According to Atlanta

A/n: This is the sequel to "According to Archie", and in Atlanta's POV. The song is "Tomboy" by Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young). Enjoy, and please review!

I burst into the living room ahead of Archie, laughing as he barges through the front door, face as red as a ripe tomato. Theresa and Jay are watching television, and Theresa looks up, an annoyed look on her face. I grin, wave, and jet out of there as fast as I can, leaving Arch to face her. I don't feel like it today. I'm sweating, and it's nearly eight o'clock, long past supper. If I don't think up a good excuse, Athena may ground us from being past curfew.

Skateboarding won't cut it. Neither will saying that you learned that you harbour feelings for your best friend, but are too much of a coward to tell him. That would just be mortifying. I've only felt like this once before, and it was when I was hypnotized. So this is as scary as getting your teeth pulled at the dentist's.

When I first met Archie, I thought he was a Goth or something from the way he kept to himself and wrote all the time. I guess I was too quick to judge, because as I got to know him I realized that we were so alike we may be related. Now that would be really creepy.

But I feel confused about "us". I want to be his girlfriend, but if I do, what would be left of our friendship? Would we be so focused on making "us" work that we'd forget what we had? The thought of losing my best friend is bringing tears to my eyes, and I hate crying. I wipe them away angrily, collapsing across my bed and sighing in contentment as the cool sheets work their magic to calm my puzzled heart.

I'm far too used to being just the tomboy, racing Archie and taunting him, and teasing Jay about being a worrier. But now these feelings running through my veins are making me nervous, as though I may lose myself if I give in to them. Ever since I was two, guys were playmates, and I didn't think about how they looked and acted; because I dressed and acted just like them. But now I notice how cute Archie looks when his two spots of pink appear on his milk white cheeks when he's embarrassed, or how strong he is when he wields his whip. I'm bemused and wondering what has happened to me: could I be… growing up?

She's one of the guys, yeah and you can trust her.
Tell her anything.
She's so alive, she can shoot pool.
And she can really drive, she ain't afraid of nothin'
Cept maybe boys with their minds on lovin'.

It's a funny thing to be afraid of such a thing as love; I've never been afraid of anything, ever. But when I think of when I nearly lost him, shivers crawl up my spine and I'm so relieved he's still around.

Just two hours ago I realized what it was like to kiss him; when he was about to tell me something (like he loved me), he suddenly stopped and asked if I wanted to go boarding instead… It was then that I realized that our friendship meant so much to him as well. Grateful, I let my feelings guide me, and now he knows for sure that I like him. I'm just glad that he didn't ask me out, because then I'd either have to lie or break his heart to save our friendship. If only I didn't have these jitters. If only I felt as casual about asking him out as I felt when I was "in love" with Pan. But Archie means so much more to me than Pan.

Tomboy, always with the wrong boy.
You need a strong boy, Tomboy, Tomboy

I glance up as someone knocks on my door, and without waiting for an answer, Theresa waltzes in.

"What are you doing here?" I ask bluntly.

"Archie, Odie, Neil, Herry, and Jay in the same room, watching a dumpy movie: bad combination. You get the best of loud, obnoxious, argumentative, talkative, and worrisome to the point of insanity!" She claps her hands to her head in exasperation. "It's too much! No wonder none of them have girlfriends!"

"Yet," I mutter. She jumps, startled. Then she blushes and looks away.

I grin, her lack of comfort making me feel better about my own situation.

"Theresa, can I ask you something?" I ask nonchalantly.

"Shoot."

"How do you ask a guy out without jeopardizing your friendship?"

Her eyes sparkle, and she smiles. "This is about Archie, isn't it? I detected some sparks between you two in the theatre."

I sigh, my shoulders heaving. "The only thing is that I don't want to lose him. I mean, it wasn't such a big deal dating Phil, I mean Pan, because I didn't really like him THAT much, but, well, Arch is really special…"

"I get it," she interrupts. "But I can't help you. All I can say is to do what you think is best and that will take you looking inside of yourself for the answer."

Inside of myself? How corny does that sound?

"Geez, thanks, Theresa. Sounds like it comes out of one of your movies," I retort, snorting in disgust.

She shrugs. "Whatever. Whether or not you hook up with Archie is none of my business, but you wanted my help, and I gave what I could. I'm not going to go and ask him out or something for you, or use my powers to force him to be your friend forever no matter what happens."

WHAT? "That's a great idea!" I cry. "Why didn't you say that before?"

She stares at me, alarm apparent in her big green eyes. "Absolutely not," she snaps. "I'm not going to do that!"

I fall to my knees, begging and pleading, widening my eyes and sticking my lower lip out in a pout. "Please?"

She stands over me, frowning, hands on hips. She turns and leaves, kicking one of my stuffed animals on her way and slamming the door behind her. "I'll think about it," I hear through the closed door as she stomps back downstairs, yelling at the guys to shut up. I have her in a bad mood, but I couldn't care less! If everything goes as planned, I could have Archie as a friend and a boyfriend in less than a day!

But then I hear Athena bark, "Where are they?" and I know that I should make up that excuse now. I hurry down the stairs, preparing to use the excuse that we had forgotten our watches, but Athena is already getting Archie in trouble, and as I enter the living room, she turns to me, and I know what's coming next.

"Grounded."

"Darn," I hear Jay mutter. The whole gang was supposed to go to the beach tomorrow, where he's going to teach us to sail. Now they either have to cancel the trip, or have fun without us, which, believe me, is so HARD to do.

Theresa, Herry, and Odie are glaring at us, but Neil is grinning and giving us a thumbs-up. If there's anything Neil hates more than getting a zit or yellow teeth, it's being outside all day working. He doesn't mind being chauffeured about by Jay and the others, but whenever it's time to learn something, he backs out. I was looking forward to sailing, and now that I can't go, I'm ready to hit my knees again and beg Jay to postpone the trip. But when I glance over at him, he's looking at Theresa, who's glancing outside longingly, probably already imaging the wind flowing through her wavy carrot hair. I wanna take those carrots and throw them back into the ground where they came from. But then I see Archie looking angrily at me, and I glare back, forgetting about being mad at Theresa. He has this way of making me feel sad when he looks furious with me and since I can't take sadness, I turn to anger to hide my embarrassment.

"What?" I snap. "Are you mad at me for this?"

He nods brusquely.

Such a boy. "If you hadn't asked me to go boarding again, we might have been back here right after the movie ended!" I yell.

"Oh yeah, well if you hadn't wanted to see a movie in the first place, we could have been here even earlier!"

"If you hadn't dragged me out of the movie, we wouldn't have anything to worry about!" Athena and the others are watching with amazement, and Athena's so angry that all she can do is vibrate like a cell phone.

"If you hadn't kissed me, I might not have had my head in the clouds, and would have remembered to check the time!"

Silence engulf the room; and it's so silent you may be able to hear a pin drop. Theresa's gaping at me like a guppy, and Jay looks VERY uncomfortable. Odie looks startled, Herry surprised, and Neil is smirking as though he knew this would happen all along.

I don't understand, she's never been close
To a lovin' man, she goes all a -quiver over these fools
That won't bother with her, she's so fine.
What can't I do with this love of mine?

Archie covers his mouth, humiliated, and I'm so struck by what he's done that I think I may cry. It's one thing to argue with him and have everyone know I like him, but it's another thing to have everyone KNOW that I'd kissed him… plus the fact that he blames that for our situation. If I'd known he held my kisses in such low regards I would have stuck his head in a trash can instead. I'm so embarrassed that I can feel heat searing my cheeks. I feel so hot, and not the cool hot, I mean the angry, humiliated hot, that I want to kick someone's behind out of this dorm forever. I glare, wondering if looks could kill, while Archie rubs his neck, ashamed and uncomfortable.

Tomboy, always with the wrong boy.
You need a strong boy, Tomboy, Tomboy.

"Atlanta…" he trails off helplessly, not sure of what to say. But I am.

"Go away, Archie, and don't EVER talk to me again!" I hiss, turning around and running up the stairs to my room before anyone can see me cry. I'm humiliated enough already.

"I guess she won't be in need of my services anymore," I hear Theresa mutter to herself before I get halfway up the stairs. I run down the hall, hurry into my room, and smash my door closed and lock it, wanting to avoid talking to any conversations with any unwanted visitors, a.k.a. Theresa and/or Archie.

I collapse on my bed, pounding my pillows angrily. It'll be a long time before I forgive Archie. I don't even know why I bother anymore. At least Pan treated me with more respect. Well, a bit more. Anyways, at least he didn't trumpet out to the world that I kissed him or anything! I mean, Archie's always been a loud mouth, but this was going way too far!

I continue to batter my pillow, and Archie should be thankful it's not his head. I'm not surprised at my anger; I've always been rash and hot-headed. Growing up with two brothers helped to nurse that wild attitude. I was often yelling at them for being clumsy or dim-witted, and I feel sort of bad now. I mean, I was their older sister, and they looked up to me, while I was being a bad role model. I feel as though I've let them down, and I feel as though I've let down myself.

She's got a heart of gold, givin' you everything
Put herself on hold, thinks she can laugh enough
So you never see what she's coverin' up in her world.
There's thousands of friends and one lonely girl.

Ughh, all these remorseful thoughts are making me realize that I need to apologize to Archie, the very last thing I want to do. I'm not saying it's all my fault, but I do admit that I did play a part in it. But I want to know if he's sorry first before I apologize.

So he has to ask for forgiveness first, or else I won't ever talk to him again!

I hear Theresa knocking on my door and asking to come in, and I grab my hairbrush and throw it at the door so that she gets the idea I want to be alone. "Go away!" I shout.

"Oh stop being a baby and open up!" she snaps, annoyed. That's all I can take; I rush over to the door and throw it open. She leaps into the air, not expecting me to appear so suddenly.

"GO AWAY!" I bellow, glaring at my ex-best friends as they all stare at me from outside in the hall, their jaws dropping.

Archie comes forward, hands outstretched in a peaceful gesture. "Atlanta, I'm…"

I begin to close the door in his face, avoiding his eyes. "

"…I'm sorry." Wait a minute. I duck my head around the partially closed door.

"Did you just say 'sorry'?"

He nods. I'm amazed. Usually Archie isn't like this, often trying to drag out an argument until someone admits that he was right.

But I'm not ready to let him of the hook yet. "I'll forgive you," I say slowly, so that he can process all this without his brain exploding from the pressure (see, I'm still really peeved), "But you're going to have to prove that you're truly repentant."

He covers his face with his hands, as if dreading what's coming next. And he should.

"What do I have to do?" he asks.

I motion for him to come closer. He leans towards me, and I whisper what he has to do in his ear. His face goes paler than its normal chalkiness.

"Oh no, you're not serious!"

I grin slowly, nodding, and I shut my door gently, walking over to my window to wait.

It's about ten o'clock at night now, and Archie's fulfilling his duty. He's running about outside of the brownstone, shouting about free fries and burgers at the local burger place. Oh, and he's in his boxers, freezing his butt off. I feel a whole lot better now, and ready to forgive him. After he finishes, that is.

Meanwhile, the gang and I are watching, laughing and snickering. Theresa and Jay are exchanging amused glances, Herry is laughing heartily, Neil is snickering, and Odie is smiling quietly. And I'm watching him run around, blushing at seeing him in boxers, but laughing at his predicament.

"I guess he won't ever mess with you again, Atlanta," Herry grins, and I giggle in response.

"I guess not."

Tomboy, always with the wrong boy.
You need a strong boy, Tomboy, Tomboy