Hey guys! Another update, really? Seems that I'm in a writing funk right now. A good kind though, I promise. After months of not writing anything for any of my stories I'd call this past week pretty productive. I've written up three new chapters! Even though I hadn't really planned this chapter beforehand, and even if what I wanted to happen didn't end up happening, I am pretty happy with it. There's this thing called 'character development' that's pretty important, and this chapter is pretty much just showing you more of the Gray Mary relationship whatever junk. (: Haha. So . . . I think that's about it for our pre-chapter speech, now you can read, read, read!

- Tweedlebugqueen

Jealousy

Chapter Five: Preparation

Ann and I spent most of that afternoon getting the Inn ready for the party. We had gone to the Market early that morning and had bought all kinds of streamers and party favors. I had bought something special to give to Gray for his birthday and had paid for Karen to wrap it for me. I hoped that she wouldn't spoil the surprise and tell him what it was when he went there later, I had heard he was buying me a present too.

Karen had been extremely curious as to why we were buying all of the party decorations that morning.

"What are all of these streamers and who-dad's for anyway?" she asked me as she rung up our purchases.

"Didn't you know? There's a huge birthday party for Mary and Gray tonight! All of the town's youth are going to be there!" Ann sang.

Karen glared at her, "No."

I sat there and nervously shuffled my feet.

"Yes." Ann said.

Karen rolled her eyes, "I meant 'No, not all of the town youth is going to be at that party tonight,' not that there wasn't going to be a party."

After a few moments of Ann looking puzzled and Karen wrapping up our decorations realization dawned on me.

"Oh my gosh Karen, I am so, so sorry that we forgot to invite you! Honestly, I know that you and Gray are good friends. I don't know how he forgot to add your name to the list of people to invite! You have just as much right as anyone to come. Please, I would feel so bad if you rejected my offer now! You have to come, really." I apologized.

Karen smiled at me kindly, "Don't worry about it Mary. I'm sure that if Gray didn't want to invite me then there was a good reason for it. You don't have to feel bad at all."

Ann brightened up, "See Mary? You don't have to worry about it! Karen will be fine."

I glared daggars at her, "No. I invited Karen. She can come."

Ann shrank away from me, something that no other human had ever done before.

"I'm sorry Ann. I just meant . . ." I trailed off.

"Well if it's going to be that big of a deal then I suppose I'll stop in for a little bit after work, is that all right?" Karen offered.

"Yeah, sure." I had replied.

I hadn't talked to Gray about not inviting Karen yet, but I was sure that it was nothing. He probably just forgot to put her on the list. Gray wasn't a mean person, it had to be a mistake. Right?

"Hey Mary?" I heard Ann say, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Yes Ann?"

She started climbing down from the ladder that she was on, "Do the streamers look good? I didn't know whether gathering them in the middle of the ceiling looked okay or not."

I looked up at the streamers, "Yeah, it looks really good."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said, resting my box of decorations on my hip, "but maybe we should hang something from the center? So it doesn't look like we just taped them to the ceiling for no reason."

"Oh! Good idea!" she squealed, running up the stairs really quickly.

I didn't know what she was running to get, but I didn't worry about it. Ann was silly, I was sure that she was probably going to bring down a flower or something to tape to the ceiling. Now that would have been funny.

But I was wrong.

"Here we go!" she called as she jumped down the stairs, two at a time, "A picture of you and Gray!"

I stared at her open mouthed.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Oh, nothing. That looks good." I said, taking the picture from her to look at it.

There were two pictures in the frame, one from when Gray and I had just become friends, and one from a few months back. In the first one Gray and I were just awkwardly standing side by side with staged smiles painted on our faces. It was a photo that my mother had ordered us to take one day while we were at the beach for the first summer festival of the year. That day had been a good memory.

"So Mary," Gray said from his spot on the sand, "have you ever been to this festival before?"

I looked around at all of the town dogs with their owners, they were practicing for the frisbee throwing contest. Kai and Rick were across the beach getting ready for the swimming competition. It looked like Rick was annoyed with Kai for showing off his muscles for Popuri.

"Yes," I sighed, "it's the same every year."

He rolled onto his back so that he could face the sun, shielding his eyes from it, "What do you mean?" he asked.

I sat up, "Well, every year Barley's dog Hannah wins the frisbee throwing competition, Kai makes Rick mad by showing off his stuff right before he wins the swimming competition, Popuri swoons over Kai, and then all the married couples and their children gather around the dock and beach to watch the fireworks."

Gray laughed, "Sounds pretty predictable if you ask me."

"Yep," I agreed, "it's pretty repetitive."

We layed in the sun for a few more minutes before I heard my mother call my name.

"Mary!" she said, "Gray! I want to get a picture of you two!"

Gray looked at me quizzically, I shot him an apologetic smile.

"Well come on then," he stood, extending his hand for me to grab so that he could pull me up, "Let's take a picture!"

I smiled and we ran off towards my mother and father, kicking the sand up as we went.

"This is a good picture." I said, showing Ann the first photo in the frame.

She looked at me strangely, "Looks kind of forced if you ask me."

I frowned, "Yeah, kind of."

Ann laughed, taking the frame from me, "I like the second one much better."

I stared up at the photo she was talking about while she tied a string to the frame and taped it into the center of all the streamers. It was a good photo, but nothing really special. There wasn't really a story that went along with it. It was just Gray and I in front of the library with his arm hung around my shoulder and a lopsided grin on his face. My smile was very shy and my face was bright red.

"Looks like he said something embarrassing before this was taken." she added with a laugh.

I laughed along nervously with her.

My mother had always been one for pictures, she loved them. If there was even a remotely good moment happening my mother would always rush in with her camera and yell, 'Say cheese!' to her unsuspecting victims.

Gray and I had been attacked by her camera more times than I could count.

Suddenly I remembered why I had been so red faced when this picture was taken. Gray had jokingly said, 'Smile at the camera beautiful!' He thought it was funny, I had just been embarrassed. He didn't know I had a crush on him then, but him calling me beautiful was enough to make my face as red as a tomato.

I wondered why he had framed those two photos. My mother had to have taken millions of other pictures, but I wondered what was so special about these ones that he would stick them in a frame together. It had me puzzled for quite a while.

"Ta da!" Ann chimed, wiggling her fingers maniacally.

I just stared up at her curiously.

"What?" she asked, "You've never seen spirit fingers before?"

That made me giggle, "Oh Ann . . ."

She just sort of frowned at me for a few seconds before jumping off of her ladder. "Don't you like the decorations?" she asked.

"Yes I do, they look very lovely."

She only frowned a little more.

"Did you get the record player?" I asked awkwardly.

Suddenly her face lit up like a lightbulb, "Yes! And all of the very best records that I know everyone will love! This is going to be a crazy dance fest!"

Just then Gray walked in throught the front doors of the Inn, little droplets of water covering his hat and jacket. "Did I just hear the words 'crazy dance fest'?"

"Yep." Ann nodded very animatedly.

He sighed, "Well okay then. Good luck getting anyone to dance."

Ann laughed as if he had told a very hilarious joke.

"What?" I asked, "What's so funny?"

Ann choked mid-laugh, "Nothing."

I looked at her skeptically.

"Really! Nothing!"

I glanced at Gray, who just shrugged his shoulders at me and turned to walk up the stairs. When I turned to face Ann again though, she was gone, the door to her father's kitchen closing behind her.

Now seemed as good a time as any to see what Gray was up to.

I timidly knocked on his door when I reached his room.

"What?" Gray answered rudely.

That threw me off, "It's just me."

I was surprised when Gray flung open the door and went to lay facedown on his bed.

"Um . . . is there something the matter?" I inquired.

Gray sighed in annoyance, "Yes Mary, something is definitely 'the matter' as you put it."

I walked towards him slowly, sitting down on Cliff's unoccupied bed to face him. "What's wrong?"

He shocked me then, turning around abruptly to face me with a horrible glare fixed on his face. "You invited Karen at the last minute and didn't even speak to me about it."

"I didn't know it was a problem." I mumbled sadly.

He sighed, the anger slowly draining from his expression. "I'm sorry Mary, Karen and I just . . . well, we just don't exactly get along."

"Why not?"

He glared at me again.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, standing up to leave, "I should probably go and help Ann with the refreshments. You look like you need some personal space anyway. . . ."

As I was on my way out the door, Gray stopped me. Sighing again, he said, "Karen and I went out a couple of times. We had a nasty fight about her drinking problem, and I haven't spoken to her since. She said some pretty rude things and I decided that I no longer wanted to be around her."

Turning around to face him I said, "Well I didn't know. You didn't tell me."

"And I should have."

"Yes," I agreed, "you should have. I'm sorry that I didn't ask you why Karen hadn't been invited, but I probably would have invited her anyway. It isn't fair to invite all of the town youth except for one person. I know that she probably was rude to you, but I also know that I would be extremely hurt had I been the only one not invited to a party that all of my friends and acquaintances were attending."

Gray's brow nearly reached from out of view behind his UMA cap when I had finished my little speech. "Wow Mary," he said, "I had no idea you cared about Karen that much."

"I don't really, I would say the same for anyone else in the town. Popuri, Doctor Trent, Eli . . ."

"I know, I know." he laughed, "I'm only giving you a hard time. Now let's say we make our way down to this double party, alright?"

"Of course." I agreed, and we both smiled at each other before making our way back down the stairs towards the sound of the record player playing one of Ann's favorite songs.

A/N: So yeah, kind of a filler chapter right? I wanted to continue with this one and lead it into the party but there were a few reasons why I chose not to go that route:
1. I couldn't find any way to do that without the story flowing. This chapter would have sounded extremely choppy had I not ended it here.
2. I don't generally like writing five thousand word chapters, which is what this one would have ended up being. I really want to keep the whole birthday party in one chapter, just because it's so important.
3. Aside from the chapter being too long, I think that the party deserves it's own chapter. Yeah, it's that big.
4. I am the author of this story and I can do whatever I please. (:

So it looks like you're going to have to wait yet another chapter before you get to read all about the party. But think about it this way, you are just a few steps closer to some action! And then you'll be happy with me, I promise.
Just another note: I will be gone pretty much all of next week. I'll be home tomorrow and then I will leave until Saturday, so I don't really know if I'll be able to finish the next chapter in time for you to read it while I'm gone. But I promise I will try my best to write it. I do have plans tomorrow though so I honestly don't know if I'll be able to manage it. :S
Okay, so I think that's about it for tonight. Don't start thinking that I'm going to be updating every day now though, because I won't be. This is just a very rare circumstance that I have decided to create haha.
AND JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS . . . I have written three new chapters and haven't received a single review! How horrible is that? I must be making you readers angry or something. Either that or you've decided to unnecessarily wound me with your silent-ness. My proposal? REVIEW!

Okay, rant officially over.
- Tweedlebugqueen