a familiar voice yell. I turned my head to see a smiling Carl run up to me.

“I haven’t seen you and Nick hang out lately,” he noted, “he have to go back to Hollywood or something?”

I laughed and shook my head, “Um, no, it was just…our time to part ways.”

I looked into Carl’s eyes for the first time in while, quickly noticing his hazel eyes and adorable dimples. He was cute, somewhat dorky, but strangely cute.

“Ah, okay. So…that means you’re like….completely available?” he questioned.

I hesitated before answering, “You could say that…yeah.”

“So…what would you say to date?” he asked shyly.

I looked down, bit my lip and decided, “that’d be really nice Carl, pick me up at eight?”

“Can do!” he replied with a goofy smile on his face.

“All right, see you tonight,” I replied as I walked off. I looked back at Carl, pleased at my decision. If Nick could move on, then I could too.