She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

amen's locker slammed shut with a loud bang, and he took off running for his 3rd period class. It didn't take him long to realize that he was going to be late. It usually took him at least 2 minutes to get down to the Science lab on the 1st floor, and, being late, he had to go through one of Mr. Iha's quiz's to get into class. And to top it all off, his walkman had just fallen out of the back of his bag. With a curse on his lips, he turned around to walk back and get it, and instead walked right into a short girl with purple hair.

Her books went flying, and they both landed flat on their butts.

"You jerk! Now I'm going to be late! And on my first day too!" she screamed at him.

Damen grabbed his walkman and took off running down the hall, with only mumbled apology to the girl.

"You scummy troll! Get back here and help me pick these up!" she shrieked, jumping up and starting to move after him.

Damen decided he'd heard enough. Turning around, he fired back with a retort of his own. "What if I don't want to, you dirty little purple haired freak? Huh? How about you take your books and shove them up your pimply butt?" Damen laughed cruely, quite pleased with himself. She sneered with rage, and threw her binder at him, missing his head by mere millimeters. He responded by spitting at her. She retaliated by spitting back. He defended himself by picking his nose and flicking it at her. She wadded paper and hit him in the head. Finally, he threw his pencil, and she ducked, but misjudged her balance, and fell on her back.

Damen laughed out loud. "Now that's comedy!" he grinned happily. She screamed again, and jumped up and rushed after him. He laughed delightedly, and took off down the hall. Eventually, he lost her in the West Wing, and was still able to double back and head for Science class.

Sneaking in the back door of the Science room, he silently headed for his desk. Mr. Iha was concentrating on showing the class slides on cell division, so the room was almost totally dark. Sitting down, he quietly placed his bag on the floor, and began paying attention to the lesson.

"Mr. Little!" Mr. Iha boomed loudly without turning away from the slides. "Why are you late?" Damen was so surprised at that, he nearly fell out of his desk. Of course, everyone noticed, and laughed at him appropriately.

"Well... Uh, Well, Sir, you see..."

"Don't Babble! No babbling in my class. Now, why were you late?"

"Well, There was this girl, sir..."

As if on cue, the door opened, and a few rays of light seeped in from the hall. Someone walked in, and handed Mr. Iha a slip of paper. Mr. Iha turned off the slide machine and flipped the lights on. Everyone groaned at the sudden light on their eyes. Damen groaned too when he saw who it was. The girl with the purple hair! She glanced around apprehensively, but didn't notice him sitting in the back row. Mr. Iha read over what Damen asumed was her admit slip, and then announced to the class;

"Students, It seems you have a new class member. I'd like you to welcome Alyson Smith to the group."

Everything was silent. Damen chuckled softly.

"Class, welcome Alyson to the room. NOW!" shouted Mr. Iha.

The room groaned, and then a few strangled `Hi Alyson." 's leaked in. Damen put his hands over his mouth and made a loud farting noise. Everyone laughed. Mr. Iha grinned, apparently pretending not to notice Damen's little display. "Thank you class." Mr Iha said cheerfully, "Now Alyson, I believe there is a seat for you in the back, next to Damen."

"Oh no!" Damen's mind screamed at him loudly.

Alyson moved slowly to the back, and then saw who she was sitting next to.

"Mr. Iha!" she whined, "Can't I sit somewhere else? I can't sit here!"

"But there is nowhere else to sit!"

"Mr. Iha... but, but... I... Mr. Iha!!"

"No babbling in my class! That is the golden rule here, NO BABBLING!" Alyson stood stock still, dumbfounded.

"Take your seat, Alyson. I won't ask you again." With that, he turned off the lights, turned on the slide machine again, and went back to the lesson, signaling that the discussiong was over. Defeated, Alyson slid into her desk next to Damen. Damen glanced over at her. In this light, with the sun leaking through the curtains shining on her hair and face, and the fact that she wasn't screaming at him, made her look a whole lot prettier than she did in the hall. Transfixed, he stared at her for close to a minute, until the teacher's voice boomed especially loud through the room.

"...And so, with the mitochondria in the plant cell and the nucleus..."

Damen lay his head down on his desk, and looked back at her again. The moment was gone, he realized. Grinning, he decided it was time to have a little fun. Tearing off a scrap of paper from his notebook, he removed the inktube from his pen, and chewed on the paper for a moment, then put the pen to his mouth.

The spitball came firing out of the end of the pen, and hit Alyson right in the temple. Instead of screaming like he'd expected, she pulled the spitball off her temple, and threw it back, hitting him right in the eye. She quickly wadded her own paper into spitballs, and they began firing at each other from close range. Mr. Iha was totally locked in the lesson, and the rest of the class was more or less asleep. No one noticed. By the end of class, they were both covered in spit and paper. Thoroughly disgusting.

Damen came out of the room laughing, but Alyson was not amused. As he walked down the hall, she came up from behind him, spun him around by the shoulder, and socked him in the gut. All the wind went out of him, and he slumped to the floor. "You slimy toad, " she whispered in his ear. "If you ever do that again, I'll ram my hand down your throat straight down into your scrotum, and pull your balls out of your ears." With that, She gave him the most serious look of malice he had ever seen, and stalked down the hall.

Damen tried to straighten himself out on the floor to watch her as she departed. "But you... you were doing it too...", he groaned after her miserably, trying to catch his breath. The hallway quickly filled with people heading to their classes. Some people walked around him, some over him, and some just laughed at him as he lay on the floor in pain.

"Gosh, she's pretty", he thought to himself.

amen walked into the schoolyard the next morning, and looked around the crowds. It seemed as though his regular group of friends hadn't arrived yet , so he contented himself by talking to the stoners in front of the school before classes started.

"Hey! Damen-man..." said one of the stoners, obviously not really knowing who he was.

"Hey, how are ya? Damen said to no one in particular. It didn't really matter which one you spoke to anyway, they were all the same. Almost like a hive mind.

The potheads moaned, sounding totally uninterested in what he was saying.

Damen plopped himself down next to the crowd, and one of the potheads looked at him, a young girl leaning against the wall.

"Damen, what are ya thinkin' dude?" the very plain voice came out in slow wisps of speech, as though she didn't really care much to hear the answer.

"I don't know." said Damen. "Nothing much really." Truthfully, he was thinking about Alyson, but he wasn't going to tell them that.

"Are you thinking about that cute chick with the purple hair?"

"How the... How the fuck did you know that?" Damen started, and stared straight at the girl, who had just had a joint passed to her. She looked plainly at him, and slid down the wall, reclining as she took a long haul on the thin little joint. "It's this weed man... expands the mind... Good stuff dude."

"Really? Let me try some then." he reached out his hand, held it open for her to pass it to him.

"What?" she shivered slightly, and looked in the other direction.

"The weed! Let me try some of the weed!"

"Why? When did you start smoking?"

"I don't!! But you said weed expands your mind."

"It does?" she cried out, starting to laugh, she slid down the wall some more, and took another haul on the marijuana. "Cool!"

Damen looked away, disgusted. Down the hill from where they were sitting, about 50-60 feet away, he could see Alyson talking to a large group of friends. Getting up, and grinning ever so slightly, he walked down towards them, wondering what degrading stunt he could pull on her today. As he approached, he noticed she was wearing a short little plaid skirt and that came down above her knees.

"I wonder what I could do with that?" he thought to himself michievously. As he got closer, however, he noticed that someone else had already beat him to it. A tall guy in his 2nd period History class was using a stick to push up her dress, and he was trying to peek underneath. He was laughing, she wasn't.

"Come on you purple haired nut-bag, don't be so tight!" he laughed again, and Damen found his blood starting to boil. Normally, he would have enjoyed seeing her put down, but right now some weird sense of chivalry made him walk over and push the guy into the mud. Cursing himself, he kicked sand in the guy's eye, and told him to take a hike. The guy was taller than Damen, but Damen was still a whole lot bigger than him. If it came to that, Damen knew who win the fight.

The guy took off, and Damen turned and looked and Alyson, narrowing his eyes, wondering what she would do now.

"Thanks." she said, staring into his dark-brown eyes, his short brown hair blowing ever so slightly in the wind.

"Yer welcome." he mumbled, moving away.

"Hey Damen!"

"Yeah?" he turned back, and scanned her slim body.

"Why did you do that?" she smiled ever so slightly, a smile that warmed Damen a little, gave him courage. He saw his chance, but decided to shrug it just a little.

"Because I'm the only one allowed to make fun of you." he said, smiling back a little.

He took off, heading for class. Alyson watched him as he moved away, saw the prospect of the two of them being together, but threw it out as being ridiculous. And then again, maybe not...

hat weekend, Damen was invited to a party in the south of town, and drove out eagerly, always ready for a good time. Although he didn't regularly drink heavily, he decided that tonight it would OK, as he had enough money to catch a cab home, or, if it turned into the usual type of party his friends would throw, he'd end up so full of liquor he would just pass out on the couch or some other convenient surface, waking up the next moring with one bad hang-over.

"Not a bad idea, " he chuckled to himself.

When he arrived, he saw a large group of people congregated over one whole side of this neighbourhood, and moving in and out of at least three or four of the houses. He saw all his old friends of course, along with the stoners, who were at EVERY party this town had ever had, and a bunch of football players, all the cheerleaders, and a lot of the nerds too. Just about everyone from school was at this party!

Alyson was there too, of course, and when he saw her, his heart did a little flip, and he stood on the side of the room looking at her for a moment. She danced with a bunch of guys, talked to friends, laughed, drank beer, and generally made a total ass of herself, as many highschooler's do when at an extremely BIG party was going on. He was on his 4th beer by the time he walked over to her. She was talking to the stoners, who seemed to have realized everyone in town relied on them to be at their parties. The stoners were a given for every party, if they weren't there, it wasn't a party. Not just for the fact that they brought most of the good intoxicants (which really makes a party in a small town with nothing to do) but also for the fact that they had become symbolic of what a party was in this town. Many was the time party givers had been heard to remark, as the stoners walked through the door, "Alright, the stoners are here! Now it's a party!" It was practically a town tradition. This is what they were telling Alyson as Damen approached.

He tousled her hair, and grabbed her tight by the back of the neck. "Hey freak-girl, what's new in Freakland?" She gave a weak little slap in the face, and removed herself from his arms, looking annoyed, but trying not to smile. She took a sip of her beer, laughed, and said "Come on Damen! Lets dance!" She dragged him out to the middle of the room, laughing hard, and Damen heard one of the stoners say to him as he was dragged away,

"Dude, she's killer!" Damen looked back at them, and shouted something he doubted they heard or cared about, given the enormous pile of drugs currently in their possession.

They danced for hours, drank all night, laughed at each others joke's, and by midnight, they staggered upstairs, both extremely drunk, and laughing hard. They looked into one of the bedrooms, and forced themselves through the door, still laughing. Damen dropped his pants, and then tried to remember what he was supposed to do when they were down. Alyson took off her dress, and, naked as the day she was born, stumbled into the bed, and passed out, just under the covers. Damen removed his clothes, and climbed into the bed next to her, then tried to recall what his father had told him during their father/son "The birds and the Bee's" talk, when Damen was only 7.

"Well son, " said ghostly dad "When you're with a girl, and she's naked, and you're naked, you've gotta remember to kiss her. Many is the time I've just skipped the kissing and got down to the other stuff, and the girl usually gets pretty mad at ya, saying stuff like `You don't love me, what am I, just a fuck to you?" That kinda bullshit. So kiss her, Son, kiss her........."

The rest of that conversation was just a blur of dad talking, drinking beer, and passing out., and Damen could not, for the life of him, remember on his own what came next. So, making do with what he had, he rolled over, and kissed her on the cheek. At this point, his alcohol ridden body decided it too tired to continue, and he passed out on her shoulder.

he next morning, Alyson woke up, and looked at the ceiling. "Not my ceiling." she realized out loud. She sat up, and all the blood rushed to her head, forcing her to lie down again. Loooking to her left, she saw the back of some big burly guy's head, and jumped out of the bed. A slight chill made her realize that she was completely naked, and she let a quick little scream, and stopped herself, not wanting to wake the sleeping naked guy.

Quietly putting her clothes back on, she made for the door. When she reached the handle, she opened it halfway, then looked back at the guy in the bed.

"Damen?" she cried out in surprise, loud enough to wake him up.

Damen sat bolt upright, and somehow leaned over and fell out of the bed onto his stomach, leaving his whole ass exposed for her to see. She screamed, and covered her eyes. He rolled over, and banged his head on the dresser next to the bed. She uncovered her eyes to investigate the noise, and saw the front side of his naked body, and screamed again.

"Damen, put your clothes on!" she laughed, covering her eyes again.

He floundered around on the floor, still half asleep, trying to find his clothes. He grabbed his boxers, and pulled them on, the his t-shirt. "Ok, I'm decent... sort of." he said to her, as he grabbed for his jeans. He stood up, and looked at her.

She looked back, and they just stood there for a moment, Alyson trying not laugh, Damen rubbing his head from banging it on the dresser. "Uh, Damen, " she said, looking down. "Put your pants on!" Damen looked down, shocked into remembering. He pulled on his jeans, and searched for his socks.

"Damen, did we uh... Did we? I don't remember." she said, looking a little sheepish.

"I don't remember." he lied. He DID remember, but all he really remembered was kissing her and then falling asleep. He was positive they hadn't done anything last night.

"Oh, ok! Good. I mean, well, not good, but..."

"I know what you mean!" he said back, tying his shoes from the floor.

"Let's just get outta here. I'm tired, and I want to go home." she said back.

They headed out through the open door, and down the stairs. Downstairs, there were at least 25-30 people asleep around the house. The house was full of garbage. Damen was glad he didn't live here. Outside, the entire crowd of stoners was asleep on the lawn, and the neighbourhood looked similar to the house they had just been in. There were drunken teenagers passed out on just about every square inch of grass. Only a few had woken up yet, and they looked about as dazed as Alyson and Damen. As they headed for Damen's car, he asked her if she needed a ride home. She said she didn't, she had her own car. When they reached his car, they both stopped.

"Well, I guess this is it then." said Damen

"Yeah, I guess so." she looked away, the wind blowing her long purple hair around her face. He moved to get in his car, and she started to walk away, but he stopped. "Alyson!" he called for her. She stopped, and looked back.

"Yes?" the wind picked up a little, and her hair blew over her eyes, and she had to stop to pull it out of her eyes.

"Do you wanna, you know, maybe..." he couldn't find the words. They just weren't there.

"Go for dinner?" she finished "Yeah! Go for dinner!" he said loudly, half laughing to himself.

"I'd love to." she said, smiling.

Damen let out a little scream, and jumped in his car and drove away without even asking when to meet her. Two minutes later, he realized his error, and drove back. Oddly enough, she was still standing there. She told him Monday, at around nine-ish would be great. Screaming again, he sped off.

n Monday morning, Damen arrived at school. A bunch of guys flocked around him.

"Damen you old dog! How was she?"

"What?"

"Alyson! We saw you two sleeping in the bed! Pretty tired after what you were doing, eh?"

"No, we didn't..."

"You lucky stiff! She's a hottie alright!!"

"But we didn't... I didn't..."

"Oh, come on Damen! Give us the details!! Did she spit or swallow?"

"You guys are sick!!" Damen yelled, "Just get away from me!"

He pushed his way through the crowd, and took off running, but they chased after him, yelling the whole way. He finally managed to lose most of them, but they still kept after him. Damen spent his whole day worrying one these guys would go speak to Alyson, and ruin what he hoped he could have with her.

hat night, Damen arrived to pick up Alyson at exactly 9 o'clock, and they rushed out of the house at around 9:05, after meeting Alyson's parents. They got into the car, and sped off to some restaurant Damen had never heard of that Alyson wanted to go to. When they arrived, it had begun to rain pretty hard.

They went inside, and had to wait a few minutes to be seated. The maitre'd arrived, and, looking rather dismayed at Alyson's purple hair, brought them to their table.

"What do you think of this place?" she whispered excitedly to him, "It's french!"

"Oh great." Damen responded.

"What?"

"I said, 'It's Great!' Really! I love it here." his speech was laced with sarcasm.

"Oh come on, you're such a dork! It's just a restaurant!" He noticed she was using the familiar insults which he had come to associate with the two of them. About to shoot back with his own retort, he heard someone yell at him from the next table.

"Damen, you sly one you! Warming her up for round two now?"

"Damen, who is he?"

"Ummm... no one. Hey listen, buddy, we're trying to eat here..." Someone else yelled from another table

"You've decided to keep this little cutie have you? Woo Woo!!

"Damen, you are the man!"

"Shut up!" Someone else walked up to their table, and said to Alyson

"He's quite a charmer, eh? Was he that good?"

"You vicious nerd! I'll kill you!" Damen screamed at the guy

"Damen, what are they all talking about?"

"Uhh... nothing Alyson."

"They're talking about Saturday night aren't they? You told them all!"

"No, Alyson, No!!" he stumbled after her, but she ran outside.

Several of these guys started chanting "Damen, Damen!!" much to the dismay of the other restaurant patrons, who were starting to become unsettled.

"Immature bastards!! Go to hell!!" Damen screamed, trying to compose himself.

"Hey Damen! Your lover just took off ya know!"

Damen ran off after her, and he passed the stoners who were sitting at one large table, still totally perma-fried.

"Bad luck dude." one of them mumbled as he ran past. He found her outside in the parking lot, practically sitting in a puddle. He ran towards her, but she took off, running hard in spite of her heels. He chased her down and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Alyson, stop!"

"Let me go, you asshole!" she screamed at him "I can't believe you told them all! All of them!!" she slapped him hard across the face, her face dripping with rain, and it stung him, and he grabbed her hand as she tried to slap him again.

"I didn't tell them anything, Alyson!"

"Oh right, then who did? Your super-inflated male ego! Well, I suppose they love for you for it now eh?" she screamed at him, "You're just a big kingshit now aren't you? Well, you can go back to them for all I care! I hate you!" she started to cry, and tried to wrench her hand free of his grip.

"Let me go!"

"No, I can't! I won't!"

"Let me go!" she repeated.

"I'll never let you go!"

"Let me go!!" she screamed again, her tears streaming down her face, mingling with the rain water on the ground. Her hair was wet and stringy now, and her clothes were soaked. She tried again to wrench her arm free.

"No! I can't just let you go! I won't!"

"Why not!?!?" she yelled at him, at the top of her lungs.

"Because I love you!!!!" he screamed even louder, the rain water running down his chin onto her face. They were both completely soaked.

"What... did... you... say?" she stopped, staring at him wide-eyed. He let her hand drop, and she stared straight at him, and their resolve softened as they gazed longingly into the other's eyes.

"I love you." he said, quieter this time.

A bolt of lightning ripped open the sky, and it started to rain harder around them as they stood there, for what seemed like an eternity. The whole world faded out for a moment, and her entire world was Damen, and his entire world was Alyson.

He started talking very fast. "I didn't tell them anything! They saw us sleeping in the bed, and they just assumed what they wanted to assume! But they're so damned immature, I don't blame them. They wouldn't even listen when I told them we didn't do anything..."

"Wait, we didn't do anything?"

"No! But they wouldn't believe me, they just kept bugging me, and talking all kinds of trash about you, and me, and it was just bullshit! They just wouldn't listen, you've got to believe..."

"Damen, you idiot!"

"... me, you've just got to. Don't you see? We were just too drunk!!"

"Damen!"

"What?"

"Shut up and kiss me, you damned fool!"

They embraced, and their bodies became like one, as the rain came pouring down, and the lightning tore through the air, and the thunder rumbled. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. The lightning flashed, the street lights went out, and they didn't stop. It stretched on, they kept going, they were one, and the lightning ripped open the sky again, an enormous jagged thunderbolt that stopped their hearts.

Finally, they came up for air, and the rain let up a little. They looked into each others eyes, and laughed. He put his arm around her back, onto her soaked shoulder, and twirled her long, soaked, hair around his fingers. She put her arm around him, his soaked clothes dripping with water, his short hair plastered against his head, and she looked at him.

"You stupid jerk, you smeared my lipstick." she said quietly.

They walked out of the parking lot, right past Damen's car, and down the street, laughing the whole way.

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