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Marcy must have been absolutely insane if she thought I was willing to walk into her brother’s bedroom with her and pour freezing cold water on their heads when they were asleep. Then again, we pretty much made our living on “insane” so these high-end pranks weren’t really a new experience to me.

What was boarding insanity more than Marcy was the fact that I actually did agree to the prank. Around midnight, we took action.

Marcy opened Jared’s bedroom door, sticking her head in and glancing around. She looked back at me and nodded her approval, and I passed her a bowl of cold water. She grinned mischievously and stepped into her older brother’s room.

One of the bad points in this prank was that we were going to be screwed when they woke up, screaming profanities at us, and when it was two older college boys against two eleventh grade girls, there wasn’t really going to be a contest. Another bad point was that it was pitch black in Jared’s room—not even a shred of light was visible so we had to keep the door opened slightly—and either Jared or Ian, or Marcy’s dog Spike was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. If it was Spike and we stepped on his tail, or just him in general, he was bound to yelp and wake up Jared and Ian before we had time to initiate the prank fully—so we had to be ultra careful.

Suddenly, a loud squeaking noise—almost like something a child would play with when they were a baby—was made from over near the place Marcy stood at. I looked down at her foot—which she quickly retracted from its previous place—and noticed it was Spike’s dog toy.

I would have been curious if I didn’t know Spike so well about why it was in Jared’s room, but it was because Spike seemed to favour Jared over Marcy by a lot. One of the reasons was because she was the reason he was even named Spike.

When she was eleven and was too young to realize that Spike didn’t like water—of course, at that time, he wasn’t named Spike; he was named Abraham—she “accidentally” nudged him into the pool and while we expected his fur to just get all wet or maybe a little bit puffy when he recovered him from the water after he shook himself off, we were extremely mistaken. His fur nearly exploded in every different direction, and he looked to resemble a porcupine almost perfectly. We had to rename him, it was obvious. So I called him Spike and they ended up liking it and decided to keep it.

Marcy never had a dog before Spike, so she wasn’t exactly experienced with taking care of one.

The moment Marcy’s foot made contact with the dog toy, she leaped nearly five feet away with wide eyes, hissing “shhh!” at it, as if that would help. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders dramatically, asking her through my actions what the hell she was expecting to happen from shushing the toy. She just shook her head and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that her brother and Ian hadn’t woken up. They either just grunted in their sleep or rolled over, changing positions. When Marcy snapped back into her state that didn’t make her look like a total and complete idiot who freaks out over dog toys and tells them to shut up, I approached Jared at the side of his bed, knowing I was so dead after this.

Jared could take me down in a matter of seconds and I wouldn’t be able to put up a fight even if I tried. Marcy hovered over Ian’s practically drooling figure. His tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth, resembling Spike’s sleeping form almost identically. I looked down at Jared, hoping that I’d have enough time to run really quickly if I was lucky but he was still extremely fast.

And then he smirked, and I knew we had been screwed over. My whole body tensed and my eyes widened again, because right when Marcy was a mere centimeter from dumping the water on Ian’s face, they both jumped up, screaming obscenities at us. Marcy screamed first, accidentally losing her grip on her bowl and flinging it up in the air. Water went everywhere—including on her, because when the bowl landed, it landed on her head.

“I can’t see!” she screeched, waving her hands in the air, when the problem was easily avoidable. She could have just lifted it off her head but instead, she decided to stagger around, bashing into walls until she fell to the floor.

Jared and I hadn’t even began arguing or chasing each other, and I hadn’t attempted to throw the water at him since we were too absorbed with watching Marcy’s dramatic take-down. Ian was laughing his ass off, while Jared and I just stood there, staring blankly at Marcy’s form on the carpet, scowling and rubbing her head in pain. Jared turned back to me suddenly with a mischievous smile, and I knew that my fate was about to be the same if I didn’t do something quickly.

Without another thought, I threw the water on him and he coughed, rubbing his eyes before looking back up at me with determination written all over his face.

I was so dead.

I chucked the plastic bowl at his face and raced out of the room, booking it down the hall and hid in the bathroom, locking the door. I heard Jared’s approaching footsteps before he pounded his fist on the door, laughing.

“Come on, Chris. Don’t be such a chickenshit,” he called.

I froze and raised my eyebrows at the door. “Did you seriously just call me chickenshit?”

“I seriously just called you chickenshit,” he repeated, chuckling. “Come on. You can’t expect me to let you go after you pour water on my head and chuck a bowl at my face. My nose is busted now, thanks to you.”

I opened the door a very tiny bit and stuck my foot on the side, making sure he wouldn’t be able to pull it opened and, most likely, shove my head in the toilet bowl. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“I did not bust your nose,” I objected, closing the door again.

Jared grumbled something I couldn’t really understand before his footsteps receded. I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back against the door, but shrieked and jumped halfway across the room again when I heard multiple fists slamming against it.

“Yo! Chris, its Ian! Now, I don’t know you as much as Jared does so I don’t know if you have a high possibility of dying from post-dramatic shock or anything, but I will break this door down if I have to!”

“I didn’t even spill anything on you!” I yelled back, slowly backing up toward the other side of the wall. I bashed into it—something hard pinching my back—and turned around to face the window. I smirked and opened it, pulling it up and starting to climb out.

“Well your accomplice did!” he called. “And she’s not going to save you now! She’s downstairs!”

Good. So she could open the front door for me.

“Well then come on! Bust the door down!”

I paused, halfway out the window, when I heard Jared and Ian plotting how they were going to get the door unlocked. Obviously they’d be in even bigger shit with their mom if they actually broke the door down, than Marcy and I were with themfor attempting and failing to pull a prank on them.

Then I heard the lock of the door being fiddled with and I flung my other leg out the window, stepping onto the roof. Marcy’s house was one of those types that had the bathroom over the garage but only partially so there was a roof that we could stand on if we wanted to. It could only be accessed through the bathroom window though. I quickly closed the window again and started to—very quietly and carefully—make my way over the roof to the side of the house so I could jump down.

This was easily one of the stupidest things I’d ever done in my life. It was near the end of February and I was walking over my best friend’s house roof in the middle of the night, with nothing but my pajamas to keep me warm. I climbed down the side of the house where a wicker fence was pressed against the side. I used this to my advantage and climbed down it like it was a ladder. When my feet touched the cold grass, a cold shiver shot itself up my spine and I whimpered, rubbing my arms and racing around the side of the house. I knocked on the front door quietly, bouncing up and down on my heels to try and distract myself so that I wouldn’t be concentrating on the immense freezing cold I was feeling.

Marcy opened the door with a towel draped over her head to dry her hair. She frowned when she saw me, but most likely out of confusion instead of just not wanting to see me there.
“What the hell?” she asked. “What are you doing outside?”

“Escaping your brother and his deranged, psychopathic best friend,” I replied, walking around her and into the kitchen. I held a finger to my lips, signaling for her to be quiet and she nodded, shutting the door as silently as possible, before following me into the kitchen and leaning against the counter.

“Where’d you even go, man?” she asked. “You totally went A.W.O.L after I tripped, and then I heard Jared chasing you.”

“Yeah, I ran into the washroom,” I replied. “Jared brought Ian with him so the only way out was through the window.” I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal and opened the microwave, sticking my arm in it.

“Can you press the Twenty Second button for me? I need to warm up.”

Marcy laughed and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the small appliance and closing the microwave door again. “I’d rather not have my best friend’s arm explode in my mother’s kitchen. Let’s just go to bed.”

“Where the hell is she?!” Ian wailed from upstairs. My eyes went wide and I leaped across the room, throwing opened the refrigerator door and grabbing the first thing I could find, which just happened to be a bowl of apples and when I turned around, Marcy was wielding a broom and glaring harshly at the kitchen doorway, just waiting for the opportune moment to attack her brother.

“Oh God. I’m dead,” I said quickly, panicked. “I’m dead. He’s going to kill me. They didn’t have to kick your ass since you did it by yourself and you also managed to amuse them while doing it but I actually went through with your prank. Your stupid, reckless, harebrained prank.”

“Why? What did you do to Jared?”

“It was an accident!”

“What? What was an accident?”

“I threw the water at him.”

“And?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “And the bowl.”

Marcy stared at me in amazement for a few seconds, before bursting into hysterical laughter. “No way. You’re too much of a good girl to chuck a bowl at my brother’s face.”

“I did!”

“All right,” she said doubtfully, right before she got a couple balled-up socks in the face, landing on the kitchen floor from shock. “Hey! What the hell?!” she screamed as Ian hovered over her this time, chuckling from her reaction. I bit my lip and glanced at Jared, who was holding about seven pairs of balled-up socks.

He smirked at me and began throwing them, while I chucked apples right back, making my way around the island of counters in the kitchen to avoid his attacks. Marcy was still on the ground, screaming out obscenities like Ian and Jared had done when we first entered their bedroom; as well as waving the broom around in the air, trying to hit Ian in the face most likely.

Things were being thrown around the kitchen like crazy for approximately the five minutes as we kept picking things back up and throwing them at each other again, until everything came to a screeching halt.

Marcy’s mom stood at the doorway, her eyes wide and furious.

“What the hell is going on?!” she roared.

Ian dropped a pair of socks on the floor, and it landed on Marcy’s face.

Shit.


The four of us didn’t get to sleep until around one-thirty in the morning. Even though the “attack” began at around midnight and Mrs. Brown found us wielding multiple things that shouldn’t have been wielded ten minutes after we all began the prank, she still made us clean up.

Unlike what Marcy and I had originally thought, Mrs. Brown wasn’t completely unaware of the history of pranks whenever Jared was home and Kayti and I were visiting. In fact, she knew every prank that we’d ever pulled, and the date we pulled them because she had woken up in the middle of the night, hearing one or more of us screeching. She’d never lectured us on it, though. She just passed it on like it was nothing and went back to sleep, usually laughing.

Although, this time, she couldn’t avoid it since we’d ruined her clean kitchen.

Then next morning when I woke up, I knew my hair was disheveled out of its original messy ponytail, and now messy wasn’t even a good enough word to describe the state I was in. It wasn’t just the fact that my body didn’t need any more sleep, or how Marcy tended to kick in hers whenever she was having a bad dream, rather than my cell phone ringing on the bedside table—that’s what woke me up.

Marcy groaned from beside me and swung her arm out, accidentally smacking me in the face. I sighed agitatedly and grabbed her wrist, placing it back on her side of the bed, before reaching over and opening up my cell phone.

“Hello?” I grumbled, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Blade’s voice came from the other end, followed by a light chuckle. I groaned.

“It’s too early for name-calling or laughing,” I murmured unpleasantly. “How’d you get my number?”

“From Nick.”

“How did Nick get my number?”

“Marcy. Apparently they’re getting pretty close ever since that lunch you guys spent together,” he explained.

Huh. Don’t I know it.

“I was very hurt when I didn’t receive a phone call from you at noon today,” he said, mockingthat hurt that he was supposedly feeling. I rolled my eyes.

“Right, I’m sure you were—wait. What time is it?” I asked, cutting myself short.

“It’s nearly two,” he replied. “You told me yesterday we were going to chill today.”

“Oh, right,” I mumbled, sighing and rubbing my forehead. I had completely forgotten about that. Although now that he mentioned it, I did recall saying something about us hanging out on Saturday. After all, I didn’t plan on staying over at Marcy’s house past Pancake Hour, which was always eleven in the morning at the latest.

Holy shit, I’d slept half of the day away.

“Why are you still half asleep, anyway? What did you do, stay up all night or something?”

“Something like that,” I responded.

And then it happened.

I looked across the room into Marcy’s mirror, and literally screeched, pulling my hair by the roots. It was like every child’s worst Halloween nightmares, every bedtime story they feared that caused their parents to check in the closet and under their beds for monsters or goblins, every time someone turned off the lights in the bathroom except for one candle and repeated Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary over and over again until they die.

It was even worse than Seed of Chucky or the Halloween series.

Worse than The Day of the Triffids.

“Oh my God!” I wailed, going wide eyed.

“What is it?” Blade asked, amused.

“I look like . . . well, I can’t even think up a word right now but it’s not good!” I exclaimed. “Have you ever seen The Ring?”

“Yeah,” Blade said slowly, trying to keep up with where I was going.

“Remember that part where the girl climbs out of the well?”

“Yeah.”

“I look worse than her!”



I ended up waking Marcy. She didn’t mind though because she just headed right downstairs to make herself some breakfast. I claimed the bathroom first, took a shower and washed off any traces of makeup catastrophes on my face. When I dried my hair, brushed it—along with my teeth—and got dressed into something other than my pajamas, I packed up my bag and met Marcy downstairs. Blade and I had decided not to hang out, but mostly because if it was in person that we were having the conversation, I probably would have twisted his arm around countless times until he agreed to leave me alone for the day. Over the phone though, I just raised my voice a little as I told him he wouldn't want to spend the day with an ogre and a few things relating to that; he just laughed at me but he knew I wasn't in the mood so he told me he'd see me at school on Monday.

“Want something to eat?” she asked me, biting into her bagel. I shook my head.

“I’m good,” I replied. “See you on Monday, eh?”

She nodded and waved goodbye to me as I made my way to the front door.

“Oh! Say bye to Ian and Jared for me too, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll tell them when they get up, though. They crashed downstairs playing video games.”

I laughed. This was a classic move for Jared and his friends. Whenever Kayti and I slept over at Marcy’s and Jared had friends over—which wasn’t very much but a majority of the time when he was home, his friends would be there too—they always fell asleep in front of the TV.

When I got back home, Aiden sat on the couch, screaming curse words at the football channel.

“You do know you have a twelve year old sister upstairs, right?” I asked him. “I’m pretty sure dad wouldn’t be too happy if he came home one day and she asked him ‘dad, what does shit mean?’.”

Aiden looked over his shoulder at me and laughed. “Chris, she swears more in one day than you do in a month, okay?” he said. “Way to get to know your siblings. I’ve been away from the house more than you have and even I know more about her.”

I scowled, because he was right. I just didn’t like communicating with Karlee. She got annoying, and somehow, if she asked me a question about my personal life, she would always have the conversation end right back with us talking about her.

I got into my room and threw my pajamas in the laundry basket, before settling down in front of my computer desk.

“Hey Chris, so Nathaniel is that internet guy dad was talking about the other night?”

I swiveled around in my chair, eyes wide, staring right back at Karlee, who leaned against my doorjamb, licking cheesy Doritos residue off her fingers.

“Why do you remember his name?” I asked, slightly panicked.

“Oh, I hacked into your account last night when you were at Marcy’s,” she replied, shrugging care-freely and nonchalantly.

“You what?!” I wailed. “Do you want to get your ass kicked?!”

She put her arms out as if surrendering. “Chillax,” she said. I cocked an eyebrow.

Did she just say . . . Chillax?

“It’s not like I talked to him or anything. I just saw him on your Most Frequently Contacted list,” she said. “I didn’t remember you saying anything about a guy named Nathaniel other than when dad brought him up at dinner so I just wanted to see what’s up. What new boys are in your life.”

“Well for your information, that’s not your business to get into,” I said, standing up and making my way over to her. “Now, out.”

“Technically, I’m not in,” she said. “I’m outside of your door. What’s the big deal anyway? I already know you don’t have any boys in your life.”

“I have plenty of boys in my life,” I snapped. “And by the way, since you’re outside of my door, I can slam it in your face without you getting hurt, right? Good.”

I did just that, receiving a pounding fist on the door and a scream from Karlee, demanding I open it again so she could finish what she was talking about, but I didn’t let her.

I have plenty of boys in my life.

That fact couldn’t get any more truthful if it tried, which would be quite a sight.
There were a lot of boys in my life.

There was Shane, a previous best friend with a secret crush on me, who was just now suddenly wishing for us to be friends again, without any signs leading up to that before he cornered me.

Then there was Nick, the recent friend who seemed to enjoy my misery quite a lot but overall was a really great guy.

And David, the comical asshole, who knew how to brighten my day even if I hated to admit it just because he was that nice.

Ian kind of counted I guess, even though he was more Marcy’s guy than mine, but he could still be included since he was a boy, and he was good-looking, and he was friends with another boy. Although, he kissed me on the cheek once during summer break before he left for college, but that was only because Jared shoved him.

Jared. Ahh, Jared. There really wasn’t much to say, other than Oh. My. God.

I couldn’t count Andrew. There was no way in hell. Not only did he and I never talk, but the closest interaction the two of us have ever had to talking or just grunting or exerting any sort of noise from our mouths was a really harsh glare in drama class. I could’ve said “what’re you looking at?” but then he’d probably just grunt or respond with something much cleverer than the four words I said.

I pressed the X’s And O’s button on my computer and started a game while VirtualFairytale.com loaded.

And then there was Nathaniel, who I was still yet to learn his true identity. Sure, I probably didn’t even know him in the first place, and he was beyond confusing, especially when I told him Mystery Man was actually Blade and he made fun of the name. After all, he had told me his name was Blade in the beginning and yet he makes it sound like he’s never heard of it before. I shouldn’t have let that one slide, but I didn’t know why I did. Somehow, even at the confusing parts, he manages to brighten any one of my boring, frustrating or just plain old bad days.

Whoever was my opponent placed an X in the middle of the game board and I placed an O in the top, right-hand corner.

And last but not least came Blade. I didn’t know what to say about him, to be completely honest. I could open up to him and trust in him that he would keep it all to himself. That was something I honored about him; that I could trust him that much even after such a short period of time. We had only really known each other for a week now, and yet we’d become closer than I have with most people I know that I’ve been talking to for nearly three years or more. He was a good guy, great even, and there was no denying it.

My opponent placed an Xin the bottom left-hand corner of the board, and I placed an O on the left side of my first O.

I didn’t know why, but suddenly, Nick’s words flooded back to me.

It’s nice to meet at least one girl who doesn’t have a complete obsession over him.
Did I have a complete obsession over him? No, there was no way. I’d never had an obsession on anyone, no matter how much I may have liked them. But did I like Blade? It was a definite possibility.

No, I didn’t get butterflies in my stomach whenever he spoke to me or passed by me or looked straight dead into my eyes, but I did feel something. I just couldn’t really determine what it was, but it definitely wasn’t good. I did have a memory though, of when we were in drama class and we were rehearsing the skit out of nowhere and Blade had held me at arm’s length. His hands on my arms sent some sort of electric shock, like my skin was on fire; I just never realized it until I really thought about it. Maybe I had felt it before, but I wasn’t paying the touch any mind.

Forbidden touches always burn.

It’s a way of saying that whoever is touching you should stop. That it’s not good.

But what did that have to do with me being so bothered about Blade?

Why were whatever feelings I might have had without realizing them suddenly being brought up now?

My opponent put an X in the top left-hand corner of the board. I put an O under my first O.

Why was I feeling this way?

Why was I voluntarily letting my mind wander; sending all of these different thoughts and signals into my brain about Blade?

This was Blade Donahue, who pulled my pigtails when we were younger without remembering.

This was Blade Donahue, who was the most popular, most wanted guy in the entire school.

This was Blade Donahue, who was dating Amanda Dubois, the most wanted girl in the entire school.

This was Blade Donahue, who I’d shared nearly all of my deepest, darkest secrets and feelings with all in one period and had somehow managed to keep them a secret from my loud-mouth, somewhat manipulative friends instead.

This was Blade Donahue; sweet, beautiful and of course taken.

Then my opponent placed an X in the bottom right-hand corner of the board—and that’s when I knew.

That was the moment when everything made sense. I could either place my O beside the X in the middle, or below it, but either way, there was no way out for me. There was just the one pin standing now.

In that small, insignificant moment of X’s And O’s, I understood why I felt jealous and insecure whenever I saw Blade with Amanda, or heard him talk about her. I understood why it bothered me so much to have my friends accuse me of liking Blade, or of the two of us having feelings for each other.

It was because I was jealous of Amanda, and because they were right about one thing; I did like Blade.

I placed an O beside the X in the middle, and lost the game.

I had a big, fat crush on Blade-frickin’-Donahue. There was no easy way out of this one.