Chasing Ever After

“Remind me why I should be here again,” I tell Annie, irritated. “Why do I have to meet your so carefully-kept boyfriend?”

“Aw, don’t be mad, Sadie! I really didn’t mean to hide it from you. It’s just that—“ Annie explains, but then stops when she finally sees her boyfriend.

We are currently at an amusement park. I would really rather be at home, reading a book or something at our porch, than be here, feeling like some third wheel between two lovey-dovey lovers.

I see a familiar figure at a distance. Then, as soon as he’s in front of me, my eyes widen. It’s the four-eyed friend of that jerk, Ames!

“Um, this is—“ Annie begins awkwardly.

“Carter Wallace Jones of class 3-A,” I finish for her.

I’ve nothing against him though. This is actually the first time I’ve ever come up close to him. Like me, he’s wearing glasses. Unlike me, he looks cool even with it. Under a grey bonnet is a ginger head. His eyes are chestnut-colored.

Why didn’t I see this coming, though? He is exactly Annie’s type.

“How long’ve you been dating behind my back?” I ask, smiling.

Carter Wallace Jones grins. “About two months now.”

I just nod. Annie links arms with him, seemingly happy. Oh well. At least my best friend’s happy. “I’ve always wanted to tell you, Sadie,” she says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I thought you’d be mad.”

I chuckle. Silly Annie’s always worrying about the silliest things. That’s what makes her so lovable. “Why would I be? I think this guy’s far better than someone-I-don’t-know.”

I notice Carter fidget awkwardly. “Uhhh,” he begins with hesitation.

Just then, I hear a terrible and hateful voice behind me. “Hey guys!” he says in an annoyingly cheerful tone.

It’s almost as if the sky darkened above us. I glare at Carter, who in turn, shrugs apologetically. Beside him, Annie looks like she’s going to explode any time now.

“Darling, what’s this about?” Her voice was menacing. Annie’s cute and adorable and all that, but when she’s mad, all hell breaks loose.

Even I’m losing my cool.

Slowly, scornfully, I turn to face the wretched bastard that appeared to destroy this perfectly could-have-been-great-if-only-he-wasn’t-here day.

“What the hell is the meaning of this?” I say, gesturing towards Jack Ames. He is wearing a white V-neck shirt, dark pants, and Vans, and although he looks so freaking att—don’t say it, Sadie—I still hate his guts for even showing up.

Annie looks at me, paranoid. “I-I didn’t k-know anything about this!” To Carter, she yells, “Darling! Explain!”

Carter sighs. “Fuck you, Jack. Fuck you so much right now.”

Jack just grins widely. “Aw come on, let’s just enjoy this day. We’re at an amusement park; we’re going to make ourselves relax and be happy!”

I face-palm myself. “I’m going home. You guys go on ahead and enjoy.” Just as I am about to leave, Jack reaches for my arm and stops me.

I scowl at him. He just smiles like a little boy.

“What do you want, Jack Ames?” I ask. I feel tired of all this. I can hear Carter and Annie arguing in the background. “You’re really an annoying guy, you know that?”

He shrugs. “You won’t think like that once this day finishes, I promise. Can you just give me a chance?”

“WHAT FOR?” I exclaim, finally snapping. My head hurts just from talking with this moron. “I don’t need to give you a chance; you don’t even need one!”

“Just…can we just not fight anymore? Let go of all the bad things that happened between us. Start over. Be friends. Can’t we do that, at least?”

What is he getting at? He wants to be friends with me? Call me a bitter bitch or whatever, but hell no. How can I be friends with a guy who rejected me? I used to like him, sure. But now I hate him. I hate him for no apparent reason, which is really a characteristic of a bitter bitch, but I don’t care. I hate him so much. Right now. Forever.

“No?” he looks at me dejectedly.

I exchange glances with Annie. She seems to have forgiven Carter, and they’re back to being all sweet again. Carter must’ve convinced her to help me ‘become friends’ with the damnable jerk, because she gives me a pleading look that means ‘Give him a chance’.

Fine, I get it.

“I’m doing this for Annie. Not for you,” I tell him off surly. I brush past him, towards Annie and Carter.

As much as I don’t want to be a bother for the sweet couple, I’ve no choice but to butt in into their world. I’d rather not walk side-by-side Jack Ames.

He trailed behind me, like a puppy.

A gigantic, idiotic puppy.

“Where should we go first?” Annie asks us. I just shrug. I’m not really the type to enjoy amusement parks. “Darling, is there anything in particular that you want to ride?”

Carter shrugs as well and tells her that he’s fine with anything.

The idiot behind us exclaims, “How ‘bout that?”

I don’t even bother looking at where he was suggesting, but I almost choke when Annie replies, “The Tunnel of Love?”

“Let’s go!” Jack Ames grabs my hand and tows me towards that particular hateful attraction. I try to wiggle out of his grasp, but I can’t. I look at Annie desperately, pleading for her to save me from the wretched fool.

She just smiles apologetically and winks. I frown at her, and sulk until we reach the inside of the tunnel. Reluctantly, I sit on the small ‘couple boat’, still sulking, feeling miserable. I won’t forget the betrayal that happened today, ever.

Beside me, Jack seems to be feeling excited over nothing. He really is like a puppy. I stare at him—stabbing him in my mind. He returns the gaze with his annoying smile.

Why did I even like this guy?

“I’ll make sure this is the best date you’ll ever be in,” he promises, still smiling stupidly.

“One, this is not a date—“ I tell him. “Second, I hate you so much right now.”
He does an unexpected thing. He winks at me, and for a second I feel my heart skip, and says smugly, “Not for long, Sadie Hall. Not for long.”

I scoff and bury to the ground the fact that he made my heart skip with his goofy winking tactic. I won’t get weak over him. Nope, no way in hell.

The boat starts moving. We progress intro a cave-like entrance filled with hearts and all that nauseating shit. Annie and Carter are on the boat ahead of us, and I could see that they’re pretty close to doing PDA.

“Can I just ask you something?” Jack cuts in. I could feel the mood becoming awkwardly serious now.

“You just did, moron.”

“Seriously.”

I shut up this time and gesture for him to start talking.

“What about me do you like?” The shameless punk continues, seemingly oblivious and not even feeling awkward for asking such a stupid thing.

“You’re asking me what I liked about you,” I reply, emphasis on the past tense. I don’t know if I should tell him or if I should just ignore him for the duration of the ride, but for some reason, my stupid mouth couldn’t help it. “During the entrance ceremony, I got lost,” I begin hesitantly. My fingers start to fidget and I could almost feel beads of sweat threatening to fall from my forehead. “Annie was absent during the first day of classes because of a fever, so I didn’t have anyone familiar to go around with. Then I bumped into a bunch of jerks. One of them broke my first pair of glasses and none of them apologized.”

I don’t even bother looking at Jack Ames’ expression. I continue, feeling like an idiot for even talking about the past—back when Jack was still the guy I thought he was. “You appeared out of nowhere, and then you got angry before I could even get angry myself. You said, ‘Apologize’ to them so sternly. Back then, I thought that you were sorta like a hero.” When Jack doesn’t react, I smile bitterly. “I doubt you even remember it.”

He answers with, “I did that?”

I sigh. I already expected this. Of course he wouldn’t remember. My existence barely leaves a mark on people’s memories. I don’t have any feature that stands out anyway, so it’s natural that he’d forget.

“I liked that cool, heroic guy back then. But that wasn’t you. At least, it wasn’t who you really were,” I say, wrapping the conversation up.

Jack falls into silence again. After several seconds, he opens his damn mouth again to ask why I really started to hate him so much.

Too bad for him, I don’t really feel like answering. Plus, we were nearing the exit. I could almost see the light from outside.

When I don’t reply, Jack asks again, “Why do you hate me so much?”

I don’t answer not because I didn’t want to, really. I don’t answer, simply because I didn’t have the answer. I don’t know why I hate him. I just do.

“Thanks for riding the Tunnel of Love!” the attraction attendant suddenly pops out of nowhere, saving me from Jack Ames’ stupid questions. I hurry out of the boat and quicken my pace. Annie and Carter are already outside, waiting for us.

“How was it?” Annie whispers as she elbows me.

“Nothing happened really,” I say.

When Jack finally walks towards us, I turn away and start moving. I could feel him staring at me, but I ignore him.

I really don’t want to have anything to do with the guy. I just want this day to end.