A/N: Disney owns the characters and the backdrop. I only own the angst. So there. Thanks for the reviews.
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually more irritated with somebody than Matt.
Parker will simply not stop staring at Gordo and it's driving me nuts. So what? Now he's tall enough? Who are you kidding, McKenzie? Now she's doing this stare at Gordo sadly thing non-stop and its just so…obvious…and completely stupid and I can't figure out for the life of me what her plan is.
If she keeps this up, I swear I'm going to drive my fist so hard against her nose she might actually talk normally.
We've never been friends, really. She thinks I'm a poser and I think she's a hippie without the bad fashion sense. I know she holds this totally juvenile grudge against me for killing her lunchbox. True, I should have apologized for it. But the way my brain works, I'm always more worried about how many people saw it, than any pain I caused anybody. Normally when I do something that klutzy, the only person in pain is me.
Well if an apology is what it takes for her to stop stepping on my turf, then just name the time and place.
No, no I can't do that. I can't appear weak in front of her. I've gotta keep her intimidated so she'll think twice before making another move.
Ugh. Turf? Intimidated? I'm beginning to sound like Kate. This pasta salad is becoming more and more impossible to finish the more my mind rambles. And its taste is only part of the problem.
You would think I'd know better with how bad my timing is. Of course a slow song starts up the second I let Parker have another dance with Gordo. I'm surprised I didn't roll my ankle and fall right into the punch bowl the next minute. With my luck, it probably should have happened. The only good luck I have is every time I don't end up making a bad thing like that worse by wiping out and ruining my clothes.
But I guess having to watch them dance was worse than any public display of klutziness.
She laid her right hand on his shoulder and took his other hand in her left. I was only mildly annoyed at this point.
She starts rubbing her thumb lazily against his shoulder. Starting to get a little tweaked at this point.
She tilts her head and bites her bottom lip. Moving from tweaked to flat out nervous.
She closes the space between them by an inch or so. I have no idea if Gordo noticed, but it was pretty obvious from where I was standing. And upsetting me to the point where I'm digging my nails into the skin of my arms that have been folded since this started.
I started to take a step forward before realizing I couldn't do anything. I allowed this to happen. And sure, he's my date, but I was going along with his "take the moral high ground" idea, which I totally hated. I'd rather be petty and possessive than be a total patsy and let her have her way with him.
Anyway, back to the now…
I look over to see if Gordo is even noticing her noticing him. No worries there. He's doing the tongue slightly out of the side of his mouth thing, which basically means we could all be getting attacked by a flock of psychotic birds right now and he'd still be sitting there scribbling away on that paper that isn't even due for a week.
Of course when I check back up on Parker, she's completely unable to contain a smile at the sight of super focused Gordo. I'm so damn annoyed…
"I wish she would cut that crap out!" I say, exasperated.
Crap.
I was really hoping I just thought that really loud. No such luck. Gordo has removed his MP3 player headphones to see what was up.
"Who's doing what now?" he asks curiously, although not actually stopping to look up from his paper.
"Parker, giving you the eye, its…unsettling" I say a bit more dialed down now, choosing to stare at the hopeless pasta salad.
"Its just seller's remorse, Lizzie, let it be," Miranda says as she sips her coke.
"Careful Miranda, that almost sounded like a compliment," Gordo says with smile, still writing. His paper is probably already better than whatever I turn in, even if it's only half-done.
"I'm just telling you how Parker feels. Personally, I don't think you're all that and a bag of chips," she says casually taking a sip from another sip from her coke.
"Deny, deny, deny. We'll never be happy unless we stop this fake hostility and start making out," he says and the urge to laugh causes Miranda to spit out her last sip.
"You got me. That was good," she replies as they both laugh.
I guess I'd rather have this weird fake flirting going on that Miranda and Gordo have been doing lately than the way they used to be. Knock down drag out arguments that would stop just short of name-calling. That seems to have stopped happening instead ever since the Ronnie thing. I can't explain why. I know Miranda went to talk to Gordo after I said the meanest most awful thing ever to anybody (that wasn't Matt, of course). Maybe they reached a new understanding about each other because of it.
So at least some good came out of it, hopefully. I'm so embarrassed I can't even say anything more about it than "the Ronnie thing". I was such a tool for the fifteen minutes that train wreck lasted. I'm totally swearing off of stupid hot guys.
Gordo finally looks over to see Parker still staring at him. Just don't lead her on, Gordo. I don't expect you to be mean, but I don't want you to give her even an ounce of hope that you guys will ever go out.
Instead?
He smiles at her. Unbelievable. I turn to see Parker just light up like a Christmas tree and that's when I notice I've snapped my worthless plastic fork that I was eating my equally worthless pasta salad with in half. That really hurts. She brings out the worst in me.
"Ease up, Lizzie, your chance to throw down with McKenzie was in the locker room," Miranda says, causing me to freeze up. Did she really just let that fall out of her mouth?
"Excuse me?" Gordo's interest has now actually been completely drawn away from the paper in front of him.
"Miranda!" I scream. How many times is she going to break the cone of silence before we graduate?
"Oh, just something that almost happened last period in the locker room. No biggie," she says casually as I roll my eyes. Yeah, he's totally going to buy that.
"Miranda, there is no such thing as 'no biggie' when we're talking about near throw downs in the girl's locker room. In fact, pretty much anything that happened in the girl's locker room should be first on the topic list at lunch," he says smiling, trying to be skuzzy, but really just looking goofy.
"Really? Okay then, this one time I was on my period and…." Miranda starts to say. Even I can't believe she went there.
"Okay, okay, okay. I get it. I stand corrected," he says about to put on his headphones.
"Actually you're sitting corrected," I jump in, seeing my opportunity.
Gordo pauses looking at each of us back and forth, realizing for the millionth time that he's not going to win when Miranda and I are ganging up on him. He puts his headphones back on with a smile and presses a couple of buttons on the player. To what he switched it to, I have no idea. I mean none. The only thing I know about Gordo's musical tastes is his brief fascination with old school big band.
I'm ashamed to say it, but there are a lot of things I don't know about him.
In my defense, it's hard to get him to open up. When he was talking me out of my Ronnie induced downward spiral, I thought he was about to open up to me about something…personal. But just as I thought I could pry into him about something that really mattered, he froze, stood up, and dropped the "we're best friends" card out of nowhere.
I don't really know why that bothered me so much. Of course we're best friends, and that's awesome. Everyday I wake up thinking about how I can't wait to see him, even if it means getting through a school day. I actually look forward to going over math homework with him in the afternoons. Even the random times he helps Matt with one of his insane projects, I get anxious for him to come over, even if its not for me.
But there has always been this boundary that he puts up. It's the kind of boundary that stops him from telling me when he is scared about living up to his own expectations. It's the kind of boundary that never explains why he can't put up with Ethan talk, even after all this time. The same kind of boundary that kept Brook a secret from me.
I mean from us. Me and Miranda.
That's what gets me so bothered about Parker in the end. I have this completely stupid fear that he'll let his guard down with her. It's not just that I'm worried he'll get hurt.
No, if anything I'm more worried she'll make him happy, happier than he ever was as my best friend. I'm worried that she'll discover things about him I never knew. Things, for one reason or another, he never trusted to tell me.
I'm worried she'll have pieces of him that I'll never have.
God, what is going on with me? Where is this coming from?
I know I'm going crazy, or that I'm being selfish. Or that I'm being crazy and selfish. And believe me I want it to stop, but normally when I can't get the gears to stop turning in my head, I turn to Gordo. He lays everything out, gives me my options, good or bad. But eventually my mind stops spinning.
But I can't do that this time, not when it is because of him. And not when, if Parker is sincere and actually sees Gordo for how incredible he really is, I have no argument to get in the way of them dating. I only got one chance at that and get away with it, and that was with Brook. If I do it again, Gordo will have me committed.
Or worse, he won't speak to me again. Or look at me, or squeeze my hand reassuringly when I'm overreacting about something.
And this is where I start to realize something. These same things I've been begging to get from guys like Ethan and Ronnie, Gordo has been giving me for free this whole time, as a friend no less. I've been so dense I never realized it until now. But people outside of our trio, namely Parker, have noticed it the whole time.
And that's why the almost fight in the locker room happened. Kate of all people was talking about how Gordo would make the perfect boyfriend. That was bizarre by itself, but I can't see Kate actually having the guts to ask him out. If anybody could get away with it, it's her. But she also has high school to worry about, and I don't think she's going to bet her future just to try and go out with Gordo.
Parker on the other hand has nothing to lose and is fanning the flames pretty hard by just standing there and smiling. Almost taunting Kate into telling us how she really feels. She got her so pissed Kate said something about Miranda maybe having a crush on Gordo.
Yeah, right. The day that happens? I'll be an international pop star. Even Miranda laughed that idea away.
I snapped however, because while Kate isn't a threat, I suddenly realized Parker is. And when somebody is more of an evil menace than Kate, they need to be dealt with. Possibly even destroyed. I mean, who wants live in a world where somebody is more evil than Kate.
Miranda didn't try to stop me really, either. She noticed me clenching my fists and taking a step towards Parker and stepped in front of me.
"What are we doing?" she asks. Only a truly loyal friend would ask what 'we' are doing instead of what 'I' was planning on doing on my own. Its good to know that she'll have my back when and if a fight does happen.
But the locker room brawl wasn't going to happen today. I would've looked nuts. Parker technically didn't say a thing. Kate is the one trashing me. And if I walked over there and sucker punched Parker it would look like I was taking Kate's side. Which….never.
So now here we are. Kate has dubbed Gordo as the most available and desired single guy in school, which he doesn't even know happened, and Parker is sitting, waiting, wishing for her moment to get her hooks into him. All I can do is sit here and watch it happen.
I didn't believe Gordo when he talked about how sometimes you feel things you don't understand right away, especially after the Ronnie thing when everything seemed to happen so quickly. I knew what I was feeling every step of the way the moment it happened.
Maybe that's why it didn't last.
I've been trying to do what he told me. Take a deep breath, step back, think about who is causing the feeling before figuring out the what and the why. Well it starts when I look at Gordo, and think about Parker. And I see them dancing together, and then I imagine everything that might've happened had they gone to the dance without the "too short" insanity.
Gordo walking Parker home after the dance.
Gordo walking her up the steps of her house.
Parker thanking him for a wonderful time.
Gordo, nervous as to how to end the night. Handshake? Kiss on the cheek?
Parker watching his nervous jittering, smelling blood in the water, goes in for the kiss.
I couldn't blame her, if it were me, that's what I would do.
And that's when I realize what this feeling is. It's worse than I thought.
I want it to be me; I want to be the one that does something that makes him feel like he's let me feel millions of times over. The best friend thing isn't enough for me now.
Jealousy.
Jealous of Parker over Gordo.
Fine.
I'll admit I'm jealous, but I won't admit I'm in love.
