A/N: Okay, I think this is a good chapter. A lot of things are resolved, but it opens up options for other things. Just as a little thing, this is the last day of spring break. Easter, as you may like to call it. So yeah, reviews are great, see you in the next chapter tomorrow (I hope)!
Jim picked up a piece of gravel, weighing it expertly in one hand before tossing it up to Natasha's closed window. He repeated the process a few times until Natasha heard and threw up the sash, looking angrily down. Her expression softened, however, when she saw Jim looking nervous and holding a radio in one hand.
"Natasha…" he started. "Please listen. I know this is really cliché and all, but this song expresses everything I want to say to you."
He set the radio down and stuck a tape into the tape-deck, fumbling a little. He cranked the volume and picked the entire stereo up, holding it over his head as a song began to play.
"Lady," he said over the music. "When I'm with you, I'm smiling." His cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. "Love shines in your eyes."
A small smile crept up Natasha's face. "I don't know why, but I want to jump out this window and into his arms," she thought. She remembered the night on the ferris wheel, their first and only kiss, and she balked a little.
"Sparkly, clear and lovely, you're my lady." Jim's voice had gained confidence and he had a goofy grin plastered on his face.
"Jim Brass, you are the most romantic boy I've ever met!" Natasha's voice was high and clear from the window. She was wearing a revealing, pink, semi-transparent slip to bed, and Jim could almost see through it as she leaned out the window into the moonlight. It was hard to keep the dirtier of his thoughts from drifting across his mind, but somehow he managed it. "I think I love you, but I can't do this. I'm so sorry." Her smile had faded, all but disappeared, and there were sparkling tears on the tips of her eyelashes. She put on a brave smile, almost a smirk, as the tears spilled over.
"You're an excellent fellow, Jim, you know that?" she said as she slammed the window shut, dimming the lights in her room and allowing the torrent of emotion to spill from her eyes. She walked out of the room, blinded by the waterfalls of salty tears running down her cheeks, over her lips, off her chin, staining the silky, pink negligee.
She ran into the guest bedroom, the one with a view over the city to the Strip, gleaming bright and cheerful over the rooftops of the monotonous suburbia.
Natasha buried her face in the pillow, pulling the blankets up over her head and willing the memory of Jim's hurt expression to leave her mind. It was no use. The way he had looked, pathetic, puppy-dog look in his eyes, would not let her be. It gnawed at her conscience, and a small voice, the voice of guilt, was reprimanding her. "Why are you running from what you know you want?" it said reproachfully. "What makes you hide from the boy you are so clearly in love with? I'm ashamed of you." Its remarks stung Natasha, but she pressed her face into the pillow and fell into a restless sleep.
XoXoXoXoX
Nick, Sara, and Greg sat at a small table in a local café around a small, round table. They were sipping iced lattes, staring at each other. Sara had been surprised to find that the tension that had once weighed so heavily had been lifted. "I wonder what did it," she thought as she looked at them inconspicuously, not wanting them to see. "Whoever it was, they must be a genius."
The three of them went to the amusement park, riding roller coasters and eating cotton candy. After paying for three large, pink balls of spun sugar, the three sat down to eat them.
Sara looked comically over at her male companions, a large piece of fluffy candy stuck to her nose. Nick leaned over and shivers ran up his spine at the close proximity of his face to Sara's. He snapped his mouth shut, barely missing her skin, and grinned, holding the piece of cotton candy in his teeth.
Greg scowled. Sara was laughing, poking Nick and trying to get her cotton candy back from him. Nick swallowed and Sara slapped on an identical scowl to Greg's, crossing her arms and pouting until Nick apologized and let her have a bite of his own.
"I have an idea," Greg said brightly. "Let's go on the biggest roller coaster here!"
Sara jumped up and the two of them ran out of the midway and towards the large, sweeping roller coaster that warped the skyline and wound around the entire park, bearing groups of screaming teenagers.
Soon they were all settled into one car, Sara in the middle, her knuckles white from holding the safety bar. Her scream rose above everyone else's, high and squeaky from the exhilaration of the coaster. "You know, I should suggest this to Catherine and Gil," she thought. "I bet Gil would love this."
XoXoXoXoX
Gil snapped on a pair of latex gloves. He liked the feeling of the gloves against his hands, his fingers holding the scalpel like a pencil, rather amateur. He was staring squeamishly down at the dead dog on the cold, steel table.
It was his first day at the coroner's office, about 8 pm. He'd called Jim earlier that day to tell him about his new job, only to find that later that night he would be confessing his love to Natasha.
Gil sighed down at the dog and began the Y incision, all the while wondering when romance would enter his life. He reflected on Catherine and her scene at the dance, wondering if that counted as romance. "One-sided romance," he thought, discouraged. A few moments later his mind was back on Jim.
"Last year, the two of us were the least popular guys in school. We weren't best friends; we were each other's only friends. We gravitated together, like marbled in a non-stick pan. To avoid complete embarrassment, alienation from our piers, we banded together and formed our own sociality. So why is he suddenly Mr. Popular?"
Sighing again, Gil looked down at the dog. "I know I can get a girl. And I know I like Catherine. So she's the one I want. No more lies to myself. I'm going to tell her one of these days."