Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing great!
I've never been that good of a writer and it wasn't really my passion. However, reading some of the things you wrote sparked an interest in me. So, I decided to give it a try. For my first, and hopefully not the last story, I will be doing something simple. A love triangle! I can hear you sighing from all around the world, that's a good sign.
Some of you probably sighed when you saw Chandler in the character list too. This isn't a Chandler bash fic. He's not a nice character - and I'm not portraying him as such here - but how did we get from annoying/mean to psychopath? I have my theories but that is for another time. What is for this time is how I will use him. He and Lincoln have a one-sided rivalry. Lincoln has beef with Chandler, for no reason. No one else does. There isn't a good reason for it. No incident, Chandler doesn't target Lincoln, nor does he target his friends or anyone for that matter. He's not the school bully or the resident menace-to-society, just another regular, if annoying, kid.
On to the story now.
If you ever experienced love, true love, you would know no words can do it justice. If every word in the world's every language was just to express love, there still wouldn't be enough to say how much you loved them. A picture says a thousand words, but if we were to melt them all into words of love, they still wouldn't be enough. Put together, none of them would even begin to scratch a miniscule fraction of that feeling.
This was how Lincoln felt. He was in love and madly so. His days were consumed by watching clouds pass by and imagining she was by his side to laugh along at the funny shapes. His nights were devoured by dreams of her gorgeous face and angelic voice. Every second he could see her felt like it was healing his eyes and every instance of her voice felt like if bettered his hearing. The mere thought of her being in a nearby vicinity was enough to turn his mood thrice around. She was forever etched into his mind to the point he would call her name at the slightest resemblance to her voice.
Jordan, he remembered himself whispering to one of his sisters calling him. Whenever he remembered such incidents, he would whisper it again. It felt nice to say.
How did he even fall into this pit? They were friends for as long as he could remember, and he never felt anything to her particularly. Then, BOOM! He was hit with the realization. Like a switch turned on or some previously docile cog was knocked into place and started spinning. In an instance, he went from barely thinking of her, to being unable to stop.
He considered himself lucky. Having sisters was a mixed bag, but it taught him a thing or ten about girls. Most significantly now, when she liked a boy. And Jordan checked the whole list. She laughed with him. She went out of her way to be close to him. And through a few accidental eavesdropping, he found that she talked about him in a positive light. It was like looking at a completed quest checklist in a game. All that was left was to redeem it with an NPC to get the keys to the final dungeon. And inside it, waited the final boss, the greatest test, a task all men struggled with since before love had a word. To ask her out.
He knew there was no way of getting around it. One of them would have to say those three forsaken words: "I love you". The question for him was, will he step up or wait up. The easiest option was to wait. If she liked him, she would tell him, and he wouldn't need to risk coming off as a fool if she didn't. But if she was in the same dilemma as he was, then they would be stuck forever looking at each other from a distance, too afraid to walk over an imaginary boundary.
So, he decided to take the first step. He didn't have anything to lose. His standing was bad as it was, so him asking out a girl who didn't like him back would be forgotten by the next class.
He did all the preparations and planned for every contingency. He rehearsed a speech, then two more; he practiced his smile, than two more; he prepared his clothes, than two more. Standing there, only a stone's throw away from her, he realized he had forgotten about something, again. The one thing he didn't foresee. The one thing for which he didn't plan. The one situation for which he didn't have a contingency plan, was the one that happened. Someone else liked Jordan.
And not just someone else, but the one person he couldn't stand, Chandler. He knew Chandler for almost as long as Jordan, and he hated him for just as long if not longer. There wasn't something particular about him anyone hated, just a compilation of a long list of minor slights. The way he ran any joke into the grave than dug until he reached China. How he would always use the most annoying and unoriginal pranks possible. And his stuck-up attitude, of his stuck-up attitude, he was stuck up on the ceiling of some plane. How he wished someone put him in his place, just a bit.
On the day he saw Chandler and Jordan talking, his heart broke in half. They were talking and laughing, just like him and Jordan. She was playing with her hair in the same way, she even hid her head to the side.
Lincoln didn't know what to make of it. Was that just how she talked to boys? Did she forget about him, did she even like him? No, she did- does... Jordan didn't talk to everyone like that. Just him and, apparently, Chandler.
Okay, she likes him, and Chandler. It's not a big deal. He liked other girls, not as much - not even close - but enough to get a bit flustered when they talked to him. But that begs the question, is he Jordan to her, or just one of those other girls. No, he will be the one. He just needs to show her he is better than Chandler, that douche.
He glared at the red head from across the hall with a veracity to tear him apart. Chandler noticed him as he parted ways with Jordan and smirked, same as always. "So that's how it is," Lincoln retreated away so Jordan didn't see him. "It's on, McCann."
Later, Lincoln laid on a bed at Clyde's house. He was staring at the ceiling, half lost in his thoughts and half listening to the clock on the wall and the occasional tick of the pencil. "What do you think, Clyde?" Lincoln said with a weak yawn.
Clyde was across the room, scribbling a portrait of Lori onto his notepad. He sat in his chair, relaxingly leaning back and passing glances between the drawing and his friend. Clyde made a longer and artificially deep hum. "Interesting...", he propped himself up to sit straight. Without a hurry, he put down the notepad on the table and put his hands together. "I believe you issues with Jordan stem from your insecurities about your masculinity and general identity caused from spending your whole life surrounded primarily by strong and domineering women."
"What?" Lincoln raised his head to give Clyde a confused look.
"That's something Dr. Lopez said." Clyde said in a more casual tone.
"About me?" Lincoln put his head back down.
"She said something in the similar vein about me, so I thought it would be appropriate. But, yes, she said that about you for unrelated reasons, at an unrelated time." Clyde spun around in his chair and picked up his notepad to add finishing touches to the sketch. "Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. Lincoln, you don't have a reason to worry. You're amazing! You're smart, you're funny, you're interesting, any girl would be lucky to have you. And, knowing Chandler, he will probably do something self-destructive before you."
"Knowing me, I don't think that is the case. Wait... did you say before me?" Lincoln sat up.
"No..." Clyde hid his face behind the notepad. "You will do amazing, don't worry. I have full confidence - despite your prior incidents - that you will pull this off smooth as butter." Clyde peeked over the notepad and gave him a thumbs up.
Lincoln moves his legs to sit more comfortably. "Okay, but that still doesn't answer my question. What am I supposed to do now!?" Lincoln sat into a thinking position. "I can't confess now that Chandler is out for her. If they are already together, I will look stupid."
"Are you absolutely sure he told her?" Clyde asked. "Are you even sure she likes him? I mean, from how you described it, it sounds to me like they are just two friends having a conversation."
"Trust me, I know. I had the... misfortune, of seeing how it looks firsthand." Lincoln rolled his eyes, images of Lori and Bobby being the first to come to his head.
"Well, if you are so certain, you can ask your sisters for help, they w..." Lincoln gave Clyde a dead stare. "...would tell you to ask around?"
"Clyde, you know I can't ask them for help, especially not about this. If I even suggest it, they will drag Jordan to our house, kicking and screaming, to get us married." Lincoln's eyes were rolling out of his head at the thought of his sisters' previous interventions. They meant well, but they had very little self-awareness, self-restraint, or shame. A paper cut was a mortal injury worthy of surgery; a cough was a sign of tuberculosis, a passive expression of attraction was a signal to ring up a church and pitch up a tent, but an impossible homework assignment was nothing.
"However," Lincoln continued. "You are on to something with that... Who can I ask? No offense, but you guys aren't really the most apt in that field."
"True." Clyde admitted.
"Stella, maybe. Though, I don't see her hanging out with Jordan's friends."
"Stella could be a dead giveaway to Jordan." The two boys thought in silence before Clyde mustered up the courage to talk. "I know you won't like what I will say but hear me out."
"No."
"Try at least one." Clyde persisted. "Lola, for example. She seems like the one that can find out discreetly."
"And not tell anyone, that will cost me a small fortune!" Lincoln screamed. "Unless... if I... I can... and that time... no, still too much."
"I don't know then. Lynn is a definitive no. Luna is a maybe. I don't know how much the younger sister could help, maybe Lucy. That leaves you with the older ones."
Lincoln nodded. Out of all the options, the older sister, except Leni, stood the greatest chance of cooperating without ratting him out, and Lucy. "Lori would be the most helpful at giving advice, but I think she is too invested in me and Ronnie being a thing - no matter how much I tell her we're friends. And Leni can't keep a secret."
"That leaves you with Luna."
"I'll have to think about it." Luna sounded like the best option. Not only was she the chillest of all the sisters, not counting Lily, but she was also the only one with the experience in the exact field he needed, dating girls.
"While we're on Luna, how did your family take the whole thing?" Clyde asked.
"Surprisingly well, to be honest. Although, Luan will probably get turned into a drum set by the end of the week if she doesn't get bored of shuts up. Everyone else was a bit surprised, but everyone was supportive after the initial shock wore off. Why do you ask?"
"I saw she was talking to my dads a while back, so I wanted to know how it went. I'm glad it went well."
"Me too." Lincoln leaned back, ready to lay back and continue planning his next move, when he noticed the clock. "I need to go." He jumped up. "Dinner will be ready any minute now."
"You can eat with us; my dads love it when they have guests over for dinner." Clyde suggested.
"I can't today, Luna will introduce us to her girlfriend." Lincoln said while the two headed for the front door. "Plus, my dad always makes nicer food when we have guests."
"Don't remind me, now I'm hungry." Clyde said jokingly. "Well, you better not be late, if you want to have a dinner, and think about asking your sister."
The two friends said their goodbyes and Lincoln was on his way.
That's a good first chapter, if I do say so myself, and I do. And that is a great joke, if I do say so myself, and I do.
I'm interested in knowing what you think of this story. It goes without saying that I have a long way to go before I become something even remotely resembling a good writer, but I hope a few of you will stay for that journey.