Well! This took a lot longer than I ever intended it to! FF was being totally moronic for about a week and not letting me upload this chapter. Then tonight, magically...it's working again! So here is Chapter III, and Chapter IV will be right behind it, in a few days, as long as FF doesn't start freaking out on me again.

And now….Chapter III: Sharing Fantasies

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Once they'd made the decision to walk, for a while they didn't talk at all. The city streets were not as crowded as they had been earlier, and the quietness of their surroundings only emphasized the silence between them.

Liz felt so miserable, having pulled out all that ugliness from her past, and yet she was also incredibly curious, wondering what her old friend had to say. She had never been a patient person, and waiting now for David to put his words together was driving her crazy.

It was nearly dark before David spoke at last. "So, anyway…" he began nervously. "Yeah, I want to apologize. I shouldn't have called you stupid. I said you were stupid because you wouldn't talk to me in high school. Because you thought I was too smart for you. Too 'accomplished,' something like that. Right?"

Liz nodded. "Right," she said softly. "Something like that."

"Well…you were no more stupid than me, Lizzie. You see, even if you had ever come by and talked with me, I don't know if I would have been able to talk to you. I mean, I'm not sure I would have been able to string three or four words together in a coherent sentence. It would have probably just been… 'I…uh….well….duh…' You know what I mean."

"No," Liz said. "I don't."

David sighed. Was she purposely making this difficult for him? "What I mean is…all through high school….no, it was even before high school, it was like from eighth grade until practically the day I graduated….I had the biggest crush on you, Lizzie."

"You did?" Liz asked in amazement.

David rolled his eyes. "You are trying to make this difficult for me, aren't you?"

"Difficult? No! Why would I? I just mean….Gordo, I never knew. You never let on, you never said anything…"

"How could I have said anything?" David asked in exasperation. "And not only 'how,' but 'when'? You always had people hanging around you, always had all these…guys….swarming around you. Jordan Zeto, Danny Miller, Eric Sommers. Just to name a few. How many boyfriends did you have in high school, anyway? And as soon as you broke up with one, another stepped in to take his place. What do you think? Between Jordan Zeto, the captain of the basketball team, and Zach Petrelli, the student body president, here comes nerdy little Gordo slipping into enemy territory, down on his knees, squeaking 'Oh Lizzie! Lizzie! I love you, I adore you, I can't stop thinking about you! Please, please, will you go out with me?'"

David hadn't meant to sound so bitter and self-depreciating, but any discussion of high school was entirely too likely to dredge up feelings of social inadequacy. This was not comfortable at all. He almost wished he had never run into Lizzie McGuire today. He could be in the library right now, drowning himself in research. Instead, he was found himself admitting his deepest secrets and doubts to the girl of his dreams, the persistent fantasy of his formative years. Surely she would laugh at him.

But Liz did not laugh. "I…I…" she stumbled. "Gordo…I wish I could have gone out with you. I would have liked to. At least…a part of me really…really would have liked to."

"Yeah, maybe," Gordo said sullenly. "But not the part that would have ever allowed us to be seen together in public."

Liz was quiet again. He was right. It would have been social self-destruction, at the time. They both knew it.

"Still," Liz said at last. "Even if I couldn't have gone out with you, you should have at least talked to me, at least said 'hi' to me in the hallway."

David laughed contemptuously. "No, I couldn't have."

"You mean because of how popular I was?" Liz asked miserably. "Or because of what I just told you? About how terrified I was to talk to you, to let you see the real me?"

"No, none of that," David said. "Lizzie, I guess I haven't expressed myself well enough. Let me make myself clear. Through most of high school I had a crush on you. And I mean 'crush' in the worst possible way. Squash, squeeze, compress, mash, pound…defeat. The mere thought of you, Lizzie, absolutely defeated me. I don't want to scare you, but I was sort of….obsessed with you."

"Gordo…."

"There were months on end when I couldn't think about anything else but you. Sometimes it was worse than other times. Sometimes, if I passed you in the hall, I would smell strawberries---"

"It was my shampoo," Liz informed. "I love strawberry shampoo. I still do."

"Yeah, well, if I got a whiff of that," David confessed, "I was a goner. I could hardly think of anything else but you for the rest of the day. Of course, there were some times, when I had a girlfriend, then it wasn't quite as bad, wasn't quite as debilitating, but during those times when I was alone….well, let's just say burying myself in my schoolwork seemed the only thing that could keep the fantasies at bay. Schoolwork for hours and hours on end, so by the end of the night, I was too tired to do anything but fall into bed, exhausted. So, in a way, Lizzie McGuire, I guess I have you to thank for my fabulous scholarship."

This last stab at humor has been David's feeble attempt to lighten the mood, but the irony of the situation had gone completely over Liz's head. She was stuck back at something he had said earlier, and almost before she could stop herself, she said, "So…Gordo…you had fantasies about me?"

David laughed again. "Oh…yeah…"

"So by that I guess you mean…."

They walked silently again, Liz's unfinished sentence hanging in the dark air between them.

"Well," she tried again. "Were they the kind of fantasies where…you know…"

Again, the silence, as they continued walking. Liz struggled, at last coming up with, "I mean, were they---"

"Sexual fantasies?" David supplied, deciding there was no use now in holding anything back. "Yes. They were. Very sexual, some of them."

"And others?"

"Not so sexual. Some were…kind of romantic, I guess you could say. Some were heroic, like the one where Roy Flanders was getting a little too rough with you---cos I always suspected he was too rough with you, I didn't like the way he treated you, Lizzie, and I was really glad when you broke up with him after only two weeks---but anyway, in this fantasy, he's roughing you up, and I come in and beat the crap out of him. Send him to the hospital."

David stopped to take a deep breath, then, "Of course, you're so grateful, you're all over me, kissing me, and touching me, your strawberry hair all over my face, and you are so willing to do anything…absolutely anything… to thank me, so yeah…in the end, that was a sexual fantasy too."

"Gordo!"

"What?"

"I…I….I never thought…"

"What?" he questioned derisively. "You never thought of me as someone who would have sexual thoughts about you?"

"Well…yeah…."

"Lizzie. After your appearance in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue last year, believe me, every functioning heterosexual male in the universe is having sexual fantasies about you."

"But not you!" Liz objected.

"Why not?"

"Because you're my friend. At least you were. Once…"

"Things change, Lizzie. We haven't been friends for a very long time."

"I'd like us to be," Liz said. "I really would, Gordo. Do you think that's possible?"

David gave the matter some thought, then announced, "No, I don't really think that's going to work for me."

Liz felt devastated. "Why not?" she asked. "Is it because of how badly I treated you in high school? That's it, isn't it? You're never going to forgive me."

"No, that's not it at all! That's all water under the bridge. But what's…not….water under the bridge, so to speak….is the way I feel about you. Now."

David took a deep breath again and went on. "Just being with you here now….today….remembering you, and recalling all my thoughts about you all these years…it's happening again, Lizzie. I thought I was over you. But I'm starting to realize my feelings for you were not dead after all, they were only sleeping. And seeing you again today has woken me up, and….well, it's not easy."

David sighed, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. "Sorry, Lizzie. This is one of those things where it has to be 'all, or nothing at all.' Anything in between would be just too painful. But I don't suppose you would understand that. I can't imagine that you've ever had to deal with anything like that. I'm sure you've always gotten everything you've ever wanted, anyone you've ever wanted. I'm sure you've only had to snap your fingers, and there they were."

"That's not true!" Liz objected vehemently.

"Oh, it's not?" David challenged. "Then tell me. When has it ever happened to you, that you've wanted someone, and haven't been able to get them? I'm sorry, Lizzie, but I just don't see how that could have ever happened to you."

"But it did! It did!" Liz said. "And…and…"

"And what?" David demanded, surprised at how angry he felt. "No, on second thought, don't tell me. I don't think I really want to hear about this. It would just make me…it would just be…"

Damn! He wished he could be anywhere but here. He was not going to allow this female to tear his heart to shreds once again. He had to get out of here. "Listen ---" he began, hoping to find the words to gracefully bow out.

But Liz had another idea. "No! You listen, David Gordon!" she said, stopping short and making him turn to look at her. "You do need to hear about this."

"Why? What the hell good is it going to do---?"

"I don't know if it's going to do any good at all, but you need to hear this. Because, yes, once upon a time there was someone I wanted, someone I actually even….fantasized about….and I knew I could never have him, and that hurt. It hurt me so much, and I think, in a way, maybe I've never really gotten over him. I think maybe all my life I've known….I've known…."

As Liz's words faded, her face softened, and as that happened, David also felt his anger at her dissapaiting. "Lizzie," he said quietly, confused. "What is it? Who are you talking about?"

"You moron!" she exclaimed, punching him in the arm. "It's you, Gordo! Don't you know that? It's you!"

"Me?" David asked. No, this couldn't be happening. Sure, Lizzie has been unintentionally cruel to him all through high school, but to lie like this to him now---

As Liz's hand rose up to touch the side of his face, David reached out and grabbed it, stopping her. "Enough, Lizzie. This isn't funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny," she said desperately. "I'm trying to tell you. There was this time….this one time, really, it was just as we were graduating from high school, and you were the valedictorian, remember?"
"Of course I remember."

"And…and as I sat there in my cap and gown, and I looked up at you, delivering your speech, once again, Gordo, I was so…so proud of you. And I remember how suddenly it came back to me that once upon a time, we used to be friends. And that I couldn't have asked for a better friend. And then I remembered also how I had felt about you, at the end of eighth grade, and what happened in Italy, and how I had spent the whole summer wanting to see you again, and talk to you, and tell you how I felt, how I was beginning to develop these….feelings for you…."

"Nostalgia," David said, still afraid to get drawn in by her words.

"But it was more than that," Liz insisted. "After that night, graduation night, I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't help thinking that somehow I had missed the boat. That there was….another path I was supposed to have traveled, that I had allowed myself to get sidetracked, that maybe I should have stuck with you and Miranda, and the hell with Kate and her whole gang, and the cheerleading, and all that stuff…."

"Hindsight," David theorized. "Regrets."

"No! Well, yes, it was, of course. But it was real too. And what else was real, all that summer, after you'd gone off to college, I kept having this thought….this dream…this…."

"Fantasy?" David dared to supply.

"Yes. It was a fantasy. I kept seeing us together, I kept seeing us so happy, going off to college together, taking classes together, hanging out, making up for lost time. And in these fantasies, you always forgave me completely for how horribly I treated you in high school. It was all behind us, and we were back where we were meant to be. Like I said before, you were always meant to be my boyfriend, and in this fantasy, at last, you were…"

David steadied himself before asking, "Your boyfriend?"

"Yes," Liz said, putting her hands on his arms as her eyes reached up to search out his reaction.

"And as your…boyfriend….in these fantasies…." David tried, feeling light and peculiar to even be discussing something like this with Lizzie McGuire, "does that mean we…did we…?"

"We kissed," Liz confirmed. "And we hugged a lot. And held hands, of course. And sometimes…."

David cleared his throat. "Sex?"

Liz closed her eyes. "Sort of," she said quietly.

"Sort of?"

"I….I….I'm too embarrassed to talk about it. God! I can hardly believe I've told you this much already."

"I can't believe it either, Lizzie. You're not….I mean, this isn't some cruel joke, is it?"

This time, when she reached up to touch his face, he didn't stop her. "No," Liz said simply. "The last eight years of my life have been the cruel joke. This…now…here with you….no joke."

"Well, I…." David put his hand over hers on his face, and closed his eyes. Could this really be happening? He felt strange. In a moment, he opened his eyes and said, "Okay then. If this is really happening, and you're not playing around with me--"

"I'm not. I swear."

"Well then, Lizzie, tell me this: where do we go from here?"

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Where we go from here is into the final chapter, "Comes True."