"Ok Kim: let's leave out how you preferred to stay with Bonnie , of all people, when I invented the Mad Dog mask, I'd say I already showed how much you all were wrong." One point, out. "Let's lose the Halloween story, you already had enough from your parents for that issue." Thanks, Ron… "And let's jump far from when I discovered you microchipped me without my consent! Just, let's forget that, come on!" Yeah, let's forget it: that day Kim had discovered what the henchmen they face every day feel. She guessed that when he would have discovered it, he would have gone crazy, started shouting, freak out, but in the end he would have understood her good intentions. Understanding? Yes. Freak out? Definitely not. But after having kept him out of such a secret, getting away with a black eye was an exchange Kim considered very profitable...to Wade he destroyed the computer he used to track him. When then he calmed down and they could explain everything, they substituted the chip with a newer one and she had put one into her too, in the same point. Only her mother knew where, not even them, it was her to do the , just Mrs. Possible had lost the light of the reason, considering expecailly that Stoppables were Jew...for all of this, Kim was grateful to have already faced the topic, but now she had to listen to him for all the rest.
Like predicted, many times he was irritated, feeling excluded, by how the girl considered small things his daily problems, typical of teenagers and builders of the character, while she pretended he was always listening to and helping her. Many things were indeed small things, with a clear mind, he himself admitted it: he was just going up.
""School prom, that time you had a crush for Josh: do you remember that night? You, the girl that the whole school would have wanted and that could have anyone, scared by the possibility of a rejection by a boy that in the end only had to know if you were free. Me? How many failures you saw me collect that day? Besides you and Monique, the whole female population of high school. Never a sign of simpathy for that situation from you, almost as if you considered it the normal happening of the events, yet I still helped you, gave you courage, and in the end you had your prince charming. And my lady? A broom! Yes, because for some unknown, damned reason, there was no handle inside the door you closed, so while you lived your fairy taleI found myself to learn by memory the composition of the detergent! I decided to bring down the door only late, when I believed the school was desert, and guess who I find myself in front of? Barkin, who does small hours. I let you imagine at what my explenations meant: detention, extra homework and repay the door. I put a hundred dollars more, in order to put the handle!" Kim understood how much the issue burnt: for a high schooler, the prom was a very important social event, even if she had not meant it, she had denied it to him, and even the fact of not helping himfor a girl was right. Not that he needed encouragement, but she could have directed him towards someone that like him was searching for a cavalier, after all there were those free...it was also true that she could not be his babysitter for every problem. "Ah, and the fact of considering me your equal: that's not always true!" "What?" "Eeh, yes! Think about it: for you what has Wade built? The kimmunicator, the laser lipstick, the grapple hairdryer, that multitasking ring, the hyperfast rollerblades, and the suit, oooh, yeah, so cool the suit...for me, instead, what has ever built? The minimum needed to escort you without you having to pick me up! I never even had my own kimmunicator before you received the newer version, do you know what it's called this? GIVING AWAY THE SCRAPS, THAT'S WHAT!" I have no arguments to reply to this. Goodness, Ron, I've never seen you so much angered… "What, I was so clumsy that you did not trust to put in my hands some pretty toy even to me too? Even just a swiss knife would have been enough, to know that I had your trust, not only to push a red button and run away." Is it really for this? Because we did not trust him? Honestly, I don't know it myself. "Have you any idea of how it made me feel? Constantly in doubt if I was really enough for you, if I was good enough to protect you, or helkp you..." Ron took his head in his hands for some moments, but came back immediately to the attack. "And then I thought, if I had that sensation of inadequacy, it was also your fault!" "Mine?!" Kim felt herself struck in her pride. "Yes, yours! In all that time you've done nothing except seeing me make mistakes, trip, making messes, risk hurting myself more than I can remember: you knew I was doing it only for you, but have you ever tried one day to take me and teach something to me too? Because truth is that I knew just how to cook and jump out of a plane without killing myself, but facing hordes of big men with laser sticks ready to break all your bones without a minimum of knowledge of self defence and limit to run and attract them behind to not making them all jump on you was is not distraction, it's LIVING BAIT!" I don't dare to imagine how much hard must have been for you, facing your fears that way...wait, this means that...oh, for heaven's sake, I was sending him to kill himself! What kind of monster am I? "And I even have a specific example, on how much you consider me in mission: Josh Mankey!" At this point, I can expect anything… "I'll make it quick for you: you chose to go with him on a fancy date risking to disappear forever because of Drakken's umpteenth bad deed while I was risking my life in Amazon to find a cure that risked to be completely useless because you simply decided that going out with him was more important than your OWN LIFE!" If there is a lightning that waits to hit someone full power, I volunteer, but it has to do it now! "And this thing to use two weights and two measures, is not even applied only to missions: remember when you wanted that jacket and you found a job at Bueno Nacho and you signed me too without my permission? Puppy dog pout and you were immediately 'two weeks to jacket, two weeks to jacket'!" he teased her. "When I made the same thing at the talent show, what have I received from it? Threats of physical repercussions by oriental war disciplines!" "...I admit it, it was unfair, but in both occasions we had some successes the both of us..." "What do you want, know what I keep in my heart, or washing your conscience?" Ron's tone was very clear: Kim had to shut up. And in fact she lowered the ginger head in resignment. "Now, one last thing, the last one." I knew I kicked a wasp hive, but it's only now that the queen comes out. "You knew how much I looked for a girlfriend in high school, and knew how many refused me." Ron's voice became cold, threatening… "You knew that I surely did not understand you, and frankly the thing did not change so much..." He lowered towards her as much as he could, more and more. "You knew well how much I helped you about that topic when you needed it, and you can't deny that you were definitely aware of my position in the school hierarchy..." I'm about to cry… "So I want, pretend, demand to know..." Everything but that, please, everything except that… "WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU NEVER TOLD ME TARA HAD A CRUSH ON ME?!"
The strength and emotions, expecially anger, that filled that sentence overwhelmed her like an avalanche, and the results were not so different: Kim Possible, superheroine, world savior, protector of what there was about good and right, existed no more: in her place there was a scared girl who loudly cried with the face hidden in shame in the hands, the unkempt hair falling on the sides, trembling behind the inquisitor stare of a pair of brown eyes with bluish flashes that she felt impress in her flesh, but that she could not face. And a voice that she provoked herself, and now she could neither ignore nor refrain from tormenitng her. "Watch out that, unless to have received a vision from the future that already told you we would have been together, you piloted at your will not only my life, but hers too!" It's true...it's always true...I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I beg you, try… "And don't you dare to say I should have understood it, because aside from that time at Camp IwanttomakethatdamnaccursedplacefromthefaceoftheEarth, the only sign Tara was different was that she called me with my real name, for the rest it was a miracle that she spoke to me!" And people ask me why I chose you...but how have you managed to choose me? "Remember that it's been you to have wanted this conversasion, so have the courage to bring it 'till the end!" Stop, stop, STOP! "If you want to exit from this room without answer, you can do it..." His voice was once again calm, but cold: this made her rise the head, guided but a hope that she already knew was the falsest in existence. And in fact she saw his shake his head in rage: "...but don't you dare to show yourself in front of me again." "NO RON, I BEG YOU, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" "THEN YOU TELL ME WHY YOU DID THAT TO ME!" Kim has thrown herself on his shirt, but Ron has caught her wrists detatching her from him and clenched so tight that he started to hurt her. And she still did not want to answer. "I...I..." she sobbed violently. "You…?" "...I-I-I..." "...YOU?!" "I DON'T KNOOOOW!" ...a minute passed, between sighs and sobs. Ron had let her go, but was still dark in face and it was clear that he wanted her to continue. He deserved it, after all. "Before you talked about talking in order to help each other." Kim nodded with her head. "What you wanted to know from me now you know it. And you forced it out of me. Now it's your turn." It's right. "Whe...when she confessed that she liked you...all the cheerleaders immediately started rowing against: they said that she would have fallen in the social ladder..." "It was simply an abomination even to think that it could be she rising me up, eh?" Kim did not answer. "...they said that cheerleaders had to keep a certain level, and that lowering would have exposed all the others to a bad light...they used the squad as a weapon to convince her to forget you..." "I already know what they did, or at least I can imagine it. My question is, what did you do?" "I...knew that, despite being unfair, high school social rules were important, so I adviced her to wait...to think about it...and I would have had time to...to understand what to do..." "What do you mean?" "Well...you were my friend...I did not want you to be hurt by a student crush...and then..." "...and then?" "..." Kim could not say it, not like this. She watched away, but he gently took her chin with two fingers and turned her. The inquisitor stare was there once again. "Brutal, Kim. No useless sugarcoating." Now or never. "You...you don't know anything about cheerleaders, girls, what they want and what they expect, they're a world you don't belong to, you could have never made her happy!" She almost shouted it in his face. It was the truth, after all, but having said it did not make her feel good. "In other words...you chose to obey to the food chain. You excluded since before that such two different social classes could stay well together." There they were: the tears were coming back. Only for Kim, though: Ron was like a stone face. "There's more...I...was scared that staying with Tara you would have taken the distance from me. That you'd have not come with me on missions anymore, that we would have not spent time together..." "In short, that you would have lost your toy. Because this is how you treated me if you thought so." It looked like Ron was just whipped in the face. Even listening to his voice tone would have been painful, even for a stranger. "And I thought it couldn't be worse...and now you pull out a lack of faith in my regards that no matter how much I think about I just cannot understand how I could have caused" Because you never did… "Not only for having believed that the hierarchical ladder was more important, but also and above else that I would have cut you out completely from my life. Sure, I would have been hyped a bit, but never and ever I would have separated from you!" "Ron...I-I don't know what to say, I'm sorry..." "I know you're sorry, but being sorry won't delete what happened." There was no anger, or hatred, in his words: just a cold statement of the facts. Ron fixed the gaze below, an empty stare. "If I could go back..." "But you can't. We can't." Kim did not know anymore what to do, she just wanted to disappear, like she never existed. She was again returned with the head in the hands and the elbows on the knees. "I wish this history never happened...I just wish to forget everything..." "And this is what I can't let you do." Kim did not understand what he meant to say. "Because if everything was deleted with a strike of a magic wand, we would have learnt nothing, and the history would start again!" "For the first time in my life, I really don't know what to do..." "And this is one of the reasons why I did not want to talk about it to you: because I knew it would have been not only useless, but also harmful, expecially for you!" Kim was breathless, and even if she would have had it, she would have not know what to say…at that point, the whole world could explode and she would not notice it. And instead happened the only thing that she could notice.
Ron hugged her.