cl;

"Okay, so I have theme for my party: purple," Massie tells me excitedly on Sunday. She leans forwards, her hands on her knees. "Yeah?"

"Isn't your birthday in like, May?" I ask her, frowning. I look around her room. Gold ribbon, white envelopes, and purple pens are scattered everywhere. Her dog, Bean, is sleeping on top of a pile of cards.

"Yeah, but I have to start planning now, otherwise it'll be really lame, like every other party in this town," Massie yawns, examining her nails. "Now I just need the list of invites. I have you, Cam, and Dylan from school. And then from the city, there's Dempsey, Landon, Skye..." she continues listing out people.

"You should invite Derrick," I blurt out.

She stops and stares at me. "Derrick Harrington?" She asks. I give her a small nod. Her mouth starts to form a smile. "Why? Do you like him?"

I scoff. "No. I'm just... you know. You're inviting Cam, and you don't want him to be the only soccer player there, he'll feel left out," I tell her. "Really, you should invite the whole soccer team. But Derrick just popped up in my head-"

"Because you like him!"

"-because he's the captain."

Massie gasps. "I told you they were the Pirates. They have a captain and everything." She looks at me like she's serious.

"Yeah, sure Mass," I mutter.

"Fine, we'll invite Derrick," Massie says, scrawling his name under all of her city buddies. "And, I guess, the rest of soccer team."

I smile.

–

I get home at half-past eleven, and I'm exhausted. However, I can't sleep, because Todd is wailing. I wait for five minutes, but neither of my parents seem to be making any action to calm him down, so I roll out of bed and check his bedroom. I sit on the chair next to his bed and push hair out of his forehead.

I don't know how long I wait. But finally, he quiets down, his cries being replaced with a soft snore.

I glance at the clock. It's two. I'm far too tired to move from the chair, so I just lean my head back and try to sleep. I doze in and out, waking up every half hour, until the digital clock by Todd's bed tells me it's ten past seven.

Reluctantly, I get up, realizing I have school.

dh;

On Monday, I catch up with Claire as she was walking out of her history class. "Hey, Lyons," I call. She turns around, and she looks tired. She had been quiet in science, too. She starts walking over to me, Massie trailing behind, texting someone. "Um, our project..."

She stares at me, then tucks a strand of light blonde hair behind her ear. "What are you doing, Derrick?" She asks, her face totally expressionless.

"What?" I ask, confused.

"You can not like science this much," she points out, staring at me. "What are you doing?" My mouth is hanging open for a moment, before she continues. "I think we should split up the project. You can prepare the demonstration, and I'll do the rest. Try to do a good job, okay?"

Um, ouch.

She blinks, looks down, then walks away.

"and all together it went well

we made pretend we were best friends

but then she said oh you're a freak..."

cl;

I stare at the empty Powerpoint.

Pyrology, I type. By Derrick Harrington and Claire Lyons. Mr. Allen's per. 1 science class.

Then I delete everything, and resume staring at the white space, the blinking cursor.

Pyrology: The Study of Fire and Heat. By Derrick Harrington and Claire Lyons.

I delete everything again.

I sigh, then look up images of fire on Google. Then I close it immediately because it brings up too many memories. Instead, I shut off my computer, then pick up my house phone and call Massie. "Hello?" She answers. Then she giggles. "Ohmygod, Cam, stop it. I'm on the phone."

"Uh, is this a bad time?" I ask, frowning. "Because I can totally call back in like, an hour or something. Or tomorrow."

"No, no," Massie reassures me. "What's up? What happened?"

"Um, I can't decide which font to use on my Powerpoint," I lie. "Should I go with a simple, Times New Roman? Or should I make it more interesting, maybe using Comic Sans MC? Or a really scripty one, like-"

Massie laughs. "God, Claire, you're weird," she tells me. "Cam, go... get a beer or something. Sorry. Uh, did you really call to ask me about font?"

No. "Yeah."

Massie sighs. "I thought it would be something more interesting, like how Derrick Harrington wants to get in your pants," she says, like she's talking about how nice the weather is in Timbuktu.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you're like, virgin-hot, like Reese Witherspoon in Cruel Intentions, you know?" Massie continues. "Don't worry though, he's fun."

Which causes me to hang up on Massie in a flurry of shock.

Massie calls back in three seconds. "Did you really need to do that?" Massie asks.

"Did you really sleep with Derrick?"

"Yeah."

I hang up on her again.

When she calls back, she tells me huffily, "If you hang up again I'll do something reckless to give you a heart attack. Like, not do my homework or something."

"Why?"

"Because you're being weird-"

"No, I mean, why?"

I can imagine Massie shrugging nonchalantly and taking a drag from her cigarette. "He was in St. Barth's. I was in St. Barth's. It just worked."

I roll my eyes. "No, Mass. Love-hate works. When someone likes rock and somebody else likes rock, that works. When you're in the grocery store and you both reach for the crunchy peanut butter, that works. Being in the same place does not work."

"Calm down, it was like, a long time ago," Massie yawns.

"When?"

"August. Don't hang up!" She cries. I removed the finger that had instinctively moved to the END button on my phone. "God, Claire, if you like him, you just need to tell me."

"I don't. Don't even suggest that. I'm just.. surprised. Because I used to think that anybody who would get near him without being severely intoxicated or assigned to him by Mr. Allen would be you know, lacking in the brain cell department."

"Who said I wasn't severely intoxicated?" Massie says mischievously.

I hang up on her again.

A/N: so i've officially given you guys three crap chapters in a row. at least this one was short, right? D: i think the next one might be better. maybe. thanks for putting up with it. i thought up an ending to this story, i quite like it, and i'm writing like a chapter per day now. please review (:

i wonder if anybody reads my rambly author's notes.

OH! AND BRADLEY JAMES! right, okay, so i have a link on my profile for what i think derrick could possibly look like, because some pictures of bradley james are, as one person pointed out, bleeding and shit. yeah. he's the blond one.