A/N: Disney owns the characters and the backdrop. I only own the angst. So there. Thanks again for the reviews.

I've figured out why Ethan Craft is so…to put it nicely…not smart.

Having this many girls focusing on you at once is a serious obstacle to getting any learning done. Lizzie and Miranda probably think I've been working on my paper since lunch started. In reality, I've been writing lyrics to songs while listening to my MP3 player. Because I'm trying not to make eye contact with any one of three girls who I swear are staring me down at this very moment.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, or maybe I'm beginning to get an ego about something besides my grade point average. I'm not sure which one of those is better. I've worked pretty hard to be realistic about how smart I actually am, and any day now somebody is going to one up me in algebra and I want to at least pretend like I saw it coming.

But being paranoid can lead to new and different levels of crazy, so that's no good either.

The worst part is that I brought this upon myself. All those times I lamely went on and on about wanting to get noticed by Lizzie, or by any girl for that matter, are now coming back to haunt me. At first I was flattered, maybe even a little happy, but recently I've been finding this a little scary.

'Be careful what you wish for'

I remember my dad telling me this once. That there are some things I'm going to value a little too highly. When I finally get them, not only are they not going to make me happy, I'm actually going to be pissed that I ever wanted them in the first place.

I hate it when he's right.

Imagine the scene before me. Lizzie and Miranda sitting diagonally from me at the circular table, then at a table maybe twenty feet behind them is Parker who is sitting so that she has basically a straight on view of me.

Between the three of them, I couldn't tell you who is staring me down the hardest. But I'm going to go down the list and say it's Parker in first, followed closely by Miranda. Lizzie is in third, probably only because she's trying to figure out why Parker is staring at me.

I could be totally wrong, because I'm only able to see what's going on for like a half-second at a time when I quickly look up while I erase something I miswrote. I'm not sure how convincing my 'I'm trying to write the greatest English paper man will ever be blessed to read' performance is going. I did almost bite my tongue again as I inadvertently stuck it out the side of my mouth just now. Not a good sign for my future kissing ability. I mean if I can't control it in my own mouth, what hope do I honestly have?

Now Lizzie is really playing eye pong between Parker and me. At least I hope that's what she's spinning her gears on, because if she suspects anything about me and Miranda…

"I wish she would cut that crap out!" Lizzie says, exasperated.

Moment of truth time. I remove my MP3 player headphones to listen to what was up.

"Who's doing what now?" I ask curiously, although not actually stopping to look up from my 'paper'.

"Parker, giving you the eye, its…unsettling" she says meekly. I'm thinking she didn't mean to get that pissed.

"Its just seller's remorse, Lizzie, let it be," Miranda says as she sips her coke.

I should just let that go, keep pretending to do the paper. But stupid Gordo just has to say something now.

"Careful Miranda, that almost sounded like a compliment," I reply with a smile, still writing.

God, why won't you let me just shut up?

"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. Again, I should just keep quiet, let it die. But stupid Gordo seems quite confused as to how Miranda can keep up this great acting job going here, yet if I put her up on a real stage with a real role to act out, she's like an elephant on crack in a glass house.

"Deny, deny, deny. We'll never be happy unless we stop this fake hostility and start making out," I shoot back and the urge to laugh causes Miranda to spit out her last sip.

"You got me. That was good," she replies as we both laugh.

And this is how it has been. Miranda and I were a less than a second away from making out full throttle two weeks ago. As fate would have it, my mom broke up the moment. And it feels as though we've been in the twilight zone ever since. Juvenile name-calling has been replaced by flirting, and I have no idea how I feel about it. Although I can say that it is totally Ronnie's fault. If he never dropped into the equation, none of us would have ever gotten hurt or confused in the first place.

I'd like to believe that, but I almost threw everything out of balance on my own before walking in on Lizzie and stupid hot Ronnie playing tonsil hockey. I'm not sure that giving her that CD would have been smart now that I see how quickly she attached herself to a total stranger with maybe two functioning brain cells.

Okay, that was mean.

Not about Ronnie, the guy has to be a moron. But about Lizzie, I know better than anybody how she gets caught up in something only to be horribly disappointed later. I'm not exactly great at that either; I mean look how the "asking Parker to the dance" thing turned out. I thought that would be an easy drive to the basket for a lay-up, instead I got rejected, figuratively and literally.

I finally take a moment to look up, Parker quickly looks back down at her food, but her embarrassed smile and blushing has already given her away. I don't really resent her anymore, but part of me is fantasizing winning the Oscar for best director twenty years from now. And she'll get to watch it all alone on a coach in her tiny house that she has filled with forty cats, because she just can't meet a guy that lives up to her height standards and can put up with her voice for more than five minutes at a time.

But I can't hold grudges, they waste too much of the day. Every second you waste holding onto a grudge is a second you choose not to get on with being happy again. And being the well-adjusted son of two shrinks, that's just not a choice at all.

Parker looks up again, and I give her a small smile. And she throws one back at me, although she is still having trouble keeping eye contact. She might be catching on to Lizzie's….

SNAP!

…seething rage which has caused Lizzie to break her fork in one hand. That…looks like it hurt…although I'm trying to pretend like I didn't notice it. What the hell has gotten into her?

"Ease up, Lizzie, your chance to throw down with McKenzie was in the locker room," Miranda says, causing me to look up again.

Hello story.

"Excuse me?" I ask feeling no need to pretend working on the 'paper' now that something better might be here to distract me.

"Miranda!" Lizzie screams. Looks like the cone of silence has been violated again.

"Oh, just something that almost happened last period in the locker room. No biggie," she says casually as Lizzie rolls her eyes. Nice try, Sanchez.

"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," I say smiling.

"Really? Okay then, this one time I was on my period and…." Miranda starts to say.

AHHHH! Eject! Eject!

"Okay, okay, okay. I get it. I stand corrected," I quickly say trying to put on my headphones. If there is something I never seem to learn, it's when I've given Miranda too much of an opening. She could have driven a truck through this one.

"Actually you're sitting corrected," Lizzie jumps in, pressing my last button.

I can't count how many times I've been here, but I know when they're shutting me out. Whatever happened in the locker room is not going to be shared by either of them. And when they team up they can argue any point until they pass out, even if its "the sky is green, Gordo" or "Ethan's not as dense as you think he is, Gordo". They are going to keep pushing until I give up. So the smart thing to do is put my headphones back on with a smile and press a couple of buttons on the player.

And after what happened just now, the obvious song to play is "Shut Up" by Simple Plan. Maybe I'll listen to them if I won't listen to my own conscience.

I tried so hard to break out of this triangle. Brook, starting high school early, and now Parker. It was always about more than testing my limits or meeting somebody new. This was about getting some space between us again.

At first, "us" just meant between Lizzie and me. I was always fighting myself between getting closer and putting my guard up with her. I never got why I was doing this until after I put her back together again in the library after the humiliating dumping she got from Ronnie.

I mean, that was the moment to finally confess it all. All the sharp breaths from taking in her scent, all the anxiety when I noticed how close she was standing, all the times I zoned out when I was practically staring through her let alone at her. Now was the time to put it out there. To say, "I'm the one you're looking for. Why date the tall, good looking, confident blonde guys when you can date a short, neurotic, dark and curly haired best friend?"

But then I realized something. Something very sad.

When it came down to it, I became the biggest coward.

Fear of failure? David Gordon? Please.

Fear of failure doesn't exist about stuff that I know I can handle. Things that don't have any real consequence, like my grades, future, whatever. Stuff like that. You fall down to pick yourself back up. That's what it is all about.

For a brief moment, I held Lizzie's heart in my hand. I could feel it, hear it, and gently squeeze it.

And that was the single most terrifying moment in my life. Far worse than hearing my dad sing karaoke. I would have rather had a live grenade or a really pissed off rattlesnake in my hand. In that moment all I could think about was giving it back to her in one piece.

In that moment, I realized what one person could do with another's heart. How much happiness you can give when handled with care, and how much despair when handled with total apathy.

In that moment, David Gordon believed in the fear of failure more than the reward of success.

For the longest time, only Lizzie could have moved me like that, to the point where I actually lost confidence in myself. It's mostly because, while she doesn't know it or would ever believe it, I am almost certain she's going to be bigger than the 'girl next door' life she's been shoeboxing herself into.

And I'm not going to be the guy to hold her back. Ever. I've spent way too much of my short life pushing her forward.

And then there is Miranda.

At first, I was worried about Miranda finding out the thing I had for Lizzie. How it might affect our relationship and whether she would be left out. Part of me thought she always knew, and just kept waiting for me to show some chutzpah and ask Lizzie out. Or maybe she wanted nothing to happen but thought the whole thing was inevitable anyway.

Now none of those things make sense, not after she…tried to…kiss me.

God, I can barely say it without thinking I've gone completely crazy. I never thought something like that would happen between Miranda and I. Maybe because I've been lost in Lizzieland this whole time. Lizzieland is basically Wonderland, with fewer doped up caterpillars and homicidal royalty, but brighter colors and scented soap.

But I liked it. I liked being lost there because it was safe and predictable. As long as I admired the view without trying to build a house on it by asking her out, I could never fail. Then Ronnie moved in, and Lizzieland just wasn't all that great anymore.

I was going to sulk in my room for a straight week, then talk about swearing off girls until college. I had plenty of things to keep me occupied without getting caught up in all their silliness. I was going to make some guy friends, be less understanding and sensitive, get into trouble. Trick or treating on Halloween? No way. Time to start egging houses with Ethan. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

But nope, Miranda. This new bizarre thing between us has consumed me. And things have been so different between us recently. I miss our totally stupid fights about nothing in particular. Now we're just like…friends. Plain old boring friends who flirt in a somewhat insincere way, right in front of our other friend. Like we're begging to get caught almost.

I think that's why I'm not totally denying what I'm feeling about Miranda. It's so dangerous and wrong that it's exciting. And that's a totally a horrible way to think, I know. But Lizzie is so anti-Parker, now more than ever, that her protectiveness is just in overdrive. Its impossible to know how she would react if Miranda and I threw caution to the wind and went for it all.

But my brain doesn't accept 'impossible to know' as an excuse, and since the day Miranda visited me in my room, it's been replaying the same dream over and over.

My room. That day. Same conversation, except this time you can remove the word 'almost' from 'almost kiss'.

I can feel my lips against hers. It seems to be happening so fast that we have to take very quick breaths just to make sure we don't pass out. I simply have no idea what to do with my hands, but I believe I rest them on her hips, I'm really nervous about going out of bounds. Miranda…um…doesn't have that same problem. And before I know it her hands are shoving me onto my bed behind me.

My brain wants to rationalize what's happening, but it would take about three cans of mace to stop Miranda now. This is another reason why it's so exciting. I, David Gordon the infamous control freak, have almost no control over what's happening as she presses against me just a bit harder and starts to kiss my neck. I am in a total freefall at this moment and I like it. That's the Drs. Gordon explanation of dreams for you. Sometimes it's just about tapping into your alter ego for a while, to stand outside of yourself and gain some perspective.

The fun and self-discovery doesn't last though.

Somebody has walked in on us. And unlike what happened with my mom almost busting us last time. The person who stumbled in on us is a million times worse.

Lizzie.

Her face is in total shock at first, then changing to this kind of mix of anger and sadness. As I stand up to try and explain, having no real way to explain something like that, she storms off…or she punches me in the face. Not a soap opera type slap mind you, but a full-fisted punch to the nose.

I usually wake up after that. In the version where she punches me I freak out especially hard because I feel something wet under my nose, thinking blood, only to find sweat. It takes me forever to fall back to sleep after that, and sometimes I don't get back to sleep at all.

That's why nothing should happen between us. It's obvious none of us are ready to go it alone. Especially me. There was a reason I ended things with Brook or didn't go through with starting high school early, and only some it had to do with how badly Lizzie and Miranda reacted to it.

But we do need some breathing room, some space again. To get some perspective.

I picked up a brochure about a class trip to Rome for pre-freshman only. Only a limited number of seats available and the deadline is next week. I've already gotten the green light from mom and dad and reserved my spot.

With any luck…Lizzie and Miranda won't find out about it until its too late.

I'll admit I'm falling for Miranda.

I'll admit I haven't stopped falling for Lizzie.

I won't admit…that I'm running away…because I have no idea what to do about it.

FIN