(A/N): I hope I answer some of your questions in this one. Some things are still a little vague, I admit, but you can use your imagination, right?
Disclaimer: I don't own School of Rock. I also don't own the song "Guilty Pleasure" by Cobra Starship.
I came here to make you dance tonight/I don't care about my guilty pleasure for you
"Let go," Zach strained out of his mouth, which was much high from the ground that he normally preferred. His legs dangled about 8 inches from the carpeted ground that lined around the drum set about three feet away from his left. And his normally pristine button up uniform shirt was wrinkled, and bunched up by his neck, where Freddy had grabbed the collar and used it to hold the struggling guitarist against the wall.
"What did you say to her?" Freddy seethed, pushing him even harder. If possible.
Zach gasped for air. "I can't," breath, "tell you if," breath, "I can't breathe."
Freddy dropped Zach so that he folded into a crumpled heap on the floor. "Speak."
Zach pushed himself up into a respectable position and reclaimed the authority he had over Freddy's height. Zach himself was never strong, or athletic, as Freddy always was. But the one thing he could always hold for himself was that he was taller. Smoothing out his shirt, he started Freddy down, which secretly, was the one thing Freddy couldn't stand. "No," Zach said and walked over to the fridge to grab a soda.
Freddy's eyes went red. "What?" he screamed.
Dewey's head shot out from the office in the back. "Hey! Keep it down! I'm writing a freaking song here." Zach and Freddy murmured their apologies and continued their stare down.
"She doesn't owe anything to you," Zach said then sipped out of the soda can. "Why should I tell you what we talk about?"
Freddy ground his teeth. "I have known her longer than any of you! Why the fucking hell would she choose you guys over me?"
Zach, who had been making his way over the couch and TV, spun around. "Are you serious? She trusted you, Jones. She leaned and relied on you the whole school year because you were all she had! You were the support she needed. She's not the hard tough Tink she tries to put on every day. Shit, you of all people should have known that!"
Freddy was silent. By now Zach had gotten right in front of him and was giving him the stare down.
"And you know what you did Jones?" Zach said, pointing his finger right at Freddy's chest.
Freddy managed to choke out a small and fearing, "What?"
Zach's eyes were red by now. "You left her. You had girl after girl after girl. When really you always had the best of them by your side every day. Do you have any idea how many guys want, and I mean really want, Summer Hathaway? And do you have any idea why they don't just go up to her? Because of you! Everyone at Horace Green Prep knows that you two freaking belong together, that she's yours. She's grown up since 5th grade, Spazzy. She's damn beautiful. Gorgeous even. And you dropped her in the second semester. Did you not see how frustrated she got? She would call me crying at night trying to find out what she did wrong. Why you wouldn't come to her locker in the morning anymore. Why she had to spend her off periods alone now. She was miserable, Jones. How could you not see that?" Zach then laughed bitterly and said, "And you know what she told me? She told me that all she wanted for you was to be happy. Happy, Spazzy. Are you happy now?"
Not waiting for an answer, Zach continued. "So yeah. You fucking dropped her. And she fell. She fucking fell. Nice, very smooth."
Freddy searched for a comeback, for something, anything. But his voice was silent. He had nothing.
Zach looked down at his soda can, which had not been smashed by his anger. The liquid was flowing down his hand and onto the carpet. "Shit," he whispered as he searched for something to clean it up with. "Ned's gonna kill me."
Freddy stood standing there as Zach cleaned up. He was still standing there ten minutes later when the rest of the band began to file in for practice. But the minute Summer came in, laughing with Katie at her side, he grabbed his coat and rushed out the door, mumbling something about a science project, even thought they were on summer vacation. But he ran down the stairs too fast for any protest.
He couldn't be there right now. Because Zach was right. For the first time since the 3rd grade, Freddy Jones was unhappy.
"Dance with me, Summer," he whispered in her ear, making his lips tingle. Wasn't he supposed to make her tingle?
She shifted uncomfortable under him. He looked down at her with a hopeful smile. It was the first thing he had said to her all summer. They had skillfully avoided each other, not talking during band practices and stayed unnaturally quiet when their families would get together for dinner parties.
The moment Freddy had seen the ripped pictures of them in her trash bag, his heart fell. After the fight with Zach, he had spent countless hours in his room, alone, listening to John Mayer. If anyone from the band had walked in, they would have laughed until their sides split. While they all acknowledged John Mayer as one of the growing Rock gods that existed today, they all knew that Freddy thought he was a sissy. Someone who could never get over any of the girls he dated, so he wrote sappy love songs about them. But he was Freddy's only friend over the summer.
He poured over yearbooks from their younger years, scrapbooks their mothers had put together, and postcards that had been sent while they were on vacations past. Zach had been right, Summer had grown gorgeous over the years. Every time Freddy would find a picture of her from when they were younger, he would turn to look at the picture by his bedside, of the two of them on the first day of freshman year. His mother had forced them to pose on the steps of Horace Green in their uniforms and all. A blast of wind had just passed, and leaves were whirling all over the place in the spirit of the Autumn season. Summer was laughing, her hair blowing with the wind, a leaf caught in her hair. Freddy had just reached to untangle it from her hair, when his mom snapped the photo. Katie had remarked they had looked like Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas in school uniforms before Summer had sternly reminded her that all the English soldiers had treated Native women like property and that John Smith never ended up marrying Pocahontas anyway.
But Freddy knew Katie had struck a nerve in Summer. Pocahontas was her favorite movie. Always was, always had been.
With every picture Freddy saw, her sparkling green eyes became engraved in his mind. He wanted to touch her long brown hair with every fiber of his being. Her porcelain skin shined bright in his mind, flawless and pristine. He now knew what it was like for those guys Zach had said really wanted Summer. He was one now. But he couldn't touch her. Not without making her completely miserable again. And he didn't want to do that.
But every day made it a little harder. He thought back on all those times they were together. In geometry class, when her cheeks would blush a little when he looked over at her. How grateful she was every time he helped her with science. When they would walk over to the park after school and he would push her on the swing. Her brilliant smile would erupt every time he walked towards her in the school hallways.
But he never appreciated it. She was his guilty pleasure. He never shared her, never thanked her, never anything her.
And now she was gone.
How could he be so completely clueless?
So when Zach invited him to his 15th birthday party, two weeks before school started, Freddy jumped at the chance. He knew she would be there. He knew he'd be able to talk to her. He needed her. And he was going to make her happy for once. Because he knew she deserved it. And like he said, he needed it.
So as she looked up at him at the party, so completely surprised that he was even talking to her, he smiled, finally glad that he was with her, touching her, looking at her. "Please, Sum?"
She stuttered, "I don' think that's a good idea, Freddy…" She began to turn away.
"No!" he said, grabbing onto her arm. "Don't. Just one dance. You deserve to have fun tonight. To be happy."
She looked up at him with wide eyes and he knew he said the right thing. So when he guided her onto the dance floor, there was no hesitation. He was completely honest when he said that too. He wasn't trying to show her how much he wanted her. He wasn't trying to make her fall as much in love with him as he was with her. He just wanted her to dance. And she did. It was a fast song, with racy lyrics and a dirty theme, but they danced. It was a massive crowd of people, and they ended up right in the middle. They weren't dancing like any other couple out there though. They weren't grinding, freaking, or even back to front. They were facing each other, and they never broke eye contact. The one thing they had in common with everyone else though, was their distance. There was none. If anything, they were pressed up against each other more than anyone else in the crowd. They let their bodies sway and move with the music, his hands on her waste and hers entangled in his hair.
And for the first time in a long time, Freddy saw Summer smile.
The song ended abruptly, with people cheering on either sides of them. The moment it did though, her smile disappeared. Her eyes grew wide, and her mouth formed an 'O'. She pushed herself off him, and mumbled an excuse. Freddy stood shocked for about 15 seconds, before pushing through the crowd to run after her.
He finally caught up to her on Zach's front porch, with only the light from the streetlamp. He had grabbed her arm for the second time that night to stop her from running away. He decided right there an then that just a dance wasn't enough. That he had to make her see. He had to make her feel how he did. Or he'd burst. "I'm sorry," he whispered, gathering her in for a hug. "I'm sorry for the entire second semester, for dropping you and not catching you when you fell. I'm so so sorry."
Summer pushed off him. "You don't mean that. I know you. You don't mean that."
Freddy's heart pained. "Yes I do."
Summer whirled on him. "Then why'd you stop being my friend?"
Freddy suddenly felt anger. How could she say that? "I didn't!"
"I trusted you, Freddy," Summer spat. "You knew I was so scared for high school. You knew that I wanted more than anything to excel. To finally ditch the girl that I was in middle school, the girl everyone hated, and become someone better. I relied on you to be there for me. To get me through it. And you didn't. You left me, you walked away!"
Freddy unclenched his fists and lowered his head. "Yeah, I heard."
Summer ignored him. "Why can't you just let it go?" She said, and Freddy finally looked back up at her. She had tears in her eyes. He was doing it again. He was making her miserable. "I'm not a doll, Freddy. You can't play with me."
Freddy took her hands again, and held tight, so she couldn't pull away. "I know. I'm a jerk. I just…"
"You just what?" Summer asked, almost pleading.
Freddy sighed. "You got so clingy. Always there. I didn't know what to do. It was overwhelming. I thought if I pulled away a little, you'd know. I mean, Summer," he looked right into her eyes, "I could feel you watching me when I was eating lunch with my girlfriend. And that freaked me out."
Summer looked up at him, finally realizing exactly what happened between them. Before the summer, it had seemed so intricate, so complicated. "Wow, when you say it that way, it sounds like I stalked you," she mumbled, suddenly ashamed, like she was the one who made the mistake, not Freddy.
Freddy laughed. "It felt that way."
Summer shrugged. "I guess….I guess I just fell in love with our friendship."
Freddy shook his head, not the answer he wanted to hear. "I was so stupid. I should have known that...that I needed you Sum," he said looking at her. "I still need you. More than ever."
Summer's eyes shone with happiness. "I need you too."
Freddy laughed. "Good, but that's not the right answer." Summer opened her mouth to speak, but he didn't let her. "I don't just need you Summer Hathaway," he said, and puller her closed to her, so that his arms were all the way around her waist. "I want you."
Summer looked at Freddy, hard and long. "What?"
Freddy grinned as he pushed the bangs out of her face, "I want you. I don't want you to be in love with our friendship. I want you to be in love with me."
And that's when he kissed her.
And she kissed back.
