31Full Summary:
"Fuck the neighbors when I have Zack fucking with my life."
Sometimes Samantha hates her best friend.
She can't think of one good reason why she hasn't killed him in his sleep yet.
Zack's not a nice person.
He talks too much, he drinks too much, he swears too much, but he doesn't think too much. Everything about Zackary Pratt is "too much".
Erasing him from the face of the earth would serve him right for always getting in her way and making life a tad bit harder for her.
She thinks she can do that. She may not erase him from the world, but she can easily erase him from her life.
That is, if she stops thinking about kissing him first.
Chapter 1: This Time Don't Follow Me
"Oh, innocent victims of Cupid,
Remember this terse little verse;
To let a fool kiss you is stupid,
To let a kiss fool you is worse."
- E. Y. Harburg
"You," I jabbed my finger into his chest, "are the reason," I gave him an additional shove, "why," here I sneered, narrowing my eyes in slits, "I don't have a fucking," I smacked his arm, although I would've rather aimed for his head instead, "boyfriend!"
Huffing and puffing to myself, I folded my arms over my chest, turning my back on him and starting my long trek back home through the dark, leaving the party scene and one very bemused boy behind.
I was still in the middle of cursing his existence back to hell when I heard a pair of footsteps echoing behind me.
At first I toyed with the idea of someone following me and having the full intent to drag me into the forests and having his way with me when I realized a second too late how ludicrous that sounded even in my head.
Although my muscles remained tense in case I had to protect myself. Even if it wasn't a potential rapist who grabbed my wrists and pulled me back, I was still attacked, although I saw in my attacker the face of my best friend.
Former best friend if we counted tonight's events which had led to me walking away on him and flipping him off, though in my defense he fully deserved it.
"Sammy," he made an effort to appease me, but his groveling wasn't going to work when I didn't even consider looking at him.
I rolled my eyes at him, shaking his hands off me and he let me go, but not without following me like my shadow.
"Don't you Sammy me, you idiot. Go away," I made a sweeping motion with my hand, not even bothering to look over my shoulder and at him.
And never come back, was the part that I thought to myself, but never said out loud.
If only he was that easy to get rid of though. He simply pushed under your skin, spreading infections and diseases, sending your life in hell.
He was nearly impossible to tolerate and really, I didn't know why I put up with him as all my other friends asked me.
I could've easily detached myself from Zackary Pratt since I had no ties to him, nothing to point as to why I was still here when I had no reason to be.
The only reason I could think off the top of my head about why we were still friends was that he was a prick and I was a sucker for masochism.
"You're overreacting," Zack informed me, having the nerve to sound patronizing with him as I imagined him rolling his eyes at me, too, thinking about what a silly girl I was for apparently blowing this out of proportion, for making a mountain out of a molehill.
Naturally. Of course, I was the one making a scene.
Why didn't I think of this first?
I stopped dead in my tracks, probably just like he'd wanted and expected me to, knowing me all too well for my liking, and all my anger for him returned with full force by coming face to face with him and to stop myself from striking his pretty boy face, I had to dig my nails into my palms till they bled.
Of course, he would've turned this on me.
Of course, it would've been my fault that he'd messed around with me again.
Of course, I'd started it as I obviously always did.
"What the fuck, Zack?" I sputtered intelligibly, spreading out my arms and staring at him like he'd grown another head.
Really, I would've loved to find out where this boy got his spunk from. The nerve of him to talk to me that way! He needed to be taken down a notch or two; that I was sure of.
"You practically break this guy's head for dancing with me, you leave him to bleed to death after beating him up, you make this whole show of threatening him in front of everybody, and then you kiss me, again where everyone can see us," I exclaimed, running out of breath while screaming senselessly at him in the middle of the sidewalk, almost positive that all the neighbors could hear us fight like two rabid dogs.
Fuck the neighbors when I had Zackary fucking with my life.
"So?" Zack drawled, hardly batting an eyelash, sounding exasperated with me while all I could do was gawk at him.
Like an idiot.
Like the ultimate idiot he made out of me.
"So?" I echoed, my voice going to dangerous octaves as I threw my hands up in the air helplessly, at a loss of what to do with him.
With us. With this whole messed up situation.
I couldn't understand how he got to be so calm while I was having a seizure.
I would've pulled my hair out if I didn't know that it would hurt me more than it would affect him and it was him I strived to hurt.
Besides, I should've known by now that making me go berserk was what he liked to do for fun.
"You're mad, Zack," I shook my head, black tresses sliding down my shoulders and falling out of the messy bun I had put them up in, "you're mad," I affirmed, saying it more to myself now than to him as I came to terms with what he'd done tonight, realizing the full consequences of his rash actions.
Unlike him. Zack never admitted when he was wrong because in his books… he never was.
Now because of him and his stupid testosterone we were the talk of town for many weeks to come.
"Who do you think you are?" I asked, poking him in the chest, but then I realized that it would look more like I was trying to find an excuse to feel him up than to actually cause him pain.
"What the hell gives you the right to mistreat me like that!?" I queried, outraged, stumbling over my words and torn between the want to stick around, slap him real good, and attempt to smack some sense into this head of his one hand and the need to go right home and hug Mr. Knuckles on the other.
"Mistreat you?" Zack scoffed arrogantly, crossing his arms over his chest, finding my wording not to his liking.
He never really liked it when I told him the truth to his face.
"Most girls would've liked to have me kiss them," he told me loftily with his nose in the air as he stared me down, seeming offended by the way I'd reacted about it.
"Well, yeah," I threw in, "but how can you compare me to them?!"
"I'm not just some girl. I'm your best friend, Zack!" I reminded him in case he'd forgotten. I couldn't get it through my head why he needed me to tell him that over and over again, but as best friends there were some lines that shouldn't be crossed.
We didn't even like each other that way, so he needn't have acted like the alpha male to show all the other guys that I was his now and that they ought to back off if they weren't looking for a fight with him.
Or else, there would be consequences.
"I still don't get what you're so upset about," he told me, completely in the blue as to why I would be angry at him in the first place.
Either he was dumb as fuck, or he was an awfully good liar.
With Zack, however, you never really knew.
"You're hopeless," I swung my arms around, dubbing it a lost cause to try and rationalize with him when he was like that and for a second time in one night I turned around and with my brisk stride I hoped to get away from him as soon as possible before I ended our friendship for good.
"Come on, Sam, don't be like that," he cajoled, his tone laughing and I was glad (note the sarcasm) that he found the situation hilarious.
At least one of us found it funny. Me, on other hand, well, I couldn't say the same applied to me, too.
I wanted to hide under a rock and die.
I wanted to wipe his saliva off my lips again with the back of my hand, like I'd done after I pushed him away.
"Like what?" I asked against my better judgment and against everything that told me to leave him be, but I was curious as to catch a glimpse into his twisted thinking.
"Like it's a big deal," he replied quickly and I saw him shrug in my peripheral vision before adding, "It was just a kiss."
"No," I croaked out, coming to a stop and twirling around to face him, so I could look at him dead in the eye as I told him what was on my mind.
"It was not nothing. A kiss between best friends is never just a kiss. You can't just up and kiss me, and then tell me it didn't mean anything, okay?" I bellowed, the urge to hit him hard becoming nearly unbearable to push back.
It would've been so easy to just slap him across the cheek without speaking a word to him as to why instead of trying to show him where he'd gone wrong.
It would've been so much simpler if I thought like him.
"To you, did it mean something to you?" he asked me, cutting me short. I closed my mouth in the middle of my rambling before I digested his words.
He looked eerily serious now what got to me at first. Usually, there would be the never really fading and never dying ghost of his patented smirk tugging at his lips, which were now strangely void of it.
"Uh, what?" I asked, highly coherent as you could see while I stared at him like he came from another planet.
Which he did, may I add.
Monsterland.
"The kiss," he clarified for my sake without even growing agitated yet in spite of my idiotic question. "Did it mean anything to you?"
"No," I replied slowly, clueless as to where he was going with this and when Zack sighed deeply, his shoulders dropping, I realized that this was the response he was hoping for.
"Then where's the problem?" he queried, nonplussed, raising his eyebrows at me and apparently conveniently forgetting the stunt he'd pulled not too long ago.
He'd always had a selective memory; remembered only the bits and pieces, which were of use to him.
"The problem is," it was my turn to sigh exhaustedly now, having tried to distance myself from him, from everything, "that you can't just dictate my life, alright? I have a say in it, too," I tried to explain to him calmly, tired of fighting and running away.
The thought of Monday morning when I would be back at work, trying (but failing) to my job while our small town would be abuzz with the gossip of how Zack had laid one on me, too, doing nothing to improve my mood, knowing that everybody would know by then.
In small towns news traveled fast.
Too fast, actually.
"Is this about that dipshit you were dancing with, then?" Zack snorted, rolling my eyes at the idea, as if it was that impossible to be considered true.
When I didn't reply immediately, he took the bait and answered for me. "You know he was a tosser," he assured me, puffing out his chest, as if that made him more of a man.
"There's no way I could've known that," I countered him quietly, shaking my head at his antics.
Truthfully, I wasn't that mad that he'd pulled the guy off me just as things were taking off. I was mad that he'd deemed it alright to butt in when he should've stayed out of it.
I didn't even care that he'd hit him in the face and then pushed him to the floor, making sure he stayed there.
Sure, the guilt was slowly creeping in because it wasn't this guy's fault that my best friend was a complete moron and yet it was nothing too bad. nothing I couldn't push in the back of my mind.
It was Zack that worried me.
I couldn't understand how come he got to always be in my business while I was always kept out of his. It wasn't fair, is all.
Besides that blatant display of absolute dominance over me as he captured my lips with his didn't make me feel liked, it made me feel like I was one of his whores and I'd always thought I meant more to him than one of his one night stands.
At least I'd put so much in our relationship, I'd expected him to feel the same way for me, too.
Instead, I felt dirty and violated. I felt used.
But most of all, I felt hurt.
Every other emotion I might've felt at that moment faded in comparison to the pain that shot right through my heart when he kissed me.
"Sam, he was no good for you anyways," Zack responded, his hands falling by his sides.
In response to what he'd just told me, I all but screamed out on the inside.
"When is anyone going to be good enough for me, Zack?" I wondered, thinking back on the countless relationships he'd ruined for me.
It was hard to live in his shadow, but it was even harder when he was always hovering over me.
"Come, Sammy," he crooned, already tugging me by the arm and into his arms, using his faultless distraction technique.
He'd always pet me when he wanted me to forget something.
Instead of tackling on the problem, he usually let it die by itself.
Or let me take care of it.
"No," I protested, wiggling out of his arms before he could've melted me, "no cuddling, no hugging, no more lying," I told him determinedly, laying distance between us, enough so I wouldn't have to feel his body heat.
I couldn't have him touching me when I'd had his lips on mine tonight; when I could still taste him on my tongue.
"Who says anything about lying?" he arched a dark eyebrow up, playing the innocent card that really, didn't suit him at all.
I put my hands on my hips, growing silent for a moment.
"Don't fuck with me, Pratt," I snarled, letting him know that his witticism wasn't appreciated.
If he really loved me as he claimed to, at least he shouldn't have the insolence to lie to my face.
"I'm not fucking with you, Samantha," he spat, incensed as he clenched his fists and glowered at me in the dark. "I'm just looking out for you."
"By what? By sabotaging everything I do?" I retorted sourly, realizing that we were always at each other's throats, but he was always one step ahead of me.
He just needed to be the best, to make the rules, to keep me within reach.
God forbid I ever did something for myself.
"Jesus fuck," he sneered suddenly, his face contorting in disgust. "Are you on your period?" he asked and it took me a moment to understand the direction this was heading in.
I blinked up at him stupidly, quite bluntly robbed of my speech.
"Um, what?" I stammered, my blood running as cold as his voice sounded to my ears.
"I asked-, "he started, as if speaking to an idiot before I cut him off.
"I know what you asked," I said lowly, looking at him carefully. "But I suggest you stop right here," I advised him, hoping that he'd listen to me before he said something, which would make me regret ever calling him my best friend.
As I said, I didn't like us when we fought, although we did it regularly. I loved him more than I'd ever loved any other male presence in my life, so I could take almost anything from him, but this was also the reason why his punches hurt the most.
Zack seemed like he had something else to say before he stopped himself, shaking his head.
"Never mind," he said in a clipped tone, "forget about it."
Something in me told me that he'd have me do everything but forget about it, though he'd curbed his tongue.
I nodded my head, understanding what he was doing, or at least trying to, and going along with it.
"I'm going home," I told him curtly, feeling like I should give him some kind of explanation, though I owed him none, "and this time…don't follow me," I felt as if I had to point that out, although it was more than obvious that I didn't want him anywhere near me now, "I'm call you tomorrow," I assured him and nodding his head curtly, he knew just as well as I did that I'd never bail on my word, no matter how mad he made me, or what a monstrous grudge I held against him.
"Goodbye," I told him indifferently, keeping my face void of any emotion as I turned back around and this time he stood rooted to the spot for once listening to my advice and not chasing after me.
A/N: Aren't I fast :P? Don't get used to these quick updates :D. I already have written the first chapters of my stories, so all I need to do is upload them and there it is :). Besides, Valentine's Day is coming and... that's my present to you :). Now, it's your turn to send me your love. You know what to do.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the brands mentioned in this story.
Warning: In future chapters there will cussing and mention of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Consider yourself warned :). Anyways, hope you like it ;P.