A.N: I'm back once again, and with how things are wrapping up, I think I should get three or four more chapters out of this. But first, it appears some of you are fooled into thinking that things are going to go smoothly from here on out. Well, the answer to that is simple: no, no they won't. You'll see about that later on, but we have another chapter to go through! I'll decide what happens in this chapter as I go along, so I can't actually tell you what to expect, so...oh well. Also, my schedule has cleared up finally, which I am very glad about. Onto the next chapter!
I never did get to see Marie on Sunday, but I was still ecstatic about Saturday that I didn't mind too much. In fact, I didn't even think about what would happen on Monday. I had completely forgotten that Kevin, Nazz, and Jimmy still didn't know that I returned, so getting a visit from a couple of them was interesting. I was sitting against the wall listening to music, waiting for Marie to walk over when Nazz decided to visit me, wearing a very confused look. Her eyes were squinted to look at me, and her head was tilted. I noticed her, gave her an equally confused look, and paused my music.
"Edd? Is that really you?" She asked, approaching me as if she was getting closer to a scared dog. I smiled slightly and let out a laugh.
"Yup, I'm back, sorry about not-" I tried to reply, but as soon as the word "yup" left my mouth, her eyes opened as wide as they could, and before I could finish what I was saying, she leapt at me and hugged me.
"Holy shit! I didn't- we thought- I don't even know what to say!" She almost yelled. I hugged her back, and after hugging for a few seconds, Nazz let me go. "I can't believe you're back! How couldn't I see that you were you?! I can't believe it!" She seemed to get more excited as she kept talking, and it was pretty amusing how much she was freaking out. She reminded me of those girls you would see who would run up to her friends after not seeing them for a week and scream as they went to hug their friend. In fact, I think she is one of those people.
"I can't believe you didn't realize who I was when you first saw me, but I guess I changed a lot while I was away." I said shrugging my shoulders. I remembered when she first came up to me and talked with me, I was as terrified as I could have been at that time.
"Yeah, you changed a ton! I really can't believe I didn't recognize you, that is insane!" Nazz practically had an aura of energy that seemed to be growing the more she was talking with me, and I could tell that she was happy that I was back. As we were talking I noticed that Marie had walked up to us, and she hooked onto my arm.
"Hey babe. Oh, hey Nazz." Marie spat the second part toward Nazz, and I could tell Marie had a problem with Nazz being here. I saw Nazz's face descend into disgust at Marie, and that energetic aura jarringly changed to cold and distant hatred.
"Hey Marie. Well listen, Edd. I'm gonna go back to the cheerleaders, but we should talk later, ok?" She asked and smiled a little when she asked me. I nodded and said that I would. "Alright, nice! Well it was nice meeting up with you!" She said as she gave me a hug and then walked away. I turned back to Marie, and I could see a scowl on her face as she watched Nazz walk away.
"That was interesting." I said, a little confused as to why Marie had this scowl glued to her face.
"Yeah. Interesting…" She said as if trying to figure out a mystery.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I feel like she's planning something. I've never really liked her, but I think she's thinking to do something…" She said, now glaring at where Nazz turned the corner.
"Hey, it's ok, I won't let her get away with anything if she tries to do something with me." I tried to reassure her. "Also, are we already giving each other pet names?" I asked her, trying to get her mind off of Nazz. Marie's face turned into a small smile as she gave an eyeroll.
"Well, I saw Nazz talking with you, so I just wanted to make her sure that you were already taken." She responded. "I mean, I know I could have done it other ways, but…" She trailed off as she hugged me and leaned her head into my chest.
"So this is you making things difficult, huh." I said in a mocking tone.
"Hey, my moods change a lot, you're just gonna have to deal with it, alright?" She said, looking up at me with a smile. I just rested my head on her's and we talked until we had to go to our classes. The day had already started out stranger than normal, but it was bound to get stranger as the day went on. The first two periods were normal, but third period was where things got even more interesting. I was sitting in my seat getting my supplies ready when I heard Kevin from behind me.
"Double D?" I heard his confused voice say. I turned around with a raised eyebrow, and saw Kevin standing there, bewildered.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Is that really you?" Kevin asked. I looked at myself, as if seeing if I was really there.
"Yeah, I think so." I replied with a smirk on my face as I saw Kevin's eyes grow.
"No fucking way! That's crazy! When did you come back!?" He asked. I told him a little bit of the story of when and why I was back, and slightly into why I left in the first place. Unfortunately, I couldn't elaborate too much, as the class was about to start, so I said that I would explain it later. Kevin still seemed shocked at the very least as he returned to his seat. The actual class was boring to say the least as we learned about stuff I had already learned about prior to that day. Afterwards, though, Kevin came up to me and made a little proposition.
"So what would you think if I planned a little party for you coming back?" Kevin asked me with a smile. "That way you could tell some of us what you were doing in New York for all of these years." He ended off.
"Well actually, Kevin, I've pretty much told everyone else, but a party could be fun after everything that's happened." I replied. I was needing to let loose a little bit, it had been a rough month or so. A party might not have been the best idea, seeing as how I wasn't a social butterfly, but I would try it out anyways.
"Alright! Sounds good, I'll try to plan it out soon!" Kevin said as he rushed out to his next period. I made my way out to calculus and saw Marie waiting outside with a sly grin on her face. Oh great. I hope she hasn't planned anything, I thought to myself as I walked up.
"Hey sweetie," She said in the tone she used when we were kids.
"Hmm, not gonna let up, even if I'm not running from you."
"Nope!" She said with a chuckle. I was just about to walk into class, but she grabbed me and hugged me. "But even if you want to run, you can't now." She said with a smile. I smiled back at her and returned the hug.
"Oh lord, have I made a mistake?" I jokingly asked.
"Oh yeah, big time." She replied as she let go of me and we both walked into class. The rest of the day was pretty lackluster, although I would notice Marie sneaking glances and smirking at me every so often in both calculus and history, but how could I blame her? After all, she did kind of get together with someone she had been in love with for a while. Albeit she also terrorized me and my friends, but if there's anything I've learned since I've returned, it's that people can change. After the last period had ended, Marie and I had decided to walk home together, as we were leaving though, we ran into Nazz again, and I could see Marie's face turn into disgust yet again. I don't know what was wrong between them, but I felt like I would find out eventually. Nazz saw us, and I saw her expression change too when she saw Marie. It quickly lightened up when she saw me though, and I felt awkward being in the middle of all of this. Marie grabbed my hand and tried pulling me in a different direction from Nazz, but it was too late.
"Hey, Double D!" Nazz said to get my attention, and she walked over to get to me. Marie tried to go faster, but to no avail. "So, when did you want to meet up?" She asked, and I saw her eyes glance down at Marie grabbing my hand, and I saw her expression change just for a second, so fast that I couldn't tell what it was. I looked over and saw Marie looking away from Nazz, with a disgusted glare stuck to her face. I looked back over to Nazz, a little worried for what could happen.
"Um, you know, I really don't know…" I trailed off, trying to diffuse the situation that was going on. I could practically feel the hate radiating off of these two, and being in the middle of it was even less fun.
"Here, how about I give you my phone number?" Nazz asked me as she pulled out her phone. I grabbed my phone and we exchanged numbers. As this was going on, I could feel Marie's grip on my hand become stronger and stronger. It was a relief when we and Nazz parted.
"You ok, Marie?" I asked. Her face was still unhappy as we walked along.
"No. I really feel like she's planning something." Marie replied, and just as I was about to say there was nothing to worry about, another voice called out from behind us.
"Edd!" I heard Jonny shout, and I turned around to see him running toward us with a worried look on his face.
"Oh hey Jonny. What's up?" I asked.
"I-oh, well, I want to talk with you later today if that's ok." He tripped up a bit when he saw Marie holding my hand, but he caught himself quickly.
"Uh, sure. Do I have your phone number? Just call me when you want to talk." I said. Once again I exchanged phone numbers, but this time before leaving, Jonny whispered something to me.
"Talk to me before you talk with Nazz." He made sure that Marie couldn't hear what he was saying, and I caught on to that.
"Alright." I said before we parted. Marie was now more confused than angry, which I thought was a step a better direction.
"What was that about?" She asked me.
"Eh, he just wanted to talk later, that's all. Did I tell you he was the first one who found me out?" I asked, trying to get attention off of what he whispered to me.
"Yeah, I believe you did." She replied. It appeared my trick had worked, as she didn't mention it again as we walked home. Instead, we talked about all sorts of randomness as we walked home, ranging from cartoons to music. Once again, we got into how Marie could sing, and how I hadn't heard her yet.
"Come on, I still haven't heard you, just give me something I can work with!" I pleaded to her in a half-joking, half-serious manner. Marie was smiling, but also embarrassed by what I was asking.
"No, you know that I don't like singing in front of people." She replied back.
"You only said that you don't like singing without music." I retorted. She turned to face me with a smile.
"You know what? Fine, when we get to your house, pull out your damn guitar so you won't keep asking me to do this." She said.
"Finally. Also, who's to say I won't keep asking you anyways?" I questioned.
"You better not pester me about this." She replied, chuckling a little bit afterwards.
"Hey, I'm serious! I want to know what kind of voice you have!" I said, trying to make my case.
"Here, I'll make a deal with you, you sing a song after I sing one. Deal?" She asked, sticking out her hand. I was a little reluctant at first, but I shook her hand in the end.
"Deal." I said. I wasn't a singer, I was the one who made music with instruments and my computer, not my voice. "But don't be disappointed when my voice sounds awful." I said as she laughed.
"I don't think you'll be that bad, but you won't be as good as me." She said as she walked backwards in front of me. We eventually made it to my home and I went to my room to grab my guitar. I went out, and it occurred to me that I might not know how to play the song she wanted to sing.
"Um, Marie?" I asked as she looked over from her seat on the couch. "What song were you gonna sing?"
"Did you realize that you might not know how to play what song I want?" She asked and my eyes widened in surprise.
"Huh, you figured that out a while ago I guess. Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
"Well, funnily enough, I only realized it when I actually chose what song I wanted, and not only that, the song I have in mind doesn't really have any guitar in it from what I remember." She said with a smile. I looked around a little confused.
"Um, so what do I do then?" I asked, still holding my guitar.
"You can play that for me a little later. Come over." She said as she gestured at the seat next to her.
"So what are you gonna sing to then?" I questioned, knowing that I couldn't do anything at this point.
"There's a piano version of it, I've remembered the lyrics to it at this point." She replied, pulling out her phone and tried looking for a version that worked, but the first few videos didn't quite work. I knew from the first video what it was, as the chords from the song were very familiar, and I recognised it as Nothing Without Love by Nate Ruess.
"No way! You can sing that?" I gasped. I had only found it about two months prior, but I loved that song and everything about it. I never imagined that Marie would be one to sing that, so it made it all the more surprising. Marie smiled a little, and I could see her blush.
"Well, yeah. I loved the song when I first heard it a while back, and I learned how to sing it, and, well, now I know all the words to it." Marie explained. It would be difficult to be better than the original, but I believed that Marie would do good. It took a few minutes before she actually found one that would work. She breathed in just to get ready and then she played the song.
"I am nothing without love
I'm but a ship stuck in the sand.
Some would say that I'm all alone,
But I am, I'm nothing without love."
As she started off, I could tell just how good of a singer she was. She wasn't as good as Nate himself, but she shocked me with how well she could sing. She looked over, and I guess she saw my shock because she smiled as she went on.
"I want to hold him in my arms,
But he feeling low, he feeling sad
I would take credit for what's wrong
But I am, I'm nothing without love."
I was almost sure that my jaw fell onto the floor. Here was Marie, the girl who when we were kids had one of the shrillest voices in our little neighborhood, singing so good that it surprised me how she had no record deals with anyone.
"Three years at sea after the storm,
On this sinking ship that love had put me on.
God I wish a gust of wind would come and carry me home
But I, I got nowhere to go.
Now here you show up with the force of a wave
And so I'm setting my sail, I'm headed for the empire state.
Hey hey Lord, I don't want to lose this one,
He made me feel whole. You know I am,
I'm nothing without love."
My shock for what was going on just kept growing as I listened to her voice. Unfortunately, she stopped before she could sing the rest of it, but I was still surprised by Marie's talent.
"Wait, why did you stop?" I asked, awestruck at the performance she gave. She looked down, obviously shy about her singing.
"It's a little weird singing for someone, I don't know." She mumbled out.
"Hey, your voice is amazing, seriously. Have you gotten any sort of record deal with anyone?" I asked. She shook her head.
"No, I've wanted to, but I always get nervous because they ask for some sort of demonstration or recording. I've always doubted myself in this, so I never actually tried getting a deal." She said, her face full of disappointment.
"Well what about some of your classes or theatre? Wouldn't they want you to sing in there?"
"They do, but I get too nervous when I try and mess it up. I can't sing in front of a crowd, it's really hard to fight back all the anxiety and nervousness of messing up that I end up messing up because I'm focusing too much on that." She said, defeat in her voice.
"Hmm, I never took you as someone with stage fright, Marie. Then again, I'm not sure how I can help, I have the same problem. I mean, I've danced in front of a crowd, but that's dancing. I'm sure singing would be even harder to get under control when you're nervous." I said, and I saw Marie get a small grin and look at me questioningly.
"Wait, you've danced in front of a crowd before? When was this?" She said as her grin turned into a smile as she wanted to hear the story. I told her that the breakdance club and I had performed in front of the school for one of our rallies. It was an annual thing my school did so that some of the clubs could perform in front of our school for a rally, and it was by far the best rally our school had all year. Last year was the first one I had performed in, and as terrified as I was, I managed to do really good. I messed up once, but it was only a minor mistake, so I managed to recover.
"It probably helped that I was with other people when I did it. I'm not sure if I could have done it if it was just me up there." I finished off, and I could see Marie invested in my story.
"You know, I still haven't seen you dance. How about instead of you singing, I see you dance?" She asked with a grin. I looked at her and smiled as I got up, looking to see what I could do in this room. I didn't want to knock stuff off tables or hit chairs, so windmills were out of the picture. I decided on just doing a simple set, starting off with some top rock, and then doing a few steps to transition to cc's. After doing that, I swung my legs to the opposite side of me, and tried to do a quick handstand in the same motion. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the fan was too low for me to be doing handstands, and my foot came right up and collided with one of the blades.
"Oh shi-!" I said as I brought my feet back down to me and landed on my back, knocking the wind out of me. Luckily for me, we didn't have our fans going, so the only damage done to me or the fan was tiny. Marie was already by my side with a concerned look on her face. All I could do was look at her and laugh. She joined in after a second.
"Why do you always laugh when you fall? Do you just have something against yourself?" She asked between laughs.
"No, it's just that I know how close that was to me getting even more hurt. I'm glad that the fan wasn't on because that would have hurt a lot more." I replied. I just laid on my back, looking as the fan stopped swinging. I'll have to check that later. If my parents found out if I broke the fan, I'm not sure how they would react. Marie decided to lay down next to me, and we just ended up talking about more random stuff. After a few minutes, a comfortable silence came between us. At least, I thought it was comfortable, but Marie had something else in mind.
"So, you know how I said I was going to make this whole relationship difficult for you?" She asked as she turned over to face me.
"Yeah, why?" I asked as I turned my head to her.
"Well, maybe I've changed my mind." She said with a smile, and before I knew it, her face was right next to mine, and our lips were locked. It took me by surprise, but I went with it once that initial fear had left me. I closed my eyes, and the feeling between us was something different, good, like that feeling between us when I realized I had feelings for her. The feelings that I was experiencing was beyond that, though, and there was energy between us as we kissed. The kiss lasted for a few seconds, and we both enjoyed the feeling of each other's lips and the passion behind the kiss. This was far from the kisses she gave when we were younger, this one had meaning behind it. We both let go, and looked into each other's eyes, smiling. Or, at least, she was smiling and I was in shock at what just happened.
"You ok over there, or was that a little too much for you?" She asked with a chuckle. I just chuckled and went along with it.
"I just didn't expect it was all, and for someone who said she was gonna make it difficult, what? A couple days ago?" I responded with a smirk. She just rolled her eyes and laid back down.
"Hey, I'm also the one who said that you would have to deal with all of my mood changes as well. I'm also pretty sure you enjoyed that kiss, so don't lie." She said as she laughed.
"I wasn't saying I didn't enjoy that, I'm just saying that you're a hypocrite." I said laughing along with her. I played one quick song on my guitar as we kept the banter up for a while until she had to leave. We kissed again as she left, but it was much quicker, even if it was just as filled with passion as the first one. I laughed to myself how we found out that we both like each other and just a few days later had already kissed. I was much happier as I went along with the rest of the day, but then I remembered Jonny and how he wanted to talk with me. I was guessing it had to be something important based on how he whispered for me to talk to him before Nazz. I texted him, and it was decided that I would be down in half an hour. I arrived at Jonny's house, which was only a short walk away and knocked on the door.
"Hey Double D! Come on in, I have to talk to you." Jonny greeted in a happy voice. I smiled and walked in.
"So what's going on?" I asked, seeing Jonny's face turn into one of worry and concern.
"Oh, well, you're not gonna like it. How about you sit down, do you want anything to drink?" He asked, his tone a little more serious. It had been a while since I had seen Jonny out of school, so I was glad to meet with him. I would have been much calmer if he didn't say that I wouldn't like it, but I felt like I would have had to hear it no matter what.
"No, I don't need anything, thank you though. Why did I need to talk to you before Nazz?" I asked, hoping that this would be resolved as quickly as possible. Jonny looked down, nervousness still plastered on his face.
"Well, I saw Nazz talk to you and Marie-say, are you two going out now?" He asked. He was trying to buy time, but I decided to answer him.
"Yeah, we actually found out we liked each other over the weekend." I said, smiling.
"You mean you found out that you liked her?" Jonny said as he snickered to himself.
"Well, yeah, I guess that's true." I said, smiling at the fact that Marie had liked me for a long time. "Anyways, sorry if I haven't talked to you for a while, it's been a crazy month so far." I said, trying to get everything out of the way before we actually talked about the main issue at hand.
"It's ok, I'm kind of used to it." He replied, which took me by surprise.
"Oh, well, sorry about that too…" I said, feeling guilty for even mentioning it.
"It's ok, you don't need to feel bad about it. After all, you've actually been pretty nice to me, so thanks for that." It made me feel better, but I still felt a little guilty about it.
"So, back to what I was talking about," Jonny began. "I saw Nazz talking to you and Marie, and I don't know if you know this, but they really hate each other. I think it has to with Marie putting some of the blame on Nazz as to why you left, and Nazz blaming Marie as to why Kevin and her didn't work out." This was news to me. I hadn't heard about this before, but I should have seen something like that coming. I doubt that that much hate could have just been natural. "Anyways, I think that Nazz has something planned, and I don't think it's anything good." Jonny finished off, and I felt glad that I had talked with Jonny.
"What do you think is gonna happen though?" I questioned.
"I think that Nazz is planning on trying to get you and Marie to break up, and whether that's by trying to get together with you or lying about something, she's gonna try her best." I felt confident that I wouldn't get together with Nazz, but her lying about me would be tricky, especially since she wanted me to come over at some point. "Remember what I told you about Nazz, she's cynical and hateful, especially toward Marie. I'd watch her if I were you, she's gonna try to get back at Marie." Jonny spoke, making me feel even worse now, but I felt that I could prevent something like this from happening. Hopefully if I talked to Marie about this before anything happened, it wouldn't be as bad if something did happen. I told him what I was planning to do, and he told me that that was probably the best idea. We talked for a little while longer, but this idea stayed in the back of my head, so I couldn't keep a good conversation going. I apologized and told Jonny that I would meet back up with him later. I walked out of his house, and as I kept thinking to myself, I heard someone call out to me.
"Double D!" I turned around, and sure enough, Nazz was at her door, looking out at me. I weighed out in my mind whether it would be better to ignore her or not, and eventually decided on the latter.
"Hey, Nazz. What's up?" I said, a little wary of if she was actually planning something.
"I just saw you out there and wondered if you wanted to stop by!" She shouted back. I don't know how she managed to see me in the minute I was leaving Jonny's house, but I had no intentions of going with Nazz until I told Marie what was happening.
"Uh, I actually have to get home, I have homework and other things to do." I replied as I started toward my house.
"Oh, wait! I can walk you over there!" I heard her shout as she closed the door and ran over to catch up to me. I had a bad feeling about this, and I knew it wasn't going to end well. Turns out, I wasn't far from the truth.
A.N: Sooooo… I might have extended this story by a couple more chapters on accident. Hopefully it turns out well. In other news, one of the followers of this story drew some awesome fanart, so I want to thank Sleepy Sepia for the drawing. Unfortunately, I know nothing about DeviantArt, so I can't tell you how to get to it...but they left a review with a link that you could probably copy and paste, so if you want to see it, go check it out. Hopefully I can get the next chapter out faster, but I am going camping for the week, so don't expect updates or replies for the next week. Thank you all for reading, and if you enjoyed, be sure to review! If you see any errors in grammar or spelling, don't hesitate to point it out, I want to make sure this story is as enjoyable as possible. Thank you for the support, and until next time, bye!