All righty. This is dedicated to a certain Green Gallant who persuaded me to post this. Now I was always gonna, but he asked if I could sooner, rather than later. Now, I promised it for his Christmas present...heheh...settle for a New Year's Eve present?...
Main Character(s): Garfeild Logan and Tara Markov
Couple(s): Garfield Logan/Tara Markov, Tara Markov/OC's, Dick Grayson/Kori Anders
Genre: Romance/Drama
Storyline: Gar and Tara had been best friends for as long as they could remember. Tara was always the thrill-seeking, flirty, yet smart girl, and Gar was always the funny, sweet, and at times a little slow on the uptake-guy. The idea of them being a couple never crossed Tara's mind. But Gar thought about it constantly.Ever since they kissed when they were eleven, he thought about it. See, he was such a good friend to her, he told her to kiss him in sixth grade so that she wouldn't be the only girl in class who was never kissed. Gar would always be there for Tara through all of the bad relationships she went through as a teenager, too. It seemed like every guy she dated was a jerk to Gar. But Tara always stuck up for her guys, no matter how many bruises she had to hide because of them.When will she realized that the guy she needed to love her was her best friend?
Chapter One: The Same
"This is horrible! My life is over."
"What a shame. You had a good run. A whole eleven years, that's like, more than a decade."
"I'm serious! This is a tragedy!"
A blonde eleven-year-old girl had just sat down across from her also blonde eleven-year-old best friend in a large cafeteria. This girl happened to be one Tara Markov.
"Look, T, I really don't think it's that big a deal." said her best friend, Garfield Logan.
"But Gar, you just don't understand cause you're a guy."
"Fine. Explain to the stupid guy what the big deal is."
"I'm not saying guys are stupid, it's just that things are different for them."
"Okay, just tell me about it."
"All right. I was sitting on the toilet this morning in the girls' bathroom, trying desperately to finish yesterday's math homework when I heard Karen Beecher and Kelly Finch walk in. They know exactly what shoes I always wear--"
"--The dark brown clogs with the light blue stud-y things on the sides?"
"Yeah, because they are always making fun of how I wear them every single day. So I sat on my legs so that maybe I can hear them say things they wouldn't want to say around me. And do you know what they were talking about?"
"Yes, you told me in line while you were cramming your plate with like ten different things."
"Well I'll tell you anyway: they were talking about every girl that they know who have kissed boys. They were even making a list! It was like Santa's naughty and nice list only you'd actually want to be on the naughty list. And you know what? I was on the nice side, meaning un-kissed!"
"Well, um, T, I didn't want to tell you this but, ah, you are un-kissed."
"And that is exactly why my life is over."
"But why? Why do you need to kiss a boy? That's the part I don't understand."
"Well, once you've kissed a boy, you're cool! It means your mature, your experienced, it, it practically makes you a god!"
"Really?"
"Yes."
"So if you kissed a boy, people would like you more and you'd be happier?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"...Okay. I have an idea...Follow me!" Garfield said, taking his best friend's hand.
A few minutes later, he and Tara were standing on the crowded front steps of their school.
"Are you sure about this, Gar?" She asked nervously.
"Would this make you feel better?"
"Maybe...I just--"
"Good. Now trust me; just play along, this'll work, I promise."
"...Okay. Karen and Kelly are coming..."
Gar cleared his throat. "Wow, Tara. I'd always hoped you'd be the first girl I'd get to kiss. I never thought I'd be the first boy you got to kiss." Tara was worried: was this the plan? He's just the first? No, Gar had a plan.
"Um...yeah, the first boy I get to kiss." Slowly he leaned in and gave Tara Markov her very first kiss.
"Oh my gawd!" Kelly shouted, flipping back her dark brown hair.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?!" Karen screamed. Gar pulled away and smiled.
"I hope so!" He cried. "I can't believe we were both our first kiss!"
Tara's smile faltered. "Yeah...I, uh, can't believe it either."
"I...was your first kiss...wasn't I?"
"Well...Actually..."
"...Oh." He said, acting a little hurt. "I...wasn't, was I?"
"Actually..."
"I should have known..."
"Like, what do you mean?" Kelly asked.
"Well, a girl with such beautiful blue eyes and long golden hair obviously would have kissed at least four guys by now."
"...Um..."
"What?!" Karen said.
"It was more like...eight." She shrugged. "Sorry."
"Oh...It's all right."
"Look, Gar...This relationship started out with a lie...I'm not sure I'm exactly comfortable continuing like this."
"I understand...I just hope we can still be friends."
"Sure, sure!"
"That's great." He smiled sadly.
"Again...I'm sorry you had to find out like this." She said sincerely.
"Hey, for a second I was kissing the prettiest girl in school."
Gar smiled sweetly again and trudged to the side of the school. As he did, he heard the continued conversation, hoping Tara could keep it together once he was gone.
"I can't believe it!" Kelly exclaimed. "I never would have figured you kissed eight guys!"
"Well...You see, I was trying to go easy on him...It was really more like ten."
"TEN?!" Karen screamed for everyone to hear.
"After him...yeah. Ten. He's just really sweet and I didn't want to hurt him."
"Oh, of course! That would be the right thing to do!" Jesse Gordan, another one of the popular girls who had been watching, said.
"Yeah. I never noticed, but that kid is right, you have really pretty eyes. I guess I just haven't paid attention."
"I like your shoes, Tara!" Tina Saunders--not exactly a popular, but definitely up there--chimed in. "They're like, your signature look, aren't they?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Of course they are, she wears them every day!" Kelly reminded them. It was just a matter of time before they were whisking Tara away to their lunch table.
As they were walking away, Gar heard Karen say, "We got you all wrong, Tara, we couldn't be more sorry!"
And they were gone.
Gar just stood there. Through the whole process, he didn't once realize what he was doing, just that it would make Tara happy. But soon, it hit home. And it hit hard.
"Woah..."
He may have just been a small boy of eleven years, but he knew something had just happened to him. There was a strange sensation going on in the pit of his stomach. Was it the cheese fries he ate? Was it the hot dogs? (They tasted funny to him.) No. It wasn't a side effect of the food.
It must be love.
"You're a very good actor," came a voice to his left, "You should join the drama club."
He looked to see who it was, and discovered it was none other than Rachel Roth, the school weirdo.
"What? I don't know what your talking about!" He said nervously.
"That little performance up there," She explained, "you must be a very good friend to do that for her."
"I still have no idea what your saying."
"Of course..." She continued, ignoring his protests, "Many actors draw the knowledge of their role from personal experience..."
"...What are you getting at?" Gar asked suspiciously.
"Okay, I understand that you aren't exactly the smartest guy in school, so I'll just explain this to you: You walked away from her with a dazed look on your face, you sighed and leaned up against the wall, and most of all, you traced the spot on your lips where she kissed you. All signs point to you falling like mad for Tara Markov."
He wasn't quite sure what to say to that.
"Well...we kissed. Of course I'd be dazed."
"No. No, just kissing someone doesn't daze you. Watch," she said. He didn't realize what she was going to do until about a second before she did it: she kissed him!
"Mmm! Mm--GAH! What was that?!" He asked once he was released.
"See. Nothing going on there."
"You kissed me! I hardly even know you!"
"Now, are you dazed?"
"Dazed and confused!"
"But you aren't dazed in the same way. When I kissed you, you were dazed in the way that you'd think, 'Why the heck is this girl kissing me?' When you kissed Tara Markov, you were dazed in the way that you'd think, 'Did that really just happen? Wow...'"
He hated it. She had...a point.
"But...She's my friend. I'd be more comfortable kissing a friend! You, I hardly know! Like, at all!"
"All right. Hi. My name is Rachel Roth. I enjoy writing, watching the drama club practice, and my favorite color is dark blue. A lot of people think it's black, but it isn't. A lot of people think I'm goth, but I'm not."
"But--"
"You. You're Garfield Logan. You enjoy playing the fool, making people laugh--and only doing so by telling them bad jokes, they laugh at how bad they are--and apparently, Tara Markov. There's speculation that you're a prep, but you deny it. Many people would put you in the skater category even though you don't skate very much."
"Uhh--"
"I don't see how we can't be friends."
He flared his nostrils so much that steam practically protruded from them.
"What is the point of all of this?"
"You're very slow."
He stuck his tongue out at her.
"Exactly. So again, I must explain this to you: You are in love with Tara Markov. I don't think you realized this until after you kissed her, so at first you thought you were doing something nice for a friend. You kissed her in the first place because she was feeling down about not having been kissed before, and you helped her out. More than she expected, I think. Now tell me, truthfully and honestly: how much of this is true?"
He bit his lip. He hated it when other people were right.
"...All of it."
Rachel smirked. "Ah-ha. I thought so."
"This just...messes so much stuff up. What am I supposed to do? She's my best friend and she'll only see me that way."
"In time, my friend. As for me, I need to eat something. Care to join me?"
"Nah...I'm not very hungry..."
She departed. Gar replayed the past ten minutes in his head. It was making his head hurt, that's for sure.
Not in too long a time, Gar was in History with his best friend, Victor Stone. He, of course, could not concentrate on what Ms. Netts was saying, and decided he needed to tell Vic of his new revelation. He quietly ripped a small piece of paper out of his notebook and scrawled his message to his friend. He quickly passed it to Vic, who sat behind him. While he couldn't see his face, he could tell by the sounds he was making that he was in shock.
"Woah...No way..."
Unfortunately for them, a certain teacher just happened to be standing behind Victor's chair at the time. She cleared her throat, causing the two boys to slowly look behind themselves to se Ms. Netts holding her hand out in front of Vic.
"I'll be having that note, please, Mr. Stone." He reluctantly handed it to her.
"Now, let's just see what we have here..." she said, walking to the front of the class. Vic and Gar simultaneously grinned. That won't do you any good...Gar thought.
For, you see, they were too clever to be caught by a teacher. They had foreseen getting caught passing a note. Which is why they developed their own secret code. Code names for people, for certain words, for themselves.
"Metal, the beast has juggled the banana--" Which would, of course, translate into, 'Vic, I kissed Tara', "--and the beast bubble he trip in chocolate for banana--" which would translate into, 'and I think I fell in love with her.' "This doesn't make any sense..." Poor Ms. Netts had fallen victim to the code. She shook her head and threw the note away. Meanwhile, Tara was in Vocabulary with Karen, Kelly, Jesse, and Katie--the final member of the four populars, more commonly referred to as Kitten. The group was discussing their first kisses.
"I don't think we should be talking in class..." Tara whispered to the others. They were in the very last row, Tara being at the end, followed by Jesse, Kelly--In the middle, as she was the most popular--Karen, and Kitten. They all looked down the row at her. They laughed.
"Really, Tara," said Kelly, "If I hadn't seen you kissing that Logan boy with my own two eyes I would hardly believe it actually happened. You're such a good girl!"
"Oh...Well..." She thought, trying to come up with a good reason, "That's because, I'm...Trying this new...thing. Its...an experiment. I'm seeing what different behaviors guys respond to more. This week I'm trying the whole 'good girl' behavior. I figure that I should act my behavior even when guys aren't around just so I don't lose my...attitude on the subject."
"Oh, that's a good idea. You have to tell us later what you found out!" Karen said from down the row.
"Now, anyway," Kelly said, growing impatient, "Spill Kitten, who was your first?" Kitten grinned in stupidity, loving having the attention on her.
"Well, you know that all-boys school down the street from here? Well, my first kiss's name is Richard..." She said his name so dreamily. "You know, Richard Grayson?"
"The rich one?" Karen asked.
"The handsome one?" Kelly asked.
"The dark-haired one?" Jesse asked.
"Who?" Tara asked. They all looked at her again. She was beginning to hate that.
"Tara, you really need to learn a few things. Richard Grayson is only one of the hottest guys in town. We should be making you write these things down!" Karen laughed.
"But for now, it's Karen's turn!"
"Well...Okay. It's just, sort of embarrassing because he isn't exactly popular...he's a jock, definitely, but a jock-nerd."
"Well a jock-nerd is better than a nerd, no offense, Tara," Kelly said, turning to her quickly. Sting.
"Okay...It was...In fifth grade...I'm sure you've heard of...Victor Stone?..."
Tara knew that already. Victor had come to her one day in fifth grade asking her what it meant if a girl kissed you. They were friends, if not best friends, but in a different way than Garfield was; Vic was definitely the big brother type best friend. He even called her his little sister.
"He's definitely not the worst...However, not exactly the best either, like mine..." Kelly added. All the girls leaped at her asking, 'Who was it?'
"Tell us!"
"Well...I don't know..."
"Please!" They begged.
"All right...Now, it was...Richard Grayson."
"Hey! He was my first kiss!" Kitten screamed from the other end of the table.
"Yes, but...Not only was he my first kiss, but I was also his first kiss."
"But...he told me I was his first kiss."
"Silly Kitten, of course he would tell you that. He tells that to every girl, after me of course."
"How do you know that he wasn't just telling you the same?" Karen asked in suspicion.
"Because...Well, I have my sources inside that school, I know just about everything about everything!"
"Wow..." They all gasped in amazement.
"Oh, Jesse! I do believe it's your turn!" Kitten said in a singsong voice. Jesse, however, suddenly became very interested in her hair.
"I'm thinking of going pink...what do you guys think?" Jesse asked evasively.
"I think pink would go great with your eyes," Tara put in.
"Oh, Tara, don't try and help her," Kelly laughed, "Just tell us."
"Oh, all right, but I'm not proud of it. It was the first day of school. You know that new kid, um, Wally West? Well, it was him."
"Ooh, he's a cutie."
"And a jerk. I didn't even want to kiss him, he kissed me."
"Well at least you've been kissed. People who haven't been kissed..." Kitten began.
"...Are losers. No question," finished Kelly. "So! How about our newbie? Who was your first kiss?"
This presented a problem. For, her first kiss was just today with Gar, and they couldn't know that. She had to come up with a story, quick.
"Well, my first kiss...was...His name was--"
BRRRING!
Thank the lord for the bell.
"Uh! I have to go, it is good girl week, after all, and being late for class would mess everything up, gotta go!" Tara grinned, running as fast as she could away without seeming suspicious. The girls parted around her, going to different classes. Kelly followed her.
"I have the same class as you next, and I thought maybe I could talk to you?" She asked, nervously.
"Umm...Okay?"
"Listen...Seeing as for the past six years of your life you've been upholding a nerd status, you're probably very trustworthy...right?"
"...Sure."
"And if someone told you a secret, you'd tell no one? No one at all?"
"Sure, no one."
"You promise me?"
"Yes! Yes, what's going on?"
"Okay...Here's the deal...I've never, actually...kissed...anyone."
"What?!" I gasped.
"Hey! Guys, we just had an awesome idea!" came Kitten's voice behind us.
"It was my idea, Kitten."
"Whatever, the point is," Jesse interrupted, "We think that since, I've only kissed one guy--"
"I've only kissed two," Karen added.
"Three!" Kitten interjected.
"Um, five." Kelly said.
"And you, Tara, have kissed ten, we think that you should teach us all of the secrets to kissing boys!"
"Umm..." Tara hesitated.
"Oh yeah Tara, you should do that! Of course...I'll probably know all of it already..." Kelly smiled.
"Well...Oh...Kay?"
"Yes! We have to go now! Talk to you about it later!" Karen waved goodbye.
"Tara, you have to tell me everything before them so I know."
"Okay...But...Um...Not today. I'll let you in on it...Tomorrow."
She spent all of Science thinking of ways to fix this. She came up with a good idea quickly, but wondered if it would work. Gar had helped her more than he had to already, so would he be willing to go even farther? She wasn't sure. She thought it might be rude to ask him of this...But she realized, she had to. He was her best friend...Maybe she'd get him a really good present his next birthday?...She hoped he'd help her.
She decided, after school, she'd ask him. Science usually last forever, but unfortunately for her, not today. It went in a snap, and soon, she and Gar were walking home, as they lived right next door. He was quiet today--she had no idea why. They hadn't talked all the way. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore, and blurted out:
"Could you kiss me again?!" He looked at her oddly.
"What?"
"Okay, here's the deal...I need to practice kissing...They think I'm an expert on kissing. I have to become an expert by tomorrow, so..."
"...Okay." He said, trying to sound hesitant so she wouldn't suspect that he'd like nothing more than to kiss her again.
"What?"
"Okay. I'll help you out."
"You...sure?"
"Of course!" He smiled. "What are friends for?"
"Thanks, Gar." She smiled back.
"My parents won't be home until five, we can practice there for a few hours." He led her into his house.
This was seven years ago today. Today, the same Garfield would wake up, with the same Tara living across campus from him, with the same feelings for her hidden in the same way.
To Be Continued...
Now telleth me: what dos thou think?
teehee old english. Yeah, how is it for the first chap?