Hello my lovely readers. Sorry for the delay. Been busy the last few days with a lot of things- homework, picking classes for next semester, class in general, soccer... you get the picture.
Anyhow, I got this chapter mostly done last night. I came home from my game and I was fueled by anger so I got a lot written for once. This chapter was a little longer than I intended it to be, but due to some outside influences (they know who they are) this chapter gained a few new elements. Plus, when I get the sudden urge to watch a movie, it usually means there's a reason for it. Days ago, I got a particular song stuck in my head from said movie, and it didn't occur to me until last night but it fit perfectly. So, that explains the somewhat randomness in it. lol
Hopefully there will be more to follow soon, but with me getting my teeth looked at tomorrow for impending surgery, I'm not quite sure how much time I'll get in the next few weeks with that, the holidays, and finals all coming at about the same time. So please be patient in the weeks to follow. =)
Enough of my rambling. I now present chapter 11 for your enjoyment. =)
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Diana stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning the few dishes that were there. She figured it would be a great idea to get them all cleaned before her friends showed up. Admittedly, she knew that there would just be more in the course of an hour, but for the sake of having less to do, she washed them now. Diana had four of her best friends coming over, plus Marisa would be home soon. She wondered which of them would show up first, but honestly she wasn't even sure she wanted company right then. Her mind was still racing from her dinner with Artemis.
Nothing would've pleased her more than to have never left the car, to be sitting in his presence still. It was truly an odd feeling; by all means she should've still been crying her eyes out about what had happened to her, yet here she was completely enjoying the presence of another guy. Diana for once found herself to be quite baffled as to what was going on with her. She was nearly certain what was going on was not normal. She took a deep breath, setting the last dish into the drain just in time to hear the back door shut. She glanced over her left shoulder to see her sister waltz into the house, humming some song randomly to herself.
"Someone is in a good mood," Diana huffed, turning with her arms crossed to face Marisa, a smirk very apparent on her face.
Marisa stopped twirling in her tracks. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I take it your date went well?" Diana inquired.
Marisa nodded enthusiastically. "Of course it went well."
Diana took a seat at the kitchen table, awaiting Marisa to begin her typical 'after-date' rant. Diana was hoping her sister was going to forget about her dinner with Artemis, and just ramble on about how her date went. Marisa took a seat across from her, and rested her head in her hands dreamily. Diana knew her sister well; she had fallen hard for this boy, whoever he may be. Diana shook her head; she needed to figure out who this guy was, and fast.
"Care to tell me about him?" she raised an eyebrow.
"You know him; you had a class with him last semester," Marisa went on.
Diana rolled her eyes. "Well that could've been anyone, Risa. We only have about 700 guys in our school, and I probably had class with about a 100 of them. So humor me. Which of them is it?"
Diana watched as her sister's face turned a deep red, something she hadn't seen before. Diana had a feeling that there was so much more to this situation than what Marisa had been telling her. "It's Justin," Marisa said quietly.
Part of Diana wanted to laugh, but her better half kicked in. Justin was one of her best friends; they had been friends for a little over a year now, although she was honestly reluctant to it at first. When they had first met, Justin annoyed the hell out of Diana, mostly due to his ill-fated attempts to hit on her. However, one day they got stuck as lab partners and they rest was, as they say, history. Justin was a likeable guy- humorous, smart, not exactly the most popular or the hottest, but a good guy none the less. Diana knew if she could trust anyone with her little sister, it was Justin.
"And why didn't one of you tell me sooner?" she asked.
"We thought you might be opposed to it a bit," Marisa admitted. "We thought you might flip out or something. You can be a little crazy about things sometimes, so we thought we would wait to tell you until later."
Touché, Diana thought silently before speaking out loud again. "I'm fine with it, Marisa. Like truly. I would much rather you be with him than someone else I don't happen to know all about. I just wish one of you had said something about it beforehand. So where did you two go?"
"Just to dinner," Marisa shrugged it off, a smile still apparent on her face. "And I went to Wal-Mart because I remembered mom asked me to pick up some eyeliner since I broke hers the other day."
Diana nodded nonchalantly, mentally recalling that fact. "Sounds innocent enough."
"But enough about my date," Marisa stated. "How did your dinner go? And who was it with?"
Diana glanced away from her sister, really wishing that it hadn't been brought up. "It was... alright," she answered quietly. Right away she mentally slapped herself; her sister was going to see right through it.
"I call shenanigans. Tell me the truth, Di," Marisa said. And then she pulled her trump card. "C'mon. I just told you I went on a date with your best friend. I'm sure nothing you tell me will top that."
"I could tell you a lot of things that would top that, but for the sake of not arguing, I'll tell you the truth," Diana sighed. She opened her mouth to say something but she was cut off by the door shutting again. She craned her neck around Marisa to see who had come into the house. Sure enough the first of her friends had arrived. Diana was shocked to see that Kat had been the first to arrive, seeing as she had come all the way from Lapeer, a journey of at least thirty minutes.
"Well hello there," Kat greeted, setting her bag down on the floor next to the fridge. She took the seat between Diana and Marisa, pushing a strand of her crazily curly brown hair from her face. "So what are we discussing now? I can tell something happened."
Marisa took the lead, in an attempt to get Kat on her side. "Well, I just told Diana that I went on a date with her best friend, and for some reason, she thinks that she can beat around the bush about this mystery dinner she went on."
"If I hadn't already known that Brent was gone, I would be a bit concerned," Kat replied before turning to Diana with a huge smile on her face. "So what happened, chica?"
"It was just a dinner. I mean... Red Lobster isn't that special really," Diana half answered. But it had been special, at least to her. The best question was rather one of why. Was she truly enjoying Artemis' company, or was she merely on the rebound? Diana had never had a 'rebound' guy before, but then again, she hadn't truly done a lot of dating, and almost all of her boyfriends had been spaced about a year apart from each other. How would she know if that's what's going on? After all, Artemis was different than the rest of them by a long shot; who's to say that she had only thought she had experienced true love in the first place?
"Hellooooo? Earth to Diana!" Kat snapped her fingers in front of her friend's face, trying to get her attention. "Who did you go with?"
Diana bit her tongue for a moment, silently praying for another distraction. She knew she was going to have to repeat the story several times before the night was over if she said it now. "Why don't I wait to tell you when everyone else gets here? That way I don't have to tell the same story numerous times. I would hate to bore the two of you to death with it."
Marisa rolled her eyes. "You're using delaying tactics, and just to spare me from hearing it as you say 'numerous' more times, we can wait for everyone else. Whenever they get here."
Diana was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but once again the door opened, this time allowing all three of her remaining guests to stroll in conveniently at the same time. Diana would be sure to yell at them all later for their incompetence, but for now that would have to wait.
"Let's get this party started!" Serena hollered, as she pushed past the table and into Diana's room where she tossed her bag onto the bed.
Both Constance and Alexandra sat their bags on the countertop, leaning against it in the process. "I wouldn't be so sure about starting the party yet," Alexandra pointed out. "It would seem like we're interrupting a discussion."
"Oh no you're not," Marisa encouraged. "In fact, we were waiting for you three to get here so Diana could inform us about who took her to dinner."
"Great timing, by the way guys. Thanks a lot," Diana hissed.
Almost simultaneously the three girls gasped. "You're already seeing someone else?" Serena questioned, coming back into the kitchen area. "Moving on a bit quickly, aren't you?"
Diana rolled her eyes. "It wasn't a date. We just went to dinner. It was nothing more than that." She paused for a moment before adding in almost a whisper as she glanced down at the table, "That's all it will ever be."
"You seem disappointed by that," Constance pointed out, jumping up onto the counter. "Why? You're young, you're single... why not live a little bit?"
Diana didn't speak for a few moments. "You would know what I meant if you knew how simply amazing this guy is... I just wished he was as interested in me as I was in him."
"Would you just tell me who it is?!" Marisa was growing impatient.
Diana didn't hesitate. "It's Artemis, okay?"
"I knew it!" Marisa celebrated, jumping up from her seat for a moment, only to sit back down again.
"You mean the guy from the museum?" Serena inquired. "Why the hell have you been hanging out with him? He's kind of boring."
"Maybe to you, but I find him to be quite fascinating," Diana defended him. "He's not like the guys around here. He's different, and he can actually keep up with me in a conversation, unlike every other guy I've had the misfortune of dealing with. He's actually quite charming when you get to know him better."
"Who's Artemis?" Kat questioned. Diana had forgotten that she hadn't exactly told her long-distance friend about the newest addition to her friends. For some reason it had slipped her mind when she had asked Kat to come over.
"He's this Irish guy I met a couple days ago at the museum," Diana briefly explained. "He's the one who was here for me when Brent ended everything, and he's a really sweet and amazing guy, whether or not he likes to admit it." She sighed. "But... he's far more intellectual than us all combined and I don't think he's quite as interested as I am. Though he did say something that was rather peculiar when he dropped me off..."
That caught her friends' attentions. "What did he say?" Alexandra inquired, raising an eyebrow.
Diana felt herself blush slightly at the thought of what Artemis said to her. A small smile appeared on her face as she told her friends the exact words he spoke to her merely an hour ago, "You look exquisite tonight." A chorus of "awe" rang through the room, causing Diana to only redden further. She was waiting for the remarks to start flowing in any moment afterwards.
"What do you have to worry about? It sounds like you've hooked him," Constance noticed. "I mean seriously... how many of us get called 'exquisite' these days?"
"Remember what I said the other day? I take that back," Marisa added. "You love him."
Diana needed to shoot that idea down right away. "I most certainly do not; I love chocolate, hockey, and chemistry. I certainly don't love Artemis Fowl."
But even as she said that, Diana doubted herself. If she didn't have feelings for Artemis, then what made her feel butterflies anytime he was around? What made her blush when he said she looked exquisite? What made her upset when the idea of him being with someone else crossed her mind? But had she actually known him long enough to fall for him? They hadn't known each other a week yet, but everything about him made her head spin.
"You're a terrible liar, Diana," Serena countered. "The way you talk about him says it all. You never talked about Brent like you do Artemis. You smile at the mere mention of the boy's name, for goodness sake. Fess up, Diana. You do fancy him."
Diana didn't say anything in response to her friend. Instead, she removed herself from the table, and went over to her room. She snatched her notebook off of her dresser and made her way back towards the living room. "I think it's writing time," she announced. The one thing all of her friends seemed to have in common was that they all were aspiring authors. Diana had no idea how she had gotten so lucky in that regard.
Her friends followed her, each with their own notebooks and pens in hand. The group had squeezed themselves on the couches and floor in the living room, all of them getting comfortable for being there for several hours. As custom, a movie was popped into the aging VCR, and was mostly just there for background noise. Diana was pleasantly surprised to see one of her favorite childhood movies playing on the large TV screen. For whatever reason, she had always loved Disney's Hercules; she assumed it was due to the over-whelming connection she felt to the character Meg. Not only did they look similar, they acted it too.
Diana shook the feeling from her mind as she began focusing on writing her Harry Potter fan fiction. She needed to put all of her energy into this chapter; it was to be a big one in terms of the development of the main conflict. As she had reached the second or third page of writing, her thoughts were directed back to the movie again. It was one of her favorite parts of the movie, though she had never understood why...
"... I thought my heart had learned its lesson..."
Well that was a valid point. Diana was nearly positive that over the years she had learned men were not worth the aggravation they caused her. All of them came, stayed for a little while, and left, only to leave her hanging. Not to mention usually in tears. The girl was admittedly sick of it, especially when two of her best friends seemed to parade their supposedly perfect relationships around. She had already learned love wasn't fair, and she didn't want to have to learn it again.
"... my head is screaming 'get a grip girl, unless you're dying to cry your heart out'..."
Yet again, another well-proven point. Diana was not one to show her emotions, yet as of recent she had been showing her grief more and more. She hated doing it, and she certainly hated crying more than anything. Right now, she couldn't understand why but she was afraid she was going to be finding herself doing it again before too long. But why? The drama Brent had caused her daily life was gone. She had nothing more to worry about. Surely not all guys were like him.
"... This scene won't play; I won't say I'm in love..."
Diana rolled her eyes. Her friends were certainly persistent about her being in love with Artemis. How would they know if she loved him? They weren't in her head; they didn't know what existed between them. Hardly any of them had seen them interact with each other. Just because he had for all intents and purposes called her beautiful did not mean she had an ice cube's chance in hell with him. She certainly wasn't going to call it love, at least not yet. There was so much uncertainty behind it, she didn't want to admit something so substantial and be wrong about it. Besides, what were the chances that a guy like him would actually reciprocate the feelings she had for him?
But then Diana remembered how he made her felt, how he made her feel like she mattered. She remembered how he smiled, how he spoke in his accent. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shake the thoughts, but when his face appeared in her subconscious, she abruptly opened her eyes. She couldn't love him, could she? They had just met, there were so many differences between them, and not to mention she knew he was leaving for good in just over a week. She couldn't allow herself to become so attached to someone who was just going to leave. But it was Artemis Fowl. He was smart, humorous, gentlemanly, adorable... Diana couldn't help herself but to be attracted to him. Maybe it was possible that she had fallen in love with him this quickly. Diana glanced at her friends; there was no way she could admit it to them, at least not now. And she certainly couldn't admit it to Artemis himself. As the song came dwindling to an end, Diana couldn't agree more with the words Meg was singing...
"... At least out loud, I won't say I'm in love..."