How to Steal a Happy Ending

•thirty three• Someone call the cops, this could get messy

"Well, well here comes little miss hotshot. Congratulations on getting that Dorothy role," Nate exclaimed as he made towards me, arms outstretched.

I tried looping under him in an attempt to dodge the bone crusher he was bound to give me, but ended up getting the Barons' signature bear hug anyway.

"You know, I always knew you'd grow up to be a pretentious theater actor. It brings a tear to my eye, really."

"Me, pretentious?" I snorted. "Dude, you splattered paint on a mp3 player and called it art."

"I don't just splatter paint. My work explores the relationship between obsolete technology and recycling culture, drawing parallels and begging the question of-" he paused just in time to catch me raise an eyebrow. "Oh shut up."

I smirked. He shoved me in return. And after a bit more manhandling and insult tossing, we came to a standstill at our locker.

It was there in the lull between the agreement that we were both pretentious fucks and the whir of Nate turning the lock, that the realization from earlier revisited me in a greater sense of urgency than ever before.

"It was last Wednesday. Did you know that?" I prodded his shoulder for a greater fraction of his attention.

"James and that Sara girl met on Wednesday when I was too fucking lazy to go pick him up. Can you believe that? If I didn't then- Nate are you even listening to me?" I asked but it was pretty obvious that he wasn't; the guy had his nose buried in his phone. I snatched it from his grip.

"Woah, what the hell?" His attempt at snatching it back just had him grabbing at air.

"Don't you get it? Those two idiots met because of me. If I just picked James up that day, the bet would still be on and Sara would just be some loser like she was supposed to be."

He rolled his eyes at my outburst, unmoved and unimpressed.

"Claire, I'm sure they would've met eventually. They go to the same school." He motioned for me to hand his phone back.

"Yeah, but it wouldn't have been a meet-cute then. Now, it's like something straight out of a romcom."

It was his turn to cock an eyebrow.

I sighed, "Never mind, it doesn't matter now. I mean, with what she's heard, Sara doesn't want to go within ten yards of him."

I left out the part about her hearing it from me; if James ever found out, I'd seem like a clingy, jealous bitch of the nth degree.

"Yeah, James figured it'd go down like that. That's why he had me out by the meadow, prepping for his grand plan B." Nate drew aerial quotation marks as he said the word grand, a snicker accompanying the motion.

I, on the other hand, was less than amused.

"What plan B? And why the meadow?"

"Yeah, that's where we were all last night. He wants to try and convince her go on a date with him."

It was so flippant the way he'd said it, and that made sense he didn't know what I did. Rule number one, don't date. Sure James could call off a bet, easy. But he would never call off one of his dumb rules. Actually, make that two of his dumb rules since not breaking the rules was the second one.

"He even had me get out our Christmas lights for it," Nate continued, ever oblivious to the change in atmosphere.

"Dude, no. That's not going to be a date. You know James, he just not into that kind of stuff." And he's definitely not going to make an exception for Sara of all people.

He shrugged in response, "I don't know, he seems pretty into that girl."

Not knowing how to deal with this without spontaneously combusting, I too shrugged. It doesn't even matter because Sara definitely isn't into him. Taking my books out of the locker, I tried to convince myself of this. But if we were bring real, I knew it would take all of two seconds for James to make her feel otherwise.

I mean, how many times had he done the same thing to me? When even though he was to blame, I'd be the lonely one, the one at wit's end...the one that went running back. It was deranged and pathetic. And pointless and he's probably never even seen me, even for a moment, as the girl he could end up with. And yet- I couldn't let the dream go, even when he hit on a billion other girls... even when he hit on just one.

"So you're going to be real proud of me in about ten seconds."

"Mm-hmm." There was only one fail safe to this. I had to get Tim to ask Sara to the dance before James could do whatever he was planning on doing. Of course to do that, I had to find Tim first.

"Aand, it's over." Nate addressed this bit to his phone so I decided it could be ignored for the moment.

Now, if I remembered correctly, Tim was in the AV club. And those people meet at the computer lab...or was it the library?

He came to a halt, stopping me with him with a nudge and a puffed up chest "There, I did it myself. I broke up with her."

I'll bet Nate knows where the club is.

"That's great, listen- do you know where the AV kids hold club activities?" The way I figured, I had about five minutes to search and manipulate before the bell rings and Tim's inherent nerd senses draw him away.

"Ah- 201? Right next to the Art room." He let out a laugh, uncertain. "Did James already tell you I was going to do it? Cause you're not even, like, reacting..."

The art room? Man, I wasn't even close... My shitty memory wasn't the last of my problems; I still had to think up a way to convince a shut-in not only to leave his house on a Friday night but to do it for a girl he barely knew.

"Claire?" Nate gave me another nudge. "Dude if you're mad at me about it, can you just tell me? I'm dying here."

"Mad? No, I'm not mad. I think it's great," I squeezed his arm reassuringly. I had no clue what he was talking about but I knew better than to let him know that. Especially after I pulled a mini fit over him not listening to me just seconds ago.

Whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait.

With that, I set off to the second floor, the fear of losing to a shadow acting as my propelling steam. A shadow that lurked in the edges of my dream, in the inconsistencies and cracks of my demeanour. Only now, that shadow had a name, a form. That shadow was real. That shadow was me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N:  The next chapter will be up on Saturday- again I'm sorry for how long this took and how short this one is. In other news, I've recently realized that I'm one of those 'complains about now-timey music and reboots and hollywood adaptations of obscure foreign films'. yeah, that person. I deeply apologise to society for this but it seems there is no cure to pretenti-itis. (inception is a rip-off of Paprika #justsaying )