Chapter 42
Conflicting Interests
(Darcy Renolds)
“The only good thing about the world collapsing in on itself was the fact that I didn’t have to go to school. Now it seems that everyone’s first fear is truly coming true, having to go back and finish high school, while trying to recover from the apocalypse.” James Rider, Darcy’s best friend and former crush stated.
Darcy clearly listed James as a former crush as he had his chance with her, but he never took the hints for what they were. For years Darcy waited patiently, slowly pushing away all other girls from James’ sphere of influence until it was just the two of them. That is when trouble came in the form of a long red-haired beauty that was just James’s type. The only problem was that after looking at her, Darcy realized two key things upon seeing her.
First, Darcy realized that if James did go for the red head, and he always went for the red head, it was sort of his thing. Dying upon the hill of dyed hair bimbos. That was why Darcy made sure to enact her sphere of dispersion again. Basically, draw attention to the girl who was clearly out of James’s league in the first place, call dibs, and make it so James knew that by going after her their friendship would be ruined.
It was a perfect plan.
With one maneuver, Darcy had made it so James could only look but not touch the clear object of his future infatuation. All Darcy had to do in this case was get close, make it look like there was a relationship between her and the new girl, then make it so that James would be forced to go to her for details. This way she had him anyway she wanted. If he finally came to his senses and realized that he had lost out, he would declare his love for her right there. Thus, forcing Darcy to choose between the new love that burned with unbridled intensity, and James. Which Darcy of course would have played up to make sure James realized how good of a catch Darcy was, and that he almost lost out on her.
There was also the alternate, which Darcy was also prepared for. The part where James loses his ever loving mind and asks Darcy to act as a go between with the new girl, which Darcy would instantly shoot down with contempt stating how could he ask her to make it so her girlfriend would go out with her best friend. Even explaining it would be enough to make James grovel at her feet, and hopefully lead him back to route number one, where he realizes what he has had in front of him the entire time.
This was all the plan that Darcy had concocted in her mind the first time she saw the tall beauty and made one critical assumption. Namely, Darcy had assumed that the girl was not intelligent, at least not as intelligent as her, and few could be. Yet, just seeing the new girl in action caused something to change within Darcy. The more she watched, the more she realized the new girl really had everything. The new girl was tall, beautiful, athletic, which of course only added to her beauty, but beyond all that, she insanely intelligent. All of these discoveries of course led Darcy to her second key item she had discovered.
Secondly, Darcy realized that she was now and truly infatuated with the new girl. Actually, now that her feelings had evolved from just being yet another person to slowly keep away from James’s sphere of influence, Darcy now started to realize that like James, she would now have to start referring to the new girl by her actual name.
Misha Tulley.
That was the name that Darcy scribbled into her background design for her school tablet.
“You put your girlfriend’s name on your school tablet’s background?” James asked, looking over Darcy’s shoulder in their morning class.
“Future girlfriend, but yes.” Darcy admitted. She had done similar things in the past, made the name of her current conquest to keep away from James readily apparent in her tablet.
“Well, looks like you moved a bit too late.” James said, a half-smile on his face as he delivered what he knew would be bad news.
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked, suddenly confused by the way this whole subject had gone.
“Rumor has it, that Rodger has been seen with your girl.” James shot back.
Heartbreak.
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“What? This can’t be? She hates him.” Darcy replied.
“Hates him? How do you know? You don’t even talk to her.” James shot back.
“I know because I’ve seen the way she looks at him. Whenever she sees him, she has that weird intensity that she only has when she is focused, like when she has the ball and is going to drive for the basket.” Darcy explained.
“You watch her practice?”
“Well, yeah.” Darcy began, but quickly realized how this might look, so she quickly changed tactics and tried to divert attention from the fact that what she was doing might be considered stalker-like behavior. “What, you don’t think women’s sports are worth watching? I’ll have you know…”
“Whoa there, I never said anything about women’s sports.” James began, then composing himself a bit, he continued, “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t think you actually cared about her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, normally when you claim a girl you just have a fake crush type thing going on, then invariably find something wrong about them that you explain in detail to me. Then we move on, this time, well, this time it’s different.”
With that Darcy realized that he accurately explained her master plan of Divide and Conquer down to a few short statements. The fact that he had noted this so easily spoke to the fact that at some level he must have been aware of her ultimate plans of just ruining any future prospect before they could begin. But this time, even James had noticed the deviation from script, the fact that Darcy despite her best efforts had fallen for the red-haired giant with smoldering intense green eyes and toned muscles that shown through, even through denim. For a moment, Darcy wondered if that was her problem all along, why James never took this ploy so seriously, as Darcy had always held back, she never fully committed to the new relationship, knowing that her heart had always belonged to James. That somehow James had always seemed to know this about her, but now that her true opinions had changed and there were no problems with Misha that Darcy could see, at least not on a superficial level, James had noticed that Darcy had finally moved on.
For a moment, Darcy paused, and realized that this was her chance. Pausing, she looked up and locked gazes with James who was now sitting next to her. Darcy even noticed how James’s eyes seemed to scan her body, noticing how his eyes even stayed on her chest area for longer than normal. In the past this would have been something that Darcy would have flaunted, even adjusting her posture slightly to accentuate the look, but now she felt nothing from the glance. In fact, after feeling the lingering effects of the gazes on her, Darcy felt somewhat disgusted by James, which only seemed to push him further into the so-not-boyfriend material category.
And like that, with that revelation that her long term infatuation with James Rider, hunk of the cyber geeks was well and truly over. Looking at him, she realized that she still wanted to be friends with the boy, but nothing more. Which again, only added yet more points to the strange amazonian goddess who managed to break his unwitting hold over her heart.
Seeing that James was lost in the conversation, first waiting for her to respond, then apparently stuck in a glance loop of her body, Darcy spoke up.
“Well this time I mean it, Misha Tulley will be mine.” Darcy stated, drawing James’s full attention back to her face.
“Well, you better move quickly. Not only is she apparently putting the moves on Rodger, but apparently this has caused animosity between her and Alishia’s faction.”
“Wasn’t Alishia with Jerome?”
“Yeah, but he died, remember?”
“Right, but he died what, last week? And she has already moved on?” Darcy tried to understand, these new details that James was providing.
“Yes, but apparently, she and Rodger had been cheating behind Jerome’s back the whole time. Now that Jerome is dead, those two have upped their game. Well, apparently Rodger’s game was always upped, as he got Alishia to cheat, and now he apparently has Misha going for him. It’s so hot.”
“You’re disgusting.” Darcy said, and meant it, feeling like she was just now seeing James for who he really was.
“What, if this was a girl getting two guys you would be all for it. Now that it is one guy getting the attention of two girls that is too much?” James quipped back.
“No, it’s not that…”
“Oh it get it,” James said, then paused as he realized just what he was about to say.
“What?” Darcy asked, suddenly confused by the sudden change on James’s face.
“I get it,” James began stating in a somewhat depressed tone, “it’s disgusting to you, because you actually like her, and she chose someone else. Someone who was already taken.”
With that James slumped his shoulders, and then decided to leave. A look of pain and sadness filled his face as he began to leave.
“Wait, what?” Darcy asked, trying to make sense of why James suddenly looked so lost.
Hearing that, James put on his fake smile, the one that only seemed to work on the left side of his face and said. “I understand what you are going through. Once you are done, I will be here to talk to you.”
Then just like that James left, while Darcy tried to understand the intricacies of a male mind and once again found that nothing made any sense.
Darcy paused, watching James go to his desk, pull out his books and prepare for class. Seeing him, Darcy too followed suit, but while she pretended to take notes, her mind was elsewhere trying to piece together everything.
First, Darcy needed to know a few things. Namely, why did everyone think, that Misha had feelings for Rodger, when clearly she despised the creatin. That much Darcy was a hundred percent certain of, that Misha Tulley hated Rodger. But if these rumors were true, then why would she get close to him? Did he have blackmail over her? Was that it? There was some sort of secret that he had?
Thinking on it, there was not much that was known about the girl, at least not by many fellow students. Fortunately, Darcy was enthusiastic about her searches, going out to find that Misha worked at the Rustbucket Garage with her grandfather. That despite the death of their grandmother the week before the solar flare that started the non-zombie apocalypse. Yes, that was it, the grandmother had passed away, Darcy remembered as she did not see the red-head for a day before she found out the news. Darcy had wanted to go to the funeral, but then the world collapsed and only now things were finally starting to get better.
Yes, this had something to do with the grandmother, of that Darcy was certain. Maybe Rodger had some blackmail material about the grandmother, maybe she had been on her way from a lover’s tryst, as the rumors said? Unfortunately, before she could go down this line of thinking, her thoughts were interrupted by the Teacher coming in.
“Hello class, and welcome back.”
Silence.
Hearing the silence, the teacher continued, “I know. Here it was my first apocalypse, I panicked just like most of you did, but I didn’t even get to see one zombie. How lame, am I right?”
Slight chuckles.
“Yeah, you gotta work with me a bit here. Or else this day will be exceptionally long…”
And so Darcy’s first day back at school began, this time it looked like the power would actually stay on for the whole day, unfortunately.