PARKER

All the way to the car, Lizzie and I were reduced to children. No. Less than children. We were Camille's wild dogs that she snapped "no" at and clapped at to get our attention because we were too busy snarling at each other to follow our master. She sat us both in the backseat, where all children deserved to sit. My clothes clung to my body. Water trickled from the top of my head into my mouth and I knew my mascara had run down my cheeks like I was the second to last contestant on the Bachelor and tried to steal the last rose from the winner before being escorted out by security. Lizzie and I looked like animals left out in the rain.

"I can't take it anymore," Camille bellowed, tightening her grip around the steering wheel. No music played. The windows were shut tight. The heaters were blasting, becoming miniature hair dryers to keep us from dying from pneumonia. However, a slow weakening death might be better than the drawn-out excruciating pain of dying from embarrassment.

Camille shook her head, glaring at us from the rear-view mirror. If anyone was more done than Camille, they'd just be straight-up dead. She zoomed through the neighborhood, past dozens of houses that looked the exact same. "I can't keep babysitting you and expecting you to not kill each other-"

"She started it!" Lizzie cried.

"I was upset!" I snapped, feeling the itch in the back of my head return. With her, these feelings festered inside of me like maggots in rotted wood. "Emily just broke up with me again-" The hurt was still fresh, and I wanted to spend the remainder of the night rocking myself in the fetal position.

"I didn't know! I didn't know!"

Camille rolled her eyes, but once we started going, there was no stopping us. We were two people in the middle of a forest fire, splashing gallons of gasoline at each other. "God!" I huffed and tried to squeeze the water out of my hair like a wet rag. "The category of people who are attracted to you must be the smallest faction in history."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Lizzie raised a hand, her voice gritty. "Give me a second to process this, I didn't realize I was in the presence of perfection."

"Why are all your insults compliments?"

"It was sarcasm! And it's not my fault your dates can't handle five minutes being around the real you-"

My face grew hot, but before I could whip my own "comeuppance" sandwich and stuff it in her big fat mouth, Camille snorted. She laughed high and pitchy and I took it like a slap with her underhand. "You know, Lizzie, that's not actually too far off."

"Camille!" I gasped, aghast that she'd dare pick Lizzie's side. Camille never picked sides at all. She usually just stood to the side as referee, blowing the whistle and dealing out yellow cards. For her to join in the fight, it was unprecedented. We did it. Lizzie and I finally broke Camille.

"Oh, don't Camille me! What's your longest relationship? A week? Oh, sorry I didn't mean to confuse you with Lizzie. Parker, you can last two weeks, right? You can point out each other's flaws until your face turns blue, but that doesn't mean either of you is going to change. Ever. You two never even try to be better. You both just stay in this realm of mediocrity and think you're satisfied, but I know you're not. You're miserable- God." She rolled her eyes. "Why the fuck am I even bothering? You two would never last long enough to go for it."

"That's not true." Lizzie sat up. She grabbed the driver seat, trying to creep into Camille's vision. "I'd try! And I'd last longer than two weeks."

I jumped up too. "I could last a month!"

"Fine!" Camille roared and slammed her breaks at the stop sign. I rammed my nose into Camille's upholstery and my face pounded as my back hit the backseat again. Camille whipped her head around, barking at us. If someone could spit fire, Camille was coming close.

"Do it then. I dare you, you cowards. Date each other for- for-" She chewed on the idea, spitting it all out without a second thought. "Date for thirty days! And then, I'll stop giving you so much crap. I'll even stop making you two hang out! And hey, if miracles exist, maybe you'll even fix your poor shitty dating habits. A thirty-day trial of what a real relationship is like. The whole nine yards! Dates! Hand holding! Fighting and then apologizing! All of it!"

I eyed Lizzie. She hadn't stopped glaring at Camille, with her mouth hanging open. Somewhere in that big brain of hers, she was working on a comeback, but how could anyone fight the absolute truth? I couldn't argue that the sky wasn't blue. I couldn't argue that I'm not tall and Lizzie didn't have long hair. Those things just weren't true. Camille had a point. We wouldn't last thirty days. We never had before.

Lizzie glanced at me in the quiet, her brown eyes shining by the lamplight. She was busy, searching my face for a reaction, for a gauge of the situation, but it didn't read like an outright refusal. I didn't want to admit that for a second, I considered it too, if not for the fact that I could finally hang out with Camille without Lizzie being the third wheel. Emily's voice egged me on too:

"You're such an ass..."

She said it, tattooing it across my heart and I still didn't understand why. I didn't have the answers, but maybe if I studied, if Lizzie was my experiment, I could create the right solution and Emily wouldn't block me out of her life.

"Forget it." Camille turned and rolled her eyes. She finally left the four-way stop. "You'd never do the whole thirty days. You don't have the guts. Ugh!" She roared, slamming her hands on the steering wheel. "Dammit! I need to get home. I think I just started my period. You two made me so mad, I started my period."

#

Surprisingly, Lizzie and I didn't have much to say. We drove the rest of the way in silence and for the first time I've ever been in a car with Lizzie, we just listened to the radio. Camille dropped me off first, but she quickly ran inside to steal a few tampons. "Come on," I told Lizzie, motioning to my house. All the lights were off, but I could hear Hayden playing on his Xbox upstairs. I pressed a finger to my lips and Lizzie swallowed with a nod, playing along.

I led her to the guest bathroom, consumed by the fragrant musk of potpourri. Debbie got bit by the decorator bug, engrossed by some demented need to create a home from all these misshapen human pieces. It was more like she made our house look like a hotel, decorated with beautiful works of art, surrounded by classy furniture. This had the opposite effect. It looked nice but was shallow at the surface. At my old house, there was a soft couch with a stain from when I was seven and had pneumonia. We had a table that I carved my initials into. I was nowhere in this house.

Bending down, I opened a cabinet with stacks of maroon towels and tossed one to Lizzie.

"Oh," she blinked, "thanks."

"Sure." I shrugged. I glanced at her again and said something other than what I was thinking about. "I could get you some clothes too. Uh, just something to get you home."

"Oh, that's fine. Um," she bent down and wrapped her hair in the towel, "I only live like a few minutes away."

"Right."

I swallowed, nervously. My nerves bubbled inside me like a pot of boiling pasta I lost control of. My top rattled and water splashed out the sides. Too hot to touch. Lizzie sputtered into laughter. "Camille is insane. A thirty-day trial period? Am I supposed to 'swipe right' on you too?"

"Right?" I laughed and hopped on the counter, crossing my legs by habit. "It's like I asked Yahoo Answers to fix my intimacy issues?"

I got her to full-on snort. She turned, leaning against the counter. She nudged me. "So dumb..."

We paused, sitting in silence and waiting. It was the first time I've ever had a silent conversation. I could feel the want radiating from her edges in waves, crashing into me. At the same time, we locked eyes and burst into laughter again. We were both blushing and slightly mortified by the events of tonight.

"No, no way." She shook her head.

"Yeah," I laughed, still feeling uneasy, "no way."

All my thoughts clogged my brain and my IQ dropped lower than the earth's surface, so I had nothing to say. It wouldn't make any sense. None of it did. Camille challenged us out of anger. She said all that to laugh at us... but what if? What if Lizzie and I dated and she ironed out the wrinkles from my messy dating history. What if I learned why Emily and I broke up? What if I could win Emily back? What if...

#

Author's Note

 So, this marks the end of Part One! Very exciting! If my Outline doesn't change (too much), there's four parts ;) And if we're going to talk about old school writing outlines, some could say this is the "call to action" (Not something I thought about until RIGHT now. lol). I hope you liked the update!

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