Losers Are Weepers by biggerstaffbunch
Disclaimer: Don't own any characters…
Zack ponders life in Geneva and why he keeps dancing…
*Zack/Angela*
The moonlight...
Shines down interstellar beams
Aurore's is noisy and full to the
brim with a lot of beautiful people, but none of it interests me, if you want
the Lord-honest truth. Girls crowd me, tons of good-lookin'
young ones, but I kind of just sit there, nursin' my
Cardinal Original Draft.
"Hi," I mutter quietly, "My name's Zack and I'm single."
I half imagine the girls on my left will wave and say, "Hi, Zack!" After all, Ladies Night at Aurore's is an event a lot like a veritable single's support group. Tons of beautiful, unattached ladies here, and normally I'd be lookin' at all of 'em, 'cept I'm not here tonight to meet a woman.
I'm here to forget one.
And the groove tonight
Is something more than you've ever seen
Aurore's is a nice little bar in a little crook of Carouge, my favorite of all the places in Geneva. Sorry to say, but when Jason and Trini and I first started trolling 'round the City of Peace, most of the town's nightlife was of the gay persuasion. We had trouble finding good nightclub, though in the end we found a trendy one in town, L'Usine. Haven't been back there since Jason left, though. Trini's never in the mood to dance, to groove, and there's no use goin' to a club if you're not gonna move, right? I guess I could always have found a lady to dance with, but I never would've done that to Angela.
Oh, Angela.
I grit my teeth and take a sip of the Cardinal, enjoying the cool, lime-fresh taste as it slips down my throat. Let it never be said that alcohol does nothin' but add to your problems. It helps numb the pain for one. Besides, Trini will be here soon to pick me up so we can go to the airport. Might as well get another Draft in, 'cause I'm goin' home.
Home. I snort to myself, almost surprised at the bitterness that's in that one word.
Angel Grove hasn't been my home in about eight years, not since I was a sophomore in high school, scared outta my mind and about to enter a Peace program in Geneva, Switzerland. I'm home right now, in a little village on the east end of Geneva, looking out the window of a smoky bar and seeing the cold white mountains surround me. I'm more at home sipping a cold Cardinal Draft instead of a Miller's Light, more at home watching a nice play in French on my nights off instead of dancing at some club in Los Angeles. I'm more at home here, than there, but there is where Angela is, and therein lies the rub.
Haven't seen the girl in forever, but I think about her every chance I get. It's not funny, that's how true it is. Every minute I've had to myself for the past three weeks, I have spent thinking only of the sweet, brown-eyed babe I left behind when I was sixteen. She was my first love, my first kiss, my first…everything. And she's gettin' married in two days.
I take a sip of the Cardinal and grimace as it takes on a metallic taste.
Life sure has changed.
Carry on, keep romancing,
Carry on, carry on dancing
In the moonlight
I'm enchanted with Switzerland, y'know? I was so scared 'bout comin' in the beginning, it being a foreign country and all. But as soon as I stepped off the plain and took a look at the slopes, at the water, at the breath-takin' beauty of it all-I was hooked. Not to mention that the food is somethin' to fall for too! But the only thing I never really got about Switzerland? The women. I was too hooked on Angela. Still am. She was the only reason I ever went back home. I boarded that plane only because I had a sweet, lovin' girl back home waiting for me. Not anymore.
The beer is at my lips again, and this time it's even more bitter. I splutter and the bartender-Malen, or something- gives me a look that says, "Stupid American can't even hold his beer, why does he come to bother me then?"
Well, Malen. Because the only place I can think of Angela and not cry is with a bottle of something cold and numbing in my hand. Namely, Switzerland's finest- the Cardinal. When Jason and I first started coming to Aurore's, when we were just leaving sixteen and all of underage, I'd challenge him to a drinking contest. The boy ain't stupid- he refused. But I always liked my liquor, always liked the buzz it gave me. I knew enough not to drive, though, and that was enough for Trini. I usually arranged a ride home upon which I would promptly call Angela long-distance and profess my love to her. The girl thought I was crazy.
Those were the good old days.
You're never safe 'till you see the dawn
And if the clock strikes past midnight
The hope is gone
To move under...
And now I'm sitting here, preparing to say goodbye to everything I've known for the past eight years, just so my child-hood girl won't marry the next big thang that comes along. I never meant for love to become this big rush-against-time thing for me, but I guess that's where my fun-lovin' attitude comes in. The words echo in my head.
"You're just…too fast, Zack. Everything about you, it's always on the move. I can't handle it, I need stability. And you're twenty-three with no job and no responsibility. It wouldn't work."
In a way, she's right. I am twenty-three and going nowhere fast. But…I like my little existence here, and it's only been a year since the peace conference officially ended. Jason got a great job in California as a coordinator of USC's Model U.N this spring. Trini's got a job as a yoga instructor lined up in Angel Grove as soon as we land. Jobs can't be that hard to come by. Why couldn't Angela see that and be happy that I'm happy?
She did, though. For awhile. Angie came down to Switzerland for an overseas studies program her sophomore year at USC. We shared a fantastic whirlwind year, with no strings and no promises. Just kisses, light as the air that danced under our feet, tender touches as searing as the tea we sipped to get warm after skiing, and whispered words as warm as the sun after a brutally cold night. It was comfort, it was love…it was Switzerland. One year, where everything was okay, where Angela was there and I didn't have to go home. I never stopped movin', but she was movin' with me so it was okay.
In the moonlight
Carry on, keep romancing,
Carry on, carry on dancing
In the moonlight
And then she left, the night after we made love. And she said those words to me, and my Angel became a tease. Nothing more.
I take a swig of my drink viciously, hating this Zack inside me, 'cause it's ugly and dark and I choke on the words it makes me think.
But she played me. The girl played me.
"Sure, we had fun, Zack. But please, when you're sixteen, nothin' is for sure. Not even us. This year has been fantastic, really! I'll always remember you…but Zack. You gotta stop runnin' away. One day, there'll be nowhere to run to."
I wouldn't come back with her. That's the big reason Angie ain't here now. She looked up at me with those great big brown eyes and begged me to come home with her, but how many times did I have to tell her? I was home. Angel Grove wasn't where I belonged.
Move. Closer.
Passion. Stronger
I belonged where the open fields
lay bare for people to run in. I belong where the sun is shining one day and
the world is blanketed with glittering diamonds of ice the next. I belong where
there are beautiful people who care about issues that matter. I belong
somewhere where it's okay to groove.
Not Angel Grove.
I sigh, and I'm a little down. 'Cause okay, maybe Angie was right. Maybe I am border-line sixteen again, but there's nothin' wrong with that. Everyone is so stuffy nowadays, it pays to be happy. Not a care in the world okay?
Okay, no. I've got a lot of cares, so many that sometimes I can't sleep. And maybe I have been avoiding them, or drownin' them in alcohol. But it don't matter. 'Cause nothing changes. And yet everything does, so maybe that's the problem. I hate change. Hate it passionately. First change I ever had was when my ma divorced my pa. We moved on down to Angel Grove when I was six. Met Jase, Trini, Billy, Kim. It was cool. Then we got our powers, and hey, even cooler. But then Tommy came and disrupted everythin'. The flow was off, the groove was halted. I like Tommy, I do, but it wasn't five no more. It was six. Then me and Jase and Trini left, and hello! Huge change! I could've stayed, but I wasn't gonna leave my two best friends. I had enough of people leavin' me. But issues with people aside, the power is what mattered. I gave up being the ranger, the only thing that could keep my feet still enough to notice that the world didn't always have to spin. It was all I had control over, and I gave it up.
There's a magic only two can tell
In the dark night
Ultra violet is a wicked spell
I guess maybe that's why Angela was so important to me. I didn't want to lose the one steady anchor in my life. So maybe I suffocated her, but it's hard, y'know? Having to be constantly on the move, dancin' so you don't notice the pain and the loneliness…so you don't see the change.
I've been dancin' around the issue for eight years now, and I'm still going home. But I don't want to. 'Cause I'm scared to death that I'll like it there, and then there'll be more change, and more hurt. One day I won't be able to keep dancin'. And that troubles me. I don't want to go home and confront Angela and ask her why she hurt me. I want to be the black Peter Pan, living in sunshine and beer-soaked spring breaks forever.
"Zack?"
I turn around and Trini is giving me a warm, happy gaze. Zen-Trini, so calm now that she has someone home waitin' for her. She holds my hand softly and asks, "You ready to go home?"
No.
"Yeah," I say. I finish of my drink and take on last look at the best spot in Carouge. I'll miss it, but my real home beckons. One foot in front of the other, moving so fast the world stands still, I say.
"I'm ready to go home."
The stars and planets taking shape
A stolen kiss has come to late
"I'm not giving you up, Angela!"
"Oh, Zack. When will you figure out that you can't give me what I want?"
"Isn't it enough to give you what you need?"
"Oh, Zack…"
A kiss. A beat. The Swiss sun and the Alps is the backdrop of two lovers kissing, holding each other like no tomorrow. They are each others' anchors.
"I'm not giving you up," I whisper fiercely. It's time to start dancing.
Carry on, keep romancing,
Carry on, carry on dancing
Moving on... Moving all night