This story was originally written for school, but I felt like posting it online.

Playing With Fate

0o0o0o

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I ask him.

“Now Miss Holladay, why are you suddenly so apprehensive about what we’re doing? A few hours ago you seemed into it, and now you don’t want to?” he replies.

“Because I just realized that I have to get up at three in the morning to go to NYU, and I know for a fact that you’ve got to get up early, too.”

“Why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the night?” he replies. “We’ve got scenery, we’ve got tunes, Hell, we’ve even got chicken wings!”

Of course Jake would think to bring chicken wings. All he ever thinks about is chicken: wings, nuggets, stir-fry; I’m surprised he doesn’t lay eggs yet.

“Just you, me, and one last night without worrying, okay?”

Tonight I don’t care that there’s a bucket of gooey goodness sitting in between us; we’re together for one last night, and that’s all that matters to me.

Sitting on the hood of my beat-up Dodge Shadow, tonight is the night I’ve been looking forward to, and dreading, for the past few years.

---

It all began when we were in sixth grade. Consolidated middle school had brought us together, but it was Mrs. Forsberg’s math class that made us the unbreakable duo we became.

We were the first two to get to class the first afternoon, and Mrs. Forsberg sat us as we came in. The moment Mara walked in, I knew there was something special about that girl. They way she walked, and the way her auburn hair flowed to and fro, I knew she was a girl I should get to know. Smiling, but still shy on the inside (newly-discovered hormones were not something I was used to yet), I turned back in my seat. “Jake Andrews. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

Staring, her icy blue eyes penetrated a hole through my skull. After about ten seconds, I finally got a reply, albeit only a mutter of “Mara Holladay.” Quite an odd last name, but it was the most beautiful one I had ever heard.

Myself having been in my wisecrack phase at the time, I just had to poke fun at her name. “Just imagine if your parents decided to name you Happy! Happy Holladay, get it?” I regretted it as soon as I said it.

It took a week or so until she started to lighten up. I eventually learned to shut up, and she learned to smile a little. She told me how she had just moved to town from Colorado because of her parents’ divorce, and how she missed her old friends. At least she had an excuse. I was just an awkward boy, the class clown.

As the year progressed, small talk in math class turned into longer conversations before and after school. We became inseparable. Whenever one of us was alone, people would wonder if the other one was sick.

Little did I know that our closeness would have to be tested, and tested so soon.

---

“See Happy, wasn’t I right when I told you that we’d need the wings to set the scene?” Jake asks as I lick my fingers. I hate to admit it, but he has a point.

“You are aware that I’ve gotten so used to your chicken fetish--” he chucks a napkin at my head “--that the idea of a bucket of cholesterol actually seems appealing. My, you are a bad influence,” I say as I throw the napkin back at him.

“Just don’t speak, Happy. Sit back and enjoy the night,” Jake says. He leans back on my window, and stares out at the sunset. “Remember when we used to camp out in your backyard during the summer?”

“Yeah,” I reminisce. “We would always try to stay the whole night, but then you’d hear something, and we’d end up going into my living room and watching movies all night.”

Ah, the memories. After about eighth grade, my parents asked us to stop having all the sleepovers we used to. You’re both getting older now, they’d say, and we don’t think it’s acceptable for you two to sleep next to each other anymore. I guess they thought that the real reason we’d go out into the tent in my backyard was to make out, when in reality all we did was trade campfire stories.

“I can’t believe this is all going to be over in a couple of hours,” he laments. “How long is it until Christmas Break?” he laments.

“You know I’ll be home before then,” I say. “We’ve just got to make it until Columbus Day Weekend. I’m sure you’ll survive without me for a few months.”

“You might be coming home, but I’m not,” he says. “My parents told me that they bet I’ll need a few weekends to get settled, and they won’t be expecting me until Christmas.

I don’t make my remorse clearly visible. Of course I should be sad, but I don’t want Jake to know just how sad I am.

This charade has been going strong for years, and I don’t see it stopping. I don’t want it to stop. It’ll destroy our friendship.

---

I think it all changed in tenth grade. An over-abundance of making out in the halls, paired with the stress of finding a girl to take to homecoming, made me realize just how ‘special’ girls were.

I couldn’t exactly pinpoint a date, week, or even month, really, when these feelings started to arrive. They were all so nice, with their long hair swaying to and fro in the breeze, but it was the spark in her icy blue eyes that made me fall in love with her.

She couldn’t know that, though.

It’d destroy our friendship.

---

I look over at my best friend, with his arms draped around his knees, and wonder where the years have gone. His Brillo-pad brown hair turned into the shaggy locks he unconsciously twirls around his fingers years ago, and he finally grew out the summer before ninth grade.

I think about what used to be. The times when we were care-free, when there was nobody telling us what we had to be, what would make the most money, what we had to do to get into the best colleges.

I want to tell him what’s been bothering me for the past 2 years, but something in my heart tells me to wait. It tells me to let Fate take over.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the crickets and other summer noises, when out of nowhere Jake pulls me into him, draping his arm around my shoulder.

“Won’t it be sad when we won’t be able to be like this anymore? Mark my word, at Christmas you’ll come back with some large muscular guy names Lars, and I’ll have nobody.” I look up at his face, and a familiar emotion flickers through it. Maybe Fate has decided that it’s time to take things into my own hands.

“Jake,” I say. “Did you ever wonder what it would be like if we could be like this every day? You know, you and me tog—“

But I can’t finish my sentence, because all comprehensible thoughts fly out of my head as his mouth covers mine.

When we finally break for breath, he whispers, “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that.”

“It’s about damn time,” is all I am able to say before we return to our previous activities.

Fin

A/N: please read and review!
Brit