~PERPETUAL DISASTER~

SIX

I ran home the second school let out. I hadn't met my friends for lunch because I was afraid that if I got too close to the everyone I would see Danny. That was why I ate lunch by myself in a deserted hallway and just went over the morning over and over again in my head. Honestly, I could not believe it had actually happened. I almost doubted if anyone would believe it if I told them.

Before I started running like the devil was chasing me, I had seen Marissa talking and laughing with Peter, the guy she had been rambling about for weeks now. They looked so happy and so normal that it killed me. If I had to pick something I missed most about being with Casey, that was it: I missed having something normal.

I didn't talk much with Grams when I got home. I think she knew something was wrong with me from my dismal state, but she didn't say anything. She just went to her room, saying she was going to read a book. She was worried though. I knew she was.

I was a little worried too. I felt like all of my emotions were crashing down on me, and all I could do was sit there and let it happen. I tried to watch TV and ignore it but that was completely hopeless, so I put on some music. The music made everything a lot worse because the first song that came on was "Waiting for Rain to Fall". The funny thing about that was that I did not really think much about Casey when it played. I mean, yeah, I thought a little bit about our stupid middle school dance and how he sang to me, and how much I liked his eyes. I thought about how he called it "our song" and the way he used to look at me. But I thought about those things a lot because they were not easy to forget.

What surprised me was that I was also thinking a lot about Danny. I don't know why I was so shocked at myself. I mean, I had just made out with the guy that very day so it would only be rational of me to be thinking of him.

It was not rational, however, to start crying halfway through the next song. I just felt so confused and I was so scared and worried about everything that I couldn't stop the tears from forming and spilling over.

This is gonna hurt, if it ever starts, so promise you'll be careful with my heart.

I smashed my face into a pillow on the couch so that Grams wouldn't hear me sobbing like an idiot. After all, I did not want to explain anything to her.

I'm not sure what I did want, though.

I didn't want Casey back. I didn't want to talk to Marissa. I definitely didn't want to continue crying over stupid song lyrics that only vaguely related to my life.

I bet Danny would listen if I talked to him. Although that was not exactly an option seeing as how he was the thing I was obsessing over. I guess I just wanted to talk to him because at the time, that was the thing keeping me sane.

And I cared about him. I really hated to admit it, but it was true.

~xx~

"Where were you yesterday?" Marissa asked the second she spotted me the next morning.

I forced a smile and shrugged. "Home sick. Sorry."

She looked at me quizically. "Really? You look fine now."

I shrugged again. "It was just a cold. No big deal, I just needed a break from this shit," I said, gesturing around us.

Marissa looked stunned for a second, and it took me a while to figure out it was because she didn't think I ever really cursed. I seriously needed to stop hanging around Danny, which was not looking like it would be that difficult.

"Oh," she said, "Well. . .I'm glad you're better. I missed you yesterday."

"Yeah." I muttered, and started following behind her into school. Honestly, I was terrified. I did not want to go to biology. Danny probably thought I was a total coward, and he had every right. He had done what both of us had kind of wanted for weeks and I ran away. I wondered what he was going to say when he saw me. I wondered if he was even going to be in class.

I broke off from Marissa as quickly as I could get away with. I knew she thought it was weird, but I did not know what else to do. I couldn't be around her without feeling horrible about myself. I mean, Marissa was in love with Danny for a while there. I had completely betrayed her, and I knew it.

I stood outside the classroom for what felt like a million years, debating whether to even go inside. I mean, it would totally kill me, and I knew it. I would first have to face Mr. Brown yelling at me for ditching his stupid class, and after that was over I would have to endure sitting next to Danny for the entire hour. And on that note, I was just about to walk away and deal with the consequences of ditching again, but right when I turned around, I found myself staring at the front of Danny Urbanski's t-shirt.

He looked totally giddy with himself when I looked up at him. "Well, well, well" he said, but it was more like a 'tsk', "You weren't thinking about ditching, were you?"

I did not know what to say at all, so I just muttered, "Shut up, okay?" which caused his whole nonchalant demeanor to change instantly. He got all serious and looked into my eyes with so much intensity it would have been impossible to look away.

"Look, Sam," he said, and then corrected himself when I shot him a look, "Sammy. Look, I-I don't know what you're thinking, I just-"

"Shhh," I murmured, "It's fine. We'll talk later."

I tried to push past him into the classroom, but he stopped me, placing his hands on either side of me and pressing my back up against the wall. "No. I want to talk to you now. Don't move."

I exhaled sharply and nodded. "Fine. Okay. Talk." I said.

"Are you mad about yesterday? Because I'm sorry, okay? It was stupid of me to kiss you like that, especially when we hate each other and everything-"

"You hate me?" I asked, and I have no idea why I did. I mean, he was just trying to keep things normal, and I was screwing it up. It just stung a little when he mentioned the idea of hatred, which is dumb because two months ago I legitimately would not have given a damn.

"Don't you hate me?" he retorted, "You always acted like you fucking did."

He was so close to me, and I could feel his breath in my face, just barely repositioning my hair. I wanted to kiss him again so badly, but I knew that I couldn't, and that brought on a miserable sort of relief.

"Well I fucking don't" I told him, but it came out so breathy that I was surprised he could even tell what I was saying.

He smiled a little bit at that. . .or maybe he was smiling because of how breathless I was. . .and said, "Well it'd be pretty hard for me to hate you after yesterday. Let's face it, Sammy, we're stuck with each other now."

"I think maybe I can live with that."

He smiled at me, and it was a really beautiful smile. I was starting to understand Marissa's constant fascination with Danny's mouth, like that time she called his teeth "little glaciers floating in the sea of minty-freshness.". She had no idea how right she was.

"Are you up for a walk today after school?" Danny asked me, "It'd give us a chance to figure things out."

"I can't today," I said, "I have to meet Marissa. Maybe tomorrow." I was hopeful because he was right, we definitely needed some time to sort things out between us, but Marissa thought I was ignoring her and I needed to fix that.

"Wow, playing hard to get, are you?" he teased, "Yeah, I can do tomorrow. But I won't wait up, so you'd better be there."

"I will be."

He grinned before leaning in really close. . .and kissing me on the cheek. I would have smacked him for it, except there was no one else in the hallway (as we were now very late to class), and he knew that I had wanted him to do it. Actually, what I would have liked better was him grabbing my face and kissing me as passionately as he could against this wall like he just didn't give a shit. . .but even I knew that would be inappropriate for right now. Hell, it was inappropriate for me to even be thinking about it.

He smirked at my blushing face and stupid smile before walking into the classroom. And you know, that smirk really pissed me off because after seeing so much of smiley-Danny, I had forgotten that jackass part of him existed.

The bigger issue was that I also thought that smirk was completely adorable because I knew it was fake and he was just trying too hard. That's what Danny has always done: he tries too hard to be something stupid so that he can get approval from a bunch of morons.

And at the moment, I actually thought that was cute. Sue me.

~xx~

"You're alive!" Marissa said when I met her out front after school, throwing her arms around me, "it feels like years since I've talked to you! I have so much to tell you, it's crazy. Come on, let's go, my parents will be mad if I'm late again."

"Again?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah," she said, looking away, "I've been hanging out with Peter a lot," she admitted.

"That's great!" I told her, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, "I mean, I'm glad he makes you happy."

She laughed. "Thanks. He actually asked me to homecoming. Maybe he could find a friend for you and we could go together? Maybe we could find someone for Dot too. Holly will probably end up going with Billy though, if he ever gets the balls to ask her."

"Yeah, maybe," I said, but I was nervous. I mean, I had this sort-of thing with Danny now, and I didn't know where it was going to go. I didn't want her booking a date for me with someone else. "When is that thing anyway? I totally forgot about it."

Marissa looked utterly shocked at me. "Um, it's next week, Sammy! I can't believe you haven't thought about it yet, everyone has been asking each other left and right, where have you been!?"

Making out with Danny behind school, I thought. "I don't know," I said, "Guess I just haven't been paying any attention to that kind of thing."

"Clearly," she muttered, still sounding all shocked. I had no idea a stupid dance was so important, but whatever. I guess I was already doing my high school experience wrong.

We spent the rest of the walk talking about Peter mostly. He hadn't kissed Marissa yet, which she was okay with because she was trying to save her first real kiss for a better time. He was also a sophmore, which I did not know, and he really liked reggae music, which was not at all appealing to me.

I got home feeling a lot better about everything. I was on good terms with Marissa again, and I had convinced her to hang out with Peter after school the next day so that I could go on my walk with Danny.

Before I went to bed that night, I stood in the bathroom for a while, just staring at myself and thinking of ways to improve my appearance for the next day. I have no idea why I cared, since Danny already knew what I looked like, but I still felt the need to look a little nicer than usual. I started looking through cabinets and found a bunch of makeup that my Grams had bought, but never opened. She tended to stick to her old reliables, and the new stuff generally just sat around.

I found that if I put a thin line of black eyeliner on just the top of my eye, and not the waterline like Heather sometimes did, topped with a light brow eyeshadow and a little mascara, I looked really good. I mean, it's not like I was really ugly or anything before, I just looked better with a little facepaint. Plus, it looked natural, which I liked. I didn't want to make it too obvious that I cared.

I really did care though, and I had butterflies in my stomach just thinking about Danny and me alone together again.

~xx~

"Are you wearing makeup!?" Grams demanded when I emerged from the bathroom the following morning.

"Only a little," I said, "it's not a big deal."

"You never wear makeup. You hate makeup!"

"Only when it's too much," I argued, "Do I look bad or something? What's the problem here?"

"No!" Grams said very quickly, "You definitely don't look bad, Samantha, I'm just. . .surprised."

"Well you'll soon learn that I am full of surprises."

"Just don't get a tattoo or something crazy, okay?"

"Grams!"

~xx~

I met Danny in the back of school that afternoon. We figured the front was too risky since all the people who knew us would be there and the whole point of this was privacy. I walked up to him very awkwardly when I saw him there, but he just smiled and stood.

I had no clue if I should have greeted him with a hug or a kiss or a handshake or whatever so I just kind of stood there like an idiot.

"You wanna go out to the bleachers?" he asked, "No sports today, so no one will be there to bother us."

I nodded. I wasn't sure what he was implying, but I hoped he didn't want too much from me. I just sort of wanted to talk things out, and I hoped we'd be able to make that happen before anything else.

Within about a minute, Danny was holding my hand while we walked. For some reason, the gesture actually made me more comfortable, and I started to relax and start talking.

"Casey would be so mad if he found out about any of this." I said. It was a bad opener, but it certainly was an issue that needed to be discussed.

"To hell with Casey. If he has a fucking problem, he can talk to me," said Danny.

"You realize that's a possibility, right? I mean, he might want to say something to you. . .or to me. He's not just going to leave us alone."

"Please don't let him dictate your decisions, Sam—Sammy. If you are happy with this, then don't let him fuck it up."

"I won't," I assured him, "I'm just letting you know that there are a lot of people who will be able to fuck this up."

"Like Heather." he offered.

"And Marissa."

"And Casey."

"And basically anyone else you can think of."

We started walking up the bleachers.

"Do you think that it's worth it?" he asked me.

"I think it could be."

He smiled at me and let me toward the middle of the bleachers. I had never even been on them before now. I mean, I could not be bothered to go to sporting events. I had way too much other shit going on right now.

We sat down and he started talking about school and classes and stupid stuff like that, and I listened because I wasn't sure exactly what I should say.

"And you know, I don't even know why everyone makes such a big fucking deal about those dances. I didn't even go last year because I knew Heather would kill me if I took someone that wasn't her. It's a good thing I don't care what she thinks anymore. Speaking of which, what are your plans for the stupid dance?" he said.

I laughed, "Nothing. I mean, who would I be going with?"

"There are a lot of guys who would want to go with you," he assured me, "myself included."

I laughed again because I had no idea what to say to that. Never in a million years would I have thought Danny would want to go anywhere with me. It had barely been a month and already our entire perspective on each other had changed. There was something to be said about that, I think.

"Would you really want me to go with you, even with all the drama that will come with it?" I asked.

He didn't say anything, he just looked into my eyes and stopped toying with the hand he's been holding. I held my breath because I knew exactly what he was going to do.

And he did it: he leaned in and kissed me very softly, probably because he was afraid of my reaction, and I kissed him back with a lot of enthusiasm. It wasn't overly-passionate, though. Our lips were moving in this perfect, balanced way and I couldn't help but enjoy it.

It was not like before, when our hands were moving all over each other: desperate and curious. It was a calm sort of kissing, where we were just enjoying the connection of our lips against each other.

I pulled away from him after a moment, but not very much. Our foreheads were still touching and I said very softly, "Is that a yes?"

He grinned and laughed softly before he lifted his face and kissed my forehead. "Yes."

And I just sat there smiling like an idiot, but that was okay because he was smiling like an idiot too.

That was when we both heard it: footsteps. They were really close, too. It was like. . .like someone had been there the entire time.

We both turned around, and there was an agreed horror that settled over both of us because let me tell you, the person standing a mere few feet away from us was not someone either of us wanted to see.

Danny summarized the entire thing pretty well:

"Shit."

A/N: Welcome back to the story that is never updated!

I am so sorry. This took so long and you all have such a right to be disappointed.

I'm also really sorry if this chapter sucks. I was writing kind of fast, my apologies.

There is DRAMA coming up though! This was the nice, happy chapter.

I will try super hard to get the next chapter up faster! It's summer now, so I will have time :)

thanks so much for reading, if you'd like to chat or whatever, my tumblr is robinsparkles14 (I hate the PM system on here)

please review :)

xoxo

~Robin