“Karma: Affirmation”

R.M. Sanders

Summary: (WIP, fxf, companion to Control: Mastermind) karma: n. seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in reincarnation. Syn: fate, destiny. Syn: Ann and Elizabeth.

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Chapter One: I Believe The Sun Should Never Set Upon An Argument.

The truest statement that I ever heard was “karma is a bitch…”

My friend Fleur told me that when we were discussing the fact that his boyfriend was a horrible fucking person.

But I didn’t know how true it would become…

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Ann liked fucking with guys on the Internet. When I met her, she already had three boyfriends and she had been messing around in chatrooms for quite a while.

It wasn’t just the fact that she was in the chatrooms, but she was posing as a boy. “Anthony” was what she went by. She would go in and just flirt around with whomever gave her the time of day, get to know them (as “Anthony,” of course), and make friends that way. It was dangerous and worried me more than I told her.

I didn’t want her to get kidnapped or raped or anything, of course.

But I also didn’t want her falling for anyone…

Call me selfish, but I wanted her all to myself.

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I came to terms with my sexuality around the time I turned fifteen. It wasn’t a big deal for me to classify myself as “bisexual” or “gay.” Pretty much all of my friends were either bi or gay by that point, anyway. I wrote LGBT fiction in my spare time and photobucket’d “yaoi” and “yuri.” Like I said, it wasn’t a big deal.

It wasn’t a big deal when I had a crush on my best girl friend at the time.

It wasn’t even a big deal when I told my mom about said crush.

Anyway, Angelique was sweet, smart, funny, and just everything you could ever want in a best friend. We went everywhere together (now I hardly go anywhere). We stayed almost every night at each other’s houses (now I can’t stand to sleep anywhere other than my own bed). We shopped together (now I fucking hate shopping). We saw through each other’s faults (now I constantly talk about how ugly or fat or horrible someone is).

We were the best of friends.

But one late-night make-out session ruined any hopes of returning to a normal friendship again. But she was asking for it. She was the one who kept pulling me close and giving me those bedroom eyes.

So what’s a girl to do? Well, I have no clue. But I grabbed a hold of her sweet blonde head and planted one on her!

We eventually went our separate ways, keeping touch in texts and IMs for a while before we finally just… stopped.

We just weren’t the same.

So, when I entered my senior year, I was pretty much best friend-less. I mean, I had Fleur, who was the best guy a girl could have… but that was just it. He was a guy. I longed for female companionship. A girl that I could talk to about anything. Whatever was plaguing me at the moment. Whoever was bothering me.

I spent my days flirting with anyone who had eyes for me (sounds a bit backward, right?) and all was going well…

Until I met her.

Ann.

The first time I saw her, it was raining. Pouring. But she was dancing in the middle of the mini-courtyard between the gym and “C” hallway with her best friend, Lynora. I was pissed off because the rain was making my hair frizzy, and Fleur wasn’t making me feel any better…

“Hah!” Fleur gathered a handful of water and threw it at me, dousing my head and shoulders.

“Bastard!” I squealed, dropping my bags on the cold, wet ground (only my extra-important AP Art drawings would get ruined) and chasing him out into the little courtyard. He ran like the wuss he was and I eventually grabbed hold of his black hoodie.

Fleur turned around and picked me up, causing me to scream and punch him in the shoulder.

“Put me down!” I fought to keep my tone sharp, but I ended up laughing instead, surprised that the administration weren’t running over to us, screeching. Fleur let me down, and I landed in a particularly squishy spot in the courtyard. The rain was pouring down harder, soaking my to the skin. I was about to (playfully) yell at him some more when I saw this mass of black hair and pale skin attack him.

“Flower!” The mass screamed, arms around his neck.

The voice told me it was a girl that was attached to my friend, but the short hair and androgynous body confused me. I mean, I had seen her before (and I knew that she was a girl), but only from a distance. We had mutual friends.

“Hey, Ann,” Fleur turned around and hugged her tight, causing her to giggle. Lynora showed up seconds later, grinning. I returned the gesture, reeling her in by her tiny little waist to hug her.

Ann (apparently that was her name) turned to me, her greenish-brown eyes looking into mine inquisitively. Now that I was looking at her, I could tell that she was a gal. She didn’t have much (if any) make-up on, but the almond eyes and delicately curled lips gave it away.

“I don’t think that we’ve met,” Ann smiled, her snakebites (have I mentioned my affinity for piercings?) catching some of the sunlight that was streaming through the clouds. “I’m Ann.”

“My name’s Michelle,” I smiled back to her, chewing on my own lipring. But I didn’t have time to think about how dumb I looked, for Ann flung her arms around my neck and pulled me close.

I was used to affection (I, myself, was and still am, an affectionate person), but not from someone I just met! And by the time it took me to hug her back… she was gone.

“Goddamn,” Lynora murmured to the rain. “Buses are here.”

I watched as Ann and Lynora walked off (after saying good bye, of course), noting that Lynora seemed to be teasing Ann about something. I saw Lyn run a hand through Ann’s soaked black hair, grinning… laughing.

“Hey, Miche, the bus is here. I suggest you get on it before it leaves your ass in Hell!”

That was Fleur. We called our school “Hell.” Because, well, it was.

I broke out into a run, grabbing my bags as I plowed toward him, eventually running into him.

“I didn’t mean for you to run,” he chuckled, wrapping his arms around me. I felt safe with him, and I snuggled into his hug. “But, hey, whatever.”

I climbed the stairs into the stupid yellow Twinkie (Fleur loved nicknames), my hand grabbing onto my bag (stupid asswipe middle schoolers were fond of stealing), “Shit, my bag’s wet.”

“Well,” came Fleur’s reply, “that’s what happens when it rains, hag.”

I rolled my eyes, “Shut it, faggy.” He pinched my waist before I plopped down into one of the brown leather seats (seriously, yellow and brown don’t go together).

He sat down beside me, grinning, “So what do you think of Ann?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. What was he getting at? Why did he want to know what I thought about a girl that I just met?

“She’s nice,” I answered, opting to shift my gaze out of the window.

“That’s it?”

The bus roared to a start and we lurched forward. “Well, yeah. I don’t know her. And why are you so interested in what I think of her?” I glanced at him, and he smiled guiltily.

“She was worried you wouldn’t like her.”

I turned to him, “Wait, what?”

Fleur’s pretty blue eyes widened as he attempted to look innocent, “Ann has wanted to talk to you for, like, ever.”

“Oh, really?” I shifted my gaze out the foggy window, trying to look bored. “Then why didn’t she just come up and talk to me. I don’t bite… unless ya like it.”

“Your monotonous humour makes me laugh a little on the inside. But, uh, she’s really shy.”

“She doesn’t seem shy. I mean, she hugged me.”

Fleur leaned forward in the seat a little bit, “Well, she’s, uh…”

I put up my hand to stop him, “I get what you mean, babe.” But my mind reeled as I rummaged through my bag for the black headphones that would be attached to my iPod. Tugging,I finally produced our form of entertainment.

He took the right side as I scrolled through the songs. “So, are you gonna play with her?”

I smirked as I found Eyeshine, my favourite band, “Do you want me to?” Y’see, Fleur and I had a game we liked to play with unsuspecting people. If we saw a potential romantic partner, we would see how long it took them to either beg to jump our bones or to say the fateful three words: “I love you.”

It was really fucking horrible of us, but… we needed something to do with our time. And no one seemed to catch on. Like I always told him when he wanted to back out, if they were that dumb then they deserved every bit of punishment they endured in their lifetime.

“I like Ann,” came his ambiguous reply. He smiled as he recognized the song I had picked, “Drama Queen.” “But… well, if you’re gonna play with her, there’re some things you need to know.”

I shifted in the seat to where I was facing him, “Isn’t that how we always play, Fleur?”

Chuckling, he nodded. “She thrives on the Internet, number one. Chatrooms, mainly. She pretends to be a guy and plays with other guys—“

“So she does the same thing that we’re going to do with her?” I cut him off, but I really didn’t give a shit. This was glorious news. “A little karma?”

“I guess so,” he snatched the iPod from my hands, changing the song to Ill Nino. “Uh, she gives them a fake name, Anthony, and just the state she lives in. They talk for a while, the guy usually ends up falling for ‘Anthony,’ but then she breaks the news that she just wants to be friends. They stay friends, but never know her secret.”

“That’s almost exactly what we do,” I mused, pressing my chin to my hand. Oh, how wonderful it would be to give Ann a taste of her own medicine. I hardly knew the girl, and it was a bit hypocritical of me, but who really gave a shit?

Fleur’s eyebrows rose, “I know. So. Uh. Number two: She’s really open about her bisexuality. Well, pansexual, I think. Homoflexible. Something like that is what she said when we met.”

“Good, good.” It’d be no fun trying to woo a straight girl.

“Three: Ann likes you.”

I don’t think that my eyes could’ve gotten any wider. “What the fuck did you just say?!”

Fleur simpered, and he was lucky that I knew what the definition of simper was. “I thought you would be interested in that, Miche.”

“She doesn’t even know me,” I turned my gaze to where I was watching the blur of the city whir past. Fleur changed the song to “Summer Skin” by Death Cab For Cutie. One of my favourite songs of all time.

The melancholy tune almost lulled me to sleep, but Fleur, of course, prevented that.

“Come over to my house, I’ll let you in on a few more things. Then we can play.” The smirk on his beautiful face widened and I mirrored it. One more than one occasion, my mom said that we looked like twins. I didn’t see it. Maybe it was just the brown hair, and the fact that we both had had braces (which meant that our teeth looked relatively alike when we smiled). Or maybe it was that we used to finish each others’ sentences when we were little. Whatever. I still didn’t see it.

“Lemme text Mom and let her know that I’ll be gone. You know how she worries,” I pulled out my little, piece-of-shit cell phone, and texted away. Fleur’s deft little fingers could pound away at the keys a helluva lot faster than mine could, but, whatever. I fucking hated technology.

The bus pulled up at Fleur’s sprawling, two-floor house, and I nodded to the bus driver (whom we called Mix Master Willy Bill… don’t ask). Bill knew us so well that I didn’t even need a note to go to Fleur’s anymore. Besides, we only lived a street away. How much trouble could I get into?

Wait, no, I don’t want to ask that…

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AN: This is a companion story to "Control: Mastermind." If you read the Author's Note at the end of this, then please skip the rest of this paragraph. If not, read on... Fleur and Michelle are best friends, and some of the chapters might have the same situation, but different internal dialogue or something. If that bothers you, well, then, I'm sorry. Get over it.

And leave a nice review. xD;; Nah, I'm kidding.

I don't own the lyrics to Savage Garden's "Affirmation." Obviously...

To read more about this story, go to my livejournal account. It's on my profile, and I'm bound to have some more information on it in a bit. :D