A/N!!! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for all your reviews! I'm sorry it's been so long! This chapter really isn't as good as the other two, I don't think...
"Am I too late?"
Gordie opened his mouth to answer and realized he'd forgotten how to speak. He wondered where the hell his vocal cords had gone- Oh. That must be them there in the corner, laughing at him. Well, God was obviously over there too.
Elizabeth was beginning to look concerned.
"Gordie? Are you okay?"
No, Gordie thought bitterly. I'm in a private room with the girl of my dreams late at night, and my powers of speech are playing poker with God and planning how to screw me next.
Elizabeth was still waiting.
Oh, God! Say something Lachance, say something! But not about swimming. Not swimming! No! No! No!
"Swimming," he said. "Fish swim. In water."
Great. Very good.
Elizabeth giggled and climbed up into the treehouse.
"So where are Jessica and Chris?" she asked, looking around as though she expected to see them hiding in a Coke bottle. Gordie wouldn't actually have been suprised if Jessica had poked her head up from a bottle. Probably she'd be dressed as a chipmunk. Oh, God! Don't start thinking about chipmunks now, Lachance!
"They went home."
Gordie actually looked around to see who had spoken before realizing it had been him. Surely that was far too coherant? Shit, it even made sense and didn't involve swimming. Obviously there was someone in his brain still half-sane.
"Oh, okay." Elizabeth picked up a packet of cigarettes. "Are these yours?"
Oh, no. She was obviously one of those girls who thought all smokers were the Antichrist. Quick, Lachance, be smooth!
Or if not smooth, at least be alive. Hello? Lachance?
"No," Gordie said quickly. "I don't smoke. Smoking, ugh! The tar! The badness! Smoking is a deadly sin. It should be illegal. Smokers should be shot! Shot by the villagers!"
Very good, he praised himself. Although... villagers? He hoped Elizabeth wouldn't ask about that, because he surely didn't know.
"Oh," Elizabeth said, looking guilty. "I'm sorry, I won't have one then."
Gordie wanted to kill whoever was doing his internal dialogue. At least he ddn't have to talk about the villagers anymore. And maybe this would be a good time to do some flirting. He leaned in to light her cigarette... She touched his hand... He flicked his hair... They got to some hot monkey lovin'... Monkey lovin'? Oh, God! Shut up, Lachance!
"No, it's okay," he said honestly. "I don't know why I said that. I actually smoke sometimes. I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable or anything. They're Chris's smokes, but go ahead and take one. I'll have one too."
He ran what he had just said back through his head. Hey, it made sense. He was making progress.
Elizabeth smiled, looking slightly confused, but unfazed. "Okay, great. Thanks. Do you have a light?"
Gordie reached behind him and grabbed his lighter. He leaned forward and flicked the switch. Mercifully, it sparked and Elizabeth leaned forward, cigarette in her mouth. She touched his hand to bring the flame closer to her mouth and he almost melted into a pool of mushy goo. Hee. She touched him. They were practically engaged!
He looked at her in the flickering flame, reflecting off her hair and in her eyes and his mouth went dry. She was so pretty. He hadn't managed to say a single normal thing to her yet, but God, she was so pretty and nice. Surely this was a primetime to be doing some grade-A Lachance flirting! If such a thing existed. He cleared his throat and she raised her eyes to his as her cigarette lit. He smiled and she smiled back. He flicked his hair out of his eyes.
And he was still holding the lighter.
And he had flicked his hair quite dramatically.
So now...
The hair he had just flicked out of his eyes...
Was on fire.
Goddamnit!
/////
Meanwhile, Jessica and Chris were walking along star-lined streets hand in hand. Chris was walking Jessica home and of course they were taking the longest possible route. Twice.
"So then what happened?" Chris asked, swinging their hands.
"Well, then the whole class turned and pointed at me, and said, 'It was Jessica!'" Jessica said huffily. "So I said, 'Class, that was not very community spirited!'"
"And what did they say?"
"They pointed out that throwing pencils at the back of their heads isn't very community spirited either," Jessica said. "So I said, 'No, but it sure is funny.' And then Simons told me to leave the classroom and come back when I grow up."
"Yeah, and what did you do?"
"I went home, of course," Jessica said indignantly. "I refuse to stay at an institution where you have to be grown up to attend. Then the school called my house, so I went back in, and into Chemistry, where I set fire to my shoe."
"Oh, yeah," Chris said, snapping his fingers. "I knew you'd done something weird today that I hadn't asked about."
"Well, I thought it would be funny to set fire to my shoelace," Jessica explained. "But then my whole shoe caught fire. Wouldn't you think that they'd make sneakers inflammable?"
"Sure," Chris said thoughtfully. "Or at least not sell lighters to insane sixteen year old French girls."
"Yeah," Jessica agreed. "Society has no one to blame but itself. Maybe I'll have to become an anarchist. Anarchy in Castle Rock! I'll crash the Quilting Bee."
"Lock up your children," Chris said, laughing. His expression fell serious suddenly. "I felt bad for Gordo tonight."
"Me too," Jessica agreed. "His hair looked really weird today. Maybe he should start using a curling iron again."
Chris rolled his eyes. "What the fuck is it that goes on in your head, Jessie?"
"I'm not always sure," Jessica mused. "Sometimes I think it's like a party, only I haven't been invited. And I wish I had, because it sounds fun in there."
Chris glanced sideways at her and grinned. "I love you."
"I love you, too," Jessica said, releasing his hand and putting her arm around his waist. He put his free arm around her shoulders.
"Does she like him?"
"Yes."
"Sincerely?"
"What? Who?"
Chris kicked her. "Elizabeth! Does she like Gordie?"
"Oh," Jessica said. "Hmm. I don't know. She said he seemed a little slow but sweet."
Chris snickered. "I'm gonna tell him that. She thinks Gordie Lachance is slow. See, what girls don't get about Gordie is that when they think he's being slow, he thinks he's being smooth."
"Gordie is pretty," Jessica said. "If I wasn't already dating a total loser, I'd date him."
"Yeah, I'm dating a loser too. If I wasn't, man, I'd be on Gordie like white on rice." Chris glanced down at Jessica. "You better not be taping this conversation."
"Oh, I am," Jessica said casually. "Right now the FBI is cross-referencing your details with any rice-related fetish serial killers. You probably shouldn't answer the phone tonight."
"Tomorrow will be clear, though, right?"
"By tomorrow, the FBI will be solving a murder or something."
"Cool." They had reached Jessica's house for the third time. Chris glanced reluctantly at his watch. "I guess you better go home now."
"Yeah, I guess." Jessica put her arms around Chris's neck and he kissed her. She touched his face lightly. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sure," Chris said distractedly.
Jessica looked at him sharply, sensing the mood change. She recognized these signs- Chris looking nervously up and down the street, his face regaining the terrifying expression of a seventeen year old boy resigned to a cold home with fists flying out of the dark, and it made her heart fling itself into a freefall of hate for his father. Chris looked back at her and smiled bravely.
"Bye, Jessie."
"Chris..." She grabbed his hand. "Are things-"
Chris bit his lip and looked at the ground and Jessica exhaled sadly. "Mean streak, huh?"
"It's okay," Chris said shortly, not meeting her eye.
"Do you wanna stay over?" she asked softly.
Chris hesitated and nodded. There was a pause until he finally glanced up at her and smiled gratefully, saying everything he couldn't say out loud.
Jessica squeezed his hand. "Come on in. But I swear, if you steal the blanket, I'm going to tell Vern you have a huge crush on him."
Chris's eyes opened wide in alarm. "I remember when you did that to Teddy. Vern still refuses to take his shirt off when Teddy's around."
/////
"Oh, my God!" Elizabeth cried. She dropped her cigarette into a bottle of Coke and leapt up.
Gordie was already up.
Jumping up and down and shrieking.
All he could see was the burning strands of hair.
"Gordie, calm down!" Elizabeth squealed. She grabbed him by the shoulders and whacked him across the forehead. He practically fell out of the window from the force, but the smoking strands of hair were no longer smoking.
The treehouse smelt of hair. Burnt hair. Did he have any hair to flick anymore? Oh, God. He sat down heavily on the box that happened to be underneath him. Elizabeth sat down too, shakily.
He put his face in his hands.
This was it. He had burned his prize flicking hair and squealed like a girl. Elizabeth was probably going to shoot him. Well, good. Then she would leave and tell everyone at school and he may as well be dead. And she would never want to go out with him now, because she was probably-
Laughing her ass off.
Gordie raised his face and realized Elizabeth was sitting next to him shaking with laughter.
LAUGHTER?
"What's funny?" he demanded.
She merely shook her head and laughed harder.
"What's funny?" he asked, his voice rising. "I was on fire! And I haven't said a single thing to you that's normal since I met you! I was a swimming zombie, now I'm a swimming zombie with a bald burned place where his prize-winning flick-hair was!"
Elizabeth stopped laughing and grinned at him. And his insides turned to jelly and started giggling like thirteen year old girls. She smiled at me, like, oh my God! Heehee, she smiled! Oh, God! Shut up, insides!
"Gordie, you're kind of weird," Elizabeth said gently. "But you have a smile that makes every female part of me-" she hesitated. "Which is all of me, don't get the wrong idea- you make every adolescent female part of me squeal and giggle. And you're right when you say you haven't said anything normal to me since I got here..."
Gordie held his breath.
"But I only met you this morning." Elizabeth patted him on the head. "And we have all night for you to say normal things to me now."
Gordie thought back to what she said about his smile. And then he smiled at her.
Elizabeth blushed. "That's what I'm talking about."
She smiled back at him and suddenly Gordie didn't care about his bald burnt ex-flick-hair.
"So, what do you say, Gordie? Can we stay here and get to know each other a little? Because I don't think you really are a swimming zombie."
"Sometimes I am," Gordie said honestly.
"Me, too," Elizabeth laughed. "So how late can you stay out tonight? Let's stay up all night and get to know each other. Can we?"
Gordie's insides started shrieking and dancing around, but miraculously, he managed to stay still.
"Sure," he said, amazed at how... well, normal, he sounded. "It's only nine-forty-five. We have all night."
A/N! I think this chapter kind of sucked, but I promise I'll try and get back on track. Please R and R! Love you guys :)
"Am I too late?"
Gordie opened his mouth to answer and realized he'd forgotten how to speak. He wondered where the hell his vocal cords had gone- Oh. That must be them there in the corner, laughing at him. Well, God was obviously over there too.
Elizabeth was beginning to look concerned.
"Gordie? Are you okay?"
No, Gordie thought bitterly. I'm in a private room with the girl of my dreams late at night, and my powers of speech are playing poker with God and planning how to screw me next.
Elizabeth was still waiting.
Oh, God! Say something Lachance, say something! But not about swimming. Not swimming! No! No! No!
"Swimming," he said. "Fish swim. In water."
Great. Very good.
Elizabeth giggled and climbed up into the treehouse.
"So where are Jessica and Chris?" she asked, looking around as though she expected to see them hiding in a Coke bottle. Gordie wouldn't actually have been suprised if Jessica had poked her head up from a bottle. Probably she'd be dressed as a chipmunk. Oh, God! Don't start thinking about chipmunks now, Lachance!
"They went home."
Gordie actually looked around to see who had spoken before realizing it had been him. Surely that was far too coherant? Shit, it even made sense and didn't involve swimming. Obviously there was someone in his brain still half-sane.
"Oh, okay." Elizabeth picked up a packet of cigarettes. "Are these yours?"
Oh, no. She was obviously one of those girls who thought all smokers were the Antichrist. Quick, Lachance, be smooth!
Or if not smooth, at least be alive. Hello? Lachance?
"No," Gordie said quickly. "I don't smoke. Smoking, ugh! The tar! The badness! Smoking is a deadly sin. It should be illegal. Smokers should be shot! Shot by the villagers!"
Very good, he praised himself. Although... villagers? He hoped Elizabeth wouldn't ask about that, because he surely didn't know.
"Oh," Elizabeth said, looking guilty. "I'm sorry, I won't have one then."
Gordie wanted to kill whoever was doing his internal dialogue. At least he ddn't have to talk about the villagers anymore. And maybe this would be a good time to do some flirting. He leaned in to light her cigarette... She touched his hand... He flicked his hair... They got to some hot monkey lovin'... Monkey lovin'? Oh, God! Shut up, Lachance!
"No, it's okay," he said honestly. "I don't know why I said that. I actually smoke sometimes. I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable or anything. They're Chris's smokes, but go ahead and take one. I'll have one too."
He ran what he had just said back through his head. Hey, it made sense. He was making progress.
Elizabeth smiled, looking slightly confused, but unfazed. "Okay, great. Thanks. Do you have a light?"
Gordie reached behind him and grabbed his lighter. He leaned forward and flicked the switch. Mercifully, it sparked and Elizabeth leaned forward, cigarette in her mouth. She touched his hand to bring the flame closer to her mouth and he almost melted into a pool of mushy goo. Hee. She touched him. They were practically engaged!
He looked at her in the flickering flame, reflecting off her hair and in her eyes and his mouth went dry. She was so pretty. He hadn't managed to say a single normal thing to her yet, but God, she was so pretty and nice. Surely this was a primetime to be doing some grade-A Lachance flirting! If such a thing existed. He cleared his throat and she raised her eyes to his as her cigarette lit. He smiled and she smiled back. He flicked his hair out of his eyes.
And he was still holding the lighter.
And he had flicked his hair quite dramatically.
So now...
The hair he had just flicked out of his eyes...
Was on fire.
Goddamnit!
/////
Meanwhile, Jessica and Chris were walking along star-lined streets hand in hand. Chris was walking Jessica home and of course they were taking the longest possible route. Twice.
"So then what happened?" Chris asked, swinging their hands.
"Well, then the whole class turned and pointed at me, and said, 'It was Jessica!'" Jessica said huffily. "So I said, 'Class, that was not very community spirited!'"
"And what did they say?"
"They pointed out that throwing pencils at the back of their heads isn't very community spirited either," Jessica said. "So I said, 'No, but it sure is funny.' And then Simons told me to leave the classroom and come back when I grow up."
"Yeah, and what did you do?"
"I went home, of course," Jessica said indignantly. "I refuse to stay at an institution where you have to be grown up to attend. Then the school called my house, so I went back in, and into Chemistry, where I set fire to my shoe."
"Oh, yeah," Chris said, snapping his fingers. "I knew you'd done something weird today that I hadn't asked about."
"Well, I thought it would be funny to set fire to my shoelace," Jessica explained. "But then my whole shoe caught fire. Wouldn't you think that they'd make sneakers inflammable?"
"Sure," Chris said thoughtfully. "Or at least not sell lighters to insane sixteen year old French girls."
"Yeah," Jessica agreed. "Society has no one to blame but itself. Maybe I'll have to become an anarchist. Anarchy in Castle Rock! I'll crash the Quilting Bee."
"Lock up your children," Chris said, laughing. His expression fell serious suddenly. "I felt bad for Gordo tonight."
"Me too," Jessica agreed. "His hair looked really weird today. Maybe he should start using a curling iron again."
Chris rolled his eyes. "What the fuck is it that goes on in your head, Jessie?"
"I'm not always sure," Jessica mused. "Sometimes I think it's like a party, only I haven't been invited. And I wish I had, because it sounds fun in there."
Chris glanced sideways at her and grinned. "I love you."
"I love you, too," Jessica said, releasing his hand and putting her arm around his waist. He put his free arm around her shoulders.
"Does she like him?"
"Yes."
"Sincerely?"
"What? Who?"
Chris kicked her. "Elizabeth! Does she like Gordie?"
"Oh," Jessica said. "Hmm. I don't know. She said he seemed a little slow but sweet."
Chris snickered. "I'm gonna tell him that. She thinks Gordie Lachance is slow. See, what girls don't get about Gordie is that when they think he's being slow, he thinks he's being smooth."
"Gordie is pretty," Jessica said. "If I wasn't already dating a total loser, I'd date him."
"Yeah, I'm dating a loser too. If I wasn't, man, I'd be on Gordie like white on rice." Chris glanced down at Jessica. "You better not be taping this conversation."
"Oh, I am," Jessica said casually. "Right now the FBI is cross-referencing your details with any rice-related fetish serial killers. You probably shouldn't answer the phone tonight."
"Tomorrow will be clear, though, right?"
"By tomorrow, the FBI will be solving a murder or something."
"Cool." They had reached Jessica's house for the third time. Chris glanced reluctantly at his watch. "I guess you better go home now."
"Yeah, I guess." Jessica put her arms around Chris's neck and he kissed her. She touched his face lightly. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sure," Chris said distractedly.
Jessica looked at him sharply, sensing the mood change. She recognized these signs- Chris looking nervously up and down the street, his face regaining the terrifying expression of a seventeen year old boy resigned to a cold home with fists flying out of the dark, and it made her heart fling itself into a freefall of hate for his father. Chris looked back at her and smiled bravely.
"Bye, Jessie."
"Chris..." She grabbed his hand. "Are things-"
Chris bit his lip and looked at the ground and Jessica exhaled sadly. "Mean streak, huh?"
"It's okay," Chris said shortly, not meeting her eye.
"Do you wanna stay over?" she asked softly.
Chris hesitated and nodded. There was a pause until he finally glanced up at her and smiled gratefully, saying everything he couldn't say out loud.
Jessica squeezed his hand. "Come on in. But I swear, if you steal the blanket, I'm going to tell Vern you have a huge crush on him."
Chris's eyes opened wide in alarm. "I remember when you did that to Teddy. Vern still refuses to take his shirt off when Teddy's around."
/////
"Oh, my God!" Elizabeth cried. She dropped her cigarette into a bottle of Coke and leapt up.
Gordie was already up.
Jumping up and down and shrieking.
All he could see was the burning strands of hair.
"Gordie, calm down!" Elizabeth squealed. She grabbed him by the shoulders and whacked him across the forehead. He practically fell out of the window from the force, but the smoking strands of hair were no longer smoking.
The treehouse smelt of hair. Burnt hair. Did he have any hair to flick anymore? Oh, God. He sat down heavily on the box that happened to be underneath him. Elizabeth sat down too, shakily.
He put his face in his hands.
This was it. He had burned his prize flicking hair and squealed like a girl. Elizabeth was probably going to shoot him. Well, good. Then she would leave and tell everyone at school and he may as well be dead. And she would never want to go out with him now, because she was probably-
Laughing her ass off.
Gordie raised his face and realized Elizabeth was sitting next to him shaking with laughter.
LAUGHTER?
"What's funny?" he demanded.
She merely shook her head and laughed harder.
"What's funny?" he asked, his voice rising. "I was on fire! And I haven't said a single thing to you that's normal since I met you! I was a swimming zombie, now I'm a swimming zombie with a bald burned place where his prize-winning flick-hair was!"
Elizabeth stopped laughing and grinned at him. And his insides turned to jelly and started giggling like thirteen year old girls. She smiled at me, like, oh my God! Heehee, she smiled! Oh, God! Shut up, insides!
"Gordie, you're kind of weird," Elizabeth said gently. "But you have a smile that makes every female part of me-" she hesitated. "Which is all of me, don't get the wrong idea- you make every adolescent female part of me squeal and giggle. And you're right when you say you haven't said anything normal to me since I got here..."
Gordie held his breath.
"But I only met you this morning." Elizabeth patted him on the head. "And we have all night for you to say normal things to me now."
Gordie thought back to what she said about his smile. And then he smiled at her.
Elizabeth blushed. "That's what I'm talking about."
She smiled back at him and suddenly Gordie didn't care about his bald burnt ex-flick-hair.
"So, what do you say, Gordie? Can we stay here and get to know each other a little? Because I don't think you really are a swimming zombie."
"Sometimes I am," Gordie said honestly.
"Me, too," Elizabeth laughed. "So how late can you stay out tonight? Let's stay up all night and get to know each other. Can we?"
Gordie's insides started shrieking and dancing around, but miraculously, he managed to stay still.
"Sure," he said, amazed at how... well, normal, he sounded. "It's only nine-forty-five. We have all night."
A/N! I think this chapter kind of sucked, but I promise I'll try and get back on track. Please R and R! Love you guys :)
