Chapter four: A theory of man and woman.
A/N I would love to say a big thank you to the nine people who reviewed the first three chapters of Rayd8ther. I actually began this story after talking to the very nice author of Amsterdam Amsterdam but I never really thought I'd keep going like this. I must say the story is now completely different from the way I originally conceived it. At first I thought it's sense of humor would be something on the warped parody side of things but then Kristy took off on her own and now, fell now you can see what it's like.
Also to answer a questions.
Zshp: (Is your name referring to Zach Smith from Harry Potter by any chance?) Will Cary and Kristy hook up in the end? Well that would be spoiling things now wont it? This chapter might please you a little but they have a lot of things to work through before they'll reach happily every after.
I don't own the BSC Anne M Martin does, however I do own Jonathon Mathews.
After Abby had solved the mystery involving the secret society I'd never bothered to go to the country club again. My brief interest in golf had passed once I realized you couldn't really run during it, sport should be energetic and loud not quiet and well boring.
Besides as Charlie often remarked you could take the Thomas family out of poverty but you can't take poverty out of the Thomas family. Going to the country club just didn't feel right, maybe because I knew perfectly well that if mom had never remarried we wouldn't have been able to afford membership.
Whenever I needed to have a discussion with some one I'd prefer to do it on my own territory, preferably in a fast food restaurant.
I knew that Jonathon was the same, which was why he'd taken me to his territory it was all about him.
"That dress really is appropriate Kristin, I must confessed I was concerned that you would attempt to leave in one of those shirt things you seem so fond of" he said to me as we entered the restaurant.
"Shirt thing?" I asked doubtfully.
"Oh well occasionally it's good to bother to dress up, it shows that you respect the people you socialize with" he continued and I shot him a dubious look as one of the fancy waiters sat me down.
"Where did you get that from? One of those weird how to make friends books from the fifties?" I asked.
"Actually it was published during the six….ah I see the infamous Kristin sense of humor" he smiled and he said something to the waiter in French.
"Ah very good sir" said the waiter and he bowed before disappearing.
"Actually my name is Kristy," I said with a forced smile that looked more like a grimace.
"Kristy isn't a name, it's a diminutive" he shot back with his own tense smile.
"I guess that nobody calls you Johnny then" I said airily.
"Not since I was five, can I offer you a drink? Some wine perhaps?" he asked when the waiter returned.
"I'm sixteen" pointed out.
"And?" he questioned as if under age drinking was perfectly normal.
"It's illegal," I continued.
"Kristin this is different from drinking luke warm wine coolers in the garage of some party, the wine is used to accentuate the flavor of the meal" he said.
"And the staff of this club don't mind accentuating crime?" I asked.
"I'm eighteen Kristy I'm an adult," he pointed out.
"That doesn't change the fact that the legal drinking age is twenty one" I sniffed.
"That's the legal age for purchasing alcohol and this entire meal will be credited to my fathers account," he said calmly.
"I'll have a mineral water," I said to the waiter.
"Very well" Jonathon said.
I lasted until the third course and then I cracked, I was unable to handle being socially nice any more. I poked my dinner, which looked, suspiciously like cat brains and eggs while Jonathon sipped his third glass of wine.
"Now that your well mellow lets talk business" I said and he licked his drying lips.
"Business?" he asked.
"Yes, the stolen money" I said stabbing my dinner.
"Yes about that, you said that you had a math honor student look at the figures and you do not take advanced mathematics" he began.
"My friend Stacey McGill does" I interrupted him.
"Stacey McGill? Isn't she the blond girl who was involved in that incident where she used sexual favors in order to pass her freshmen year?" he asked.
"That was a long time ago after all when I was a freshmen I was famous for getting into fights," I pointed out.
"Still it's a little hard to take her opinion seriously, you will need to get the figures verified by another source," he said still studying me carefully.
"Why would it be hard to take her seriously? Stacey may be a bit. Fast but she's still a good economics student," I pointed out.
"The teachers will see it differently," he said and I dropped my fork onto my plate with a clatter, it took all my self-control to stop myself from stabbing him.
"I have to go the ladies, I'll be right back," I said instead and he smiled triumphantly knowing he had won.
I didn't really need to go to the bathroom; I'd gone before I'd left the house. But I did need to think; I was starting to realize with cold hard clarity that Cary was right. Jonathon wasn't innocent at all, he was trying to hard to distract me and he was throwing one of my friends into the mud slinging.
I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror while I used breathing exercises I'd learned during track practice to calm myself down. When my mother had caught me in my room wearing an actual dress she'd nearly had a heart attack, she'd insisted on lending me the pearl necklace Nanny had given her when she'd graduated from college. It seemed like such a waste, wearing something so important for such a sleaze. I never really though about the pearls but I would have wanted to wear them for the first time in front of some one who wasn't completely dishonest.
"Kristy?" a voice asked behind me and I hesitated.
"Kristy Thomas, Darling! Is that you?" an upper crust young ladies voice asked. I slowly turned. A painfully thin teenage girl was staring at me, clutching onto a red purse. I didn't recognize it but if Stacey had been there she would have told me it was prada. The girl was dressed in a coffee colored slip of chest plunging silk with her auburn hair swept into an elegant French knot at the base of her neck. Despite all of this there was something almost familiar about the snooty way she gazed at the slight smirk and me on her gold brown painted lips.
"Greer?" I asked and she slowly nodded, it was Greer Carson my neighbor Shannon's former best friend.
Greer and I had a tense relationship, she was after all a snob and I was a normal human being. She'd been friends with Shannon for years until they'd drifted apart; Shannon was devoting herself to her schoolwork while Greer became obsessed with climbing the Stoneybrook social ladder. She was the nearest thing our town had to Paris Hilton, minus the dirty whore factor, mostly.
"Darling I almost didn't recognize you without your usual jeans and baseball hat! You look fantastic" she said sweeping upon me in a cloud of guchi envy.
"Yes and you look so.. Shiny" I said trying to think of something to say.
"Why thank you! Really it's been ages since I've seen you Kristy what with me being busy attending all the best parties in New York and you being busy attending to squealing infants" she said.
"And it's fantastic knowing that you are as snobby as ever" I grinned and she laughed.
"Well if you're calling me a snob I must be doing something right Kristy darling, now was it just me or did I spy you having dinner with Jonathon Mathews?" she asked her voice sounding almost concerned.
"Well you did but it's not a date, we're just having a meeting," I said firmly.
"Oh thank goodness! He only takes girls to the country club because he cant afford to take them anywhere else!" Greer whispered.
"I thought his parents were wealthy," I said with confusion.
"Oh they are but he isn't! There was some sort of scandal around four years ago before he moved to Stoneybrook and they put him on a very limited allowance" Greer said.
"What kind of scandal?" I asked.
"Oh no idea, most likely involving drugs or sex! You know the usual," she laughed and then she patted her gloved hands against her hair.
"Now I have to go, George is waiting for me," she said shooting me several air kisses, which smelt suspiciously like cranberry ice cocktails.
"Well, that was interesting" I said to myself.
By the time I returned to my table Jonathon was on his fourth illegal glass of wine and he was most likely entering the tipsy department.
Good I thought, drunken people often confessed things.
I carefully reached into my purse and switched on my cell phones voice recorder while pretending to send a text message.
"I was thinking about what you said, about getting some one else to check the books," I said.
"Hmm" he began.
"Well what if they find something wrong?" I continued and he smacked his lips together.
"We'll have to give Brown a name, it wouldn't do to hand over a member of the council after all," he said thoughtfully.
"A name?" I asked warily.
"Oh yes, any name will do.. Of course it would have to be some one good at computers and numbers, some one who could easily creep into the system and steal without any of us noticing" he began and then he smirked.
"Some one who was able to get past my passwords and hack into my computer account" he continued and I stared at my cold grayish meal.
"Some one like Cary" I realized.
"You said it" he smiled.
"But he didn't do it" I said staring at his slightly unfocussed eyes.
"Does it really matter if he did or not? The world wants to believe he did it Kristin, I think that you partially want to believe it as well" he continued.
"No" I snapped.
"Greg from the student court mentioned something interesting, he said you were investigating Cary Retlin and his involvement in the pranks that occurred last year.. Obviously you know what his capable of" Jonathon argued.
"Setting dogs loose is different from stealing money" I pointed out.
"They're both illegal" he said.
"So is drinking underage, it seems a lot of things are illegal" I smirked but then I stopped when he grabbed onto my hand his fingers pressing against my wrist.
"Are you really that righteous Thomas? Because politics don't work that way and you don't want to take me down" he said dangerously and I twisted my hand out of his grip.
"You're crazy! You're not god you know, you're just some student body president and you will not scare me into selling out Cary" I said picking up my purse.
"And where do you think your going?" he asked as I stood up.
"I'm going home, good luck driving drunk" I scowled.
More then anything I wanted to be home in bed wearing my favorite holey old jeans and my comfortable red sweat shirt. I wanted to be watching the sports channel with Abby or helping Emily Michelle destroy her Barbie dolls. Instead I found myself walking around the country clubs car park holding onto my jacket in the chilly spring air. I didn't really expect Jonathon to chase after me; he was too far-gone for that. But in the end part of me really didn't expect him to be so conniving or twisted either, I honestly didn't think that he really had it in him.
The car park was filled with the valets collecting and parking cars and I picked out my cell phone, the voice recording option was still on.
There was no one I could call, mom and Watson were out at the theatre which meant they would have their phones switched off, Sam was at home watching the kids but he didn't have a car and Charlie was at Reed university which was a whole state away. My mind ran a quick mental check going over who I knew who had a car, Mary Anne wasn't allowed to drive around by herself, Claudia had failed her test the first time, Abby had never gotten a car, Stacey..
"Stacey" I said to myself with a small smile, her father had bought her a car for her sixteenth birthday.
"Hello Stacey?" I asked as soon as I rang the number.
"Kristy! Why are you calling from your cell phone? You never use it unless you're going out," Stacey said and I heard the distant sound of pop music followed by smashing glass.
"I am out, that's the problem," I said meaningfully.
"Are you stuck some where? Do you need me to give you a ride?" Stacey asked.
"Yes" I admitted.
"Where are you?" she finally said sounding resigned.
"The country club" I said and she gasped.
"What were you doing there?" she asked and I realized I would have to explain the whole horrible affair with Mathews.
"So he started drinking in the middle of your date and then he threatened you? Don't let it upset you Kristy that kind of stuff happens all the time," she said sounding bitter.
"It doe's?" I asked uneasily.
"Yeah but you did the right thing by calling me before he did anything" she said sounding almost proud.
"So can you come and get me?" I asked.
"I'll have to find some one sober to drive us, at the moment I'm at this wild party Cokie Mason is throwing and my ride is completely wasted" Stacey said and I imagined a drunk driver careening towards the country club.
"How are you going to manage that?" I asked.
"I'll just grab some one whose just arrived, they wont have time to get drunk" Stacey said as if it was very simple.
"Hold on I can see some one," she said and she ran towards the door, I heard muffled voices followed by some one laughing.
"Right Kristy we'll be there in ten minutes, standing outside the fountain ok?" Stacey said and then she hung up before I could ask who was giving her a ride.
Ten minutes later the identity of the driver was revealed, to my credit I was calm and controlled and I didn't start screaming cuss words. Stacey dressed in a pair of skintight leather pants and a silvery shirt shot me an apologetic look from behind Cary Retlin.
"So I see that things didn't work out," he said, he was dressed in what I assumed were his party clothes. This meant that he'd added some sort of old fashioned pin stripe blazer on top of his The Used T shirt, with bowler hat stuck firmly on his head.
"I'm sorry about dragging you away from the party, can you give me a ride?" I asked wearily, not in the mood to argue with him.
He stared at me for a few seconds as if shocked that I'd be so easily defeated.
"Sure, the cars this way" he said jerking his head.
"I'm sorry about this" Stacey whispered to me as I watched Cary stalk off without saying a word.
"It's not your fault, I think his just pissed off because I hung up on him" I whispered back.
"You did?" Stacey asked raising her eyebrows.
"Yeah I said some things and then he.. Well you know how it is," I admitted.
"Weird" Stacey mused.
"Weird?" I said echoing her.
"Well he offered to pick you up, I asked Rick Chow because I knew you were both doing that student court thing together but Cary came in the same time he did and he said he'd do it" Stacey whispered back and Cary glanced over his shoulders.
"Will you two stop gossiping and hurry up? I have a party to get back to" he said an irritated expression on his face.
I'd seen that expression before, back in the eighth grade when I accused him of vandalism and when I'd read his journal. It was his "I'm disgusted with you Kristy Thomas" expression and it always made me feel lower then dirt.
But if he was so mad at me why would he leave his girlfriends party to rescue me? I never understood boys.
"If you're going to start dating guys seriously Kristy I suggest you put a cab companies number into your speed dial and carry some extra money with you all the time" Stacey finally said as we approached a car which looked worse then Charlie's old rust bucket.
"I wasn't dating him, it was a meeting" I sighed.
"Which explains why you look like Holly Golightly" Cary said unlocking his car and Stacey giggled.
"Is that some kind of porn star?" I whispered to Stacey.
"No it's the character Audrey Hepburn played in Breakfast at Tiffanies" Stacey explained.
"Oh, well it was Mary Anne who talked me into wearing this" I admitted.
"Sounds like her, you should be lucky she didn't talk you into wearing a frilly pink party dress" Stacey mused.
"Thankfully no frilly pink party dresses reside in my wardrobe" I smirked.
"The day I see you in a frilly pink dress will be the same day the earth spins out of its orbit and crashes into the sun" Cary remarked dryly as he slid into his seat.
And those were the last words spoken for quite awhile.
Much later when I was alone in my bed I would wonder why I'd been so quiet in the car. I guess that the logical explanation was that I was embarrassed, Cary had warned me about Jonathon but instead of listening to him I'd called him names hung up on him and then I went out and made a fool of myself.
Then he had to come and rescue me, I've never been a damsel in distress kind of girl and the thought of it was too humiliating for words.
"Are you ok? You're being so quiet and you haven't said anything rude about anyone for at least ten minutes" Stacey asked me from where she was sitting in the front seat.
"I'm listening to the radio" I replied staring at the dark streets of Stoneybrook through my window.
"Since when do you like Ashley Simpson?" Stacey asked.
"I don't but David Bowie might come up, maybe" I lied quickly, Karen had gotten me addicted to the glam rock singer after forcing me to watch the movie the Labyrinth.
"I doubt the local station would play obscure pop punk songs about Ziggy Stardust," Cary said from behind his wheel.
"Hmm and you seemed like such an emo guy" I muttered under my breath.
"I'm not emo," he said defensively.
"You wear ratty clothes with band t shirts and black nail polish and you're apathetic towards everything, your emo" I replied folding my arms.
"Nice to know you've summed up my entire personality based on my nail polish" he mused.
"That's the best way to sum some one up, take me for example, red nails but professionally manicured this speaks that I'm both sexy and yet stylish" Stacey said waving her nails in the air.
"Cokie Mason on the other hand has pink nails chipped, which means she tries to look good but fails miserably and Kristy has nails without polish but still filed, this means she cares about being presentable but not about being flashy and stylish" Stacey said glancing over her shoulder at me.
"You should write a book about that McGill, you could market it as one of those weird self help books and make a fortune," he said.
"Hmm like those really weird ones you find in book stores that tell you what kind of lover you are by the way you unwrap a candy bar" I smirked.
"Yeah like if you crush it up you're apparently really bad in bed" I heard Cary continue.
"Or if you delicately peel it off you're all romantic and lovey dovey" I laughed and I realized after a second that we were both laughing, I instantly stopped.
Cary and I were not supposed to laugh about the same things.
"It's not that funny, manicures are deadly serious you know" Stacey pouted folding her arms and then her head cocked towards me.
"You never told me how your talk to the student council went, did you tell them about the numbers?" Stacey asked and I stared at my lap uneasily.
"Well yeah but Jonathon said if I wanted to be taken seriously I should let another person look over the records" I said trying to be tactful but it was obvious by Stacey's expression that I had failed.
"I happen to be the second best economics student in our year Kristy, does he think that I can't do it because I don't wear a pocket protector and boys like me?" she growled.
"I never said that! I was just repeating what Jonathon said," I protested.
"That asshole, I mean not all of us are Cokie Mason's" she snorted and I coughed violently.
"Why are you coughing?" Stacey asked.
"Because you're trashing out the girlfriend of the guy whose driving us Stacey," I pointed out tilting my head towards our driver.
"You're dating Cokie Mason?" Stacey asked sounding vaguely horrified and Cary laughed, actually laughed.
"Thomas is making it sound like a bigger deal then what it really is," he said as if that resolved the matter.
"Well if some one called my boyfriend stupid in front of me I'd be pissed off" I said.
"But she is stupid, I'm not going to get mad at Stacey for telling the truth" Cary said flippantly as if he didn't care about Cokie's feelings in the least.
Stacey and I exchanged a look, either Cary was a really bad boyfriend or something weird was going on.
"You should come back with me to the party Kristy I mean you need to get this whole thing out of your system" Stacey said.
"You just want to go back to the party don't you?" I asked knowingly.
"Come on Kristy if you're worried about a ride home you can stay over at my house, it's not that far away and we can walk home" Stacey pleaded.
"Why do you want me to come? You never invite me to any of these wild parties," I pointed out.
"Because I want to actually talk to some one who wont end up throwing up in a toilet bowl, come on Kristy you don't want to spend your night rescuing Emily Michelle's babies from the toilet again?" Stacey pleaded and Cary snorted with laughter.
"It happened once, six months ago, anyway this parties being thrown at Cokie's and I doubt she'll be pleased if I show up," I pointed out.
"There are so many people there she wont even see you, are you going to make a decision or not Thomas because I'm getting sick and tired of going around in circles" Cary drawled and I rolled my eyes.
"Fine I'm going to this stupid party, I mean I'm already wearing a god damned dress," I snarled and Stacey grinned.
"That's the spirit!" she smiled.
Over an hour later I found myself still nursing the first Bacardi Breezer some senior had shoved in my hand the moment I'd walked in the door. Stacey had hissed a firm warning not to drink anything I hadn't gotten from the fridge myself because Pete Black was on the prowl; he'd graduated from snapping bra straps to rumor had it spiking drinks although no one could prove it was him.
She'd then disappeared in order to socialize with the cheerleaders and I found myself sitting next to Erica Blumberg, and Shawna Riverson who demanded to know why I'd made an appearance at a Cokie Mason party.
The conversation began like this.
"OH MY GOD, KRISTY? OH MY GOD YOU ARE WEARING A DRESS" Shawna screamed over Britney Spears.
"Oh my god you're retarded" I snapped and she laughed.
"No seriously girl what the fuck are you doing here? You never come to parties!" she cried.
"I'm here with Stacey"
"Oh my god she is such a skank, I heard she did these things with chopsticks" Shawna began.
"You didn't come here with Stacey, she arrived earlier" Erica said and I paused.
"She kinda rescued me, see I went out for a dinner meeting with the student body president and he got drunk" I began and they leaned forward eagerly.
"You went out with the student body president? OH MY GOD" Shawna cried.
"I didn't go out with him like that! It wasn't a date we just needed to discuss something," I protested.
There are several important lessons that every girl needs to learn in high school, one of the first is how to deal with a gossip hound. Dealing with one gossip hound is easy enough, after all Abby when in the right sort of mood could be one herself. Dealing with two however was far more difficult especially when they were friends, they knew how to work together and how to ask all the right sort of questions until you found yourself admitting to stuff you would normally never confess.
Some how I managed to tell them the entire story, leaving out a few convenient details such as me breaking into the school and Cary having my shoe.
By the time I'd finished I'd realized that I'd gathered a small crowd and they were all staring at my intensely.
"So let me get this right the student body president stole money and when you tried to stop him he said he'd pin all the blame on Retlin?" one of Stacey's ex boyfriends Jeremy said an awe struck expression on his face.
"You were so cool Kristy, I mean I always thought you were this uptight snobby dictator with no sense of fun but you stood up to the president!" Erica cried.
" You know I heard a rumor that nobody voted for him as class president, that the teachers gave him the role because they didn't want that Goth girl to win" Pete Black said hovering suspiciously over Grace Blume's drink.
"We like totally have to do something, get him kicked out or whatever," Grace said spilling her drink on the carpet after glaring at Pete.
"It wouldn't work, the only time a president has been successfully kicked out of the student council was when every single member of the student body signed a petition demanding that he should be removed, that was in Stanley versus the school board in nineteen eighty seven" I explained.
"Well we could do the petition" Robert said with a grin.
"There are over a thousand students at SHS how are we supposed to get them to sign it without rousing his suspicion?" I asked and Shawna grinned.
"Kristy we are like popular, we could get every one to set fire to their pants if we wanted too" she grinned.
"Not that we would because then they'd be on fire" Grace said, sometimes I really despaired for the future state of humanity.
"Cokie has a computer in her dads office, we should type out the petition there and send it out as a mass email" Erica who seemed like the smartest person in the room said.
The thought of touching anything that had Cokie's DNA on it made me want to vomit but I was furious with Jonathon and when Kristy Thomas was furious she took action.
"Take me there, considering I'm the only one of you whose sober I think I should do the typing" I said.
I'd expected Cokie's fathers study to be a pit in the seventh layer of hell, after all she was the anti Christ. Instead if was a nice bright room with plastic and chrome furniture and post it notes stuck everywhere. The computer was a fancy one with a flat screen and wireless broadband Internet connection; it only took half an hour to type up the draft of the petition. Erica then opened up her email, which had the address book of all the popular students, and she attached the file as a bulk email.
"There now every one whose anyone will have that petition and by Monday afternoon every kid in school will sign it, trust me" she smirked.
Something seemed a little wrong about handing over this mission to the populars, but then again I'd tried to do things my way and Jonathon had shot me down.
By the time we'd finished it was around eleven at night and I was starting to feel tired, I thought briefly about tracking Stacey down but I realized knowing her she wouldn't want to leave for another hour.
Instead I made my way to the second floor and after carefully locating the bathroom window I climbed out onto the roof.
The roof thing as I explained earlier started during freshmen year but I still found myself climbing out onto roof tops when I wanted to be alone even when Mary Anne begged me to stop.
Generally speaking I liked it because even if you are a loud confident person there are still times when you don't want to be found.
People never looked on the roof.
I wasn't sure how long I lay there accept I spent the majority of my time yanking out the hair pins my mother had planted in my hair when she found out I was going out on a real date.
It didn't matter how many times I explained to her that it wasn't a real date at all, it just seemed sad trying to convince her otherwise.
Down below I could hear the sound of two teenagers vomiting in Cokie Mason's garden and I smirked with delight.
I still hated her after all.
"What are you snickering at Golightly?" I heard Cary Retlin drawl.
"You know stalking illegal," I smiled knowingly and I glanced over my shoulder, his head was sticking out the bathroom window.
"Stacey told me you'd be out here, why are you so obsessed with roofs?" he asked and I could barely see his curious expression in the faint light coming from inside.
"Why are you so obsessed with boiler rooms?" I asked.
"Good point" he smirked and I turned my attention back towards the garden while I heard him climb out the window.
"Erica told me about the petition you made, she's already has forty signatures"
"My how ambitious, I should ask her to work for the student court" I said dryly.
"It's always about something with you, isn't it?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" I asked, once again Cary had managed to confuse me with his cryptic bullshit.
"What I mean is that you always have to be the one who gets things done, you don't even realize your doing it half the time do you? The babysitters club and all those other things you did" he remarked and for a fraction of a second I smelt something vaguely like beer and stale choking perfume.
"You're drunk," I said flatly.
"Calm down I've only had one beer and it was the one Pete Black tried to give to Mia I'm not drunk I'm just loose enough to tell you one or two things I've wanted to say for.. God it's been ages hasn't it?" he asked and I rolled my eyes.
"People who need beer to get courage are alcoholics," I pointed out.
"Normally yes, but you'd have to be as brave as Hercules to have an honest conversation with you while sober" he said.
"You know I'm not that scary" I sighed.
"Shut up! I wanted to talk to you about you being a leader right? What I wanted to say was that I know that you being well you it would be hard finding out that your own leader was a thief and a liar" he began and I literally felt the frown on my face soften.
"But the thing is I knew that you, yeah you Kristy Thomas would be the only one in the whole school with enough balls to want to bring him down which is why I told you" he finished and my eyes traveled upwards, I'd known for a really long time that I'd never been able to look at a guy when they were complimenting me.
"Thanks for choosing me as your leader or your spokes person then" I said with only a small amount of sarcasm.
"I didn't choose you, I mean I did choose you but not like that! You've always been a leader," he said, obviously Cary was a happy drunk.
Then something occurred to me, he'd drunk something that was poured by Pete Black and intended for a girl.
Oh god, he was worse then a happy drunk.
He was a happy drunk high on a spiked drink.
"Just stop it ok," I said but not unkindly.
"Stop what?" he asked sounding confused.
"Stop this insane attempt to bond with me, you're going to feel really stupid when you wake up in the morning you know" I said furiously.
"No I wont! I know exactly what I'm saying" he replied and I felt a hand grab onto my shoulder.
"And what are you trying to say Cary?" I asked trying to shrug his hand off and I finally saw the expression on his face.
It was the expression Logan had worn three years ago when he sat next to Mary Ann during his first Baby Sitters Club meeting.
It was the expression Rick Chow had wore when Claudia had sat next to him in the auditorium.
"Oh god, Cary you didn't drink the whole beer did you?" I asked.
"What?" he asked sounding momentarily stunned.
"Because you actually look, well your not sneering or scowling and you never look at me like that," I pointed out wishing I wasn't on top of a rooftop so I could easily escape.
"Why can't I look the way I want to look? Why cant I look at you this way?" he asked sounding faintly angry.
"Because I'm me! I'm ugly bitchy Kristy Thomas and I think your drink was spiked," I said and he seemed to be slowly, incoherently shaking his head.
"You're not ugly, you're spectacular," he said and I groaned. Why was it that the only time a boy every complimented me was when he was evil, taken, and drunk?
"You'll feel differently once you've slept it off" I scowled and I felt his fingers grab for my hand.
"No I wont!" he snapped and his eyes looked very unfocussed in the moonlight.
"Yes you will! This is me Kristy Thomas remembers? You are dating Cokie Mason! You've ignored me since our freshmen year remember? You don't like me it's Pete Black's drugged drink talking!" I said pushing his hand away.
"Is that why you've been acting like such a bitch? Because I've apparently been ignoring you since your freshmen year? I wasn't ignoring you! I grew up and stopped playing stupid jokes on you" he cried.
"It's nice to see you finally admitting the truth then, you grew up and didn't see the point in staying friends with the girl who you used to make fun of" I said with a small bitter laugh.
"Friends?" he asked sounding vaguely astonished.
"Yes friends, despite everything that happened between us I always thought we were at least friends Cary! I mean I had a lot of fun doing those stupid pranks and the mystery war and everything," I admitted.
"Oh" I heard him whisper.
"You should go back inside and sleep this off" I sighed.
"I didn't ignore you because I disliked you, it was just when you came back after the summer you were different" he said in a very small voice.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"You were.. I don't know, you got into a fight with Cokie Mason and you climbed around on roofs and you were in detention for three months and you were different and yet still the same" he groaned growing more and more incoherent.
"I was different and yet still the same?" I asked trying to clarify things.
"Yes! And I was scared, that's why I stopped playing jokes on you ok? I was scared and it just didn't seem right anymore" he said his head in his hands.
"Scared of what?" I asked and he looked up before moving towards me.
"This" he admitted.
There are certain moments in your life that have the power to change the universe.
The moment I knew my father had left us was one of them, the moment I came up with the idea for the babysitters club was another.
This one however was the most recent; I was being kissed by a boy high on a spiked drink while sitting on Cokie Mason's rooftop.
I must admit it took me a few seconds to process what was going on; it had after all been a long time since I'd been kissed and the last person who'd tried had been terrible at it.
But Cary wasn't that bad at all, he must have had experience with Cokie Mason.
That was when I stopped, the moment I remembered that she was involved in the situation.
"Cary" I began apologetically as I pushed him off.
"Don't do this because you may be out of it but I'm not" I heard myself saying while my brain was working on autopilot and the cool breeze touched my damp lips.
"CARY?" a voice shrieked from down below.
I glanced downwards and I very nearly threw up, it appeared that the entire party had gathered underneath the roof and they'd been listening and watching the entire conversation.
I saw Stacey staring at me with a sympathetic and yet shocked expression on her face before she disappeared.
And then I saw Cokie her face a drunken make up mask of rage. Cary was yelling something, it sounded like he was apologizing for what he'd done and I felt sick.
"I can explain! Pete Black did something to my drink!" Cary cried standing up and I silently moved towards the window before crawling back into the bathroom. I wasn't exactly sure how long I stood trembling against the window frame but it seemed like seconds later Stacey had burst into the bathroom kicking aside some one who was unconscious next to the toilet.
The look she gave me was one that had belonged to a girl who'd been dumped, stomped on used and abused and had still come out smiling.
"Shut up Stacey, I already know! Lets just go home before Cokie figures out it was me," I groaned.