Chapter 2 – The Secret Life of Bonnie Rockwaller
-
"Why am I still embarrassed!" groused Bonnie Rockwaller as she slumped into the overly cushioned armchair.
Tara's disastrous birthday party had hours since passed away and Bonnie was still trying to deal with the fallout. To say that thing had gone sour would have been putting it mildly.
When the door to the closet had finally been opened, Bonnie had stood there paralyzed with fear and indecision. What if someone had heard Ron's confession? How would she ever live it down? What if… What if…
What if they thought she had made out with him?
It was a possibility almost too gorchy to contemplate.
At first there was a light tittering of laughter from the assembled cheer squad girls, but then a loud voice broke over it.
"Ron! Are you ok?"
To Bonnie's surprise the concern for Ron wasn't coming from Kim, it came from Tara.
That's when she took a moment to look down at the pathetic sight beside her. Ron Stoppable was there, on the closet floor, huddled over in the fetal position and doing his best to keep half a Bueno Nacho party platter from making a sudden reappearance. Bonnie's hyper-social mind instantly calculated the damage her proximity to Ron was currently doing to her popularity and she did the only appropriate thing in the situation – she practically leapt away.
"That'll teach you to get fresh with me!" she screamed in Ron's direction as she set about doing a visible inspection of her clothing, acting as if she was looking for lice, tears, or Stoppable-borne cooties.
"Bonnie! What did you do to him?" This time the voice was Kim's. It seemed that she had finally gotten her mind around the fact that her best friend was laying on the ground in agony and the one who had likely done it was Bonnie Rockwaller. Kim wouldn't likely cop to it, but she was a pretty repressed young lady, so she took nearly every opportunity she could to get into it verbally with Bonnie – it was one of the few cathartic releases she had.
Bonnie just sneered at Kim, "Nothing that the little pervert didn't deserve K! Why don't you keep him on a shorter leash?"
"What ever Bonnie!" interjected Kim, "Do you expect us to believe that Ron of all people tried something on you!"
Bonnie looked around at the assembled faces of the cheer squad. Kim obviously didn't believe her, but that was a given – Kim wouldn't believe her if she said the sky was blue and Josh Mankey was gay (and Bonnie was pretty certain on both counts). The other girls on the squad seemed to be indifferent, if not a little incredulous – this didn't bode well for Bonnie. It wasn't until she saw the look on Tara's face that she really started to worry. Her tiny blonde best friend looked like she was about to cry.
Bonnie Rockwaller was a girl in crisis, torn between doing what she felt was right by her best friend and doing what she knew she had to in order to maintain her social standing. She hated being in situations like this, and while they didn't happen very often she knew automatically what the outcome was going to be.
"That loser," she began, the venom practically dripping from her voice, "tried to kiss me! I don't care what you think K, I am out of here!"
It was a lie of course - He hadn't tried to kiss her at all, he had actually succeeded. However Bonnie didn't feel particularly compelled to share that bit of information with the rest of the school. She looked around, studiously avoiding the shocked and hurt look on Tara's face, and then pompously left the house, slamming the front door behind her.
She was in full "Queen Bonnie" mode when she pulled out of the driveway, the tires from the convertible her father had bought her squealing into the night. The anger in her system was practically at the boiling point and before she knew it she found herself idling at a stop sign three blocks down the road, slamming her fist into the rim of her steering wheel and cursing loudly.
"That idiot! That jerk! That asshole!" she muttered in between clenched teeth.
"How could he do that? He ruined Tara's birthday!" she accused while looking at herself in her rear view mirror.
Of course Bonnie knew that it wasn't Ron that had ruined the birthday celebration, but her and her own self-serving antics. She rationalized it away however by claiming that she had an image to maintain and that if Ron hadn't kissed her, then none of this would have happened.
"Why did that loser kiss me?" she thought to herself as she put her car back into gear and continued through the subdivision.
"I've never been anything but a bitch to him."
It was true, for the most part. There had been a couple of times where Bonnie had been on more… civil terms with Ron Stoppable, but for the most part they had been few and far between. It wasn't really that she had anything against him, it was just that she was at the top of the food chain and he was at the bottom and that was the way things worked. It was the way things had to work. It's one of the lessons her father had taught her about the real world; for every person at the top there had to be a hundred at the bottom. Maybe it wasn't nice, but it was neat and orderly and as her father insisted, the way the world worked.
"People at the bottom are losers Bonnie," her father had explained.
"They'll never really amount to anything and the reason why is because they don't want to amount to anything. They're lazy, they don't work hard, they don't protect their status or their positions and because of all that they deserve to lose." Richard Rockwaller had stated.
Bonnie remembered at the time desperately not wanting to be a loser. She had asked her father what she needed to do.
"It's easy dear, you're a Rockwaller – just act like one!"
Bonnie had spent the next 10 years of her life acting out her father's advice and she was determined to keep it up for at least the next 50. After all, it had worked so far – She was the queen of the school, she held court every day amongst her subjects and everyone who was anyone knew that Bonnie Rockwaller was destined for great things.
Thinking back on her father's advice she started to come to terms with what had just happened. It was unfortunate, sad really, that she had to cast such a pall over Tara's birthday party – but she'd make her petite friend understand that she had to do it. In fact, it was really the only thing she could do under the circumstances. It was obvious wasn't it? By the time Bonnie had gotten home, parked her car and wandered into her bedroom she had nearly put the entire evening behind her.
Nearly.
"Arrrrrrrgghhh!!! STOPPABLE!" she growled at her ceiling.
Bonnie didn't know why, but there was something about what Ron had done to her tonight that completely infuriated her. At first she had wondered if perhaps the entire thing had been a set up designed to embarrass her. She quickly discounted that idea; she had arrived late and in fact there was no guarantee that she would have arrived at all – it would have been too much left to luck just to make her look like a fool.
"Maybe Stoppable was just trying to mess with me – to get me back for all the times I've called him a loser" she thought to herself, but that didn't ring true either.
There was something about the way that Ron had spoken to her that made it seem unlikely that he had just been playing her. No, there was something else…
And then that's when Bonnie realized it.
"Oh my God! That dork was telling the truth!"
Bonnie had been so shocked at the time that she hadn't really been paying attention to a lot of the little things that Ron had done when he had been confessing his feelings to her. Like the way his voice had cracked at the beginning, the nervous tone filled with apprehension while he spoke, the way you could feel that he was searching deep down inside himself for the right words to say. The way he had kissed her…
"Head in the game Rockwaller!"
Bonnie got up from her chair, walked across her room and flopped onto her bed. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that she was right. It was sort of strange at first, to realize that something had taken place right in front of her that she was only able to see after the fact – it was almost like watching your own life on instant replay in your own brain and then finally catching on to all the little nuances that you missed during the excitement.
"Excitement?"
No, she concluded, it wasn't excitement that she had felt, but nerves. Bonnie Rockwaller was never nervous, in fact she was only barely aware of what the word meant. Nerves and indecision and confusion were for people who were losers. Winners, like herself, always knew what to do and when to do it. That's why they were winners after all.
Still, when he had spoken to her she had felt something in the pit of her stomach give away. He had claimed to know her – she laughed at the idea. "HA HA!" she said out loud as she flopped over on her side.
How could anyone know her? Her best friend didn't even know her. Her own mother was just barely an acquaintance. Her sisters were only in her life long enough to torment and belittle her with the reminders of how she'd never live up to their examples. Her father, the one man that she respected most in the entire world… well he had sent her two cards this year, a birthday one and a credit one.
No one knew her and that was the way she liked it. When people knew you they had power over you and when they had power over you, then they could just push you around as they pleased and damn it, Bonnie Rockwaller wasn't about to be pushed around by anyone. That just wasn't the Rockwaller way.
After all her mother had tried to push her father around and look how that ended up? She had pestered him constantly, begging him to stop working so much, to stay home on the weekends, to not stay at the office so late, to spend more time with the family…
It couldn't be allowed. Her father had explained the entire situation – her mother was holding him back and Daddy had a business to run and a family name to uphold. He had patted Bonnie on the head and told her that she'd understand when she was older.
Of course, Bonnie did understand – and that was one of the reasons she hated her mom. She was a weak and simpering woman who had been lucky enough to be a Rockwaller once, even if by name only, and had thrown it all away because she wanted to follow the claptrap advice of day-time talk show hosts and over priced marriage counselors.
She was such a stupid woman and Bonnie didn't want to be anything like her.
"Who cares if he said he loves me! WHO CARES?", Bonnie screamed in her mind.
"Stupid loser – what gives him the right to say all that to me? What does he know about how hard I work? What does he know about me? He's wrong, totally wrong!"
Bonnie reached over and turned off the light on her end table and then climbed under the covers. She looked out the window at the night sky and said to no one in particular…
"I am so not a sweet girl!"
She turned over on her side away from the window and fidgeted for a few minutes, unable to fall asleep properly – the words of Ron Stoppable replaying in her mind.
"… I'm always looking at you, always watching you and… I know how hard you work to always do your best … I know the truth. I know that … deep down inside you're a sweet, kind hearted girl."
Bonnie snorted loudly into the air.
"I love you."
Bonnie sighed. This wasn't working – she was too wound up to get to sleep. She needed to relax, needed some sort of release. Reluctantly she made up her mind and reached under her covers…
Nestled deep in between the folds of her bed sheets was a secret that Bonnie had kept from everyone. She groped for it and finally felt her fingers make contact with its well-worn surface. She always felt a little embarrassed whenever she went to retrieve it, but she knew that sometimes when she was feeling very… well, non-Bonnie-like, it was the best way to calm her nerves. With expert dexterity she navigated the confines of her bed and with a slight thrill of excitement that she rarely allowed herself, she produced her most special and favorite toy that she had affectionately named "Mr. Happy".
Now dear reader let me be the first to say to you – Get your mind out of the gutter!
"Mr. Happy", it turns out, was an ancient and dilapidated stuffed brown bear that her father had given her on her fifth birthday who had been given his appellation by the young girl both because of the subtle smile on his face as well as because her parents were getting a divorce and Bonnie had desperately needed someone around her who was happy. His fur, once luxurious and soft, had been mostly rubbed away by over a decade of cuddling. His button nose had fallen off long ago when Bonnie was 12, only to be replaced haphazardly by a dot crafted by permanent magic-marker. His eyes still stubbornly clung to his skull, but Bonnie always took extra care to avoid disturbing them too much so that she wouldn't have to go through the embarrassment of having to perform emergency repairs on an old friend she should have thrown away years ago.
Bonnie sighed again, this time however it was one of contentment. With Mr. Happy firmly snuggled in her arms she laid back down on her pillow and drifted off to sleep, her ursine familiar helping her ward off the uncomfortable questions that plagued her in the night.
Yes, Bonnie Rockwaller was most definitely not a sweet and kindhearted girl.
-
"Oh my God Ron! Are you ok?" asked Kim Possible.
Ron, to his credit, was dimly aware that he shouldn't be holding his genitals in front of a dozen teenage girls – at least not without a good lawyer, so he made a valiant attempt to prop himself up against the wall in a sitting position.
"Uh… I think I'm ok KP," Ron said weakly.
Kim looked at Ron dubiously and spoke, "Are you sure Ron? I mean it looks like Bonnie really whacked your…"
"Pride!" interjected Tara, shooting a dirty look at Kim.
"I'm fine KP, I just fell down!" Ron protested – secretly grateful for Tara's intervention.
"Ron," Kim began, "There's no way you could possibly fall down on your…"
"Self!" exclaimed Tara, then realizing it didn't make much sense she added, "In the closet. It's so… small."
Ron looked slightly offended.
"Hey, it's not that small!" he exclaimed.
Tara cringed away from Ron, looking extremely apologetic.
"What are you talking about Ron?" asked Kim, really confused about where the conversation had gone off too.
"Uh… the size of the closet?" Ron offered.
Kim just shrugged. "I've seen bigger."
At this pronouncement Ron's eyes got as big as saucers.
"Oh really? Whose closet KP? Maybe… ERICS?" spat Ron.
At this both Kim and Tara gave Ron the look. The one a teenage girl reserved for things like their parents singing along to soft rock radio and old men wearing Speedos at the beach. The one that basically said, "Have you lost your mind?"
"Well, now that you mention it Ron," said Kim, "Eric does have a rather large closet. What's that got to do with anything?"
"Kimberly Ann Possible!" barked Ron, "What would your mother think!"
"Wow Kim, I had no idea you and Eric were that close…" ventured Tara, slightly bewildered.
"Huh? Look, I don't have time for this Ron – I'm supposed to meet Eric for the late movie tonight. He got pre-screening passes for Bricks of Fury XIV: The Brickening" responded Kim, quietly ignoring Tara.
"Kim!" shouted Ron, "You promised you'd go see that with me!"
Kim looked a little sheepish, but held her ground. "We can still see it together Ron… I'm sure I'll like it enough to see it twice."
"Oh, I see how it is" said Ron, "I get your sloppy brick seconds!" He was obviously getting upset now.
"I like bricks…" Tara ventured lamely, but was ignored by both Kim and Ron.
"I'm sorry Ron, but you're just going to have to deal," said Kim, "I'm leaving."
"Fine!" said Ron, "I'm leaving too!"
Kim just rolled her eyes.
"And one other thing!" said Ron.
"Yes?" replied Kim.
"Can you give me a ride home? I walked here."
Kim's eyes narrowed and for a split second she looked like she was going to shoot laser-hot beams of destruction right through the center of Ron's forehead.
"Oh… Whatever! C'mon Ron!" she said as she turned around on her heel to make for the door.
Ron slowly got up with some assistance from Tara.
"Um Ron," she started, "I'm really sorry about the closet, are you sure you want to go?"
Ron looked at her bravely, holding her hand in both of his.
"Tara – I need to do this. Thanks for your support, I appreciate it," he responded and then scurried after Kim.
There was utter silence in the living room after Tara heard the front door slam, announcing the departure of Ron and Kim. She looked nervously around the room at the few remaining partygoers and then shrugged her shoulders.
"Heh… I guess that was weird huh?" she said softly to the assembled group.
It probably wasn't the most brilliant thing to say, but it seemed to do the trick because a light conversation was started up again and someone had turned on the radio. Tara was a little disappointed at the way the night had turned out, especially when she had started it with such high hopes, but she wasn't the type of person to get too down after a minor setback or two. Still, she wondered….
Then all of a sudden it hit her.
"Wait, where they talking about – "
-
"Bonnie, we need to talk."
Bonnie slightly flinched away from the telephone receiver when Tara had uttered these words to her.
"Look T, about last night… I'm really sorry about – " Bonnie found herself cut off by a nearly hysteric Tara.
"Did Ron try to kiss you? Did he really?" she asked with obvious alarm.
Bonnie stared at the phone for a second in apprehension.
"Wait a minute, don't tell me Tara's crushing on him… again!"
Bonnie wanted to slam her head against the wall in frustration. She had spent a long time, literally months, convincing Tara not to go out with Ron Stoppable. He was just… well a loser, bottom of the food chain type material, and while Tara wasn't quite at the top she was comfortable near the upper middle. Dating Ron Stoppable would completely change that – he would be the huge white elephant around her neck that would drive her into the basement of popularity. And of course if Tara went that far down the food chain…
Well, then, Bonnie wouldn't be able to be her friend any more. It was a prospect that Bonnie didn't want to think about. After all, Tara was pretty much all she had…
Still, what good would come of it if Bonnie told her the truth? It was an agonizing decision.
"Well, I don't know… I think so," Bonnie lied.
"So… maybe he didn't?" asked Tara, a slight bit of hopefulness creeping into her voice.
"What's this all about T? I thought you were going to go out with Josh." Bonnie prodded.
There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone line.
"Bonnie…" Tara whispered in a hushed voice.
"I don't think… well, I don't think Josh really likes me." Tara said.
Bonnie wrinkled her nose.
"Didn't he ask you to the prom?" Bonnie offered.
"Well, yes. But… I don' t know why he did that." Tara responded.
"What do you mean T?" asked Bonnie, hoping against hope that she wasn't about to hear what she thought she would.
"Bonnie…" Tara's voice sunk down to a low conspiratorial tone, "I don't think Josh likes girls."
"Shit!" thought Bonnie. She loved Tara, but the girl just wasn't supposed to be that smart! Bonnie had spent a lot of time leaning on that fruit Mankey just so that Tara would have someone sufficiently popular and safe to go out with. It wasn't that Bonnie was trying to be mean to her best friend, it was just that Tara was… well, Tara. She was sweet, innocent, and extremely gullible. Setting her up with a gay guy was pretty much the only way Bonnie could guarantee that her best friend wouldn't end up in the back seat of some meatheads car with her ankles above her head. It might have been arrogant of Bonnie to be making decisions like that for Tara, but she knew deep down inside that if someone didn't watch out for her, men were just going to use her and throw her away.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought, "Just like Daddy did Mother."
This entire aside, or possibly because of it, Bonnie was reluctant to let the issue go.
"Tara… are you saying that Josh is gay?" Bonnie asked with mock surprise.
Tara being Tara, didn't really want to come out and say something like that – especially since she didn't have any real, concrete proof, so she made a half hearted attempt at justifying her feelings.
"I… I don't know I guess. I just… well, there is this other guy I kind of like and…"
Tara sighed. She already knew what Bonnie was going to say, but there was just no way around it. Bonnie was her best friend and she had to tell someone.
"Don't say it T." Bonnie warned.
"But Bonnie…" Tara whined.
Bonnie audibly sighed through the phone for Tara's benefit and then began her diatribe.
"I thought we talked about this already T. He's a loser. He's at the bottom of the food chain. He's not good enough to even hang out with you let alone date. Everyone is going to make fun of you guys and it probably wont even work out and then what are you going to be left with?"
The phone was silent for a few seconds, then softly Tara's voice came over the line.
"Bonnie… you're my friend right?" asked Tara.
Bonnie didn't like where this was going.
"Yeah, of course T! Best friends" responded Bonnie.
"That's right, Best friends…" Tara paused for a second and then continued, "I love you Bonnie. You love me right? We're closer than sisters, right?"
Bonnie could feel her guts wrenching up inside her like an iron knot being twisted around her spine.
"Don't do this Tara, please don't do this…" she pleaded in her thoughts.
"Yes Tara…" Bonnie said in a weak voice.
"Bonnie… I need your help," Tara stated.
"No, no, no, no, no…"
"I think… I think I'm in love with Ron Stoppable."
"Shit!" said Bonnie out loud.
"Huh? What? Bonnie?" asked Tara, obviously disturbed.
"I uh… spilled some coffee on my lap. Oh shit that hurts. Ow." Bonnie quickly tried to smooth over her slip of the tongue.
This was no good, no good at all. Ron was at the absolute bottom of the food chain – if Tara went out with him then it would mean that there would be almost no way that they could be seen in public together any more. What the hell was she thinking?
"T… are you serious? Do you really… you know…" Bonnie didn't want to say it.
"I think so Bonnie. I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about him…" Tara had that dreamy quality in her voice that Bonnie had learned to dread.
"I can't believe she's doing this… we've been best friends for years and now she's going to pick Stoppable over me?"
Bonnie was, for lack of a better term, freaking out. She wasn't about to lose the only person in her life that she could confide in just because of that loser. She had to do something, and fast!
"Well, ok then Tara – I'll support you." Bonnie said.
"Really?" squealed Tara with barely contained glee.
"You're my best friend Tara and I love you and… I'll support you in this. I'll do whatever I can…"
"To keep you with me and away from that loser…"
"Thanks Bonnie!" Tara exclaimed, "You're the best!"
Tara then launched into an overly enthusiastic tirade about how she was going to go about trying to see if Ron was interested in going out with her. Bonnie for her part made a lot of "Mmm Hmm's" and various other non-committal sounds while Tara was talking just so the other girl wouldn't catch on. Tara was amazingly good at reading people sometimes, and Bonnie didn't want her to recognize that the cunning and diabolical machinery in her mind had started to churn.
Ron Stoppable had confessed to her, hadn't he?
Tara thought she was in love with Ron.
Bonnie didn't want them to go out.
The solution was obvious – a way for Bonnie to get back at Ron for the embarrassment and keep her best friend as well and maybe, just maybe, even take a sideways swipe at Kim. It seemed almost too good to be true.
All she had to do was give Stoppable a little encouragement, make him think that she was willing to return his affections - and then wait for Tara to confess to him. Once she did, and once he turned her down, Bonnie could go back to giving him the cold shoulder and not have to worry about her best friend tumbling off the food chain and out of her life.
It was a diabolical plan, yet elegantly simple as well – in essence, completely worthy of the Rockwaller name. And to top it all off, Bonnie would finally be able to prove a point –
She wasn't a sweet girl after all.
-
Three thousand miles away an anxious young woman was just about to complete the final leg of a trans-continental flight from Japan to the United States. She was weary from lack of sleep, yet energized from what was about to happen. For what must have the one-hundredth time, she reached into her small purse and removed a carefully folded official document. With great reverence she opened it and placed it in her lap, her graceful fingers barely brushing the surface of the paper as she read it.
It had taken nearly all her resources as well as a great deal of time and even some rather unofficial "favors" to procure this document, but she was quite happy with the results. It was, after all, completely legal and registered with all the proper authorities. Great care had been taken to make sure that this was the case.
She was sure there would be some initial resistance, in fact she expected down right disbelief, but she was prepared for this. She was confident, not only in the righteousness of her mission, but also in her ability to see it through. She would do whatever it took to make sure that the Yamanouchi School continued; even if it meant doing some otherwise deceitful things to someone she secretly loved.
And yes, she was definitely in love. She had been from almost the moment she had first laid eyes upon him. It was almost as if fate had grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and forced her to notice this man. There was no other rational way to explain it.
She smiled a soft, gentle smile to herself and then oh so carefully folded her document back up into a proper square, placing it gently within the inner pocket of her purse. In just a few more hours she would be in his home town, a place that she had always wanted to visit ever since he had first regaled her with his funny American stories and after that, hopefully, they'd be spending their first night together under the same roof.
Her body got all warm and flushed just thinking about it!
Fate, it seemed, had been kind to her. She had often been worried in the past that when it came time to train a new successor for the school, she would be forced to marry a man that she did not know and could not love. Her grandfather had often told her not to worry about these things – to let Kami-sama take care of her destiny, yet still she had concerns.
However, it seemed that her grandfather had been right all along. She looked at her watch and then gently uttered out a schoolgirls' giggle. It was all going to happen so soon.
Somewhere in Middleton Colorado, Yori Matsumaru was going to meet her destiny.
"Danna-sama, your lovely young wife is coming for you!"
-
A/N:
Wow, I can't believe I got out another chapter so quickly on the heels of the last one. I'm making a conscious effort to keep this story and it's chapters a little smaller than my last effort, but only because I want to finish this one sometime before next year!
Does anyone else think that Ron's life is about to get more complicated than he could ever imagine?
And what do people think of Bonnie? She's obviously… well, still Bonnie-like, but are people starting to fall in love with her yet? Don't worry, I'll keep working at it until you do! (Or I'm not accomplishing my goal!)
Amazingly enough I actually have the final paragraph of this story already written down. Now I just have to go and find the missing 85 percent and type it up. Please bear with me until I do!
Thanks,
QC