JULY 9TH UPDATE: I revised a bit at the end! It doesn't suck anymore.

A/N: Hastily-written, but I think it's solid. There was a scene I wanted to write at the end with Jimmy planning weddings and stuff, but I just wanted to get this done and go to bed. (AS OF JULY 9TH, THIS SCENE IS NOW PRESENT)

Not much else to say here but hope you enjoy!

And hey, the 19th is my birthday, so if you want to get me a present, reviews would be great...

Nazz ripped away from the wall and froze as she registered what she'd just heard. She couldn't tell if she was crying. Her face was too sopping wet from the rain, but she needed to feel her own tears to validate her shock. Until then, she was numb.

A bolt of lightning suddenly pierced the center of the cul-de-sac. Nazz opened and closed her mouth, the closest she could get to a scream, and threw herself into another tool shed.

Huddled over a pile of rakes and trowels, she knew for sure she was crying. Her throat was swollen from the dry sobs that grew more violent every time she replayed Rolf's words: "I love you, Kevin." Despite the time they'd spent together making love, once inside this very shed, he had never said the same thing to her. She'd never even heard a boorish third-person equivalent, Rolf loves you, Nazz-girl.

The love of her life was a gay boy. Marrying her was an obligation, another passionless job he had to complete. Or perhaps he was just so ashamed that he needed her to block the closet door.

Nazz lay her head against a sack of mulch, and she could hear the sound her own teeth chattering, a hollow comfort. Her poor Rolf was burdened with secrecy. She could only cry for him.

The storm was intense but it passed quickly. As the rain slowed, the loud and damning grunts and moans from the other shed became increasingly noticeable. Nazz hugged her backpack with one arm and used the other to cover her ears as she ran, embarrassed, past the boys' tryst, through the cul-de-sac, and into her bedroom, where she threw down the backpack but kept her soaking jacket on. The cold was the only thing distracting her from the incident.

She turned on her table fan and lay on her bed, hands over her eyes, trying not to think about how she'd giddily and ignorantly watched Kevin and Rolf do it on top of those very same sheets. The air blasted at her and, although at first she convulsed from her back onto her front, eventually her body was numb.

As she stared blankly at the ceiling, she thought happy thoughts. How thankful was she that she'd broken up with Kevin? The guy knowingly slept around with people who were engaged to others. Assuming the engagement was still on . . .

Oh God, could she still marry him?

She scrambled to her bathroom and began poking at her face with lipstick and pulling at her hair with a comb. The beautifying process was a favorite distraction of hers, especially when combined with her mantra. "Nazz, you are lovely and you are loved. Your problems don't matter, because you are lovely and loved."

Lovely and loved. And loved. Loved.

It was a motivational lie.

It looked like someone had sneezed all over her face. The process of making herself presentable would take hours. Nazz realized this and let the very corners of her mouth tick upwards for a moment – she could lose herself completely.

She wiped her eyes clean and started up her blow dryer. With hair gel in her left hand and eyeliner in the right, she was content. She thought happy thoughts once again: perhaps what she'd heard had been taken out of context. Well, no, there was absolutely no context needed to interpret what she'd overheard. Still, he hadn't said, "I love you, Kevin, and nobody else whatsoever." There was a possibility . . . but why would he push her away and then go around making out with . . .

Nazz opened her eyes suddenly to see that she looked worse than before. Her hair was frizzy and uneven and her makeup was running. Clearly, this was the work of someone dazed and crazy, and sure enough, all the happy thoughts in the world couldn't make Nazz figure out what she thought. As she stared blankly into her own messy eyes, she shut the blow dryer off with a weak click. The screech of the machine was replaced with a collection of shouts from outside. Happy shouts – oh, the feeling of happiness.

It was soon clear that the voices she heard were coming from her own front yard and were, in fact, calling for her. Nazz was only sure of one thing – she didn't want to leave her room – but she couldn't lock herself up today of all days. She'd become a fiancee that very morning, and if they didn't see her acting the way they expected her to, they would suspect something horrible.

So she made a few futile wipes at her makeup, trudged downstairs, and opened the front door to a fresh new afternoon and every kid in the neighborhood cheering for her. She forced a smile and waved humbly. Before she could say even a "hello," a warm hand grabbed her by the wrist and raised her arm.

"Enter, the bride!" Rolf cried.

Nazz blushed in spite of herself. "Rolf -?"

"Nazz-girl the Betrothed has been betrothed for mere hours, and yet Rolf sees already that he chose correctly." Rolf stuck his chest out as he held her like a trophy. He made eye contact with every jealous young man in the audience. "She shows far more potential for wifedom than he expected from any bozo-American, having completed a chore this afternoon without any imperative from myself." He knelt down, still holding her arm tight, and pushed something towards her. "The proof!"

Her roller skates. Patched up and conspicuously free of any goat hair. "Oh, Rolf, thank you," Nazz murmured.

Rolf lurched back up again. "Small talk later, Nazz-girl the Betrothed!" he scolded. He couldn't stay serious for a second and flashed a half-smile before adding, "Rolf must know this: when is your birthday?"

Nazz could only smile nervously. He didn't know? Not surprising, as right now she was having trouble remembering.

"It's February 26, ya dork." A voice from the crowd answered, callous and unmistakable. Kevin. He stood in the very back, presumably to hide that begrudgingly satisfied smile from the other kids.

Rolf nodded. "Yes, well, Nazz-girl the Betrothed and all, the wedding shall be the twenty-sixth of February!"

"Actually, Rolf, the 26th is a Thursday – a school day, that is," said another boy. Edd stood off to the side with a legal pad and a pen in his hands. He seemed to be taking notes. "Perhaps the following Saturday would be more –"

"More what, Obsessive-Computive Ed-boy?"

"More, well . . . I thought . . . March 1, Rolf, March 1."

Rolf looked at Nazz. He still held her hand in the air, and she was beginning to lose feeling in that arm. But she loved the feeling of his fingers wrapped around hers. She smiled and shrugged at him.

He sighed. "The first of March, then."

Jimmy cheered, then got a look of realization on his face and took off running.

"Nazz-girl the Betrothed, do you accept this date?"

Nazz swallowed. "Yes. Um, Rolf? Can we talk about this new nickname?"

"No, we cannot, Nazz-girl the Betrothed," responded Rolf as he finally let her arm go. "Not until today's ceremony is over. Present the Bulb of Asking to Rolf."

Nazz looked down, eyes wide. She'd completely forgotten about her ring. It had been exposed through the entire storm, and now it was mushy and flaking. Embarrassed, she hid her hand behind her back, but Rolf was quick to reach for it. Thankfully, he seemed unfazed by the state of the garlic.

"Lovely as the day it sprouted, yes?" he said as he held it right up to his eye. "Yes?" he repeated with vitriol, which was met with a few frightened murmurs. "Yes. Take this in your hand, Nazz-girl the Betrothed."

Nazz opened her palm and allowed him to place the garlic in it. He closed his hand over hers, locked eyes with her, and smiled.

And then he started to squeeze.

Nazz gasped as she heard her engagement ring crinkle and crack. The other kids did as well, but they could not have been more shocked than Nazz. Rolf was crushing her, somewhat literally – she would probably need a hospital later. But more than anything, he was crushing whatever was left of her spirit. If this was him calling off the wedding . . . well, at least he had guts, coming out like this.

Rolf turned to her as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. "What is the bozo-American Nazz-girl waiting for, a bomb to drop?" he whispered harshly. "Squeeze!"

"But why?" she squeaked.

"Are you so uneducated?" said Rolf.

Nazz opened and closed her mouth fruitlessly. The tears threatened to spill down her face as the juices she didn't even know garlic had spilled down her arm. But then she overheard Double-D explaining to Ed and May. "An enigmatic tradition but a lasting one. I've read several riveting essays and dissertations on its origins, but too many of them hypothesize that either the garlic, the act, or both represent sex, which seems entirely out of character for . . . "

"Well-Groomed Jimmy tells me you like gems," Rolf whispered. With his free hand he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small fiasco of twisted aluminum wire with a red rhinestone in the center.

"Oh God, what is that?" Nazz choked out.

"The unfortunate product of Ranger Jimmy's earning his Metalworking Badge. Your new 'Ring' of Asking."

Tears started to drip down Nazz's nose. Gradually, she let herself apply pressure to the garlic. Juices dripped onto both of their shoes as she tried to sniffle her tears away. A bit of salt water went up her nostril. She looked up at Rolf. He looked ahead, distant and focused. Sick curiosity made Nazz wonder if he was gazing at his lover, but then she saw that kevin had left.

Others started to leave, as well, as the garlic took its sweet time decomposing. Sarah stomped home, dragging her brother along with her. Lee took Eddy roughly by the arm and Marie tried to follow with Edd. He resisted.

Nazz sighed and rooted silently for Double-D. She took the time to mouth a short prayer for love, soon to be interrupted by Rolf's free hand under her chin. He tilted her head up and kissed her.

Nazz's hand clenched fast around his. He tasted heavily of tobacco, but that hardly seemed a problem anymore. Anything was okay so long as it masked the lingering presence of the boy who'd been there first. She suppressed her gags by pressing her tongue against his.

She'd doubted that she would ever kiss Rolf again.

Finally, the Bulb of Asking was as shrunken and dry as a pebble. Rolf coaxed their lips apart, and Nazz gasped for air. She looked out with a dazed smile at their audience now down to three (Double-D, May Kanker, and a clueless Jonny 2x4). They were all reeling at the garlic stench. Nazz could no longer smell it.

Rolf released her hand and the stone fell unceremoniously to the ground. He lifted her other hand and position Jimmy's ring at her fingertip, and although she watched him do it, she could not feel it. She had an itching suspicion that he was not really engaging himself to her. Even though he'd left, Nazz swore she heard Kevin scoff over her shoulder as the ring slipped over her knuckles.

May began to applaud enthusiastically, Double-D pausing his note-taking to join in. Rolf took his fiancee's chin in his hand and smiled blandly. "Nazz-girl," he murmured.

And then she kissed him even harder than she had before. Her opportunities to get in close to him would be scant, it seemed; she needed to seize as many as she could before she lost him forever.

Jimmy came over early the next morning. The white binder had ballooned over night, so much that he had to ring the doorbell with his nose. His eyes were red and manic as they tracked Nazz's reactions to the dresses he'd picked out.

"Ooh... oh, this one, Jimmy," she murmured, sweeping her palm over one carefully laminated photo of a model in a simple sheath dress. The only ornamentation was a translucent flowered sash under the breast. It was beautiful.

"So boring, isn't it?" Jimmy said with a yawn. "Gosh, I don't know why that's still in there. Here." Before Nazz could stop him, he reached over and tore the page out of the binder. "I make awful decisions when I stay up past curfew."

Nazz blinked.

"You understand how much stress you're putting on me, don't you? March 1 is in just over three months. That's no time to plan a wedding."

Nazz fluttered her fingers by her ear, picking up several tangled strands of hair. She hadn't brushed yet.

"This is my first wedding planning gig, you know," Jimmy said. He took a dramatic breath in. "If I'm being completely honest, I don't know if I can even go through with this crazy thing."

All of the blood rushed to Nazz's ears. Someone had finally articulated what she couldn't say. She looked over at Jimmy, who was waiting impatiently for her response. With a sigh, she opened her mouth and let the words trickle out. "I have to say, Jimmy..."

She paused. She was so tired, probably even more tired than Jimmy was, even though she'd slept well. She'd dreamed about Rolf, and everything she'd gone through the day before. Except, she realized, for the two kisses.

Nazz sank into her bed as she recalled the kisses. They were so comfortable. He was so comfortable, at least for her. And she realized that even if he loved a man, he was still choosing her.

Screw Kevin, she thought. She would go through with this.

Jimmy raised a platinum blond eyebrow. "What do you have to say?"

Nazz met his eyes and smiled genuinely. "I have to say that you're going to have to pull through. This is Rolf's one and only wedding, and he needs it in three months."

A/N: I'm going to camp for six weeks on Sunday, so the next update might take a while. I have limited computer access there, so I'll try to post what I can. Until then, though, I'm leaving you with this chapter. Which I hope liked. :)