Nothing Can Compare in This World to You

"Taryn, are you okay? You've been acting low all day," Rebecca asked as I sat with my friends on the lawn. Lunch had begun less than five minutes ago and already my friends were catching onto something being wrong despite my best efforts to hide it.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied, trying to smile.

"But you look awful," Rachael added.

"Well it is cloudy today, the effects are worse than florescent lights," Michael told the twins then looked over to me. I half smiled as a thank you, knowing that he only said that to get them off my back. He knew something was up.

"I know! Some Valentines Day huh?" Rachel asked, and took one of the curly fries her and her sister were sharing. Michael and Rebecca went and bought us two cups (why this school puts fries in Styrofoam cups I have no idea) to share with Rachael and I. I had yet to eat any of my half I was sharing with Michael.

"Who decided to put Valentine's Day in February anyways? This month sucks," Rebecca told her sister.

"Nobody put Valentines Day in February, its when that Valentine dude died," Michael told them.

"Who died?" Rebecca asked while Rachel just gave him a blank expression.

"Never mind," Michael sighed and ate one of his curly fries.

The twin's complaining lasted through the rest of lunch and when the bell rang telling everyone to get to their fifth period I was a bit relieved to get away from my friends. My solitude didn't last long however, because half way to my French class I was grabbed around the waist and pulled in another direction. I gasped and almost fell over before noticing who had me.

"Zacky, what-?"

"I'm kidnapping you," he stated and kept pulling me in the direction he was.

"What?" I asked him, adjusting my backpack on my shoulder, since it had fallen down my arm.

"We're leaving, I'm kidnapping you," he said again.

"But... I-I can't! We... I... we're still in school, there's two periods left!" I told him and was able to stop him pulling me towards the now visible parking lot.

"No one will care, I'm sure you have five hundred percent in your fifth and sixth periods and your missing less than two hours of school. Nothing will happen to you," Zacky stopped walking too so he could tell me this.

"And what about you?" I asked him as he tried pulling me along again, which was a bit harder for him because of my resistance.

"Aww you care about little old me?" He gave me a goofy smile but I kept my stern look. He dropped his smile with a sigh and continued with, "I'm eighteen now, what are they gonna do? Yell at me? They won't kick me out just because I ditched the last two periods of school today. I'm passing too right now. Not as good as you but I am passing. Can we go now?"

"No," I replied, crossing my arms.

"I don't even know why I bothered asking you," Zacky said and I thought he was going to let me go to my French class before I was lifted up by him and slung over his shoulder. "Kidnappers don't ask Kidnappees what they want to do," he added laughing and started for the parking lot again.

"Zacky!" I yelled at him as my backpack fell off my shoulder completely and I was holding onto one of the straps so it wouldn't be left behind. "Put me down!"

"You know you're gonna get us in trouble with this yelling right?" He asked me, "I mean hell I figured your so quiet all the time, you'd be easy to kidnap, but no. You start fuckin' yelling at me. At least I don't have to worry about some perv pedophile trying to take you," he set me down in front of the passenger door of his car. "Or Jimmy, for that matter. I don't know why he'd kidnap you but there's no logic with him," he continued and then smiled again.

I just stared at him for a second or two before turning around and trying to open the door.

"Here," he said and helped open the door for me, propping one of his feet on the car so he could open the door.

I sat down in the seat when it opened and placed my backpack in my lap, loosely hugging it to my chest. Zacky got in a few seconds later and quickly drove us out of the parking lot, waving at one of the security guards as we passed him.

I gave Zacky a questioning look and he asked, "What? If you're gonna be stuck in a school seven hours a day for four years it pays to make friends with the security. This is stuff you Freshmen don't think about until it’s too late."

I rolled my eyes at him and he smiled at me. "Don't worry, I'll hook you up. You and those... Twins... And that... Guy... Will be set for the next couple years at Huntington High."

There was a sharp stabbing sensation in my chest when he told me that and I tried hard to push back the sudden urge to cry. I pushed my backpack off my lap to where my feet were before pulling my legs up to my chest, resting my head on my knees and staring out the window next to me. The uncomfortable silence that followed told me he had realized he had said something wrong.

"Um... So..." he said after a few seconds, trying to get rid of our uncomfort but failed.

After a few minutes he tried a completely different approach. "What the fuck was up with you this morning?" He asked and I looked over to him, startled with the severity of his voice.

"I-"

"And then in math you wouldn't even look at me."

I looked away from him and down at my shoes.

"I mean I had to kidnap you just to get you to fuckin' talk to me. What are you, avoiding me?"

A "no" almost made it past my lips before I realized that it was a lie. I was avoiding him. I had also tried avoiding Rachael, Rebecca and Michael but, obviously, that didn't work out. "Thank you," I told him instead.

"What?" he asked me.

"Thank you for kidnapping me," I said and looked back over to him.

He raised one of his eyebrows, trying not to smile as he did, and told me, "Woman you got some head issues. Thanking someone for kidnapping you," he then shook his head in a disapproving manner but then quickly laughed.

I smiled at him as I rolled my eyes again.

"You know, you should smile more often," I heard Zacky say and I looked back over to him.
He stole a glance at me before saying, "You have a beautiful smile."

I bit my lip to keep from smiling like an idiot and took a deep breath to hopefully compose myself before I started blushing and asked, "Are you flirting with me, Mr. Vengeance?"

It was Zacky's turn to smile. "I do believe I am, Miss Taylor."

I couldn't stop myself from blushing then. I leaned my head back down on my knees, trying to hide the unwelcome pink on my cheeks as I said, "Shut up Zacky."

"Yes Ma'am," he replied formally and we were quiet. At least for a few seconds. "Hey!" he suddenly yelled, "I'm the kidnapper, not you! You can't tell me what to do!"

"Well you need lessons in kidnapping then," I told him and realized we were at the beach.

"Maybe you can tutor me in that too, you know duct tape, rope, handcuffs-"

"Zacky," I said quickly to stop him, understanding exactly what he was implying.

"Yes?"

"Your door won't open," I told him and looked over to see a devious smile on his lips.

I crossed my arms and he said, "Alright, fine," and got out of the car to let me out. "Sorry," Zacky told me when I got out and I sighed at him.

"Why are we at the beach in February?"

"Kidnappees don't ask questions," He said and loosely put his arm around my shoulders.

Nearly an hour later I found myself sitting on a crowded pier with Zacky, eating ice cream. Yes, we were eating ice cream in the middle of February at the beach. And obviously Zacky and I weren't the only idiots here at the beach, the pier and beach and everything was flipping crowded, nothing like it was in the summer but still, and at least a fourth of the crowd was also eating ice cream.

"This was stupid," Zacky said, smiling at me as he did.

"The ice cream?" I asked.

"No, the kidnapping you and taking you to the beach. There are too many people here and the police are probably looking for us by now."

"Zacky?"

"Yes?"

"You’re highly delusional."

"Shut up, Taryn," Zacky laughed and I rolled my eyes at him, eating some more of the Blizzard Zacky had bought for me. "This beats French class though, right?" he asked after a few seconds.

"Yeah, I guess," I replied, looking around at everyone.

"Taryn," Zacky said again.

"Hm?" I questioned and turned back to look at him.

I must admit that what he did I did not expect in the least. A whale could've beached itself on shore and started singing in Japanese and I would've been less surprised, because when I turned around to face Zacky I was met with his lips.

At first I was thinking it was an accident and that we were maybe just too close to each other because we were cold or Zacky didn't expect me to turn around or something. But instead of that something even more surprising happened for me and I definitely knew this was no accident. I felt one of his hands settle gently on my hip while the other tucked a bit of my blonde hair behind my ear to keep it out of my face.

The ice cream I was holding was dropped and splattered to the side of us on the pier as I stood up on my tiptoes so I wouldn't be so damn short.

Our kiss wasn't anything fancy, no lust, no tongues, just a simple kiss. A simple kiss which managed to stop everything but us. And Zacky couldn't have had worse timing.

Hardly thinking I quickly pushed myself away from Zacky, I had to get away from him. I couldn't do this now, I was moving away.

"I have to go," I told him quickly, trying to turn away from him but he grabbed my arms and stopped me.

"Taryn, wait-!"

"No, I have to leave!" by now I was crying and somehow was able to yank myself free of Zacky's grip and start running.

"Taryn! Fuck, wait! Shit, I'm sorry!" He yelled after me, not able to get through the crowd as fast as I was and within a matter of seconds I had lost him, but didn't stop running.

I didn't stop running until I got home almost twenty minutes later. And even then I didn't stop until I got to my room; I didn't even bother to close the front door. I didn't care if a psychopath came in and killed me. I would have welcomed it.

But no psychopath ever came and I just laid there curled up in a ball on my bed crying my eyes out.

All because of Zachary Baker.