Chapter 22: Miss Allberry Gets a Date

Whoa! That was quick, huh? Yeah, I had this one started a while back Whoo! All right, so this one has a kind of weird relationship thing happen. You'll know it when you read it. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, it just did. It seemed right. You could tell me what you think about it? Cool. Cool cool cool. OK, here we go!

“Hey class! Good afternoon,” Miss Allberry greeted with a strangely manic grin. “As you all know, Valentine’s Day is coming up fast so I have an assignment for you all!” The class stared at her expectantly as she waited for it her news to sink in for some reason, as if it might be a hard concept to grasp. Eventually she went on, “Everyone is going to get a partner, and then you and your partner will act out a romantic scene! Because romantic scenes are a part of acting. So…You know. You’re going to do them!” Blue raised her eyebrows up and down at Malik, signifying her desire to partner with him. Miss Allberry stopped her eyebrows mid-range by declaring, “And I pick the partners!”

“Crazypants, not to, uh, dispute you or anything, but…How about no?” Teddy suggested. One of Miss Allberry’s eyes twitched. Teddy decided to sit quietly and try to turn invisible.

“The choice will be at random,” Miss Allberry stated, “I will draw sticks. No complaining if straighties get paired with same sexies. It happens. Deal with it. This is acting! OK, let’s begin!” Producing a cup with popsicle sticks from inside a drawer, the teacher began the drawing, “OK, first we have…Green! To be paired with Green, we have…Hispan…! Aw, lame…Well, can’t dispute the powers of the cup. Hispanesbian and Green you’re paired together. Please take the top scene on my stack of scenes.” The pair shot each other grins and held hands as they walked up to the front and grabbed the papers. “Next up we have…Jennay! All right, let’s see who Jennay is paired up with…Mindfreak! Wow that’s going to be kind of weird. Just what I was hoping for! I mean what? Next packet in the stack please!” Jenny and Pablo gave each other weary glances as they walked to the front of the room to pick up their assignments. Pablo shot puppy eyes at Teddy as a thought struck the blond. He raised his hand, and spoke despite the death glare Miss Allberry shot him.

“Two things,” he said, calmly ignoring Miss Allberry’s clear desire to murder him, “Number one: there are thirteen of us. Number two: are the Twingers still on just one stick?”

Miss Allberry paused in a moment of slight panic, opened her mouth, shut it, searched for and pulled a popsicle stick out of the cup, then replaced it with two that she quickly scribbled on. “I would have left it but incest is soooo weird. Also I guess one of you will just have to double up, then! I nominate Teddy because he pointed it out!”

“Not fair!” Teddy protested.

“Don’t care,” Miss Allberry replied, then congratulated herself on her rhyme. “Let’s move on! Next is Condy with…Jasmine! Oh, well…I feel like that’ll be…Well, just pick up your scenes. Next we have…Oh look who it is, it’s Jack the points-out-my-mistakes-all-the-time! Who will he be paired with? Let’s see now…Flicka! And…Uh…Little ginger? A Twinger…That’s kind of weird…Anyway, the answer is Evan Twinger! Cause see I wrote Twinger like Tvinger instead for the V twin.” Gerda moved to the front of the class in her very elegant way, followed by Teddy, who took two packets for himself. Evan sat with wide eyes in his seat next to his brother, so Teddy grabbed his packet for him and brought it over.

He spoke softly to Evan as Miss Allberry assigned Austin and Ewan to a group, made a disgusted noise, and switched the group to Austin and Kip. “It won’t be that bad,” he insisted, “I mean, I’m not that gross. I thought you…liked…me…”

“I…,” Evan mumbled, looking over the script and searching for the words to describe what he was feeling. Before he found them he gasped, “Wait do we have to kiss?”

“Er…Let me ask, yeah?” Teddy replied, not sure why exactly Evan had gone semi-catatonic. Miss Allberry finished the assigning by pairing Ewan and Blue, who both shrugged and accepted the pairing. The teacher went to speak, but Teddy’s raised hand stopped her.

“What this time, Jack?” she asked.

“Do we have to follow the script exactly?” he asked, and she raised her eyebrows at him in question. “Like, if in the script it says,” Teddy paused and looked down at the script, reading it aloud, “’Cassie and Dean stare longing into each other’s eyes, locked in a deeply romantic stare. Suddenly, Dean leans down and kisses Cassie, who melts into the kiss and pours all the passion of five years of pining into it.’ Does that mean we really have to kiss?”

“Of course Jack,” Miss Allberry replied. “Follow the script exactly. You guys got the best one, too…None of the rest require quite so much believability. Which I will be grading! OK guys. Get to work then and I’m not answering any more of your questions, Jack! Present your scripts a week from today. That means next Tuesday!”

Teddy and Gerda discussed their script for the rest of the class, hoping Evan would have some time to sort through whatever emotions he was feeling. Blue and Ewan excitedly planned for costumes and noted that they, unlike their twins (cause Blue and Teddy are still brain twins, remember) would not have to kiss. Once the class ended, Evan bolted from the room, his twin following him very closely and speaking to him in hard to follow references.

“That was kind of weird,” Malik declared, as he and Blue looked at each other, then at Teddy.

“I, uh…I should be less bothered by this, right?” Teddy mumbled, looking utterly disheartened.

“Maybe he thinks it’ll be too much awesome!” Blue suggested as the trio walked back to the dorms together.

“I was kind of hoping for a girl…So Pablo wouldn’t get jealous,” Teddy admitted. “But, I mean…Evan is…Well, with Gerda it’s fine, because she’s fine with it, but…” The genius sighed and sped up his walk, and Blue and Malik glanced at each other tensely.

“No awkwardness, yeah?” Malik asked, and Blue nodded.

“If we’re going to be famous actors, we’ll have to get used to it, right? And Twinger and I don’t even have to kiss,” Blue said with delight. Then she narrowed her eyes, “You don’t have to kiss Radish, right?”

“Uh…,” Malik stuttered, “well, we could…I’m sorry Blue it won’t mean anything, you have to understand!” Blue glared at Malik and stormed off as her boyfriend called, “This is Miss Allberry’s fault! Don’t take it out on me!”

Blue walked into her room, surprised to see Teddy sitting across from Kendall mumbling something about secret insecurity. Jumping down on to the bed, she laid her head on Teddy’s lap. “Why is Miss Allberry doing this?” she asked, and Teddy scowled and wrinkled his nose. He covered it when he realized she was underneath him and didn’t want her to be looking up his nose, so he spoke in a strange voice.

“Well, she hates love. Always has,” he insisted, “so Valentine’s Day is like…is like, uh…Some kind of…Bad…I’m sorry, I’m having trouble braining—uh—thinking right now. Am I ugly or smelly or unappealing in some way?”

“No!” Blue shouted, then, to prove her point, leaned up and attempted to plant a kiss on Teddy’s mouth. Her friend reacted in fright and jerked his head backward, hitting it against a bar above his head.

“Ow!” he whined, rolling onto the floor, effectively knocking Blue onto the floor with him.

“Ow!” Blue parroted as she hit the ground with a thud. The only thing that stopped the pair from whining and rolling around on the floor as Kendall watched them was the sound of people walking into the room. Teddy and Blue collected themselves and looked up at Malik and Ewan with interest.

“So, Teddy,” Ewan said, trying to sound casual, “so the thing is, you know Evan and I have never dated anyone, yeah?” Teddy nodded as he kept rubbing his head. To his right, Blue rubbed her hip where she’d landed on the floor. “Evan has—well both of us really—never kissed anyone before. So he’s kind of understandably nervous, right? I mean you can talk to him…He says that’s OK. So, I mean, yeah, you want to do that?”

“In a minute,” Teddy dismissed, then addressed Malik, “Malik, are you here to convince Blue she shouldn’t be mad at you?” His best friend nodded, so Teddy went on, “I thought of a perfect sit-commy solution to all our problems!” he announced. Despite his announcement, Teddy stood still and didn’t elaborate. After a few awkward minutes waiting, it was Kendall who broke the silence.

“What is it?” she asked, and Teddy laughed awkwardly.

“Oh sorry, I just thought we would…Cut to that scene…Uh sorry, anyway, the plan is to put our heads together and find a date for Miss Allberry! Then her bitterness won’t overshadow the holiday of emotions I wish I…The holiday of love!” He declared, well aware everyone was focused on the part of his sentence he’d trailed off at. As a distraction, he shooed Malik, Blue, and Ewan out of the room to go report the plan to everyone else who might be interested in helping them. “My mind to mouth filter is really letting me down right now,” he mumbled to Kendall, who nodded in sympathy.

“No sleep last night, right?” she asked in her creepiest voice to date.

“Well, I would ask how you know that but I’m just not going to,” Teddy sighed, “thanks for your creepiness. You make the world a more aware of everything they do place.”

“That didn’t make sense,” Kendall informed him, as Teddy turned to leave the room.

“Your face doesn’t make any…Leave me alone, stuff is hard and…stuff,” Teddy trailed off before scampering out of the room. “That’s not what she said!” he shouted back to Kendall, who was snickering to herself.

Blue, Malik, and Ewan were apparently more convincing than Teddy expected. Or maybe everyone just wanted to avoid their homework. Gerda, Hakan (still constantly mumbling bitter words about Kendrick), Kip, Rashida, and Evan rounded out the group. Admittedly, Evan had mostly agreed to help because he wanted to talk to Teddy. The ringleader in the operation then divided up tasks, and when everyone had a job sent them on their way. Malik pulled Blue away when she kept lingering around while Evan clearly wanted to speak with Teddy privately.

Finally, after Blue wailed that Malik trying to keep her apart from Teddy was just like “Smelly Kid,” someone she claimed stole one of her toys when she was in elementary school, Evan and Teddy were alone. Evan laughed and joked, “So you’re a toy to her then?”

“It would explain a lot,” Teddy replied with an appreciative smile. Awkward silence fell over them, which Teddy surely would have broken sooner if he wasn’t totally exhausted from not sleeping for totally normal reasons. The ginger sitting across from him in the lounge finally couldn’t handle it any longer.

“I mean kissing is so weird anyway it’s like why do we shove our mouths up into each other? Like here, here’s where I eat my food, I’m going to connect it with where you eat yours and maybe those things we have with taste buds will come into play and we’ll, like French…Which is really weird though, right, because, like, because, what? French people invented it? I bet they have bad breath and—!” Teddy finally took pity on the older twin and cut him off.

“Until you kiss someone it seems pretty weird yeah. I think it’s because lips are one of the most sensitive areas of our bodies apart from, you know…And kissing feels good…And there’s a pheromone exchange to see if you’re suitable partners…So that’s kind of…that…Anyway, I know I’m doing this whole finding a date for Miss Allberry thing, but…The reality is, we’ll probably still have to do the assignment. She does have a point. This kind of thing is a part of acting.”

“Yeah, I…I guess,” Evan mumbled.

“However,” Teddy interjected, grabbing one of Evan’s hands and looking into his very blue eyes, “I don’t want to do anything that’ll be uncomfortable for you. We can just explain that you should be put with a girl. You could go with Gerda and I could just fail, you know?”

“No!” Evan shouted, and Teddy raised his eyebrows, “That would…that would be so much worse, I…I’d prefer…” He trailed off; staring at where Teddy still held his hand and trying to ignore the increasing flush of his face. When Teddy realized the effect he was having, he pulled his hands back and smiled supportively.

“As long as Pablo doesn’t freak out, I think we can handle this,” he promised. Evan nodded, though nothing was really solved, which Teddy realized as Evan turned to leave. “Listen, if it’s that bad, we can stage kiss or something. There are ways to do that. I assume.” (Upon asking, stage kissing was “No! I want some man on man action! It’s happening, man, better get used to it.”) Evan nodded, but was apparently too embarrassed to stay near him any longer as he ran off.

Pablo was not amused by the situation. Though Teddy managed to convince him acting was acting, Pablo admitted he wished the person Teddy was partnered with was “someone who doesn’t obviously have a man crush on you.” Despite his reservations, Pablo gave his blessing, prompting Blue to shout out that she was OK with Malik being paired with Rashida too, as if it was a competition. With that settled, they got to work on learning their lines and what they figured was secretly a good will mission meant mainly to keep their grades high, not alter their assignment at all.

The next day, Teddy and Blue decided to seek the counsel of an expert on all things Miss Allberry. Their former teacher greeted both of them with eager grins when they walked through his door, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever, Blue!”

“IT HAS BEEN LITERALLY FOREVER!” Blue shrieked, and Hammy and Teddy both twitched their heads away from the loud noise.

Hammy decided to just move on, “No tall, dark, and handsome today?”

“Nah, Malik’s busy with some…Uh, something,” Teddy mumbled.

Blue scowled at him and elaborated, “He’s practicing a dance for a class. Hee. He’s not a very good dancer.”

“Right,” Teddy mumbled, “anyway, we came to talk about Crazypants.”

Hammy raised an eyebrow at his young friend before responding, “Well they’d probably be bad. I saw a cartoon with some once…?”

“No, our teacher, she…Uh, Miss…,” Teddy rubbed the back of his neck, and Blue made an overly dramatic shocked face at him.

“Miss Allberry!” she filled in and Hammy nodded. Blue figured she should just explain the situation to Hammy, since Teddy’s brain had apparently suffered a stupidening (a real thing, Blue thought, that she didn’t make up). After she summed up the situation, Hammy offered his thoughts.

“Yeah, I can try to find some people to set her up with. I’ve tried before, but she always manages to find some excuse to not be able to go on a blind date. I’ll get Reg to help too, it sounds like a good idea. Frankly, she’s kind of insufferable around Valentine’s Day,” Hammy replied, shaking his head as he thought of Valentine’s Days of the past. “I didn’t know candy hearts could spell something so mean…,” he trailed off, shaking his head to rid his mind of the thought.

It was on that Saturday afternoon that Blue, Teddy, Malik, and Hammy gathered to evaluate the twenty or so candidates the group had somehow assembled. Reg and Pablo had been assigned to street duty i.e. screening for any randomly walking men who looked acceptable for Miss Allberry. Kakahi had insisted she be part of the security team, so she ended up being the whole team. The strange brunette called the first man into the room. A nervous blond man walked into the room. Everyone stared. He coughed and shuffled back out.

Silence settled over the group, until Blue finally asked, “You have a cloning machine and you didn’t share?” Hammy shook his head, running out of the room without saying anything and chasing after the young man.

Malik and Blue looked to Teddy to explain, and he blinked it confusion before mumbling, “Oh, yeah, that was clearly a brother or something. He’s got younger brothers, right? I guess that’s one of them…Hell of an entrance…Seemed like an accident…Hope him having an actual brother around doesn’t change our relationship…God, my filter is just gone, huh?”

Kakahi led the next candidate into the room as Teddy coughed awkwardly, and they went on despite Teddy’s brain brokenness and the absence of the person who knew Miss Allberry best. They interviewed the seventeen (wow!) men thoroughly, with such question as “What do you think of the apocalypse?” and “If you had a pop culture related nickname, what would it be?” and “Land fish or kitten of the sea?” At the end of the day, they narrowed it down to five people. Of the eighteen that showed up, they deemed ten to be just looking for a desperate woman on Valentine’s Day. Of the other three, one was apparently Hammy’s brother, one was a psychologist and that just didn’t seem right, and the last was nearly eighty. They weren’t sure where to go from there. Eventually Blue suggested they all ask Miss Allberry out and see which one she picked. When Malik thought this was a bad idea he looked to Teddy to explain why.

“Well, because…sit-coms…,” Teddy mumbled in response, then got frustrated with himself and hit his head against the judging table they all sat at. Malik and Blue decided to let him be, and left him by himself after informing the five candidates of how best to woo Miss Allberry. The couple went off to learn their lines then, each reading for the opposite’s partners because they could. Kakahi tapped Teddy on the shoulder eventually and told him he should probably leave because “the jumpers” were coming. For the life of him, Teddy couldn’t figure out what “the jumpers” meant, but he went along with Kakahi anyway.

Pablo was waiting for him when he got back to his room. If there was anyone Alec liked less than Teddy it was Pablo, due mostly to his singing and dancing and the general happiness he exuded. Teddy’s roommate shot Teddy the dirtiest look he had ever seen when he arrived back at his room to see Pablo singing into one of Teddy’s pens. Kakahi, who had insisted on escorting him back to his room in case he ran into trouble, asked if Alec was “going to be a problem.” Insisting she could “take care of it,” the genius violinist stepped toward the Brit.

“It’s fine, Kahi,” Teddy dismissed, but Kakahi frowned at him and gave Alec the symbol for “I’m watching you,” just in case before she left. “What’s up?” Teddy asked Pablo, flopping face first onto his bed as Pablo set down his pen.

“I decided I don’t like the idea of you kissing that Twinger kid,” he stated. Teddy sighed and rolled over, preparing for a serious conversation with his boyfriend instead of the nap he was hoping for. He ushered Pablo to another room so they could get some privacy from Alec, and the two discussed the situation.

Back in Malik’s room, Blue and her boyfriend were having a similar conversation, which ended in both promising they weren’t jealous types then moving on to the topic of Valentine’s Day. Blue wanted to rent a helicopter and fly it around while dropping stuff on people, but Malik rejected the idea and informed Blue the speed those things might fall at could kill someone. Blue apologized to no one in particular, and Malik suggested they go for a nice walk in the park and go out to eat.

On Sunday, Teddy had memorized both his scenes, and he and Gerda ran through theirs with no issues. This left him and Evan to practice their scene. Ewan graciously vacated him and his twin’s room to practice with Blue. It wasn’t hard to see how uncomfortable Evan was as Teddy sat on the twins’ futon, but the blond shot him a grin.

“So, uh, what’s the decision here?” Evan asked. They’d run through the words plenty of times over, but always sort of blurred through the kissing part. Finally they’d arrived at an impasse: Evan had his lines memorized as well as Teddy, and the two didn’t stumble through the dialogue at all. They’d even managed to have a conversation about how it wasn’t them kissing but their characters kissing. For quite a while they did getting into character exercises and created backstories for their characters. Soon they were both feeling very much like they were actually their respective characters who were just being reunited after thinking each other had died. This still brought them back to Evan’s question.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Teddy announced. Before Evan got the chance to question it, the blond genius’ lips were on his. Evan flailed in Teddy’s grip, but settled into the kiss just in time for it to end. Teddy’s eyes slid open to see Evan watching him with a doe-eyed stare, and he laughed.

Neither moved back from the other, as Evan breathed and spoke softly, “That was…intimate.”

“Tends to be,” Teddy laughed. They paused, and Evan took a deep breath.

“Can I get a second try?” he asked sheepishly. Teddy nodded and they leaned in again. Their second try went much smoother than the first. In fact, it went so well that it led to more practice kisses, and their practicing only stopped when Teddy joltingly remembered he was in a relationship and suggested Evan had it down. They laughed awkwardly and called it a night.

Monday was fairly uneventful, and all the groups practiced running through their scripts and waited for Miss Allberry to tell them whether or not she had a date for Valentine’s Day. All she did was giggle and change the subject when asked, so they figured it was a yes. Teddy at some point admitted he hadn’t been sleeping because he got addicted to a really good TV show and couldn’t stop watching. Once he got through season four, the newest season, his intelligence rebounded to normal levels.

On Tuesday they performed their scenes. Blue couldn’t watch when Malik and Rashida performed (first), and Malik actually scowled intensely for the entirety of Blue and Ewan’s (second) and dug his fingers into Teddy’s leg. Miss Allberry was handing out A’s left and right, except for a very lackluster performance from Pablo and Jenny (third) which earned an “A for Jennay, B for Mindfreak because I didn’t feel the loveeee.” Teddy and Gerda (fourth) were up next, and they earned a new grade, “You look related, A for acting F for making me think of incest. So…I guess you can have an A. But like…A tainted A. Tainted with incest.” Gerda laughed and sat down while Teddy rolled his eyes. Austin and Kip were up next (fifth) and received an A as well. Estela and Kakahi went next (sixth) and received an A and a commendation, “I could actually feel the love between these two. Unlike the rest of you lame people.” The actual couple laughed off her comments, but most of the rest of the class acted offended. Finally, it was Teddy and Evan’s turn. As soon as they started their scene, Pablo decided he would leave the room. Ewan and Austin both opted to follow, citing “general weirdness” as their reason (Evan had made an uncomfortable face during the whole of Ewan’s scene, and then informed his brother “That was really weird to watch.” Austin felt similarly).

The scene went off well. So well, in fact, that Miss Allberry spontaneously applauded at the end when the kiss happened, “That’s how you fake real love! I mean really, I could feel the love. It was all in the chemistry. These two clearly have it. I don’t know why the rest of you don’t, you should work on that…You can stop kissing!” It took a moment for the pair to realize her words, and they pulled apart sharply with blushes on their faces. “Extra credit for man kissing for you two! I liked it. Quite. Yum.”

“I’d like to credit staying really ridiculously in character,” Evan stated, giving a slight smile and slinking back to his seat. Teddy followed and flopped into his seat next to Malik, who tilted his head at his friend and received a slightly confused shrug in response. They got to the end of class pretty quickly once the other two Connellies and Pablo returned, and as they turned to leave they heard a knock on the door. Miss Allberry skipped over to it with a grin, pulling it open.

“Oh,” Teddy mumbled, as all those who had picked matches out for her were sorely disappointed. As they wondered what had happened to their choices, Miss Allberry moved to introduce the young man.

“This is Abram Paddington,” she said, and the blond man gave an awkward wave.

“We know that name,” Kip mumbled, as if trying to think of why. “A teacher you guys had?” he offered to Malik, Blue and Teddy. They nodded.

Teddy stood and shot straight over to him, “I adore your big brother like only a little brother can. Let’s be little brothers together.”

“Uh, you must be Teddy?” he replied, and Teddy nodded and offered his hand to shake. Abram shook it slowly, his discomfort fading and being replaced by a smile as he did. “Hamilton is fond of you. I would love to stay to talk, but I promised Today we could go to the park and…?” he trailed off, glancing at Miss Allberry to finish his sentence.

“Try to break the ice on the lake!” Miss Allberry cheered, pulling her winter coat on and running outside excitedly. Abram laughed affectionately at her, and Blue noticed the face reflected the one Malik made when she had a brilliant idea like Miss Allberry’s ice breaking one. It was brilliant on so many levels, Blue tried to explain, but no one cared except Malik, but he just ruffled her hair and shot her that smile he did.

“So I will get to know you at a later date, you have my word,” Abram promised, turning and following after Miss Allberry with a wave.

The group spent the walk back talking about how their picks must have decided to make a five way relationship or were in one big car crash and that’s why they weren’t picked. These were the only logical options. Pablo skipped dance class just for this one day to hang out with Teddy, and he grinned at his boyfriend as they walked hand-in-hand. Both the Twingers thoroughly avoided Teddy’s glances even though they walked nearby, and he made a mental note that something weird might be happening. The couples separated to exchange gifts before they planned on going on a double date.

Teddy sat Pablo down, admitted he sort of made out with Evan in practicing kissing, but cited being “in character” for defense. After Pablo was assured that Evan wasn’t into him (Teddy decided his statement after their scene was meant to explain that), and Teddy wasn’t into Evan, he forgave his boyfriend. In the spirit of the holiday, Teddy handed over a small box and Pablo gave him one in exchange. In a show of weird planning, they gave each other identical looking rainbow bracelets and laughed. Pablo kissed Teddy hesitantly, but Teddy smiled into the kiss and deepened it, reassuring his boyfriend.

A knock on the door interrupted them, and Blue bounded into the room, “Malik got me a helicopter to fly he’s the best come fly it with me!” Teddy and Pablo stood excitedly and followed Blue as she ran outside with the remote controlled helicopter, Malik tailing the group with a proud smile on his face. Only he noticed the strange sight of Ewan sitting in the lounge by himself and stopped to talk with him to figure out why he was alone.

“You’re, er…?” he trailed off, and Ewan shared which twin he was quickly. They spoke shortly, and Ewan swore Malik to secrecy before he sighed and decided he should probably head back to his room. Malik shrugged to himself about the conversation as he headed outside to find Teddy and Pablo playing with the helicopter, running around and generally having fun. The couple ended up in a tackle as Blue stole it and flew it above their heads. Malik’s girlfriend walked over to him and hugged him when she spotted him, letting the helicopter fall to the ground in the process. Apparently it landed on Pablo and Teddy, because they protested loudly.

After they argued for a while about Blue doing it on purpose, Teddy and Pablo gave up and tried to race the helicopter, which was pretty easy, since Blue was actually terrible at steering. When they got tired of the helicopter, they decided to go to the park to check on Abram and Miss Allberry. The pair was keeping a distance between them, but they did seem to be getting along well as Miss Allberry kicked at ice and Abram laughed.  Eventually Hammy and Reg showed up to meet them, so Blue, Malik, Pablo, and Teddy hid out of sight so as not to look like stalkers.

“All in all,” Teddy said, motioning Abram, “he’s probably the best choice. So, operation ‘Get a date for Crazypants,’ we agree? Success?”

“Success,” the others replied with grins.

So that happened. Tell me what you think?

Chapter 21: Living With Your Nemesis

 Hi. I wrote a new chapter. It's kind of slow, not much happens I don't think.  But yeah I finished it! Whoo! Amy's not here to read it though...She'll read it later. :)



Blue sat in her new room across from her new roommate. She and Kendall had been sharing a room for almost a month, but nothing had really changed in their relationship. All Blue wanted was to have a fun roommate relationship, like she’d had with Alec, where she wasn’t quite sure that Alec liked her at all but he was still sometimes nice to her. Kendall pretty much just mumbled creepy statements and acted uncomfortable when Blue tried to change in front of her. For this reason, Blue decided to migrate to the closet for changing clothes, as she had in her old room. Despite Kendall’s awkward nature, Blue was determined to befriend the Justin Bieber lookalike.

            “So, Kendall,” she said as they lay in their room one Friday afternoon. Kendall glanced toward her, tilting her head in curiosity, “what do you do for fun?” The other teen’s eyes lit up brightly, and she stood from where she’d been lying and watching Blue as she played games on her phone.

            It didn’t take Blue long to understand why Kendall did what she did all the time; spying on people was fun! Their first target was Hakan, who was ranting rather loudly in Gerda’s room about Kendrick, the door just slightly ajar.

            “And he, like…He wakes up at 5:00 every morning! Then he does all these stretches and X can barely stand it! He always calls me…I’m taking a break, OK? He always calls me mean names and I want to punch him so bad but I’m not supposed to apparently…You say I’m not allowed…But, one punch could do him some good! Please let me? Please?”

            “Hakan,” Gerda said patiently, “violence is not the answer. You must simply learn to live with him. People will be mean to you in this business you have chosen, you know. He will be a learning experience for you.”

            “X doesn’t want to learn! X wants to punch!” Hakan declared, returning to his regular ways of speech. Something made a loud clanging noise in the room after he spoke, but neither acknowledged it.

            “Do not worry, Hakan,” Gerda replied. “I will take care of it. You must continue to learn to tolerate him.”

            Hakan grunted, but fell silent after that. When the silence continued for a couple more minutes, Kendall motioned another open door, and she and Blue stalked off toward it.

            “No way. I will not let you start wearing bowties,” Evan said through the door.

            “But bowties are cool. You dare defy The Doctor?” Ewan countered, probably waving his arms around extravagantly.

            “No, no, his wisdom is the words I live by, of course. But dude, Ewan, little brother twin, they choke your neck. I’m just thinking of your neck!” Evan insisted loudly.

            “You can’t tell me what to do! You’re not my mom!” Ewan shouted back, in an obviously joking tone. The twins laughed together, but their laughter tapered off into something less recognizable that was almost laughter but sounded more sad than happy.

            “Speaking of Mom,” Evan muttered, quiet enough Blue barely heard him, “she said something about auditioning for something the other day…”

            “Ah,” Ewan replied, as if he had no desire whatsoever to continue the conversation. “You told her no, right?” Evan probably nodded, because his brother quickly changed the subject, “Did you see Jenny’s hair today? Looking nice. That’s how I’d do my hair if I was a girl.”

            “Yeah, it was nice…Teddy, though, Teddy’s got some of the best hair around,” Evan replied.

            “But Teddy’s hair always looks nice. I mean…He’s Teddy,” Ewan responded, probably smiling as he thought about the blond genius. Blue snickered to herself at the twins’ obvious twin crush on Teddy. Ewan refocused the conversation, “So anyway. I bought a bowtie, and I’m wearing it sometime! Once I get some suspenders…And a beautiful face…”

            “Oh come now,” Evan argued, “you already have a beautiful face. You take after your big brother, who I hear is gorgeous.”

            “Har har,” Ewan replied, with a very definite eye rolling sort of tone. “Anyway, you should get a bowtie too. And suspenders.”

            “No, I’ll get a suit and some converse,” Evan replied. None of this conversation was making sense to Blue at all.

            “Oh! OK, we can do that,” Ewan said with a probable smile.

            “The real Doctor would be so jealous of our gingerness,” Evan said in a bragging tone, and he and Ewan laughed again, this time sounding weirdly smug. Suddenly someone tapped Blue’s shoulder, and she jumped.

            “What are you doing, Blue?” Teddy asked, and Blue shrugged and looked around for support from Kendall. Her roommate had completely vanished.

            “I was bonding with Kendall,” she mumbled. “But Kendall is better at being sneaky than I am, I guess…” Teddy nodded and rolled his eyes at Blue, but didn’t say anything in response. “What are you doing, Teddy?”

            “Uh,” he replied. “Walking around…Standing now…breathing…Uh, probably digesting food…my heart is pumping blood around my body…,” he probably would have continued, but Blue cut him off.

            “No, no, why are you here?” she asked, standing from her crouched position as Teddy looked around the room as if trying to find something to distract Blue with.

            When he came up empty, he finally admitted, “Well, you and Malik and everyone are busy, but I didn’t want to stay in my room, because…Because Alec. So I’m just wandering around.”

            “You still don’t get along with him?” Blue asked. Teddy shook his head, and Blue sighed. “I thought he was scary at first but he’s not scary at all. Do you think he’s scary?”

            “I’m not scared of him,” Teddy denied, “it’s just…complicated.”

            “Complicated how? Cause he’s your nemesis?” Blue asked, as she and Teddy began to walk back toward her room naturally.

            “Yeah, something like that,” he replied. Blue stopped suddenly and grinned at him.

            “I have an idea!” she declared, dragging Teddy back in the direction of her old room. Her best friend squeaked some form of protest, but Blue ignored him as she knocked on the door to the room. The door swung open with only Scamps behind it to explain how it did so, and Blue and Teddy saw Alec sitting at his computer as always. The Brit spoke darkly as they walked in.

            “I told you to leave, Albrecht,” he growled.

            “It’s Blue and Teddy! Bleddy? Uh, Teblue…,” Blue trailed off. “Well, couple names are hard, but the point is yay it’s both of us!”

            “Oh,” Alec mumbled, turning around in his rolling chair and staring at them. “What do you want?”

            “We’re going to bond!” Blue declared. Alec and Teddy both shot her questioning looks before Alec turned back to his computer and Teddy started to back out of the room. “Wait!” Blue called, and both spun back to look at her. “You have to listen to me!”

            “What?” Alec and Teddy asked in unison. While they glared at each other, Blue tried to figure out what to tell them to get them to do what she wanted.

            “I think maybe we should play a game together,” she suggested. The blond geniuses glared at her, rolled their eyes, and turned their attention away from her. Thinking quickly, Blue moved in Teddy’s way. “Can’t leave, nope! You’re going to get over your differences. Ready go!”

            “You’re not going to let me out?” Teddy asked, and Blue shook her head excitedly.

            “Not until you work things out with Alec!” she insisted, and Teddy frowned at her in response.

            “There’s nothing to work out,” he argued. Blue just glared at him and pursed her lips.

            “Obviously there is! Now maybe you just need to talk it out,” Blue countered. Scamps was getting dangerously close to her then, and Alec was glaring in her general direction. Tossing something from her pocket toward Alec, Blue managed to distract the rat and his owner alike. Unfortunately for her, Teddy moved toward her at that moment and wrapped his arms around her back. Before she got the chance to protest that they both had boyfriends and Teddy was gay, the blond lifted her out of the way of the door and slid out of the room. Blue stood and stared at a smirking Alec momentarily before huffing and turning to follow Teddy.

            “But Teddy!” she whined. “I know he’s your nemesis and all, but…Where…Teddy?” Blue squeaked in surprise when Teddy was nowhere to be found. A pair of nearly identical cackling told her who the culprits were, but she wasn’t sure where they were, so she just sighed and headed back to her room.

            Kendall waved at her as she walked in, and they then discussed how Blue needed to work on being sneaky. Their conversation was surprisingly genial, so Blue suggested they go out and try again. Kendall rejected this idea, and told Blue she would need to go to ninja boot camp before they tried again. To Blue this sounded totally awesome, so she eagerly asked when they could get started. Her roommate told her Saturday would be the soonest possible time, so Blue decided to wander around to try to find Malik. He was at a gym playing basketball with Kip and a couple other athletically inclined students, including Estela, Kakahi, and Pablo. Both Estela and Kakahi were strangely good at basketball and able to keep up fairly well with the others. Despite initially wanting to play, Blue and Teddy had gotten very bored within a few minutes and walked off, because Blue was terrible and Teddy kept running into a large smelly guy. Blue was pretty sure he was trying to flirt with Teddy, and so Pablo started glaring at him and playing terribly in reaction. It was just better that Teddy quit.

            Now she was just bored, so she stopped by the Twingers’ room to see if Teddy wanted to go see how the game was going with her. Deciding knocking was lame, Blue barged into the room to see Teddy with two tiny pigtails in his hair. One of the twins was sitting behind him and looked to be in the process of giving Teddy a third pigtail.

            “Um?” she asked to the other twin, who smiled at her in that cat-like way of theirs and stood from their futon. By his walk Blue identified him as Ewan.

“Would you like to play a game with us?” Ewan asked. Blue shrugged and nodded, and was introduced to a very strange game the twins had created. The twins split up the teams, with Blue and Ewan making one team and Teddy and Evan in the other. Somehow, and Blue didn’t know how, she and Ewan won the game. Once the game was over and Teddy and Evan vowed revenge, Malik knocked on the door.

            “Hey,” he greeted when Blue opened the door, “Gerda said you guys were in here. We’re going to watch a movie if you want to join us.”

            “Yeah!” Blue cheered, attaching herself to Malik’s arm. Teddy attached himself to Malik’s other arm with a grin, and Malik rolled his eyes at both with a smile. It wasn’t until they were all in the lounge they noticed the twins hadn’t followed them. They shrugged it off and flopped onto the couch together in a heap. The movie started, but Blue was bored of it and fell asleep against Malik’s shoulder. She woke up in her bed halfway through the night, blinked a couple times, and went back to sleep.

            The next time she woke up it was the morning and Kendall was staring at her expectantly. “Ninja lessons?” she cheered, and then proceeded to get ready to go in record time. Once Blue was comfortably dressed in dark wash jeans and a long sleeved black t-shirt, Kendall led her out of their room.

            “First I need to tell you the rules,” Kendall explained in her quiet, low voice. “Rule number one of being a ninja: move quietly. Rule number two: scout out hiding places before people arrive, so you can, you know…wait there for them. Rule number three: breathing doesn’t have to make sound. Rule four: you never go wrong in black. Rule five: umm…if you’re caught act like you’ve done nothing wrong.”

            “OK let’s goooo!” Blue shouted, pumping her fist in the air excitedly.

            “Rule number six: your voice should always be low volume so as not to attract attention to yourself,” Kendall reprimanded, and added, “and rule number eight: don’t ever admit to creeping on purpose…Which is sort of a subset of rule five, I guess…”

            “Ok let’s gooooo!” Blue whisper-shouted as a compromise, as Kendall led her out of their room. “Also you missed rule seven,” Blue added as locked the door, and turned around to find Kendall had vanished.

            “Rule seven was so sneaky you missed it,” a quiet voice stated, making Blue jump despite how low in volume it was. The training session then began. Blue didn’t make a very good ninja at all, but she did make a very spirited one. Walls were hard to avoid, and Blue made a lot of loud noises by running into them instead of walking quietly next to them. While they were practicing sitting silently, Blue started daydreaming. When Blue started mumbling, “No, no, Uni, koalas are friends not food,” Kendall gave up on teaching Blue her sneaky ways.

            Blue fancied herself an expert anyway after like four hours of practice, so she got to work on choosing someone to spy on. Kendall laughed at her and wished her good luck before disappearing somewhere unknown. Her first target was Malik, because he wouldn’t be mad if he caught her. After that, she figured she’d move on to bigger game as she got more real world experience and therefore got even better at being a ninja.

            Malik was still sleeping. Or he was napping. Kip wasn’t sure, as he explained when he let Blue into the room. When Kip left in the morning Malik was asleep, and when he came back four hours later Malik was also asleep. Kip granted her permission to sit in the room and stare at Malik, graciously not asking why Blue wanted to. It turned out watching people sleep was boring. So, so boring. Blue ended up talking to Kip out of boredom and waking Malik up in the process because wow so boring. Kip was sitting looking glum and bored while he clicked through webpages. A quick inquiry later Blue wished she didn’t ask Kip what he was doing.

            “Well I’m on a website called Reddit, and I’m looking at memes mostly right now,” he explained. Proceeding to keep telling Blue things she found boring, Kip somehow missed the dozen or so yawns she faked to get him to stop.

            “Space Invader!” she interrupted, and Kip blinked at her as Malik twitched. Whatever she was going to say flew out of her brain as she focused on Malik. Diving under Kip’s desk, she peered up at her boyfriend and watched him very carefully.

            The young man startled awake and sat up in his bed, shooting a groggy-eyed look down at Kip. His eyes met Blue’s and she shrieked, “Nooo!”

            Malik smiled at her in a very tired way, “Good morning Blue. Why are you in that relative position to my roommate?”

            Kip smirked and twitched his head strangely, “Oh you know why.”

            “Making a move on my girlfriend?” Malik asked, with a glare.

            “I’d says she’s making a move on me,” Kip countered, as Blue crawled out from under the desk and stared at the ground in shame.

            “Whoa! That sounds to me like it’s time for a battle to remind you why I’m better than you and Blue will always choose me,” Malik challenged, climbing down off his bed and pointing an accusatory finger at Kip. Blue quietly slipped out of the room as the pair began to shoot at each other with Nerf guns.

            Blue decided she should try again, since Kip was obviously to blame for what happened. After shaking her fist at the air and shouting, “Space Invader!” because she was pretty sure she needed to, Blue tiptoed over to Teddy and Alec’s nearby room. Pushing the door open slightly, she somehow managed not to alert the two smart blonds to her presence, despite the loud click of the handle turning. Blue’s best friend and her former roommate seemed to be having a very strange conversation.

            “Yes, I know and I get that you have loyalty to them, but that doesn’t mean you have to treat me like a piece of shit,” Teddy was saying. Blue bleeped him silently, and got back to listening.

            “Oh come on, don’t put this on me Albrecht,” Alec argued, “you’re the one who turned down our offer to stay with your weird state organization.”

            “I turned you down; it should not have offended you this much! It was nothing to do with you,” Teddy retorted. Suddenly Blue noticed a little rat nose poking out from the inside of the room.

            “It was an insult to everything I stand for and therefore you are an insult to everything I stand for,” Alec growled. Teddy sighed so loud Blue could hear it clearly through the barely open door, as she shook her head at Scamps when he saw her. The rat didn’t seem to care that she didn’t want him to go report his findings back to Alec as he turned around and scurried back into the room.

            “Potts—Alec, we’re more similar than different we should be able to find some common ground here,” Teddy insisted. Blue guessed Alec wasn’t listening when he spoke to his rat instead of replying to Teddy.

            “What’s over there?” he asked. Scamps reported back in rat-language which Alec somehow understood, and Blue scampered away to avoid getting caught. Next in her mental list of people to spy on was Grumpers. Ever since she met her, Blue had been intrigued by how Grumpers managed to stay so grumpy all the time.

            Trotting back to the stupid “girls’ hall,” Blue parked herself outside the door to Austin and Rashida’s room. This door was somehow much louder than Teddy and Alec’s, and it got pushed shut by an eye-rolling ginger before Blue got the chance to spy.

Blue heard Rashida’s voice faintly through the door, “Blue is welcome to come in if she wants to.”

“She doesn’t,” Austin replied dully, “she’s just weird. She’s probably eavesdropping or something. Just because she’s weird.” Rashida opened the door anyway, but Blue was busy fleeing the scene. Not getting caught was much harder than she was hoping. Despite her dampened spirits, Blue trekked on to go spy on the next person on her list, Hakan. Throwing a roll in there for good measure, Blue hit her head against the wall. When she stood up, Teddy and Alec were standing behind her, both with arms crossed and skeptical looks on their faces.

“Eavesdropping, Blue?” Teddy asked.

“I’m disappointed,” Alec added. Blue gave each of them an ashamed glance as they lectured.

“You should know better than this,” Teddy went on.

“Listening in on people’s conversations is a violation of their privacy rights,” Alec explained, “You want to be like your government?”

“Go to your room and think about what you’ve done,” Teddy ordered. Blue nodded and shuffled back to her room, sitting down on her bed and sighing. After recounting a tale that grossly overestimated her sneaking abilities to Kendall, Blue settled in for boredom as she waited for Malik to come hang out with her.

Blue’s boyfriend knocked on her door a little while later, and she greeted him with a question, “Do you think Alec and Teddy are secretly married?”

A Group Picture

I took/made this in the Sims 3 the other day with the "Pose Player" mod. It's most of the characters from my story (including Jenny and Kendrick, of the characters who haven't really done much variety) Can you name them all? Probably, based on pose + appearance. I'd think. I just thought I'd share it.

Chapter 20: Imperfection

Well. This is fairly long. I don't know what happened. I hope you like it. It kind of explains the past of a lot of the characters a little bit. It's kind of one of those serious-ish chapters I guess. OK go!

Classes resumed soon after the dorms were reorganized, and Miss Allberry’s class was once again Blue’s favorite. After Miss Allberry kicked Kendrick out of the class, that was. Two weeks in the class was finally a happy place again, with all the old gang plus Evan, Ewan, Jenny, Estela, Pablo, and Kakahi. Hakan had dropped the class when he realized Kendrick was in it, and couldn’t seem to figure out how to sign back up. Gerda told them it was probably for the best and he was a terrible actor. This led to a discussion as to how he got into the school, and Gerda shrugged and suggested Hakan was actually a fairly talented “stunt magician.”

Miss Allberry brought the conversation back to her and explained what they would be doing in lieu of getting a new script for the week. “We’re doing some serious acting exercises this time. I saw something on the telly over the break and then I was like: Wow! What a good idea.”

She paused to let the class take in her impressiveness, until Blue finally asked, “What’s a good idea?”

“You’re all going to share your deepest darkest secrets!” Miss Allberry cheered, and the class fell deathly silent.

After a few minutes of a stare down between the students and teacher, Teddy stated, “No offense, Crazypants, but you crazy. I’m not doing that.” Miss Allberry looked shocked and glanced to the rest of the students, who gave her looks saying they agreed with Teddy’s sentiments.

“Well,” Miss Allberry trailed off and thought for a moment, “everyone has to please share one insecurity then? If we open up and access deeper levels of emotion we become better actors. The TV lady said so.”

“I’m not really comfortable with that,” Teddy protested, but Miss Allberry just glared in response.

“Tough turnips,” the teacher retorted, “pick an insecurity or something that makes you feel upset and prepare a speech about it for tomorrow. Then we’ll create a forum of tolerance and understanding, dammit! If you feel too uncomfortable, I guess you can make something up. Just make it sound convincing, OK? We’ll draw sticks for the order.” She fetched a cup full of Popsicle sticks then and drew them out one by one. Then first name she drew was Kip, next was Estela, followed by Malik, Rashida, Austin, Kakahi, Teddy, the Twingers (“Are we just one person according to those sticks?” “Yes.” “OK, cool.”), Jenny, Pablo, Gerda, and finally Blue. The class had switched to 8th period in the new semester, so the students discussed the assignment as they walked back to the dorms.

“What are you going to talk about, Space Invader?” Blue asked.

“You really don’t know?” Kip replied. “What do you think my biggest insecurity is? One guess.”

“Is it that you like Star Trek?” Blue asked, and Kip laughed.

“Of course,” he said. “You got me there Blue.”

“Really?” Blue replied with a giddy grin. Kip shook his head.

“No, Blue, sorry,” he stated sympathetically.

“Well I don’t know what I’m going to talk about,” Blue declared then, and looked to Teddy and Malik to her side. Pablo had to go to dance practice after eight period, explaining his absence. He and Teddy spent far too much time together since they starting dating, in Blue’s opinion, and her important Teddy time was lacking. “What will you talk about?”

“Me?” Teddy asked, and Blue nodded. “It’s a surprise!” he replied, grinning.

“You?” Blue asked to Malik. Malik was silent in response, as he had been for the entire walk back. Blue turned her attention back to Teddy in the hopes that perhaps with Pablo busy and Malik mentally distant she and Teddy could have Blue-Teddy time. Malik walked into his room with Kip, mumbling something about needing to think about stuff to Blue and Teddy, who glanced at one another and shrugged.

“Blue Teddy party?” Blue asked, and Teddy shook his head and sighed.

“Sorry, darling Blue,” he replied, “I promised to give our favorite twins a lesson on our friends. You could definitely come along, though! They like you a lot, too.”

Blue grinned at Teddy and nodded, following her friend to the twins’ room. Teddy knocked on the door to his former room, and it flung open quickly. “Teddy! We’ve…I’d say been waiting, but we just got here,” Evan greeted.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” Ewan said, then spotted Blue. “And you brought a lovely guest along with you. Welcome to you too, Blue.”

“Triple rhyme!” Evan declared, and he and his brother grinned at each other. As they invited Blue to sit on the futon across from their bunk beds, she looked around the newly decorated room. The twins hadn’t completed removed Teddy’s decorations, as it happened, and parts of the wall were still sparkly and pink. Otherwise, on Kendall’s old half of the room, posters adorned the wall. Many of them were of some man in a bowtie, and a couple were of things Blue recognized, like Harry Potter’s musical group, Harry Potter but from Glee now, and two pretty British (well, one was Irish) men who she was dead convinced were in love with one another. (Teddy agreed with her, and so did, apparently The Internet).

“I never knew you were nerds,” Blue declared.

“Yep,” the twins replied.

“And proud of it!” Evan cheered, as Ewan handed Blue some snacks. Teddy sat next to Blue on the futon, and the twins sat across the room from them.

“So, Teddy and Blue, two of our closest friends,” Ewan began, and then handed the speech off to his brother.

“We have called you here today so that you can tell us what relationships exist and existed in the past,” Evan explained

“Because Facebook doesn’t tell us what’s really going on!” Ewan complained to finish, as they stared expectantly at Blue and Teddy. The blond genius moved to speak, but Evan seemed to think of something at that moment. They inquired as to Blue’s use of the term “Twingers” when Miss Allberry seemed to have thought of it, but Teddy quickly defended Blue and informed the twins Blue had thought of the term independently. Teddy suggested Miss Allberry and Blue were “brain twins,” and the Twingers apologized.

Blue smiled at them, “No worries, Twingers! Do you want to hear about things now?”

“Yes, we would like that,” Ewan said in a strange voice, obviously imitating something, though Blue wasn’t quite sure of what.

“OK, so our class,” Teddy said. “Alphabetical order? Yes. Last name wise, that would be…,” he appeared to be talking to himself, and wrinkled his nose when he realized who would have to go first in the order he selected. “So, that’s me, I guess…Uh. I’m dating Pablo, as you can probably tell.”

“Yeah, we can tell,” Ewan replied.

“Any previous boyfriends?” Evan asked, and Teddy scowled.

The blond didn’t seem to plan on responding as he sat in silence, so Blue chimed in, “He dated someone else!” The twins looked interested as Teddy shifted uncomfortably, and Blue whispered, “But he was an assassin, so we don’t talk about him.”

“An assassin?” Evan questioned, as both twins stared Teddy down.

“Teddy? Explanation? Did he assassinate someone?” Ewan asked, and Blue shook her head.

“No. Well, see at first I thought he was going to assassinate me, because that makes sense, right? But he tried to assassinate Teddy instead. Almost shot him, Teddy said, but then he changed his mind,” Blue quickly explained, and the twins became more intrigued with every word.

“This is fascinating!” Ewan cheered.

“Why haven’t you told us about this?” Evan prodded Teddy, who folded his arms and scowled. Apparently silence was his way of changing the subject.

“Why did someone want to assassinate you?”

“Do you work for some secret agency?”

“Can you not tell us cause it’s classified?”

“What is the classified mission you’re on at the school?”

“Are you secretly a criminal mastermind?”

“Are you a secret agent?”

“Stop!” Teddy shouted, and the Twingers looked at him with shame. “Please, can we just get back to what we came here for?”

“Of course, Teddy,” Ewan mumbled.

“Sorry,” Evan muttered. “We didn’t mean to upset you. Please go on with explaining the complex relations of this school.”

“All right,” Teddy replied, smiling slightly at the others.  Following himself on the list came Gerda, who he explained was dating Hakan. Gerda had dated in Sweden previous to moving to the US, but Hakan had only dated Gerda herself. Next was Blue, was clearly dating Malik, and proceeded to explain that Malik had never dated anyone before. Blue chimed that she hadn’t either. Next was Jenny, who was in a relationship with her first boyfriend, Matthew. When Blue questioned whether that Matthew was the same Matthew as Man Crush Student from Improv, Teddy informed her that they were indeed one and the same. Next was Austin, who the twins informed Blue and Teddy had broken up with her boyfriend. She’d had one or two in the past, none were quite sure. Next was the twins themselves. Neither had ever been in a relationship or even been on a real date before, and they expressed that dating people felt weird because they couldn’t share it. Skipping Malik, next was Estela, who was dating Kakahi. She’d had two previous relationships she didn’t often discuss. Kakahi didn’t date anyone until Estela. Next he discussed Pablo’s dating prowess; Pablo had dated three girls and one boy before Teddy, and all were dancers like him. Teddy then addressed Kip and explained his relationship with Rashida. Rashida had dated two others in the past, but Rashida was Kip’s first girlfriend. The twins remarked that having an explanation for the pair’s awkward behavior toward one another was nice.

“What about Miss Allberry?” Ewan asked at the end. Teddy and Blue both shrugged.

“Your nemesis?” Evan asked, and Teddy scowled.

“Alec Potts has…Had a girlfriend in the UK,” he mumbled. “I think they might have broken up, though I’m not entirely sure.”

“Jerkface and Blue’s roommate?” Ewan questioned.

“No one. Who’d date either of them, honestly? I mean, no offense to Kendall, but…Well, she’s a little creepy. Kendrick is just a jerk…but you know, he’s got the face, so…I might be wrong about that,” Teddy trailed off. “Lots of girls have no self-respect…So Kendrick might have dated someone…Or he might be dating someone…I don’t really care.”

After the information session finished, the group of them continued to hang out, and discussed their assignment before moving on to playing group video games. The Twingers started doing some weird working together tactics that bothered Blue and Teddy, who swore “revenge, if it’s the last thing we do!” Eventually there was a knock on the door, and the twins opened it up to see Kip standing in front of them.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said slowly, confusing everyone in the room with his choice of introductory words, “I love Malik. Like, in a manly kind of way. But I think this is on you guys.”

Blue and Teddy glanced at one another as the Twingers grinned. “Our good friend, Kip!” Ewan said with delight.

“Would you like to join us in video games as our other good friends leave?” Evan questioned. Kip shrugged and walked into their room.

When he spotted the posters on the walls his mouth fell open, and he declared, “You’re awesome, you ginger twins you.” They grinned identically and said something about knowing they wouldn’t regret welcoming him to their friendship as Teddy and Blue walked back to Malik’s room to see what Kip was talking about.

The door wasn’t locked, so the pair let themselves in. “Hey Malik, what’s up?” Teddy greeted.

“Kip thinks you’re being weird!” Blue declared.

“I’m not…I don’t…,” Malik mumbled, glaring at the wall of his room and scarcely acknowledging either his best friend or his girlfriend. Blue and Teddy sat on Kip’s dish chair across from Malik, and then glanced at each other to decide who should speak next. They were leaning against one another, due to the size of the chair, and Blue was nearly on Teddy’s lap.

“What’s wrong, Malik?” Teddy asked, and Malik scowled and turned toward the pair.

“So that assignment tomorrow…I literally can’t think of anything to say,” he mumbled to them. Teddy raised an eyebrow at him and let Blue speak in his stead.

“There’s gotta be something!” she declared. “Like, you’re self-conscious about your…Um…Well, certainly not your body or your face or really looks in general…Your personality is lovely…I’ve got nothing!”

Teddy rolled his eyes, “You’re his girlfriend. You’re not going to tell him the truth about his flaws.” The pair shared a poignant look wherein Blue gave Teddy a slight glare to tell him she disapproved of what he said and of course she wasn’t going to but Malik didn’t need to know.

“I mean, my life has been…pretty much perfect,” Malik trailed off, leaving Teddy and Blue to wonder whether he was listening to them. “Sometimes I felt really bad for you, Teddy, what with grade school and middle school and all…but you’re not me.”

At the mention of his earlier school days, Teddy stood up, causing Blue to face plant into the side of the chair. The blond walked out of the room with a snappish farewell, “I’m going back to the twins’ room.”

Blue flailed around to pull herself back up to proper sitting position, and waved at the door just after Teddy was gone, her farewell missing him completely. Despite slight concern for her friend’s strangely cold response to Malik’s plight, Blue turned her attention to her boyfriend.

“Well are you sure there’s nothing?” she asked, and Malik nodded.

“I’m…practically perfect,” he mumbled, crossing his arms and glaring at nothing.

“Well, um…,” Blue trailed off, struggling to pull herself out of the large chair and walk over to Malik. She presented him with the idea that struck her then, “There’s still time to make bad memories! Let’s go!”

“You’re right!” Malik replied, taking Blue’s outstretched hand and standing up. “What do we do first?”

“Uh…,” Blue trailed off, scratching her head and tugging forward on Malik’s hand. “Get warm clothes and lock your room!”

“OK!” Malik replied, and, detaching his hand from Blue’s, got a jacket for himself and once again offered Kip’s to Blue. After that he turned the lights off and locked his dorm room. Blue led him down outside to the still snowy courtyard. A small group of students was playing in the snow, and Blue motioned toward them.

“Step number one for bad memories and becoming less perfect!” she declared, and Malik listened skeptically. “Go throw things at them. In cold blood! If you hurt them, that’s even better, cause then you can feel guilty about it.”

Malik just stared at Blue for a moment, before replying, “Sorry Blue. You know I think you’re secretly brilliant, but I’m not going to do that.”

Blue glared at him and asked, “Well, do you want to ruin your personality or not?”

Malik stared with a blank face back at her, finally mumbling, “Not…?” Blue made an angry snort at him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him forward. Though Malik inquired as to where they were going, Blue didn’t respond. “Blue…Dollface…Blue!” Malik called to her as she dragged him along behind him. “Where are we going? Blue, where are we going?”

“Shh!” Blue shushed. “You’ll see when we get there!”

“Blue…,” Malik whined, watching where they were walking nervously. Blue pulled him along past the courtyard and past the building most of their classes were in, and they finally arrived at the school’s daycare center for the school’s teacher’s kids.

“OK,” Blue said, pointing at the children as they played in the snow. “Go tell those children their parents don’t love them,” she instructed, and Malik once again stared at her in response.

“No,” he denied.

“Do you want to have something for this assignment or not?” Blue snapped, looking moderately annoyed for a moment before flashing Malik a smile to show she wasn’t actually angry. “Well, what would you like to do?” she asked, and when Malik shrugged in reply she let go of his hand and ran off, holding a quick conversation with one of the children, who was the math teacher’s daughter. While Blue crouched down and spoke with her, she motioned Malik a few times, and once their conversation was finished the little girl trekked over to him. While Blue insisted that everything was fine to the caretaker watching the kids, the girl spoke to Malik.

“Hi,” she said, and Malik frowned and blinked at her in confusion.

“Hello,” he replied, tilting his head in curiosity at her.

“I think you’re ugly,” the little girl said. She proceeded to kick his shin and run away, back toward the area she and the other children were playing in. Bounding over to Malik with a grin, Blue looked incredibly proud of herself. The caretaker scolded the little girl, to which she protested that Blue told her to do it.

“That was a pretty bad memory, right?” Blue asked, but Malik seemed too shocked to respond.

The caretaker started walking over to them to scold Blue, so she quickly bolted from the scene. Along with the caretaker came the little girl, who the caretaker forced to apologize to the still stunned Malik. He mumbled that she was forgiven and trailed off in the direction Blue went, eventually cracking up in laughter as he walked. When Blue popped out from behind a snow covered bush with a deep scowl on his face, Malik only laughed more.

“Stop laughing! A child just called you ugly and kicked you! This is bad!” Blue shouted, but Malik just shook his head, put his arms around Blue’s waist, pulled her forward, and kissed her. After the kiss was finished, because Blue didn’t interrupt kisses of course, she protested, “No! I’m making bad memories for you!”

“I love you,” Malik replied, with another kiss and a laugh.

Blue scowled at him, “Well I don’t love you back…” Malik’s shocked puppy eyes in response to Blue’s words caused her to shriek out, “I lied I was just trying to help I love you too! I’m the worst person in the worlddd!”

Malik sighed, “Amazing how painful that felt, even knowing what you were going for…Not sure how I could use that tomorrow though…”

“Let’s just go back to your room,” Blue sighed, once again grabbing Malik’s hand and pulling him toward the dorms. “It was a good try, though,” Blue suggested, and Malik nodded as they walked together.

“You’re pretty fantastic you know,” he replied, and Blue laughed at him.

“Oh I know, I know,” she replied, “of course I’m fantastic. To land someone as fantastic as you are, I must also be fantastic!”

Malik laughed at his girlfriend, mumbling, “Thank you, Blue.”

“We can make something up for your assignment!” Blue declared suddenly, and Malik nodded.

“Yeah, I figured that’s what I’d end up having to do,” he shrugged. Upon their return, the couple was greeted by Teddy, with crossed arms and a resigned glare.

“Malik, please step into your room and let me tell you why you’re being annoying,” he said, motioning behind him to Malik’s empty room.

Blue quickly looked around to find a distraction, eventually gasping and saying, “What’s that, Shelly? …Shelly needs me!” After her declaration, Blue ran off to her room, leaving Malik and Teddy alone. The two walked into Malik’s room, and Teddy ominously motioned for Malik to sit.

The next day, in Miss Allberry’s class, Teddy and Malik sat far away from one another. Before class began, a group of the students grilled Blue about the situation. She explained to them that she’d avoided them after she and Malik returned to the dorms and focused on what she was going to say for the assignment instead. Therefore, she didn’t know what had happened and suggested the group ask Kip, since he was Malik’s roommate. Before they got a chance, class began, and Miss Allberry ushered Kip to the front of the room.

He sat on a stool she’d provided for the kids to sit on while they presented their problems, and folded his hands together. “Start, start,” Miss Allberry encouraged, and Kip nodded slowly and sighed.

“So…This is awkward,” he stated. Shifting slightly in his seat, Kip spoke, “So going first kind of sucks, obviously, because I don’t really know what to say exactly so I guess I’ll just…Go for it. The assignment was pretty vague, but essentially I guess I’m supposed to talk about something that more or less makes me…feel bad. Now I know you all probably think my parents are, like, the anti-Christ, but I’d rather you don’t think of them that way. I can’t exactly explain my childhood, but I do want to address the thing that embarrasses me most…More than anything else, I mean…Um, so I guess I’ll just say that the…The one thing that bothers me most about myself is my irrational fears. I also don’t apparently see the color you all claim is between yellow and blue. It’s…Really confusing, to say the least. When I first meet people, I worry that they’ll…They’ll think I’m faking it for attention or…I don’t know, that I’m crazy. But, but I’m not crazy, you know! I mean…I just worry so much about what people will think of me and then I just…I don’t want people to think I’m crazy. It’s just…I guess I just worry about what, you know…Other people think. It has actually stopped me from talking to people before, and I don’t…I don’t like that. There’s no telling when during a conversation someone will say something to set me off, and I…I just wish I was a normal person…” He trailed off, and the class stared in silence for a bit, before Miss Allberry clapped exuberantly.

“Fantastico, Alien! It was brilliante,” she said, and then moved on. “Next we have Hispanesbian, in her first solo performance in front of the group. Welcome Hispanesbian!”

Kip slid off the stool in the front of the room as Estela walked up to it and sat down slowly. She took one deep breath before she started speaking, “My…Thing…I guess, it’s just about….When I was young, my first crush was on Britney Spears. I didn’t know anyone would have objected to that, when I was that age. I guess, what I’m saying is, since I was little I kind of…Kind of knew I was…different. As I grew older I realized what the word ‘lesbian’ meant. Unfortunately I, well…I learned it in a Catholic church with my homophobic Catholic parents. D-don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Catholicism, I just…Their views on homosexuality…I was just, I was terrified. In the eighth grade I dated a boy. I mean, just to prove to myself that I could feel…Special feelings for a boy. It didn’t work, so I thought I would try again, you know…A different boy, maybe, was all that I needed. Needless to say, it didn’t work out. Then I met this girl. She was…Well, I’ve never talked about her before…She was so pretty. This was, um…freshman year, I guess, the beginning of the year. She had blond hair, and she was a senior. I fell in love with her. She flirted with me…Even kissed me a few times. I thought, you know…I guess I thought we were dating. When I mentioned something about it, she yelled at me and called me stupid. To make a long story short, we had a weird on again off again relationship with a lot of verbal abuse on her part and then she just cut off contact after graduation, and I was heartbroken. I spent the whole summer in a stupor…But it actually gave me the strength to come out to my family and really change my life for the better, so…It’s a good story, in the end.”

Kakahi stood and excitedly congratulated her girlfriend with a hug and a statement that she’d sounded great. The class clapped, and Miss Allberry remarked, “How very…You of you, turning it into a positive story. Well, take a seat. That was very good. You’re up, Jasmine.

Malik practically stomped to the front of the room and took his place on the stool. He proceeded to look everywhere in the room except at Teddy, and eventually started to speak. “So, I was going to take Miss Allberry’s recommendation about making something up for this assignment, but then my so called best friend decided to tell me all my flaws. It was just awesome, hearing someone you love who you think feels the same way about you do the exact opposite of what friends are meant to do. Would you like to hear some of things my former best friend told me?” Malik asked, but didn’t wait for the response of the increasingly uncomfortable class. “Apparently, I have an ego problem. I think I’m awesome and great, and apparently that makes me a tool and neurotically uptight. Yeah. These are the things Teddy called me yesterday, so thank you, Teddy. Thank you for being the worst friend ever. It was revealed to me recently that I’ve never had to feel bad in my life and everything was handed to me and I’m just a lazy piece of sh—crap. Paraphrasing that one, but it’s pretty much what he meant, isn’t it?” For the first time since he started talking, Malik shot a pointed look straight at Teddy. The blond stared straight back at him unflinchingly. “So basically, I just learned that everything I’ve ever worked toward, every…Every tweak I’ve made to better myself over the years, to make myself into a good person was all meaningless.” Malik stood from the stool angrily, knocking it over in the process, and stomped back to his seat. Blue moved to check on him, but he brushed her away in a surprisingly gentle way, considering how angry he seemed to be.

“That…,” Miss Allberry mumbled, as the class sat in stunned silence, “counts, I guess. Uh…OK, Condy’s turn!” Rashida stood from her seat and walked to the front of the room, standing the stool up and sitting on it, revealing her frazzled look when she sat on it and turned toward the class.

“That was…A surprise, I don’t…Wow, OK,” she muttered, before focusing back on her speech. She took her time to discuss pressures that her parents put on her as well as the pressures she put on herself and how hard living up to expectations could be for her. The class clapped and returned to a tense normalcy when she finished, and Austin took her place in the front of the room then. The tall girl discussed being perceived as “manly” due to her height, chosen haircut, and even rather low voice. After explaining that she didn’t really want to be perceived as anything but what she was, the class clapped for her, and she back sat down next to Rashida. Kakahi skipped to the front of the room, and gave some barely coherent speech about how lonely she’d been most of her life with thinly veiled drug references followed by outright declaration that being with Estela had finally gotten her to be sober. She finished with soft mumbling about being sorry for how disconnected she sounded because she was so nervous. Once she was securely back in her seat, the entire class turned to Teddy as he stood and walked to the front of the room without showing any emotion.

Teddy sat down on the stool, staring down at his hands, before finally speaking, “I haven’t always been the confident guy you all know and hopefully love. When I was younger, I was, well…Flamboyant and girly, more so than now. Not only that, but I was a smart aleck. I knew everything better than everyone, and I was an affront to the kids’ learned societal perception of what a boy should be so I…Let’s just say some people seem to have just been made for bullying. Throughout elementary and middle schools I was…Well, I was picked on nearly every day. It wasn’t physical or anything, just snide remarks but…What those kinds of things can do to your sense of self-worth, I…It’s hard to explain.” Blue glanced at her boyfriend as Teddy spoke, and saw that the tension in his body was relaxing, and he was listening closely. “The only thing that got me through those times, times where I just…I wanted to give up on life, but…There was this one person, who…Who I was able to count on, always. That person is my very best friend, Malik. Without Malik I wouldn’t have gotten through the toughest years I’ve ever seen. When kids called me every derogatory thing they could think of, Malik was there to tell me everything would be OK. And, Malik, I…I’m so sorry for what I said yesterday.  Living with Alec has me so stressed, and this assignment just reminded me of all the crap stuff that’s happened in my past, and I took that out on you and I’m very sorry for that. You mean more to me than anyone else ever has. You’re not the things I said yesterday. Sure, you have flaws; everyone has flaws, but what I said was more about my own misdirected anger than anything you did. And that’s not fair to you, but it happened and all I can say is that I regret it probably more than anything I’ve ever said.” Teddy stared at his lap for the better half of his speech, and the class soon realized he was crying. They looked expectantly at Malik, who was already approaching Teddy.

“It’s OK, Teddy,” he said softly, as the blond stood from the stool and made a poor attempt to make eye contact with his best friend. Malik chuckled lightly before pulling Teddy into a hug. Miss Allberry’s delighted clapping caused them to end the hug and return to their seats, relocating so they were next to one another.

Miss Allberry seemed overjoyed by the performance, “Oh, Jack, Jasmine, that was beautiful. You’re brilliant masters of drama. I’m very proud of what you’ve done here. Unfortunately we can’t spend any more time watching this lovely bromance. Please take the front of the room, Twingers!”

The pair walked to the front of the room, both with slight smiles on their faces as they attempted to both sit on the single stool. Both shot Teddy adoring looks before glancing at one another to try to decide what to do about the stool situation. Blue watched her boyfriend and best friend as Malik made fun of Teddy’s tears and they laughed together, smiling to herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a slight shift, and glanced to see Pablo with an unreadable expression on his face that confused her. Before she got the chance to address it, the Twingers spoke and distracted her.

The twins explained their honest discomfort at the thought that people couldn’t differentiate between them. Ultimately, they said, their personalities were actually pretty different. They didn’t bother to explain their personality and taste variances, and just sat back down instead.  Next up was Jenny, who spoke about body image issues and how she’d been picked on for her weight for most of her life. Pablo ambled up toward the stool, sitting down slowly. He discussed, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, that his largest worry was about being a little strange and not always able to tell when he’d "overstayed his welcome." After mumbling through something about his first boyfriend dumping him for his being bisexual, he meandered back to his seat and sat very quietly. Blue would have worried if it weren’t almost her turn. In the meantime Gerda stood and gave a very short presentation about living in a totally different culture and how she’d had a hard time adjusting to the differences between Swedish and American social norms. Finally it was Blue’s turn, and she got up and walked to the front of the class, taking a couple very deep breaths.

After thinking about it for nearly the entire night, Blue finally came to a consensus with herself about what she should discuss, and confessed to the class that she sometimes worried people thought she was really, really weird. Often she wondered if people realized she wasn’t quite as off kilter as she behaved but was instead making up for her most awkward tendencies. Once she finished the class clapped, and Malik, Teddy, and Blue headed back to the dorms together, laughing and joking, as they should be.