Chapter Two

Pride is a Stupid Thing

You know that feeling when you're just so stunned, you have absolutely no idea what's going on around you? That's what I felt as I went through the Typhoon. To this very day, I cannot remember a single thing about the first, and only time I rode the Typhoon—it was shut down a few months later due to a couple of fatal accidents on it—aside from the fact that everyone was screaming and my mind was in whirl. I couldn't even concentrate properly on the fact that Clyde had told me something so…startling. Everything was just blank.

It was only when I realized three things did I snap out of my shock: one, the ride had stopped and was over; two, everybody had stopped screaming; and three, Clyde once again had a death grip on the hand he had never let go of. I looked around. We were once again in the loading dock, and people were getting off as the shoulder restraints lifted; many of them threw dirty looks our way as they left.

Clyde was actually excited, his eyes wide and cheeks flushed. "Oh my God, that was so cool, we should totally do it again!" Like he hadn't been sobbing his heart out two hundred and sixty feet in the air.

"Dude, let go." I had just become aware of a very uncomfortable feeling in my wrist. Not even my hand, that had completely lost circulation and even though my skin tone was dark, I was certain my fingertips were purple. I tried to tug my hand away. "Let go."

"What?"

"Let go!" I yanked my hand away, and winced, hissing as my blood made an entrance, sending painful pins and needles through me. I flexed my hand experimentally, frowning, but a little awed. "Damn, Clyde, I bet you'd kill at an arm wrestling contest or something. Ow."

An employee suddenly leaned in toward our car. "Everything alright? None of you passed out?"

"No, we're fine." I said. I stood, gesturing for Clyde to follow me. Together we made our way out, collected our stuffed prizes, and emerged into a dark park, lit by the multiple lights on tops of poles. We could see streams of people ahead of us, all making their way to the entrance, all set on leaving for the night. I whistled. "Wow. Never stayed in a park so long. Come on, I'll drive you home."

As we finally got into my car and drove off, silence descended upon us with all the force of a speeding semi. Clyde didn't even turn on the radio; instead he just clutched that fat, creepy shark and cast 'surreptitious' looks at me every couple of minutes. I say 'surreptitious' because I could clearly see him do it out of the corner of my eye. Poor guy, I bet he actually thought he was being sneaky.

The silence was heavy, oppressively so, but I myself made no effort to break it. I couldn't, it was something in me that warned me not to speak, because if I did, I'd get into something I wouldn't be able to escape from. I'd be trapped. So I stayed quiet, even though the silence was twisting up my insides.

I didn't know what Clyde was thinking. He looked scared, that's all I knew. I could see his fingers trembling on the shark as he held it, and his eyes flickered down to his feet when he wasn't glancing over at me. I didn't know what he was scared of, but then again, I wasn't the one who'd confessed an attraction to a male best friend.

Finally—and thankfully, I thought—we reached Clyde's house, and the brunet hesitated a bit before undoing the seatbelt and opening the door. His mouth opened once, twice, and he looked back at me, that scared tone in his voice.

"Hey, Token, about what I said, back on th—"

"Here." I tossed him my crab, which had been sitting on the dash, staring at me with big, accusing, googly eyes. "You can keep it." Damn those googly eyes.

Clyde looked at me warily, taking it with a timid hand. "B-but you won it. It's yours."

"I was just trying to see if I could get the shark. Just take it, man; I don't want it."

He hesitated again. "Token, can we talk ab—"

I cut him off once more. "Tomorrow. We can talk tomorrow, alright?"

Clyde nodded, that miserable look on his face again. I was afraid he'd start bawling. "Okay. You're…you're still picking me up tomorrow, right?"

"I've done it every day, haven't I?" I think I sounded brusquer than I meant to because he flinched, and I sighed. I just….I just really wanted to get home. "See you later, man." He nodded again and got out, letting the car door slam shut as he shuffled up to his house, still clutching onto the shark and crab.

I lay in bed twenty minutes later, and it was only then that my mind let me fully understand the situation. Somehow, against all the odds of life, my best friend, a guy, Clyde of all people, had admitted an attraction to me. At least for now it was only an attraction; thank God he hadn't said straight-out 'I love you'. I didn't know how it was any better, but it was.

Should I feel flattered? That not only was I appealing to women, but to men also? I really didn't know what to think. I wondered what I should tell Clyde. In all honesty, I'd never once thought about being with a guy. I mean, no offense, but why switch teams if you're batting a thousand? I was a ladies man, through and through. But that still didn't stop me from worrying about my best friend's feelings. Like I said before, I wasn't a homophobe, and I wasn't particularly trying to be a jackass, either. I knew I was going to refuse Clyde's…advances, if he made any, but I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't hurt him too much, or at least not make him cry again. He cries too much as it is.

As I pondered this, my thoughts turned to Clyde's words. If I really was the guy he'd had his eye on, then this would've had to be pretty recent, right? I mean, with that phrasing and all. Who knows, maybe this was one of those kinds of things where us being so close for so long had confused Clyde into thinking that our bro love was real love. If that was the case, then I could probably make Clyde see the light. I dunno, if it wasn't, all I could hope for was that we would still be friends. Whether or not he liked me, he was my best friend, and I didn't want anything to suddenly tear that apart. We'd been friends for so long, how could I find someone to replace him, to replace everything we'd been through? It'd be impossible! No, there was no way I'd let that happen. Not because of some 'crush'.

I don't know how I could have possibly gotten any sleep with those thoughts running through my head and my mind in a whirl like that, but I woke up to my alarm clock the next morning, without any idea as to how or when I fell asleep. I guess I mus have slept okay, because I couldn't remember any dreams, and I felt as rested as I usually did on a school week.

As I have for almost three years, I got into my car after a shower and breakfast and drove to pick up my friends. Usually I'd just pick up Clyde, as Craig and Tweek kept riding the bus when high school started, but lately they'd joined us in the mornings and afternoons for rides. I don't bother to guess their motives. We're all close friends and we've been tight since elementary, so it wasn't any matter to me. I was the only one entrusted with this driving responsibility, because Craig didn't have a car—even though he could drive—, Tweek would never achieve a license—God no—and the last time I'd let Clyde drive, he'd rear-ended us into a random car. So, I was the designated driver for all of us.

Clyde was always the last one to be picked up—his house ended up neatly at the end of a route I'd worked out to be the fastest—and by the time I pulled up to his house, Tweek and I were in a very 'deep' discussion about how gnomes did exist, and how they were connected to a secret plot to become widely recognized as the newest symbol for evil and Satan. Don't ask. Tweek's been getting better at being normal for some reason this last month, and while these discussions were strange, he was really smart, and they always got me up and alert. I have to say I liked them.

"Augh! But the t-time, Token, the time!" Tweek was screeching as Clyde got in the passenger seat. "Th-three thirty a-a.m.! The night -gah! Has always b-been known as the dw-dwelling -ngh- p-place of evil, and some people even think that th-three thirty -ngh- a-a.m was the t-time Jesus Christ died, when evil won for three days! I-I'm telling you, the gnomes work for Satan! Gah! They want recognition!"

"Tweek, there's been tons of controversy over when Jesus really died. He could have died at eight in the damn night or high noon; if you say the Bible doesn't give us clear specifications, then we'll never know, will we?" I rebutted. "Even your number theory is flawed; some numerologists are saying that the devil's number isn't 333 but 313. Besides, the only real reason the night is feared as evil is because we fear the unknown, and what's more unknown than the dark?"

"Enough." Craig suddenly broke in, slapping a hand over Tweek's mouth. "I'm tired and this is the second day you've been debating this; give a guy a break, will you?"

I looked at him in the rear-view mirror while Tweek struggled against the hand, looking very put out that his argument had been interrupted and sending me looks that clearly said he planned to continue this later in class. I was finding that discussions with Tweek could last weeks if he was really into it, which was more than fine by me. I can't believe I ever forgot the guy was mad-smart. It brought to mind the thought that our little group should hang out together more often. "Craig, you do nothing but sleep. In my car, in class, in lunch if I ever manage to see you with out you disappearing somewhere...how the hell are you even passing?"

Craig only gave me a slight grin—he was doing that more often now, actually. It was both creepy and a good change in him—and let go of Tweek to grab the blond's backpack instead, fully intent on getting and copying his homework, while Tweek barely even waved a hand to protest the invasion of what he usually called his 'God-given right to privacy'.

Now free of any obligation to conversation, I spared a glance from the road to Clyde, wondering why he was being so quiet today. Usually he'd join in any conversation that was going on, whether or not he knew what it was about. It made for some funny moments.

Clyde was leaning his head on the window, eyes closed and lips sightly parted, the epitome of a man asleep. I would have thought he was faking, but I knew from experience that Clyde's a horrible actor, and I could see dark circles under his eye. Obviously he'd had a sleepless night; I decided not to bother him until we got to school. It was better not to rush things, anyway.

Soon I was parking the car next to the school building, and Craig got out, yawning, followed closely by a now agitated Tweek, who was peering into his thermos and asking if they could go to the teacher's lounge first. I found my attention fixed on them. Craig and Tweek: the most mismatched pair ever to exist, closer than two peas in a pod.

I prodded Clyde, who came awake with a jolt and half-hearted yell of "Zombies!", his hands flailing in the small space. He looked around, and seemed almost surprised at where we were. "I thought I was getting attacked by zombies..." he mumbled, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Being used to Clyde's strange belief in an upcoming zombie apocalypse, I ignored it, looking at him carefully. "What's wrong?"

Clyde glanced at me for the merest second before looking down, mumbling something as he rubbed his eyes. He made as if to get out of the car and I let him, getting out as well and grabbing my stuffed binder from the dash. Stepping next to him, I asked, "I didn't hear you. What d'you say?"

The brunet gripped his backpack strap tightly, shrugging. "...couldn't sleep last night."

"Did you get in trouble with your mom?"

He gave a small laugh, a little dry in my opinion, although I didn't know why. "She got pretty pissed at me when she saw me come in...but she calmed down when I told her I'd been hanging out with you. Guess you can't go wrong with the rich, smart guy, right?"

"Hmm." Clyde seemed down, that much I knew for certain, and I knew for a fact it wasn't because of some sleepless night; they'd never affected him like this before. I wondered if he was offended by my curt responses outside of his house last night. Maybe I should have just explained to him that I wasn't interested from the very start, although I don't see how I could have done that, seeing as I was in shock back then and the ride had started almost immediately after he'd confessed to me anyway.

To be honest, I didn't know how to bring it up now, and it was only because of that that I stayed silent on the way to his locker. I myself didn't have one to go to; I carried everything I needed in my binder. You can guess the walk was awkward.

Eventually the first bell rang and we all trooped to our first classes. We didn't all have the same classes like we did when we were younger, but in the classes me and Clyde shared, I saw him more subdues than usual; sitting silently instead of flicking notes to other people, like he normally would have been doing.

Craig and Tweek joined us for lunch and Clyde seemed to regain a little life in him, joking along as usual. But I knew him; he wasn't into it as he should have been. On any other day, Craig would have noticed the difference immediately, seeing as he's one of the most observant people I know—don't let that blank exterior fool you—but Clyde and I were lucky today. Tweek was freaking out because the teacher's lounge had run out of coffee and he'd had to ration out his supply of the liquid addiction.

"Jesus freakin' Christ, w-what if -nghh! M-my body shuts down -erk- an-and I die?" He shook his thermos violently, madly, so you could clearly hear the liquid sloshing around in it. Craig sighed, patting the other's bright blond hair with the air of someone who's day wouldn't be complete without a spaz moment to enjoy.

"You have more chance of your body shutting down because of the caffeine—" "Oh God!" "—and I don't think either will happen." He finished, pulling out a large Styrofoam cup from seemingly nowhere. Tweek gave out some kind of happy squeal-shriek—not that anyone cared by this point—and lunged for it, wrapping eager hands around it and popping the top off, greedily inhaling the rich aroma of the magical substance inside of it.

Of course, this 'magic move' didn't surprise me; I'd seen him sneaking it under his jacket, away from Tweek's eyes as we got in the cafeteria. Besides, I was part of the gift; Craig had texted me during fourth to ask if he could borrow my car, and I gave him my keys as we passed each other in the hall. I imagine he'd skipped fifth to get it...I'd inspect my car for damages later.

My eyes flitted over to Clyde, and I was surprised instead at what I saw. He was staring at Tweek with what I could only call a dark expression, not hate, but something deeper I couldn't identify. It was so unlike him, so different, I wanted to reproach him for even having it. After a moment, Clyde looked away, and saw me looking at him; his eyes found the floor. Standing up, he muttered something about the bathroom; Craig was busy watching Tweek slurp his new-found treat, so I was the only one who nodded at the statement, but he walked away pretty fast, so I don't think he saw.

For the rest of the day Clyde continued with his weird behavior, and continued to mystify me with it. He was silent as I drove all of them home, he was silent as he got out of the car, and he didn't even give me a "see you later"; as I had already dropped off Craig and Tweek, no one was around to comment on the abnormality and again I let it pass in silence.

I expected Clyde to be back to normal the day after; his depressed moods—on the very rare occasion he had them—never lasted long. After being subjected to a day of strange Clyde, and before that a day of awkward confession, I was eager to have my best friend back.

So imagine my confusion when the next day, as Clyde got into the passenger seat, he still wore that blankly miserable look, and possessed that silent demeanor. He still looked tired, and he didn't even look at me as he put on his seatbelt and leaned back, eyes closed. Tweek was distracted by the hat Craig had let him borrow—he loved to wear it and play with the tassels, don't ask me why—but I saw Craig's eyes snap to Clyde for a second, then move over to give me a very pointed glance from the rear-view mirror. I was going to hear about this later; Craig had caught the 'scent', so to speak.

The car was silent for the rest of the ride, and while I did nothing to break it, this time it grated annoyingly on my nerves. I wanted my best friend back and the only way I could see to quickly get everything back to normal was to confront him about whatever the hell was bothering him. However, that would most likely involve a particular subject I was definitely not looking forward to.

Craig tossed me a look as he got out of the car with Tweek, but thankfully said nothing. He wanted to give me a chance to do something before he asked me what was wrong. I thought that to be a very gracious move, and I thanked him silently in my head.

My indecision lasted as far as the first bell, where Clyde—who'd been silent all this time—moved away from me to go to his first period. In reality, it was Craig's 'graciousness' that decided me. If I couldn't tell him I'd actually done something about it, he'd give me one of those wordless, disappointed looks of his. And let me tell you, you don't want to be on the receiving end of those.

I grabbed Clyde by the arm, turning around and dragging him through the crowd of people intent on the opposite direction. Obviously, he struggled.

"Hey! Token, what the hell, I'm gonna be late! Dude, let go, Rhodes'll kill me if I skip! Token!" I walked faster as he protested, trying not to think about what was coming and only concentrating on getting us away from prying eyes, but I had my work cut out for me. Clyde is deceptively strong—no matter how stocky he is, he's not some damsel in distress—but somehow I managed to drag him far enough that he finally gave in, muttering darkly under his breath as I led him outside into the parking lot.

When I finally got us to my car, I gestured to the passenger seat. "Get in."

He looked at me, a clearly reluctant expression on his face. A little bit of normal Clyde pushed through as he whined—yes, whined like some little kid—"Do I have to?"

In spite of the situation, I had to hold back some laughter at his expression. Really, you'd have to see his face to understand, he puts all puppies to shame. It was with great effort that I managed to keep a straight face and nod curtly. He squirmed for a second, then finally sighed and got into the car under my watchful eye, leaving me free to get in myself.

Turning on the ignition, I wondered what I was doing. Was I doing the right thing? I may have been worried about Clyde's sudden 'stepping back' from me, but he hadn't really brought the...'subject' up to me or anything. What if he'd just really didn't want to talk about it? Did I really want to talk about it?

My mind was in a horrible whirl, but surprisingly, on the inside I felt calm and a little bit detached from it all. I don't know why, but I couldn't find it in me to actually worry about our upcoming talk. Maybe I expected it to work out from the very beginning. Maybe it hadn't really hit me yet. Maybe it had been Clyde's familiar whine, that same bit of normality that somehow convinced me that everything would work out fine.

All of this went through my head in the couple of minutes it took me to back out and drive through the gate and out of school property. The guard was asleep at the gate—just like he was every day—so no one noticed us leaving. I could just hear the last echoes of the tardy bell ringing throughout the school as I left and Clyde let out another mutter, "Gonna be super late..."

I didn't know where I was going, only that I wanted someplace away from the public, where we could talk in private without any interruptions and for some reason I knew I wouldn't get that anywhere close by. When I passed our small town's city limits, Clyde started to get worried.

"Uh, Token...where're we going?"

I didn't know how to respond, seeing as I didn't know myself, so I just said, "Somewhere." He fidgeted a little more after that.

After a moment or so, I suddenly caught sight of a small parking lot to my left by the side of the road, right before it came to a bridge; right out of the corner of my eye I saw the tiny sign in front of it, saying only, "Fishing Pier". Funny, I hadn't known we had one of these. But it looked empty and that was all that mattered to me at this point.

Slowing down, I made the turn and parked, turning off the ignition and getting out. Clyde was a couple of seconds behind but he followed me anyway as I walked onto the bridge, unhurried in my movements. This place really was empty, and the road spanned out ahead to what almost seemed the horizon, so I would know if anyone approached. I leaned against the concrete railing, looking down into the cold, slow-moving waters of the river below. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Clyde mimic my position next to me. There were a few tense moments of silence.

"So are we gonna stay silent or actually talk?"

Clyde twitched a bit,whether in consternation or anger I couldn't tell, and took a bit in answering. "Didn't seem like you were in too much of a hurry to break the silence."

I knew he wasn't just talking about our silence now; he referred to our silence of the past days, and I had a hard time in coming up with something to say in response. I wouldn't deny that I had a big hand in all of this. Clyde may never have brought up the subject with me, but neither had I; I had ignored him just as he had ignored me, and I knew I hadn't made the slightest effort to break through the silence, when in all truth I knew that I hadn't wanted to break through it anyway. I was honestly afraid of how badly this would change our relationship. In a perfect world, everything would go on normally, as if nothing had ever happened and we'd put it behind us, but life didn't work out that way, especially in this fucked up backwater town. I knew that. This had to affect us somehow, in some way, and I was afraid by what form it would take.

I didn't disagree with the spoken words, instead only responding with, "I'm talking to you now, aren't I?"

Clyde shrugged moodily, laying his head down on his crossed arms over the railing. I could feel the impending silence, looming over us dangerously and threatening to swallow the rest of our words. I resisted the temptation to give into it, forcing my mouth to open and speak.

"So...why're you so silent now? Avoiding something?"

Clyde remained mute and I was worried he wouldn't rise to my verbal prodding, that he really wasn't going to answer and we'd never get past this subject. Then he laughed—actually laughed, really—and said in a very bitter voice, "No. You're the one who doesn't want to talk to me."

I was taken aback by the tone of his words; wasn't I the one who was leading this conversation while he hid behind the shield of his arms and avoided my eyes? "What're you talking about, of course I do!"

"No you don't!" The rest of his words became muffled as he buried his head deeper into his jacket. "The only thing I want is to talk to you about it, but you've made it very clear that you don't! You don't even care, you hate it!"

The spotlight was back on me now, and it was a very uncomfortable, searing light. I didn't want to admit my insecurities to him—it felt like a blow to my pride—but obviously Clyde was under the very false impression that I hated him for liking me or something. Which, now that I thought about it, was very, very stupid. Me and Clyde had been friends since we were little brats playing pirates, surely he knew that if I really hated him, I wouldn't have agreed to let him in my car the next day, or ever picked him up at all after that confession. Besides, what reason could I possibly have to hate him? I wasn't a gay-basher, he knew that. I wondered for a sad fragment of a second if he really thought I was that shallow.

But I digress in my thoughts. I had to tell him that it wasn't that, it was my own fears, no matter how much my pride stung and whined along the way.

"Well," I began, "I don't hate you and I do want to talk about it, but...I didn't really know how to bring it up." Or how to put it into words now, I thought ruefully. "I was, uh, I was a little scared, actually. You're my best friend, Clyde; I don't want things to change because of a confession, and I thought they would." Ow, my pride.

Clyde peeked up almost anxiously. "Like, me not being your friend anymore? Why would that happen? I don't want to stop being your friend."

I looked down, bracing myself. "I don't know...things always change after stuff like this, you hear it all the time. Man, I don't want stuff to change. You're my best friend. So, y'know, I just kept quiet. I thought if I brought it up, then everything would go to hell. In fact, I kinda figured...we just wouldn't mention it again. For the good of both of us."

Aaaaand, goodbye pride, see you in the afterlife.

There was a pause, and then Clyde glared at me. I mean, seriously glared at me, with an anger I was definitely not used to, coming from him. I wondered what I had done wrong. "Wouldn't mention it? For the good of both of us? What, you just want me to forget that I like you?"

I winced at the last three words, blocking his anger with careless words that I honestly hadn't meant to come out. "Oh come on, man, you don't even really like me." I didn't mean to say it, I swear, but Clyde's eyes widened incredulously at my words.

"What?"

"Yeah, you don't actually like me." I hadn't meant to say it, but now it was out and I figured I might as well tell Clyde the folly of his actions. My tone was confident; looking back on it, that was downright pretty arrogant and conceited of me, but I thought I was perfectly in the right. "Look, we've just been friends for so long, you think you like me, but you really don't. It's bro love, man. Bro love."

Clyde straightened up in one quick, fluid movement, face flushed, and there was a hard light in his eyes, letting me know he was really angry now. "How the hell can you say that?" He took a step toward me. "You don't even know how long I've liked you!" Another angry step. "You big-headed jerk!"

Then he grabbed me by my scarf and dragged a very confused me forward, face determined. We were mere inches apart when his eyes widened, and he froze. Again, I was confused to what was going on, until he blushed brighter than hell, and then I knew.

I laughed. "Were you gonna try to kiss me?"

Clyde flushed deeper, almost throwing me back, stuttering, "N-no!" He ended up with his hands tangled in his hair on the railing again, avoiding my gaze.

I laughed louder, incredulously at the obvious lie. "Oh my God, that was such an epic fail!"

"I wanted to!" He whined, dropping his head into crossed arms now, muffling his words. "But you were so close and you were looking right at me and I couldn't!"

"Obviously I was close, stupid!"

"You suck, Token, you really, really, suck." He muttered.

In any normal circumstance, I would be really freaked out that a guy just tried to kiss me. But this was Clyde, and he was such a wuss, even in a situation when you think he'd grow some balls, that his fail just cut through all the tension between us, and I found that I was able to talk to him normally now. It was really too funny.

I chuckled again, shaking my head at the sheer insanity of Clyde's lack of a backbone, and leaned next to him on the railing, grinning. "So you said I didn't know how long you'd liked me. Then tell me. How long?"

I didn't think it's be too long a time. After all, he'd said he'd 'had his eye on' me, so that couldn't be too long, right? A week at least, maybe a month at the very most, I thought.

Clyde was silent, and then he grumbled unintelligibly, sighed once, and then muttered louder, "...nearly two years..."

I nodded at the confession. "I see..."

Then,

"What?"

I could almost see Clyde roll his eyes. "Took you a bit, didn't it?"

I was in genuine shock.. "Two years? You;'d said you'd had your eye on me, not that you've liked me for a crapload of time! That's a totally misusage of language!"

"Well, ex-cuse me, mister English professor..."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I pressed on.

Clyde looked up at me from the circle of his arms, voice biting again. "What was I supposed to tell you? 'Hey, Token, I know you're straight, but I've developed these totally gay feelings for you! You wanna go out?'" He looked agonized. "You were dating and screwing half the cheerleaders in your freshman year! I couldn't tell you anything!"

I fumbled for words, unexpectedly finding myself on the defense. "Well, maybe I was, and you didn't have to tell me like that, but you couldn't at least said something!" I crossed my arms, scowling.

"And look what happened when I did!" Clyde straightened up but somehow seemed even smaller than before, as if he were lost, or afraid. "I told you and you couldn't wait to stop touching me, to get away! You pulled your hand away like I had some sort of fucking disease!"

I threw up my hands in the air in exasperation. "Because you were cutting off my circulation, you retard! I couldn't feel my hand at all because you were squeezing it so hard!"

The brunet stared at me. "...oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'." I scoffed, glaring. "Man, how do you even know you really like me? We're going through all this crap; how do I know you do?"

"Because I do!" Clyde exploded, standing ramrod straight as he stared at me, pleadingly, begging almost and somehow defiant as he gripped the railing, and I was shocked to see his eyes turn watery. Oh damn, he was going to cry, something I'd really not wanted to happen. It sucks when you know you're the reason your best friend's crying. His voice trembled. "I really like you, I'm telling you now, but none of it really matters because you're still not gonna say yes!" He ended with a dry sob, looking off to the side, at the waters below. "You don't like me that way, and I knew this wouldn't work out, because you don't even believe me."

I saw his wet eyelashes tremble under the weight of unshed tears.

"Let's test it then." The words were out of my mouth before I could really think about them, but I was too far gone in my desire to prove him wrong, and thus end Clyde's tears. His affection was mistaken, I knew it. Clyde was way too emotional, his tears right now proved it, so he had to be mistaken about liking me.

I was going to prove it.

My words were strong, absolute, prideful, and completely insane. "I'll go out with you. For a month. And then we'll see if you really like me or not."

A/N: Yeah, finally anther chapter! Woot!

...nobody likes this pairing *sobs* This thing has less than ten reviews! *uber sobs*

Okay, I'm good. Reviews are love and cupcakes!