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[4]

How many months had it been since Sandy and Tooth's wedding? Three? Yeah, definitely three.

Jack hadn't seen Rapunzel since then. It didn't really matter much to him. Nothing mattered to him anymore. All his friends were distanced from him, going on epic vacations, exploring great places, while he was stuck in a small apartment in New York. Alone. It was a huge, enormous, mega-cliché.

He was getting real tired of those. The outcast of the friend group, falling madly in love with best friend's girlfriend and getting rejected. Lonely guy meeting beautiful girl at party and never seeing her again.

He was just waiting for something super magical to happen now. Like, crashing into the most sexy woman alive, and have three or four kids with her.

"Yeah, I'm fine, North. Stop worrying, man. I've gotten a job as a teacher and everything," Jack mumbled into the crappy phone he'd gotten from Aster a few years ago as a cheap Christmas present.

"Are you seeing any girls?" Jack could hear that North was grinning. He chuckled, shaking his head. "No. And I've got things to do, so I'll see you at the Thanksgiving dinner next weekend, alright? Tell Aster I said hi."

He wasn't planning on going.

He hung up and peeked out the musty, old window. The leaves on the trees were turning red, raining down from the skinny branches and landing gracefully on the wet ground, sticking to the asphalt. Autumn had arrived at last.

Time went too quickly. It probably wouldn't be that long before Jack was unhappily sitting alone in his leather leanchair, eighty years old, fat and even more lonely than he was already. After a while of moody sulking, he eventually decided to cut out the depressive thoughts and bring his notebook outside. Get some inspiration.

He hadn't trashed the book. Yet. But he still hadn't found out how to end it.

Jack slipped into his cloak and shoes, and strolled, heading towards the park. It was clouded today, and very few people were out walking their dogs. Jack gritted his teeth in annoyance when he saw several couples, smooching and cuddling by the benches.

He sat down at another bench, far away from the couples, and pulled out his notebook. "Okay," he sighed. The guy in his story could not marry anyone. That was way too much of a cliché. Maybe he could get a nice job. In Bahamas.

Jack groaned, pressing his pen against the thin paper, trying to force himself into writing something. "Come on," he mumbled. "Ain't that hard."

"Still not done?"

Jack looked up from his book, an irritated expression on his face. In front of him, wearing a baby blue bubble jacket and jeans, stood Rapunzel. "Hi, there, grumpyface."

Jack didn't get the time to react before a small, flimsy dog with a demon glare jumped up in his lap, barking like crazy.

"Knock it off, Pascal!" Rapunzel grabbed the dog, keeping it under her arm. "Sorry. He's harmless, really. He just doesn't like strangers."

"Yeah," Jack replied, rising from the bench and dropping the small notebook into his pocket. "It's - uh, it's fine. I didn't know you live around here."

"Eugene lives a couple of blocks away. I was going to pick up some of my things I forgot at his place today, but we got into an argument, so I decided to walk Pascal instead. And you?" she asked. "I'm guessing you haven't newly broken things off with someone, so you must live here."

"You're right. I was - well, trying to finish this." Jack patted his pocket with the notebook inside it. "Not going too well."

"Look, about the... wedding party-thing - I know it's half a year ago or something - "

"Three months," Jack corrected.

"I said some pretty crazy things, didn't I?"

Jack let out a laugh. "That has got to be the understatement of the year."

Rapunzel giggled. She bit her bottom lip.

"Yeah. Anyway - I was dating Eugene back then. And he got pissed because I called him a big, fat jerk and everything... But now, we're not together anymore," she said, putting Pascal down. "I couldn't take him."

"Sorry to hear that," Jack said.

"Yep." Rapunzel puckered her lips. "He was way too complex."

"He seemed fine to me," Jack said.

"He is. He's a good guy! But..." she stopped herself, changing the subject abruptly. "You're still not done with the book?"

"I'm workin' on it," Jack replied with a smile. "Still haven't figured out the end yet."

Rapunzel tilted her head slightly to the side, so her long hair was lifted up by the whispering breeze. She smiled, too. She had a delightful smile. "This guy hasn't been the luckiest with women, has he?"

"Nope."

"So... you could perhaps maybe, just maybe write that he meets someone new," she suggested.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Like who?"

Rapunzel shrugged. "Someone simple. Someone who's just as fed up by complications as he is. They meet, have coffee, maybe, and they just see what happens. No rushing into anything."

"That could be a good ending. Definitely. Or..." Jack chuckled, giving her the same look he'd given at the wedding party. "A good beginning."

Rapunzel put a hand on her hip, and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Her green eyes reflected the warm sun that was shyly peeking out from behind the trees. She laughed, an endearing laughter that made Jack laugh, too. They stood there for a small while, laughing.

And when Rapunzel finally spoke, Jack was certain that she was anything but wrong.

"Yes, it could," she said.

The End (The Beginning)


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miss infinite