Author’s Note: New story. :) (The poll was 45-26.) It’s going to be short, no longer than 10 chapters so that I can still focus on Heart Lotion SPF 20. Nothing super serious, just some pointless, light-hearted fun to fill in my HL writer’s block gaps. (On that note, the next chapter of HL is half done. :D It’s just that February is exam month, so.)

As per usual, a big thank you to Mae and Cici. They have to deal with me constantly. It’s a dirty job.

And also a very, very grateful thanks to all those who have read and reviewed The Day I Stalked Him. I wish I could reply to each and every one of you, but university has been tightening its hold on my spare time. So, in case I don't get around to it, thank you!! You have no idea how much I appreciate your input/opinions/thoughts. -heart-

A word on the main character. She’s a bit of a high-strung control freak perfectionist. I realize she isn’t as likeable as Honey, but, ah… let her grow on you. Or try to. :)

Btw, don’t worry about knowing who everyone is in this chapter. Just focus on Deedee. Everyone else is just a minor character at the moment. Kind of. XD I can’t give too much away.

No more rambling from me today. Enjoy!

Beware: unbeta-ed. So if you catch anything, let me know! :)

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cherry - n.

1. The fruit of any of various trees belonging to the genus Prunus, of the rose family, consisting of a pulpy, globular drupe enclosing a one-seeded smooth stone.
The movie was so funny that Sally choked on a cherry pit.

2. Slang: often vulgar. The hymen or the state of virginity.
“Stay away from her cherry, man. Her father owns a shotgun!”

CHAPTER ONE

-

“Damn it! Just stick it in already!”

“I can’t. It’s not going to fit.”

“It’s not that big!”

There was an exasperated struggle, followed by the grunting of both parties.

“Give it to me,” Deedee snapped, holding out her hand.

“You’re going to break it,” he warned her one last time.

“Benjamin Bear,” she enunciated. Although aspiring to shoot daggers with each syllable, it was difficult with such a ridiculous last name. “Hand over the mozzarella.”

When he didn’t wave the white flag, she added, “Before I slice a D on your Ralph Lauren cologne ad face.”

“You’re so uptight,” Ben said, but gave in, putting the large stick of cheese into Deedee’s outstretched hand.

She took it, looking miffed. “I have three lab write-ups, one essay, one commentary, two oral presentations, and a calculus investigation to complete within the next forty-eight hours. You try surviving on ten hours of sleep a week and then tell me I’m uptight.”

“Hey, I asked if you wanted out of the fundraiser, but you said no,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender, as if none of this was his fault.

Of course. It was her fault that she was stuck after school in the home ec. room, trying to bake twenty-five pizzas before six o’clock.

“Tell me again why we couldn’t just order them or buy frozen ones from Safeway,” Deedee said, pushing the piece of mozzarella into the opening of the food processor.

“Because the theme is homemade goodies.”

“Whose short-sighted and dimwitted idea was that?”

“Yours.”

“Whatever.”

The fast, rhythmic grating sound of the cheese mutilating in the Oster Fusion 2-in-1 came to a grinding stop.

Deedee pushed down harder on the large block through the neck of the processor. “What’s wrong?”

“Pardon me while I say—” Ben paused and waited until Deedee’s attention was on him. “I told you so.”

She hated those four words.

“It was fine a second ago,” she muttered, repeatedly pressing the Pulse button. There was only an empty clicking sound.

“It was already too full. I told you you should have emptied it before grating the next piece.”

“But there were only two blocks left. I wanted to stuff it all in.” Deedee could hear the telltale whine in her own voice when things didn’t go according to plan.

Ben shrugged, proceeding to slice more pepperoni and Italian sausage.

It was at this time that Stephanie Arlington stuck her blonde head through the door of the kitchen.

“How are the pizzas coming?”

Steph was the social coordinator for the fundraiser and handled all the human relations and entertainment. She was also Deedee’s leading partner in crime since the age of eleven.

“I killed it,” Deedee said, resisting the urge to flail her arms in the air.

“What?” Steph looked from Deedee to Ben. “Ben’s still alive.”

“I resent being assumed the ‘it’ in question,” Ben said, not looking up from his task.

“The food processor,” Deedee clarified.

Steph walked over to where Deedee was and pressed the Pulse button just as Deedee had earlier.

“It’s just jammed. No big. Use another one.”

Deedee wanted to roar. For once, why couldn’t things go smoothly? “But there are only two sticks left. If I use another one, I’ll have a pain of a time cleaning another processor.”

Steph patted her on the shoulder. “It’s okay. You go direct people into the gymnasium. I’ll finish up here.”

Deedee knew she was being childish and unreasonable, but she really was stressed to the point of no return. IB exams were coming in a month, and there was hardly any time to eat or sleep. If there was such a thing as the ‘undead’, she was it. She’d scare the fangs off of any vampire, and make those blood-suckers shiver in their century-old panties.

Steph was the only person who didn’t tell her to “take a chill pill.” And for that, she was infinitely grateful. One day, she would repay her best friend for putting up with her for so long.

Deedee washed her hands and then took off her red and white checkered apron, giving it to Steph.

“Thank you.”

She mumbled a brief ‘bye’ to Ben before trudging out of the room. What she wouldn’t give for a nice, long nap.

The cooking classrooms were in the basement, so the hallway was quiet. Everyone working on the fundraiser was on the ground floor. Once her shift at the event was over at seven, she would be able to go home and work like mad heck through all of her assignments.

Even her teachers had told her that she was crazy for trying to do everything. She needed to prioritize, she knew that. But if she didn’t keep her GPA up and score equal to or higher than her predicted IB score, Yale might withdraw the tentative offer they made her in March.

“Hey hey, why the long face?”

Deedee looked up to see Jordan Mitchell walking her way. The brown-haired boy was a fellow IB classmate, and it never ceased to amaze her just how relaxed he took everything. “Stressed.”

“I can tell. You look like a corpse.”

She made a Cruella De Vil face. “Thanks.”

“Is it about the Physics test tomorrow?” he asked.

They were in the same class.

“Kind of, yeah.” She didn’t want to go into a whole spiel about everything.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get ninety-nine percent anyway.”

She hated it when people said that. No one ever acknowledged the hours and hours of studying and hard work that were needed to get the grades that she got. They just assumed that she would get them regardless.

“You know I don’t appreciate it when people say that,” she said, not even having the energy to appear peeved.

Jordan didn’t take the obvious hint to shut up, nor did he have the decency to look remotely sorry. “You know it’s true.”

“It’s not,” she said through her teeth before walking away, not caring if it was rude. This was really the last conversation she wanted to have.

As slowly as humanly possible, Deedee made her way to the entrance of the school. Forget greeting people, with her corpse face, she’d end up scaring them all away. Move over Boogie Monster, little kids will be screaming “Deedee! Deedee!” in the middle of the night now.

“Hey, Aaron,” she said, coming to stand beside another fellow classmate who was guarding the doors as well.

Aaron was the tall, lanky boy in their graduating class who often acted like a drinking/gambling/chicks/woo-party-it-up type of guy, but was actually a crazy genius underneath. His parents did top secret rocket science research for the Chinese government.

“Hey,” he said.

It wasn’t just any ‘hey’. It was a ‘hey’ that conveyed his sympathy and said, ‘You look like shit.’ He followed it up with, “Tough week, eh?”

“Tell me about it,” Deedee grumbled, slumping against the wall. “What’s wrong with me these days?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

She answered with a glare. “No, I mean it. What’s wrong with me? Is this all life has to offer us? School, school, school, graduate, work, work, work, retire, die? We work hard, and as a reward, we have to work harder?”

Aaron shrugged.

It was a shrug she knew well. The gesture said, “I don’t care enough to express my opinion, because even if I did, you wouldn’t like it.”

“Say it.”

“You’re boring.”

“Okay, now take it back.”

It wasn’t as if no one had ever described her as being dull. But it was just the way she was. Just because she didn’t go out partying every weekend and found enjoyment in quiet dinners or renting a couple of movies with a few close friends did not mean that she was a complete drag. She liked her life quiet and unperturbed.

“Seriously, Deedee, you have zero excitement in your life. When was the last time you went out? Not to the library, not to eat sushi, and not to go grocery shopping with your mom?”

Deedee and Aaron paused to greet a family of four coming in through the front doors.

“… yes… yes, just down the hall and to your left,” Deedee directed, pageant smile in place.

As soon as the quartet was out of hearing distance, she turned back to Aaron. “You make me sound like a hermit.”

“You are a hermit.”

The face she made that was akin to an angry baboon, or so she had been told in the past. “I’ll have you know that I’m an exciting hermit.”

“Not to pick at your oxymoron or anything…” Aaron trailed off, handing a hot pink brochure to the elderly couple who just walked in.

Deedee felt her shoulders hunch. This was too depressing. She could be an adventurous and out-there person if she tried. After all, was this how she wanted her high school years to end? With a womp womp, rather than a boom boom?

“You okay?” Aaron asked when it was just the two of them again.

“Yeah,” she said. Although in her head, it sounded like a resounding ‘no’.

“Don’t let it get to you. Just loosen up a little. Ya know, do a little a dance, make a little love,” Aaron said, attempting to sing the last part, but going off one key too many.

“Thanks.”

She appreciated his effort to cheer her up, she really did. But she just wasn’t in the mood to search for a silver lining. Wasn’t high school senior year supposed to be the year of all years? Wasn’t it supposed to be the best year of your life?

“What if I decided to have a fling with Brandon Willis?” she asked suddenly, not altogether sure why the captain of the rugby team popped into her head. It just seemed like the cliché thing to do. Nerd and jock get it on. What could be more exciting?

“Uhh…” Aaron looked her up and down. “Uh…”

“What? He’s cute,” Deedee said, trying to think up any other redeeming qualities he may have. Upon failing, she added, “It would be a climactic way to end off high school, don’t you think?”

“And the purpose of this would be…?” Aaron asked, clearly unable to follow her train of thought.

“To do something un-Deedee-like!” she exclaimed. For such a smart guy, he could sure be dense sometimes. She had to make her last year memorable somehow. She wanted to be able to flip through her senior yearbook ten, twenty years from now and remember all of the incredible, wild things she’d done. What would she tell her grandchildren? That the climax of their Grandmamma’s high school years was graduating with honors?

“You don’t have to go that far. Just bomb a test.”

Deedee felt her body temperature slink to absolute zero.

“Stop looking like a cannibal. It was a joke,” Aaron said.

A joke.

That was all she was these days.

A joke.

-

“For the love of all things Louis Vuitton, you want to do what?”

Deedee pursed her lips at her soon to be ex-BFF. “I don’t think Princess Diana could hear you from her grave. Please. Louder.”

The two of them sat face-to-face on the floor of Steph’s bedroom, textbooks, notes, and stationery covering the entire surface of the coffee table.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have sprung the idea so suddenly. Deedee could see the defined hole Steph had made in her lab write-up. The pencil had stabbed through four sheets of paper.

“You want to lose your virginity. You want to lose your virginity! Woman, are you crazy?” Steph’s voice raised an octave after each sentence.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Deedee said, flipping mechanically through her Physics textbook, passing the page she was supposed to be on. “I don’t really need it anyway. And it’ll definitely be memorable.”

Steph blinked twice before turning back to her write-up. “You are the prime example of how book smarts is negatively correlated with street smarts.”

Deedee watched her friend pretend to read over the page. She knew that Steph wouldn’t stop her if she really wanted to do it. They understood each other so well that, most of the time, there was no need to say anything at all. Since the seventh grade, the two of them had mastered communicating using only glances. In essence, they were almost one person—which was why Deedee felt comfortable saying just about anything to Steph.

Looking at the two of them though, they were complete opposites. Deedee was short, slim, with a light complexion and big, wavy auburn hair. Steph was tall and all curves. Deedee personally thought she looked like she belonged in a trashy romance novel cover, minus the chic blonde bob.

They were ying and yang.

“So… wanna help?” Deedee asked, ignoring the earlier insult. She liked to think it was how they showed affection for one another.

“I’m not big on threesomes.” Steph said, manner nonchalant as she continued to write out the Results section of her lab.

“Not quite what I had in mind.” Deedee took out the clear, roughened plastic ruler she had since she was in elementary school. The numbers were rubbing off a little, but it still drew a perfectly good line.

“You want me to impale you with a stick?”

“Well, there’s an idea!” Then seeing Steph’s reaction, she said, “I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t.” Steph spared a glance in her direction before nabbing the ruler she held in her hand.

“I don’t want to lose my virginity to a ruler,” Deedee said, trying to get it back.

Steph moved it out of her reach “You nasty little pervert. I need it to underline.” Then after double-underlining her heading, she said, “You don’t even have a boyfriend.”

Deedee paused in her aimless textbook flipping. “That’s irrelevant. I need a dick, not a relationship.”

“What if you get pregnant?” Steph asked, then added, “Your mom would eat you and the baby alive. And then eat me for not stopping you.”

Deedee stuck the eraser end of her mechanical pencil into her cheek. “Steph, I don’t know if you know this, but in the twenty-first century, we have this miraculous little thing called ‘birth control’.”

Steph gave her a ‘duh’ look. “So what are you going to do? Catch the bus downtown at midnight and whore yourself to old, lewd men?”

“No, nothing like that.” Deedee shook her head, a thick lock of hair falling onto her face. “I have decided that, for my own safety, it must be with someone I know.” While getting STDs would be equally memorable, she’d prefer to live long enough to tell about it.

“Someone we know,” Steph repeated, as if to say, “Are. You. Kidding. Me.”

“Someone we know,” Deedee echoed in confirmation. She smiled then, in a sinister and maniacal sort of way.

Upon seeing her expression, Steph immediately turned back to her books. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

Deedee cackled inside. She twirled her pencil back into writing position and drew a little sketch of a hangman, dead in his noose, on piece of loose leaf. When she was done, she pushed it in Steph’s direction.

Although her body did not move, Deedee could tell from her friend’s split-second microexpression that she had seen not only the drawing, but also the tiny arrow pointing to it. Even upside-down, she knew Steph could read the neat block letters written on the side: BRANDON WILLIS.

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Like it? Hate it? 'Meh' about it? Feel free to tell me. I love all input. Now go back and read those ANs I know you skipped. :)