Disclaimer: Christine is totally owned by Stephen king!

Summary: What if Dennis can save Arnie from Christine? Slash (Not a good summary but I don't know what to say)

Severing Ties

Chapter Two: Arnie I

It's been a week since my fight with Dennis, and even though I've kept myself busy with Christine, I still miss him. Nothing much has changed since then because I was always so busy I hardly saw him to begin with, but knowing he's gone just fucks with my mind.

In the mean time, when I am home I've been hanging out in our backyard casually relaxing my back. Across the fence, I can see our neighbors setting up their back yard for a bar-BQ party. The Johnsons are the only people in our neighborhood who own a pool so they always throw a party of sorts in the last week of August, not that there is much to celebrate. School starts tomorrow and that means I'm not going to have much time to work on Christine.

I see it this way, If I can get up early, I can work on her before school and definitely after, so that means I'll have to do homework on the bus. That only leaves a few hours to sleep at least until Christine is done.

I sunk my body into a patio chair and heaved my shoulders. 'Until Christine is done.' Would that ever come? It certainly seems surreal to see her finished, and to think what everyone will say when they see her; that they were wrong.

And I was right.

I want to laugh at all the shitters, which made me tense up in my chair. I used to love these people and I thought they loved me, but now my rose-colored glasses have been thrown aside and I see them for what they are, a bunch of shitters. And the biggest shitter of all is Dennis. He helped pay the down payment on Christine and stood up to my parents for me but all the same he was double crossing me. His betrayal hurt deeper than anything but how exactly did he betray me? I don't remember, kind of like how I don't remember how I hurt my back.

For showing up at the garage? He denied spying on me and what reason do I have not to trust him?

"Oh God," I moaned into my hands. Our neighbors were making such a racket as they set up pool chairs, and the august sun was beating down on my neck, and in the mist of it all my back started to ache dully.

I felt despairingly empty without Dennis or Christine by my side. God knows I should have stayed at the garage when will Darnell tossed Dennis out onto the streets. But when I saw my friend give me that pleading look and say his final words ("Arnie, if I go, I'll pretty much never see you again.") I felt empty and that feeling hasn't left yet.

I was just standing in the shadows of garage 20, and Darnell had grabbed Dennis and began to drag him out. When he spoke those words to me, I wanted to run after him and jump in his ear and let him drive us away anywhere but I felt that dull pain like I did just now only it wasn't dull then but berry acute and it sent jolts through my spine.

I rubbed my back and tried to tread out of deep water. I thought of Christine and her new white walled tires and the places she would take me. Maybe we'll go out to California, I always wanted to go there and Pennsylvania is too cold and dirty maybe the sun will help my skin more. Its pretty weird to look at me now. In a good way though. My face has smoothed out; I still have scars but they're not that bad. I fought the urge to rub my cheek to feel the smooth skin but I don't want to cause a breakout with my sweaty hands.

From inside the house, I could hear my mom, Regina shuffling around the kitchen. She's probably making sure that the store-bought fruitcake looks homemade. She brings that stupid dish to the bar-BQ every year, and no one ever eats it. I heard the patio door slide open and the click of her heals.

"Arnie," Regina's voice was clipped. She's still made at me for buying Christine. I don't think she likes not being in control and when I turned to face her, I saw that her skin was patchy and she was biting her cheek. Nope, she doesn't like it one bit. "Arnie, go get changed. We're leaving when you're ready."

I shrugged and her cheek muscle gave a spasm. She shook her head and turned away from me. I rubbed my back and felt the pain sharpen before quickly melting away into nothing. I waited a minute to make sure the pain had truly gone and because I was to comfortable where I was but I knew eventually I would have to get up.

Truth be told, I am excited to go. I've been locked up at the garage for weeks, month's maybe and though I don't mind, I do kind of want a break. I wonder if I'll see Dennis there. Usually he comes with me but he is friends with everyone there (everyone who would beat up on me if he didn't stop them). Maybe I'll see him there.

I made it to my room with ease and change into cleaner clothes. My previous shirt and jeans were covered in Christine's oil and smelling of something most likely found in the sewers.

I popped the collar (something I've never done to do before) and ruffled my hair a bit. I still look like the plain-old dorky Arnie Cunningham, but I feel different, more empowered. I guess that comes with owning a car.

We took dad's car, even though we just had to around the block, and parked on the curb. There were people standing on the porch drinking soda and making jokes and I recognized Charlie Johnson (it is his house after all) and Sandy Galton. Both were boys at my school and friends with an asshole down at Darnell's by the name of Buddy Repperton.

Buddy Repperton was a grade above me until he failed the 10th grade and now, not only do I see him at Darnell's, I see him in physics. Let me tell you, he's a real asshole and somewhat of an idiot. He's sneaky and very cunning, but he's not book-smart at all, of course, that's considering if he opens the book at all.

He's the kind of guy who would bring a gun to school and maybe shoot it off (not at you but at a pigeon or robin) just to score everyone. He wouldn't think of the consequences at all. He's also the type of guy who would push drugs and since he's working for Darnell, he probably is.

But enough of that asshole. He's not here, he's too cool to show up, but none-the-less, I shamefully walked closer to Regina who always tended to ward of young people (except for Dennis) like garlic does a vampire. Charlie and Sandy sneered at me before taking a sip of their cokes, but I slipped inside the door before I could give them opening or even follow me. If they followed me, God knows I wouldn't survive their harassment.

My parents were walking towards Charlie Johnson's parents, our current hosts, and Regina gave Mrs. Johnson the fruit cake and the other women received it graciously. I changed directions and made for the upstairs steps. No one came up here, except for a few stragglers like me and together we would watch a movie in the upstairs den. Dennis, even though he was popular and well-liked by the general public (and could certainly hold his own at any type of get-together) would follow mw where ever I would feel most comfortable but I guess such actions are over now. I doubt he'll ever want to talk to me again with the way I treated him and why should he? I'm not anyone special.

My wonderings were ended briskly by an object crashing into me. At first I thought I had walked into a wall but said wall had fallen on top of me and when I opened my eyes, I saw a tiny thin and beautiful blonde girl had fallen on top of me so that we were chest to chest. I felt my chest constrict when I recognized her. Leigh Cabot.

Everyone was in love with her, hell, even Dennis and I shared our fantasies about her. That's how stunning she is. And I' the ugly asshole she had to go and fall on. What a loser I am. What kind of impression did I just make? A horrible one? I guess I should explain that I am not smooth at all with the ladies. To put it too scale, I've never even had a girlfriend, let alone a friend who was a girl. I've only had Dennis and I've always been too ashamed to listen to how he handled the ladies. He's a pro. In fact, if he tried, I bet Leigh Cabot could be his girlfriend in 10 seconds flat and here's the challenge, she's turned down everyone!

"Oh, I'm sorry," I heard her soft voice above me. Despite better judgment I glanced in her direction and saw her pretty blue eyes stare at me in shock before she blushed and scrambled off of me as if I was a disease.

That is no new reaction. Girls tend to believe I am diseased but instead of running away, she just shuffled away so that she was sitting beside me. She tucked a strand of hair away from her face but it fell out again.

"Are you alright? You took a hard fall," She said.

I probably looked stupid because I was just gapping at her. She was still talking to me?

"I—yeah," I breathed, "It wasn't hard, you're pretty soft, I mean pretty light!"

She blushed, "Thank you, I guess."

I nodded pitifully. I'm such an idiot. I wish Dennis was here. I bet he could help me not make an ass of myself. I climbed to my feet and she did the same and together we stood awkwardly.

"Sorry," I said at the same time she said "I'm Leigh."

"Sorry," This time we spoke at the same time. She giggled and touched my elbow briefly. "I'm Leigh and you're Archie, right?"

I shook my head, "Arnie," I corrected softly. Her eyes went wide and she blushed madly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, it's just our lit teacher called you Archie, so I just thought…" She trailed off.

I nodded my head understandingly. Our literature teacher last year called me Archie because he's an asshole and I've never had the guts to correct him. In fact, I usually have to keep Dennis from shouting out my correct name and humiliating me by making a scene.

"Yeah, you're not the only one," I said.

"Well," She said and pushed the piece of hair out of her face again. "Now that I know your name and you know mine…do you," She paused as if to rethink her words before sending me a confident smile, "Do you want to hang out?"

My eyes widened. To think if I had come with Dennis, I would've been hidden in his shadow.

"Sure," I probably screamed that at her with pent up excitement (at least that's how I felt) but she just smiled all the more confident.

But then something strange happened.

Leigh had taken my hand (something I was not expecting) and began to tug me towards the den. I guess she wanted to watch a movie but the moment she touched me I felt my back ache up again. My instantly went to the pain.

"Are you alright?" Leigh asked. She hadn't dropped my hand.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just my back, but I'm fine," I said successfully hiding my wince.

"What? Your back?" She gasped. Her free hand went to her mouth as she gasped. "Was that from our crash?"

"No, don't worry about it," I tried to sooth her but her worry over me actually filled me with excitement. Leigh Cabot was worried about me. "My back just needs rest, but…" I paused. I wanted to change the subject from my back (as much as I like the attention, I prefer it wasn't on my physical pain) but I don't even know where to begin.

She and I know diddily squat about each other and I don't even know what she meant by hang out.

Leigh seemed to sense my hesitation because she (still holding my hand) led me to the den.

"How about a movie?" She offered. "I love cinematic adventures."

Perfect. I nodded and she pulled me onto the couch beside her but I practically fell on top of her. Good think I'm light because she didn't even seem to care. I just shuffled away from her and awkwardly sat on the end of the couch.

Leigh picked out the movie and sat back on the couch next to me. I could feel the warmth of our arms next to each other and for a moment I thought I was in heaven.