Best Friends Forever, Chappie Sixxxxxx (HAHAHAHA)



The light crept in through the blinds, waking Nadia up instantly. At first she thought she'd roll over and no one would be there, nothing would have happened, she'd have kicked Eric clear off the bed again (for the third or fourth night in a row). She couldn't quite move, and she felt very unclean for several reasons. She squirmed and realised that everything that had happened last night was real, and suddenly she was overcome with a lovely feeling of bliss. She fell back asleep after pulling a pillow over her head.

Gray shoved his own head against the window of the car, waiting for the thud. "He KNEW we were coming to pick him up at eleven, so what the hell is wrong with him?"

John shrugged and climbed out of the car, bending with an impish grin. "Let's go find out, eh?"

Throwing the car into park, Gray climbed out and walked up to the front door of Eric's house, knocking once, wanting more to burst in and see Eric on the couch with some woman they had yet to meet, or maybe they'd be "forced" to shove their way into his bedroom...

Eric sat up, horrified. He threw the blanket on his shoulders over Nadia's bare back and yanked on a pair of boxers, throwing another layer of sheets over the snoozing girl before his door was shoved open and John and Gray posed meaningfully.

"Just slept in!" He said before their mouths even opened.

Gray cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms disbelievingly. "Because I believe THAT,"

"Gimme five minutes, bastards." He shooed them from his room, jumping as he turned and Nadia flew out from under the sheets, anger on her face very clearly.

Saving what little dignity Eric had left, Nadia spoke softly. "That's right, be embarrassed. I'll be leaving-and don't worry, I'll sneak out the window. I should have known better-"

"Nadia," he hissed, still quiet though, "I'm not embarrassed! Do you realise how much flak you'll catch? I've already got enough problems telling those guys things; I'd rather have you gone when they find out."

She dropped her jaw. "You're going to tell them? You're going to walk out there when I'm gone and tell them?"

"No! That's not how I mean-there is no way I can hide it. They're gonna notice I'm acting differently-"

"Forget it, I'm out of here." She muttered, not quite able to be hurt and yet angry. She slipped from the window and walked away as Eric tugged his hair in irritation.

When Nadia was out of sight, slinking along the edge of the house and then the neighbor's house to avoid John's stealthy gaze from the window, she stood up straighter and slipped her shoes on, taking off at a healthy run, knowing she had enough money to stop for something to fill her aching stomach and a few tokens for the ride home. Money was tight, but her indignation was stronger. She hated Eric, she HATED him, and only because she loved him. It was a horrible thing to do, but she rationalised it all by thinking about how much he had mistreated her that morning, that being the only time he had really hurt her feelings at all. She concentrated all her energy on it, and when she stood in line in the small country-store, she could feel her face resuming her French pouting look.

"Alright, little missy?" Asked the clerk, an elderly man with a warm smile that made his eyes glitter with memories.

Nadia looked deep into his eyes before muttering in a thick French accent that she spoke no English, took her parcel, and bolted. On the train ride home she began to meditate on things she hadn't thought about. She had to make up the lesson plan for the kindergarteners this year, it seemed papier-mâché wasn't as hot as she thought it was, and still she felt that dying hope in her gut that the letter would congratulate her and tell her to show up in the next few days to set up her classroom with art and posters like her room in Castle Rock Elementary.

The mailbox outside her house looked plain and, in some strange way, very annoying. Nadia slipped her hand inside and pulled out fifteen envelopes, wondering if Lexi really did have a vendetta against the mail system, but it appeared they had all showed up over the course of one day, because Lexi looked honestly surprised to see so much, but distracted herself with a hug for Nadia, looking carefully at Nadia's harsh look. It was a look that Harvey and Harley liked to wear, one that said, "Whatever you do, do not mess with me."

"You alright?" Lexi asked cautiously.

Nadia looked up with a raised eyebrow. "No, not really."

Sensing something that wasn't easily talked about, Lexi zipped her gob and gestured for Nadia to check the letters. In the mess there was a large parchment envelope, heavy with papers. Nadia slipped her finger along the flap nonchalantly and pulled the stack out. There was a contract first, and a congratulations.

"I got the job," she said suddenly.

Lexi gaped. "What?!"

"I GOT THE JOB!" Nadia shrieked, jumping up and down.

Lexi grabbed Nadia's arms, and together they jumped up and down, screaming like only women could.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"We heard voices, come off it!" Gray leaned into Eric's room, Eric not bothering to make sure Nadia hadn't left anything. Gray triumphantly picked up the yellow dress, which Eric rolled his eyes at.

"You were there when I caught Nadia. She changed before she left, obviously."

John cocked an eyebrow. "She's been here almost a month and you decided not to pick up the dress?"

"Look, even if your little evidence did hold water, it would insinuate she wore the dress last night, and she didn't."

"Is she here?" Gray asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eric shook his head. "Left early this morning."

John was clearly not buying it, but he had no proof to cause him to uproot Eric's alibi.

They almost had to force Eric to move faster, but he lingered all day, dressing slowly, driving slowly, working slowly. He didn't write much that day, and he seemed to be obsessively checking his watch for at least half the day until he finally jumped up and grabbed the phone, dialing quickly, confusion on his face as he sat down. Disconnected line, he mused, when did that happen?

"He's distracted," Gray muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Terry Jones, who squinted an eye at him, elbowing Mike.

Eric hadn't noticed them talking about him, and continued not to notice as he lit up a cigarette and scribbled on a paper for a moment, crumpling it up in disgust minutes later. He felt like he had Adult Attention Deficit Disorder at the moment, and it had grabbed his mind.

Mike whistled, waving a hand in front of Eric's face, but it had no effect on him whatsoever.

"He's really lost." Terry muttered, smiling lightly. "Three possibilities, chaps; he's dying, someone else is dying, or he's completely and utterly head-over-heels in love with someone."

John and Gray looked at each other, wondering whether or not to relay what had happened earlier that day.

Eric took his chin in hand and scrunched his nose, thinking about the night before, when she had run her hands down his back and he had broken out in goose bumps. He shivered now, closing his eyes slowly with a sigh, smiling as he remembered the feel of their bodies touching. Ignoring the possibility there were people that were watching him, he flicked the ash on the end of his cigarette off and stood up, closing his eyes again as soon as he was safely in the corner. He reached up with a free hand and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it out of his face as he thought again, remembered, imagined. One more pleasant thought was in his head before he sighed and put his cigarette out, sitting across from the other five guys without noticing their grins.

Lexi sighed dreamily. "We'll have to find you a place closer to Cambridge, huh? A nice, cheap place that isn't crawling with kids. And then you'll sell me this place and I'll keep it up for you, and I can come visit, right?"

"Of course you can visit, jeezum crow! I can't stop you!" She laughed. "I can't believe they took me over that Jean Claude Van Moore guy you were talking about."

Smiling broadly, Lexi replied, "Do you realise how many Jean Claude Van Moore's there are in the world? Do you realise how many of them have trodden over the other people? They've hired so many Van Moore's, but there are so many of them... Do you realise how many Nadia Smarts there are? There's one of you and a million of him; of course they hired you."

Nadia hugged Lexi gently, happy for the first time in a long time. It felt like a long time since the night before, and suddenly her smile was gone as she remembered Eric's reaction at the mere possibility of her leaving. Words spilled from her mouth suddenly, unwanted and fierce.

"Of course it happens now, right after I've gotten myself closer to him, right after we've sorted everything out, of fucking course it happens now! Right after he tells me he loves me I have to up and leave, OF COURSE IT HAPPENS NOW!" She shook her letter with a sudden anger and despair.

With another dropped jaw, Lexi lifted her eyebrows. "Eric?"

"Right after he loves me," Nadia whispered, feeling her body float apart from her mind.

Lexi's jaw set. "You forget about him, Nadia. I'll take care of it. He can't be a problem if he isn't around you, can he? We'll get you set up at Cambridge, and you can start over again."

Nadia shook her head. "I can't do that to him-"

"Since when can't you?" Lexi asked, wrinkling her nose.

Nadia flashed her a look of contempt before Lexi dropped her jaw yet again.

"You love him! Girl, you just keep doing it to yourself!" She put her hands on her hips. "You've got two options, Nadia. You can stay here and leave the job to be with him, or you can take the job and move on; he'll find someone else, he always does. You always do."

Nadia set her own jaw, quickly remembering his embarrassment at her presence. "Let's go look at houses tomorrow."

Eric called again, but the phone line was still disconnected. He sighed again and walked into his room to pick up some more. Every time he caught sight of his bed he felt like he was in it all over again, groaning and smiling as Nadia moaned and hugged his neck. He froze as her filmy image floated into his vision and disappeared. He shivered uncontrollably and walked to his bathroom to take a shower.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*$$$*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Small enough for you?" Lexi wrinkled her nose at the tiny house with the balcony off the tiny second floor. There were four rooms in the entire house; a bedroom, a kitchen and dining area, a living room, and a bathroom. It was enough for her, and since the bathroom and bedroom were on the top floor and the living room and the kitchen on the bottom, she felt it was just what she needed. The balcony took up most of the bedroom, but bedrooms were for sleeping, so why bother with size? She had the rest of the house to lounge in.

"I'm renting it. For how long I do not know." She said firmly.

"All year, obviously," Lexi snapped.

Nadia made a face at her. "Well, I might need to rent again next year, and if someone else notices the bright lime green paint on the balcony when I'm done with it and buys it, I'm going to be one mad chica, you get me?"

"You can't paint a rented house," ever legal, Lexi crushed Nadia's dreams.

She sighed. "I guess I'll have to buy it then,"

"Like you weren't planning that from the beginning." Lexi snapped, looking a bit more upset than normal.

Nadia looked at her suddenly. "What are you planning on doing when Eric starts lurking around?"

A smile abruptly covered Lexi's face. "I'll find something to distract him with, most likely."

They knocked on the tiny house's door and awaited the arrival of the owner, a small woman with maroon hair that looked to be about ninety years old. Her hair was so fake looking that Nadia nearly burst out in heavy laughter, but with the right moves she could buy the place that the woman was taking care of. Careful negotiations with Lexi, Nadia, and the woman revealed she had four or five houses about that size on the block, but that was the smallest. Nadia said she'd love to buy it, and the woman, Mrs. McCartney, promised she'd have papers and such by the end of the month. Nadia could move in before, "because we need someone like you around town now."

The next two days they moved all of her things into the small house, losing quite a bit of it along the way. Her photo albums and college thesis binders were all left in Lexi's care, along with most of her furniture and linens. Lexi would be able to manage to send Nadia a reasonable fee once a month to pay for the house, and Nadia would be able to pay off the new house in about fifteen years. She snorted and crossed her fingers she taught that long and made enough money to upgrade to a two bedroom home before settling down with a permanent address.

Nadia was sitting awake late at night in her mostly bare house with Lexi to keep her company, only six days left until she was introduced to her students. They told her the enrollment was low, but she held an Arts class, which meant they could join during semester breaks. They predicted an increase by semester three and wished her good luck with the five classes she taught, the schedule she received in the mail held their names and everything. Lexi did the calling around for Castle Rock Elementary, explaining that Nadia wasn't even going to be on the substitute list, and she was glad they had a student teacher ready to fill her spot. While she did that, Nadia went out and bought some supplies, a few posters of obscure art, a few portraits, and a string of Chili Pepper Christmas lights. She was about to explain herself when Lexi explained that she had to act weird or she'd just be another teacher.

They started to drain what little savings Nadia had left on some more business-like clothes, dressier slacks, three more skirts, blouses that fit and were actually made for women instead of guys' work shirts. Her old sneakers were introduced to heels, flat shoes, and penny loafers. They even went shopping for "more appropriate underclothes," for which Nadia could only assume would benefit those who could short enough to look up a skirt or tall enough to peer down her shirt.

Three days were left, and Eric couldn't for the life of him figure out why neither Lexi or Nadia was answering the phone; it was still disconnected. A thought that maybe they didn't realise the phone was off the hook entered his mind, and he considered driving up to check on them. It had gone past the puppy love stage where he wondered what she was doing and if she was still mad at him to full-fledged stomach-hurting, headache-inducing, mind-numbing heartache. He wanted to see her; he couldn't remember what her face looked like for a second, and he reeled suddenly, startling Terry and John.

"You alright?" John asked, helping him to his feet.

He was still wild-eyed, but he nodded, blinking hard in hopes that her image would flicker into his mind like a camera shutter closing.

Nadia sighed.

"What am I telling him?" Lexi asked.

She shrugged, lighting a cigarette calmly. "Whatever. Just don't give him my address or phone number and I should be able to avoid him for about six months." She smirked uncomfortably, shifting her weight unevenly, knowing in her heart and mind he was fretting about.

"If he hasn't driven up to see for himself if we're dead or dying and seen the letter."

"When are we going to finish painting your room?" Lexi asked abruptly, standing up and taking a whiff of the drying paint smell. It was a tiny ten by ten room and it dried quickly, the bright turquoise color almost violent to her eyes.

Nadia shrugged. "I dunno; I'll have to hire somebody to paint the outside the same color though. I think that would keep me satisfied for at least five months."

"Then what?"

"Onto lime green and black checkerboard patterns and groovy flowers on the outside."

"I have to say, Naddy, you never were boring." She smiled and put an arm around her shoulder.

Her face was smiling for an instant before she looked puzzled again. "Tell me again why I'm avoiding Eric altogether? Wouldn't it be better if I told him I didn't want to date him and he could still see me?"

Lexi shrugged. "You have to put yourself in his shoes; would he be able to see you with other men, be your friend, and not be jealous or hurt?"

"I don't see why everything changed. It's not like I haven't dated in front of him before-we've gone on double-dates for Christ's sake." She mumbled.

"I'm not the most romantically inclined person, Nadia, but I would say that he wouldn't handle being put on the cold shoulder very well if he was able to watch you doing it. Better he assume you've left without looking back than fleeing with your tail between your legs."

She scowled. "You're treating him like one of your stalker clients. He isn't following me, we were following each other, and I just jumped outside the circle. I should call him-"

"I'll take care of it. You don't want to date; I can handle telling him that much. He can find you himself if you mean so much to him." She pressed, her eyes alert.

Nadia shrugged and walked back inside off her balcony, stepping around boxes and bumping her knees on the king-sized bed, a behemoth in the tiny room with the dresser, mirror, and bed. Her closet was in the hall, no room for it inside. Lexi walked downstairs with a fairwell and curled up on the couch after moving some boxes. Three days, Nadia mused.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Call me tonight and tell me how it went!" Lexi cried, waving hysterically as she slid into a cab to be taken to the subway station. Nadia took a deep breath and started the fourteen block journey to her room, a gigantic sun-roofed studio that was quickly being filled with posters and paintings Nadia found in the stores and bought with her own money. She had decorated the hell out of the building, painted the door with her own insignia, and set up a roster with students and her loose-style grading rubric all ready. She had devised tests on the text she was supposed to stay on, and decided she could skip around inside to accommodate her idealistic style of teaching the arts as well as knowledge. It wasn't the history of the arts class, it was an actual "try it, do it" class. The school board member that acknowledged Nadia at the door was a middle-aged woman with a small, tight bun on the back of her head, and she shook Nadia's hand, frowning for a moment at her black slacks, black and white high tops, and her fitted black and white top. The whole thing made Nadia herself look rather surreal, her tan nearly gone in the harsh light, and her features darker with the contrast. They talked for a while, a bit uncomfortably at first, but slowly it loosened up and they were discussing teaching techniques.

The school board member glanced at her watch. "Well Miss Smart, your first class starts at ten, so I should be going." She stood again and shook Nadia's hand again.

"Well, thanks for everything," she paused, waiting for a name.

"Gloria Steinbeck,"

"Thank you, Gloria." She smiled in what she hoped was her most inviting way, and she was relieved to see the older woman smile back with almost lost tension and relief herself. The back room of the enormous studio had an old, mothball ridden couch, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. She stocked up on bottled water the days before, and was now busy gulping one down, sitting on the couch, nervous and yet at ease. She was good with kids, but she was unsure about these kids. They were about three years younger than her, five at the most. Most of her students were seniors anyway, and nearly all of them were there on their fourth or fifth year of art, but there were a few first year classes-two to be exact.

As nine forty-five rolled around, voices echoed into her tiny back room, deep and curious.

"What is that?" Asked one, and she knew they were staring at the sculptures in the back she had found. They were old pipes all melded together into odd shapes, one resembling a sobbing man in some ways, a rather lumpy amount of metal in others.

There was a snooty snicker to reply to the first voice. "Art, apparently. What IS this shit?"

She heard paper rustle, and when she peered out the crack in the door, she saw him flicking at the posters on the wall. She smirked as he glanced over them, not using his eyes to see what was there. He and others like him were Nadia's enemy, but she had converted many and she could do so now, nothing stopping her.

A few female voices drifted in, and Nadia fearlessly crept outside the back entrance to take one last look at the fountain in the square before she laughed and wandered back into her classroom, all butterflies gone. She couldn't believe it: her classroom had a window view of the very fountain she'd sat in her first day at the school. Her first year in college, her first totally submersed day in English culture since the four weeks she attended an all girls school with her cousin in London when she was fourteen-her parents thought she needed straightening up.

Ten o' clock rolled around and Nadia walked out into the room to see the twenty-four students for her first hour class. A majority were women, mysterious, quiet, a few bubbly and artsy, showing each other the drawings of kitties and puppies they were proud of. Nadia loathed the bubbly types with the kitty and puppy-loving art obsessions; she would straighten them out. Unless they could make a collage of puppies to make a gigantic kitten-real art-she was going to fail them, and fail them, and fail them.

Literally no one gave her a second glance as she paced the front of the desk, thinking to herself. She was short, she couldn't deny that compared to all the skinny, tall types, and she was fairly young to be teaching them, a year younger than normal. She was prepared for this, though, and pulled the school's ancient phonograph out from behind the desk and turned on the speakers, flipping on an album and nonchalantly sitting behind the desk with a magazine, throwing her feet up onto the desk as she did so. Soon enough the loud music and presence behind the desk caught their attention and they were silent, staring in awe at the pierced, worn, YOUNG thing before them. She prayed to God they get their giggles out before she stood up and turned off the music to speak. There was no laughter.

She turned off the music. "Hey all," she grinned and was relieved to hear them echo the same thing back, laughing amongst themselves.

"I'm the new teacher-young meat they tell me. You've enrolled yourself in a very surreal class if you didn't know that. I'm Nadia Smart, I answer to whatever you call me as long as it isn't vulgar." She paced a few more times, hands talking as well as her voice. The atmosphere was loose, the way Nadia needed it to be in order to work. "We're going to be studying how to identify, relate, and create surrealism in the arts, which means I will be needing you to hand in your artwork to me on occasion. I don't mind a shy artist; I don't mean to embarrass any of you, but spare me some trouble when you hand it in, leave me a note that asks me not to mention or show off the work. I tend to gloat for people if they don't do it enough; there will be no modesty here just as there will be no cockiness. If you think you could walk out into the big, bad world and paint your way to the top, leave now because I have no use for that kind of crap."

There was some whispering among them, some stirring, but no one left. Nadia nodded, grinning again.

"So, who thinks they know what surrealism is?"

A few nervous hands went up, and Nadia, being the oddity she was, pointed to the dark looking girl with the long black hair and pale skin. She looked like she'd never seen sunlight in her life.

Before the girl could spout off her answer, Nadia started in. "Hi, I'm Nadia Smart, what's your name?"

"Melody Caan,"

"Pretty name, go on." She smiled again, feeling once again like a huge breath of tension had just been released.

She smiled weakly. "Surrealism is the existence of something that could exist, but in the world we know is impossible."

Nadia held up four paintings. "So which one is surreal?"

All four depicted seemingly normal things; a dog chasing a butterfly, a little girl standing on a deck with a balloon trailing from her fingertips, so on and so forth.

Carefully a few more hands went up, then all twenty-four were up in the air.

She pointed to the cocky kid that had insulted her posters.

"The one on the fa-"

"Name please," she cocked her head.

"Joshua Harold,"

She smirked. "Two first names for a name, interesting. So, Josh, which one is surreal?"

"The one on the far right, Miss Smart." He retorted, sarcasm in his voice.

She smirked again. "Ooh, wrong,"

"The middle right one," said a soft voice. Nadia pointed enthusiastically to the girl with the short blonde hair in the second row who was chewing on her pencil.

"Excellent, so, if that was surreal," she handed the painting to the front row with silent instructions to pass it around, which they did, staring in awe at the oil image that showed a little girl standing on a deck with a balloon trailing out of her fingers, but if you looked closely, you saw filmy images of people wandering around the little girl, bright red eyes glaring out at her as she slumped, a figure of despair, or lost hope, and the bright red balloon was just another eye staring at her with hatred and malice.

"If that was surreal," she repeated, smiling, "what other methods of art can we use to get that effect?"

More hands, feet on desks, jackets gone, shoes off in a few cases.

Nadia smirked again, slipping her sneakers off as she sat on her desk, taking a sip from her bottle. She pointed to one of the ditzy girls with a slight grimace she tried to hide.

"Um, sculptures?"

"Um, I think so," Nadia mimicked. "So, what's your name?"

She smiled with a dumb look before saying, "Julia Brenner,"

"Alright Julia, you are right. And instead of giving the rest of you a chance to show off your hot stuff," she said sarcastically, seeing all other hands fall down, "I'll tell you what we'll be studying this year."

She held up a photograph of an aerial view of a garden. "This was my first project in this class my first year in Cambridge." Different shaded flowers grew in an almost perfect shape of a head, neck, and shoulders. It was John Lennon, unmistakably so.

Julia made a face. "What is so surreal about that?"

"When you make something that is real out of something that isn't used for that reason, you can make it surreal. Like using paints and glue to make a sculpture. Surreal," she paced again, picking up another poster, this one of a large piece of sheet music. The music was set up with rests and such so that the shape of a person filled the paper, all sorts of notes put where they needed to be in order to make the shape.

She smiled. "Try playing this," she handed it to a small girl clutching her flute case. She glanced at the notes and gaped.

Nadia smiled heftily; oh God was this going to be fun.

"Even music can be surreal-I'm getting sick of that word, how about you guys?" They all groaned in agreement. She laughed. "Well, anyway, here's a recording of some not real but it sounds real music." She played a record, smiling as the kids bounced their heads with the beat and then stopped in awe. The clinking drum beats became words, pronounceable words. The revving sound, the sound that resembled a car trying to start and not quite making it became a sort of staccato rhythm of "stat-sti got-sti got doom doom stateek" repeated over and over again. When the recording ended with a screech and sirens, the kids stared in awe.

The cocky kid laughed gently before saying quietly, "This is going to be the best year ever."