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Before: Five Months Later


Nick

I was sitting on the couch in the office of Dr. R. L. Stein, and not the author of Goosebumps. Although this guy was weird enough that he was perfectly capable of raising them. He was leaning back in a lush wine-red leather chair, his long fingers peaked in front of his nose, balancing a legal pad on his knee. He studied me. I sat there, utterly uninteresting.

"Don't you have anything that you wish to talk about?" he asked, "Anything you want to get off your chest?"

I thought for a moment. Then I shook my head. "No. Not really."

"Nick, Dr. R.L. Stein shifted in his seat, crossed one leg over the other, removed his glasses, and held them by the ear piece. "You've been through a tremendous ordeal," he said, "Surely there's something you want to talk about?"

"Nope," I shook my head.

He twitched his nose, obviously not pleased with my response. "Tell me about the plane crash, NIck," he requested.

I shrugged. I slid forward on the couch, grabbed a handful of M&Ms from the bowl on his little coffee table between us, then slid back and popped a red one into my mouth. "It was terrifying as fucking hell," I answered, my voice level. "One second we're going up the next, well, not so much."

"Yes, yes, I see." Dr. R. L. Stein evidently thought he was making progress now. "And how did that make you feel?"

I popped a green M&M in my mouth next, chewed it, thinking, then replied, "Like not getting on a plane again?"

Dr. R. L. Stein slid his glasses back onto his face and sat back again. He uncrossed the crossed leg and recrossed them the other way. He cupped his chin in his hand and watched as I chewed M&Ms. "You know, there's a theory about people and the colors they choose for consuming M&Ms," Dr. R. L. Stein said conversationally.

I slipped an orange one in. "Yeah?" I asked, though I had not even the slightest interest.

"They say..." Dr. R. L. Stein slipped the glasses back off and cleaned them with his shirt, "...that if a person choses red first, they have a untempered love interest." He blew on the glasses and wiped them again, then put them back onto his face. I had stopped munching the M&Ms and stopped to stare at him. "So who's the girl, Mr. Carter?"

I shrugged. "No one, really," I answered.

"So there is a girl, then?" Dr. R. L. Stein looked amused.

"You were just guessing that," I said. "Psychology is a quack science. Like voodoo." I wiggled my fingers at him.

"Voodoo," he said in a holier than thou way, "Is a religion." He glanced at the clock. "Not a science. And your session is complete for today."

"Thank God," I said, "I was running out of silent word games to play." I grinned. "Thanks for... well, the comfy chair and the psycho-M&Ms, I guess." I stood up and grabbed my sweatshirt off the couch, tugging it onto my arms.

"I will see you next week," Dr. R. L. Stein said.

"That you will, that you will," I answered.

In the office, the receptionist scrambled to put her call on hold and say bye to me in a blundering rush of words. I waved and headed out the door. There was a time, not too long ago, that I would've asked her to the rest room for a quickie, but I was a different person now.

As I made my way out onto the street, I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe it had been almost five months since the accident. It was mid-June. Leslie's birthday was coming up and my family was planning, yet again, to do a memorial service all together. Though I don't know what I was going to it for, I'd said my good-bye and had my peace with my ghosts.

Well, for the most part I had anyways.

I still hadn't called Ashley. Mostly because I still didn't know what to say. I'd been afraid at first, because of my face. But even after the swelling went down and the scar wasn't quite as raw as it had been when I'd first seen it, I was still terrified. I know that I should've known better, particularly considering my encounter with Leslie and the things she'd said about things she never got to say when she was alive and all that, but I didn't want to say the wrong thing either. And then I'd heard from Chris.

He'd called me to ask me for my permission to formally ask Ashley out on a date.

"A date? You and Ashley?" I'd asked.

"Yes," he'd said, "For Valentine's Day."

"Valentine's," I said, "Wow."

"Yeah." Chris had sounded happy, "She's actually giving me a chance. Isn't that crazy?" His voice had been akin to somebody about to get the million dollar pay off from the lotto.

"Yeah, it's crazy," I'd agreed.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it," he said, "I know Ashley's kind of been your girl for a long time."

"We've never gone out," I said. And then I'd lied and told Chris that I didn't feel like that about Ashley, that I never had and that I didn't care if he went out with her as long as they were both happy.

Jesus, I'm a pathological liar when it comes to this, why? I'd wondered as I'd hung up the phone.

But that was months ago. I'd heard through the grapevine that the date had gone well and that Ashley and Chris had started going out regularly. AJ had even called at one point in mid-March to inform me that he'd just seen Chris moving his stuff into Ashley's apartment. Now, it was June 1st and as awkward as I knew it would be, I also knew that I absolutely had to call Ashley today when I got home because it was her birthday and I owed her at the very least a phone call after everything we'd been through.




Ashley

Chris was covering my eyes. "No peeking," he instructed me.

I laughed, "What did you do?"

"You'll see," Chris replied.

I breathed deeply. "I smell coffee," I said.

Chris laughed. "Stop playing detector. No sniffing."

I giggled.

He came to a stop and he paused. "Okay... are you ready?" he asked.

"I'm ready," I replied.

Chris uncovered my eyes, "Happy birthday, then," he said. I blinked through the light to adjust them. We were standing in the middle of my kitchen, which he'd decorated with streamers and a balloon shaped like a cat that floated, bumping off the ceiling. In the middle of the table was a sloppily frosted, homemade cake. It was obviously chocolate with strawberry frosting because there were several patches where the pink frosting had melted - must've been put on too soon - and the chocolate cake showed through.

I grinned, turned around and wrapped my arms around Chris's neck. "I love it," I said. Chris' smile was bright, and it reflected in his eyes. "I can't believe you made me a cake," I said, kissing him.

"Aw you can tell I made it," he said. "I was hoping you'd think it was store bought."

I tried not to laugh. I smiled, "I love it."

"I love you," Chris said.

I kissed his cheek, dodged away and opened my cupboards and pulled out two of my plates and put them on the table. Chris opened the drawer and pulled out my knife and held it out to me, helm first. "Why thank you, sire," I said.

"You're welcome m'lady," he replied, fake bowing.

I laughed, and brought the knife down through the cake. It struck something hard about halfway down in the middle. I tilted my head and adjusted the knife, but it struck the same thing haflway down. "What the --"

Chris was smiling, "Take the piece out, sweetie," he suggested.

I pulled it out carefully and revealed a small box in the center of the cake. "What is this?" I said, looking at him, then back at the box nervously. I reached forward an pulled it out of the cake, my fingers getting all cakey and frostingy. Chris took my hand and sucked the cake from my fingers, winking as I examined the box.

"Chris, what is this?"

"Open it, baby," he suggested.

So I did, with trembling fingers.

The diamond inside glinted in the overhead light.

I looked up and our eyes met.