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Kim Possible Rides Again - Prologue Chapter 9

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- APRIL 2009 -

“Awh, Stacey this is fantastic!  Thank you!” Ron happily said as he continued to rip wrapping paper off of a black and gold colored box adorned with Japanese script.  “Um, what exactly is it?”

“Silly boy, cont you read the box?”  Stacey teased her boyfriend of exactly one year to the day.

“Not … really.  It’s kinda written in Japanese …”

“Oh … how aboot you turn the box around to the English side then, Ronny.”

Ron complied and spun the box around revealing the gift. “Sakura Samurai Knife Set. You got me knives?!”

“Not just knives, but the finest chef-grade knives that they had at Smarty Mart.”

“Was that wise?”

“Well, I would hope so, seeing as my loving boyfriend has aspirations to be a world-class chef one day.  I would like to think he knows his way around sharp object by now.”

“Well, you have a point. I haven’t had anything worthy of sutures since February.”

“Oh! And these aren’t merely just cooking knives, they’re the kind of knives that you can cut a tomato with as well as a car muffler.”  She bragged.

Ron smirked. “That’s great.  I’ll have to remember that next time I serve tomatoes with a side of convertible.”

“Hey-Ooooo! Yer just a regular comedian aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s always good to have a Plan-B.”

“Eh, don’t give up the day jerb.”

“I have to get the day job first,” he said with a sigh. “With this economy in the tank ...”

“Shhhh, let’s not talk about that,” Stacey intervened. “This is our night, no need to dampen it with problems we have no control over. Besides, you’re going into a profession that isn’t going oot of style anytime soon.  People gotta eat ‘cha know?”

“You have a point.”

“Of course I do,!”  she said with confidence.

“Well, thank you so much for the knife set Stace, these are great.  I guess it’s your turn now … eh?” Ron said making fun of her Canadianess.

“More?  I thought dinner was my present?”

“Nah, dinner was dinner.”

“Yeah, but, this is fantastic, ‘chef prepared’ beef stroganoff served via candlelight and an entire house to ourselves.”

“Eh, just another day in the life of Ron Stoppable, and um, I wouldn’t look too deep into the whole being alone in the house deal.  Hana had an ear infection so my parents and Rufus took her to the ER.  We were just lucky.”

“I see.”

“But hey, happy one year anniversary!”  Ron said as he handed her a gift bag he had hidden under the table.

“Still, you shouldn’t have,” Stacey replied as she reluctantly took the bag and began to rummage through it. Pulling out a dark green hockey jersey, she said, “Oh, Ron, this is awesome!”

“Glad you like it.  You’re always talking about how you miss going to Manitoba Moose hockey games back home.  So I thought this might give you a little taste of Winnipeg while you’re here,” Ron said referring to her hometown.

“Awh, you’re so sweet.  This must have cost a fortune though.”

“Well, truth be told I called in a favor with an old Canadian secret agent I met during that whole weather machine caper.  He owed me a solid after I saved Lake Superior.”

“Ah, well I feel better aboot it then. Thanks,” she said as she leaned in and gave him a kiss.

***

Ron and Stacey finished eating the anniversary meal he had prepared Then the two of them cleaned up after themselves and retreated upstairs to the confines of Ron’s bedroom.

“So this is the fabled ‘Man Cave’?”  Stacey asked, her disdain with the motif clearly written across her face.

“Yayup yup.  This is where your Ron spends his days learning to be a master chef.  My very own Fortress of Solitude.”

“Your fortress looks more like an attic.”

“Nah, it’s just got … character.”

Stacey raised a single eyebrow and pointed to the back wall. “You have a toilet seat hanging from a nail in a wall stud, and pictures that look like they’re from the Victorian Era are stacked in the corner,” she observed. “It’s an attic.”

Ron rubbed the back of his head nervously. “You call it an attic. I call it a work in progress.”

“Sure, so what is the progress with all of these boxes with “Halloween Decorations” written across them?  Going goth on me?” she asked with a wink.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I gave up my bedroom so my sister could have a nursery?”  

Stacey pretended to think about it for a few seconds and turned back to him smiling. “Yah, that sounds like something you’d do.”

“Good, because that’s … kinda what happened. I mean, this is fine for my needs. A little bare-boned, rustic look helps me concentrate on my studies.”

“Whatever, Thoreau.  Wow, look at all of these boxes, some of these look like they haven’t been opened in aboot thirty years,”  she said as she walked in among the stacks.

“Be careful walking back there, you never know what might be back there”

“Yeah, I think I just tripped over the Arc of the Covenant,”  she joked.

“Awh, and here’s a box that has ‘Ron’s Kindergarten Projects’ scribbled on it,”  she called out as Ron heard the sound of tape ripping.  “O, how cute you were.  We have a Stoppable family portrait made out of maccaroni, a Thanksgiving turkey made out of construction paper shaped like your widdle 5-year old hands, and awh …. here’s a paper on what you want to be when you grow up.”

“Lovely,” Ron said slightly embarrassed as he inspected his new cutlery.

“Wen I gro up, I wont to be a munky becoss they liv in tres and eet bananananas al day,” she read with a chuckle.

“Yeah, that dream died after my first few days at Camp Wannaweep,”  Ron said slightly disgusted of the thought of simians.  

“On the other hand you possess that funky blue monkey power, so I guess in a way you kinda got ta’ be a ‘munky’ after all.”

“Hmmm, never thought of it like that. Then again, I haven’t been able to get those Mystical Monkey powers to work since my high school graduation,” he said as he snapped his fingers in an attempt to make something happen.

“Speaking of high school,” Stacey continued as she opened up a box emblazoned with the letters “MHS” written in magic marker,  “check this oot.”

“Ah yes, that would be the ‘Stoppable Legacy’ box,”  Ron said proudly as joined her and began to open the container.

“Here is the jersey I wore when I played for the Middleton football team.  I played quarterback and running back.”

Stacey winked coyly. “Ooooo!  Sucks for you that I’m a hockey gal.”

“Well perhaps then my illustrious career as the greatest school mascot who ever lived would pique your interest,”  he said as he pulled out a picture of him as the Middleton Mad Dog along with a can of foam which he squirted in his girlfriend’s direction.  “Hey, and the mouth foam still works!”

“Totally,” she laughed wiping some of the foam from off her cheek.  

“You still sound unimpressed about my high school days.”

“Eh, you could probably say that. My little brother is the mascot of his high school. I’m used to excessive school spirit found in the form of giant humanoid animals.”

“Well I bet your little brother doesn’t have one of these,” Ron said as he pulled a crown, which read “Homecoming King 2006” on it, from the box and placed it on his head. “Behold my crowning achievement,”  he boasted.

“Ooooo!  Now we’re talking,” Stacey replied pretending to be mesmerized.  “How’d ya pull that one off?”

“Oh, you know. I was just the best at winning the hearts and minds of every guy and gal in Middleton High School.”

“That’s a lot of hearts and minds.  So, who was your queen?”

“A girl by the name of Bonnie Rockwaller,”  Ron grumbled. “Although, I always associate her with an asterisk because I’m pretty sure she rigged the voting.”

“Is that so?”

“She was always trying to seduce the stats guy, Ron Reiger. I’m pretty sure he may have added a few digits with every kiss she blew him the night of the Homecoming game.”

“Probably wasn’t the only thing she blew,” Stacey sarcastically quipped. “So, whatever happened to this Miss Rockwaller?”

“Not sure, we lost touch after our graduation … well, my graduation,” he scoffed.  “She came down with a case of senioritis and ended up in summer school.  After that, I’m not sure. Although, knowing that uber-rich boyfriend of hers she’s probably spending her days sitting poolside at some Mediterranean villa worrying about her tan lines.”

“No good deed goes unpunished eh?” Stacey said as she skimmed through a school newspaper.  “Is this her in this picture?  The one with the shifty eyes and the shit-eating grin?”

Ron took the paper from Stacey and checked out the photo in question.  Sure enough the picture was of Bonnie, donning her swan ballet dress she wore at a talent show.

“That would be her.  In all her glory.”

“Eh, glory might be stretching it. To me she looks like the very definition of shallow,” she said as she continued flipping through the newspaper. “Awh! Here’s a picture of Tara in mock trial. Wow, she hasn’t changed a bit!.”

“Yeah, She’s always been a sweetheart for as long as I have known her, and probably always will be.”

“Yah, I love her to death.  Logan’s a lucky guy.”

“That he is,” Ron concurred as he made his way through the boxes as Stacey continued exploring her boyfriend’s past.

“Hmmm, so Ronny, what part of your ‘legacy’ would this deal with?”  she snarked as she held up a small object over the pile.

He glanced through the darkness and quickly became awkward once he saw that the object she was holding was the small green pickle plush toy Kim had won for him on their first “date” during the Middleton Days Festival.  He had forgotten that he had stored it in that box and quickly grabbed it out of her hands.

“This, uh … this is nothing. Nothing to see here.”

“O really?  For being nothing it sure has you worked up,”  she observed.

“Yeah, well, you know how pickles make me, uh … uneasy.  They’ve always kinda creeped me out, you know?”

“No, not really,” she replied in confusion. “If they creep you out, why do you have one in your ‘Legacy Box?’”

“I, uh … maybe Hana snuck it in there.”

“Your three year old sister broke into your room and hid a stuffed pickle in with your high school junk?”

“Hey, you’ve seen her walk on the walls, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

“Riiiiight …” Stacey replied unconvinced. “I’m sure that is totally possible … possible?  Hmmm, this wouldn’t happen to be something that old girlfriend of yours, you know, the one who put you in a depression for five months, gave you would it?”

“What?  Kim? That? Nah! That’s so not her style,”  he said as he began to pace through the rows in search of another box to dispose of it.  “She was more of a clothing person when it came to gifts.”

“Oh, come on, Ron, I can smell the perfume scent on it from here.  Don’t act like pickle dolls just happen to smell like a Club Banana store.”

“Right … yeah, of course not,” he said as he found a purple colored box with “Mobile Skips” scribbled on it and slipped the doll inside of it and hastily made his way back to Stacey.  

“Ron.”

“Yes, dear?”

“You don’t have to pretend, around me, that Kim never existed. I know you two had a thing and that it fell apart and the result was a long, painful time for you. But now you’re with me.”

“I don’t.”

“I know you finally got over her and that you got rid of all of her stuff last spring.  You don’t need to keep pretending that I’m going to flip out at every little trace of her. So you missed a stuffed doll, big whoop.”

“Yeah … big whoop,” Ron repeated a little skittishly.

Soon after there was a large thud which came from the back side of the attic.  The two ran back to see what had caused it when they came across the box Ron had placed the pickle doll into lying on the floor, it’s contents scattered everywhere.  When Ron saw what had happened his face turned several shades whiter while Stacey’s face turned a few shades darker.

The scattered contents of the box just happened to be the same stuff Ron had claimed to have thrown out during his annual spring clean.   Among the pile were grappling guns, newspaper clippings, a couple pairs of cargo pants and several photo albums.  And on top of the pile laying on its side was the little green pickle doll.

“So, Ron, is packing up the memories of a failed relationship and storing it in the far corner of your bedroom what you meant by ‘throwing stuff oot?’”  Stacey asked visibly peeved.

“I can explain, Stace …”

“Explain what?  That you lied to me about getting rid of this stuff?”  She asked as she flipped through a photo album containing pictures of Ron and Kim in Paris.  

“I, I didn’t lie …”

“You said you threw this stuff oot last spring, and yet here it is on your attic … err, bedroom floor.”

“Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely accurate in my disposal of that stuff.  But I boxed it up and put it …”

“You boxed it up and put it in your room. What it looks like to me, Ron, is that you kept it here so whenever you started missing your high school sweetheart you could conveniently pull it off the shelf and start reminiscing about the good ol’ days. How is that not lying exactly?”

“No, that’s not the case at all. I wasn’t trying to be secret about it or anything, really.”

“Not trying to be secret?  Do you not think that I can figure out that Mobile Skips is an anagram for Kim Possible?  You don’t think doing that and hiding this in plain sight isn’t remotely sneaky to you?”

“Look, Stacey, I know this looks like I’m harboring feelings for an old girlfriend.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like!”

“But, look at it from my side.  These aren’t just old memories of KP, these are memories of my life too!  The missions I went on, the people I saved, and the evil plots I foiled, those were as much my past as they were hers!”

With a heavy sigh, Stacey pulled a handful of items from the box and proceeded to go through them.

“Humans Magazine, with Kim on the cover,” Stacey said as she opened the magazine and proceeded to skim the article, “and no mention of you anywhere.”  She chucked it back into the box and picked up a newspaper clipping. “‘Teen Heroine Halts Catastrophic Snow Storm’,  yet again, no mention of you, ‘Kim Possible Teams Up With Team Go to take down Aviarius,’  still nothing of you in any of these things,” she finished and threw them all back into the box.

“Well, in my defense, I had a tendency to be forgotten a lot by people.  Especially by, um … everyone.”  

“Valentine Possibilities - An Erotic Fanfic!”  she shouted picking up a stack of stapled papers.

“Okay, um, totally forgot about that one,” Ron said embarrassed.

“Riiight. Oh wait, here’s one of you!”  Stacey said as she found a roll of pictures taken out of a photo kiosk of he and Kim making faces.  “And another!”  pulling out a pic of the two of them at their junior prom. “Oh, and which one of your memories is this?”  she asked as she showed a picture of Ron and Kim at the beach sharing a jetski. “The, kind that you miss having?”

Ron shrugged.

Stacey closed her eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to keep from exploding.

“Ron, you do know that you’re not the only person I’ve ever dated right?”

“Yes.”

“Now, it might come as a surprise to you, but I had a lot of my own fun memories with those other boyfriends.  Great memories that I would have loved to have held onto for the rest of my life.”

“So, why don’t you?”

“Because, Ron, they’re tainted by the other people they were shared with.  A summer in Banff spent with a guy who cheated on me, a freshman year full of college firsts wasted with a guy who decided that after 7 months he needed to focus more on a music career than a relationship,” Stacey said before pointing at the pile of stuff on the floor. “A career as a crimefighter alongside a girlfriend who decided that she had to ‘find herself’ at the cost of her reputation and the embarrassment of her friends and family.”

“That’s not how it went down Stacey.”

“It’s exactly how it went down. Tara told me all aboot it, and how she basically blamed you for all of her problems and then once she was free of you she goes off partying like some sorority girl with no regard for herself or others.”

“…”

“And like my old boyfriends, and your old girlfriend, they’re in the past. We don’t need to cling to tainted memories when we can make our own new ones without the drama.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am.  So, lets get this night back on track and turn over a new leaf, eh?”

“Sure.”

“Good.  Now, I’ll just box this junk back up and toss it oot in the trash bin downstairs.”

Stacey got down on her knees and began to pick up the various albums, pictures and items and began to pack them back into the box as Ron sulked.  She got everything packed and stood back up with the box and began to head towards the stairs until she was obstructed by Ron.

She scowled. “What?”

“I can’t let you do this,”  Ron managed to get out.

“You’re right.  It would be more therapeutic if you did it,”  Stacey suggested as she handed Ron the box.

Ron stood deep in thought with the box in his hands as his girlfriend stood across from him, arms crossed and toe tapping waiting for him to make his way downstairs.  Ron thought of the contents inside the box, contents which had come to define his life since the 7th grade and all of the memories and experiences he had that his girlfriend wanted him to throw out with this week’s garbage.  Ron took a deep breath and slid the box back on top of the stack.

“I ... I’m sorry. I just can’t do it,” he sobbed.

“Fine,”  Stacey replied, as she walked past him and headed towards the steps again.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving, going back up to school,” she replied with tears of anger in her eyes.  “This relationship can’t move forward if you’re not willing to step oot of the past.  And it’s obvious you’re not willing to do that, not even after the year we’ve had together.”

“Stace, wait.”

“Don’t, Stace, me! Call me when you decide to get out of high school. Oh, and Happy Anniversary!”

With that, Stacey trudged down the stairs and out the front door as she slammed it so hard behind her that it slanted pictures in the hallway.  Ron meanwhile reopened the box, took a photo album out and moped back to his deck chair as the sound of squealing tires rang through the air.  He knew he had just massively messed up the best thing in his life but still could not bring himself to throw his past out.  He opened the album to the last couple of pages which contained photos of Moving Day at Oregon.  He glanced at the photos, some showed the two together, others had a few group shots with her and her parents and brothers, his favorite by far was a picture showing Kim beaming with excitement and joy as she began her new adventure in college, as she posed candidly outside of the Me-Haul her parents had rented donning a baseball cap and sunglasses while carrying out the ceremonial first box of belongings.  It was a medium-sized box, slightly purple in hue and covered in star stickers...the same purple colored, star sticker-ladened box which now sat in Ron’s room atop the storage pile.

“*Sigh* Why do you still haunt me KP?” he muttered as he closed the photo album. “Why can’t I just let you go?”

--------------------------

A FEW HOURS LATER -

The doorbell rang and Ron slowly moped down from his room and opened it to find a very concerned-looking Tara on the other side.

“Oh, Ron, I’m so sorry,”  she said as she gave her friend a big sympathy hug. “I came over as soon as I got your text.”

“Thanks, Tara, I uh … I think I messed up big time.”


“I got that from your message. So you’re telling me Stacey dumped you over a pickle doll?”  Tara asked as the two walked into the living room.

“Well, not technically the actual pickle doll itself, but more along the lines of the bigger meaning of what the doll represented.”

“You mean she found the box you had in your room that was filled with stuff of you and Kim?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Ron,”  she sighed with a facepalm, “didn’t I tell you back when we first started this whole ‘Taming of the Shrew’ bit that you needed to get rid of that stuff?  You know, months ago?”

“Yeah, you did.  But I just couldn’t throw out all of those memories like they were one of Hana’s diapers,” he said defending his actions.  “Those things helped define who I was through high school.”

“We’re not in high school anymore, bud,” Tara said as she paced around the large rug in front of the couch. “I know you have a lot of memories, many of which happen to involve Kim, but you have to understand that girlfriends aren’t going to see it that way, but more like a mausoleum to dead relationships.”

“I can explain it to them though.”

“How many incidents can you think of where the words ‘let me explain’ have been uttered and resulted in something good?”

“Hmmm, I remember Drakken uttering them to Shego a few times. Yeah, I got nothing.”

“I mean, what if we were dating and you came across a shoebox I kept in my room full of Josh Mankey stuff?”

“I’d understand,” Ron said smugly.

“Ron ...” Tara groaned, slightly irritated.

“Okay, okay, I get your point.”

“Do you though?”

“Yeah, according to you and Stacey, if I have a relationship which defined an era of my life and that relationship is no longer valid, then I should delete said era from existence and pretend that it never even happened,”  he huffed with his arms crossed.

“No, what I am telling you is that … ugh!  How about we just go upstairs?” Tara suggested as she threw her hands up in the air.

Ron obliged and took her up into his room.

“Wow, so, this is your room?”

“Eh, it’s the attic,” Ron moped, warding off a sense of deja vu.

“If you say so, I was trying to be nice.” She winked and headed into the pile of boxes.  “I’m going to assume this purple box is the culprit?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, *ugh* go meet me over at the *ugh* bed.  I’ll be there a sec,” she said as she lifted some boxes.  Soon she waddled out from the shadows of the attic, carrying both the purple box with “Mobile Skips” scribbled on the side as well as the box with the large “M” on it.  She instructed Ron to scoot to the head of the bed as she placed the boxes next to him.  Once she dusted off the dirt from her Mickey Mouse ringer and took off her tennis shoes she joined him by sitting at the foot of the bed.

“So what’s the plan Tara?” Ron asked as he removed a cobweb from his friend’s hair.

“I am under the assumption that this box with the M on it is full of things from high school, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And I already know that this lovely purple box is full of Kim stuff.”

“Uh huh.”

“So what we are going to do is something we should have done back in the spring.  We’re going to merge these boxes.”

“And how are we going to do that exactly?”

“Well, you said that this box defined who you were through high school,” she said pointing to the purple box.  “Yet, you also have a high school box.  So, what we are going to do, is take the contents of this box from your crime fighting days, and separate from it items that define what you and Kim did together as a team, and those items that are just related to what you and Kim did as a couple.  Once we determine what is what, we will add the items defining you as a team to the high school box.”

“And the remaining items?”  Ron asked.

“We get rid of them,” she bluntly replied.

“Oh. okay.”

“Ron, this box is a giant purple scab on your life. Every time it gets opened, you are going to reopen the wound it’s attached to and it’s going to do nothing for you but give you pain.  It’ll be painful if you do it yourself, and it will be really painful if you open it around someone else.  And believe me, Stacey isn’t an exception to the rules.”

Ron looked at Tara with a glare of uncertainty at the plan.  Tara leaned across the boxes and grabbed his hands and gently caressed them in hers.

“Look, I know this appears like I’m asking a lot of you, but trust me on this. You’ll be the better for it.  And besides,” she said while gazing at him with her bright assuring blue eyes, “you won’t have to do this alone.”

After a moment of silence shared between the two, Ron eventually let out a deep breath and gave Tara a nod of consent.  Tara flashed a brief smile and gave a friendly squeeze of his hand before sitting up and commencing with the purge. “Okay,”  she started as she took the lids off the boxes and then proceeded to empty the contents of the purple box into a large pile on the bed, “let’s begin.”

“First off, we have a 2007 May issue of Humans magazine, featuring Kim on the cover.”

“Umm ...”

“Ron!”

“Am I mentioned in the article?”

“Would you consider a John Topple as an adequate mention of your likeness?”  Tara asked noting an obvious typo in the publication.

“I guess not.”

“Are you sure?” she asked again wanting him to reaffirm his opinion.

Yes. Toss it,” he finally answered.

“Good.”  And with that Tara leaned over the purple box and then commenced to drop the magazine into it.

“See?  You can do this!  I know it seems hard, but the first step is always the toughest.”

“I suppose you’re right, again,” he conceded.

“Of course I am.  Now, back to the business at hand,” she said as she pulled out a stack of papers from the pile that used to be in the purple box.

“Here’s a group picture of the yearbook staff, including one Kim Possible and zero Ron Stoppables.  Toss or save?”

“Toss.”

“Okay, here’s a picture of you and Kim during a football game.”

“Hmm, that would be from my final game in my football career, remind me if any other cheerleaders are in it.”

“It’s got Hope and Crystal in it.”

“Okay, lets keep it.”

“Alright, into the ‘Legacy Box’ you go. Next up is a lovely photo of you and Kim in front of a pet store.”

“Let’s keep that.  We were both asked to be the ribbon cutters of Benny’s Pet Kingdom after we helped him with a hedgehog problem. That was a good day.”

“Not gonna ask, but okay.  Let’s see, oh this is all stapled together.  Valenti-”

“TOSS IT!”

“Huh?”

“Toss it! Please. Now.”

“Whokay,” she replied somewhat surprised in his eagerness.

Tara and Ron spent the next forty five minutes going through the box contents, weeding out what he wanted to keep and what he wanted gone.  He would struggle with some items, but Tara helped him along and he eventually would agree to part with them.  When they were through, only a handful of items were spared and placed within the high school box.  The rest returned to their purple box, destined to the Middleton Landfill.  

“Well, I guess that’s it,”  Tara said as she placed the lids back and began to seal them with a fresh laying of packing tape.  “How does it feel?”

“Sad, I think,” Ron answered somewhat uncertain.  “I don’t really know how I feel.”

“You feel somber, and it’s okay to be. It has a tendency to happen when you’re letting go of something that’s been close to you for so long.  But believe me when I tell you,” she said as she scooted next to him on the bed and put her hand on his leg, “you’ll be better for it in time.”
The blonde then stood up, put her shoes back on and turned to her friend and held her hand out to him, “So how about we take this box to the garage and complete the process?”  

Ron nodded in agreement as he took her hand and lifted himself off the bed.  Tara sealed the top of the box shut with a roll of tape she found as he held it and then the duo proceeded to walk downstairs to the garage.  Once they reached the tall, green trash can, Tara did the honors and opened the lid, adding a bit of flair to it as if she was a presenting girl on a game show.

“It’s time to move on,”  she said with poise and a raised, flamboyant arm.

He hesitated a moment, his thoughts once again rushing back to who the contents of the box represented.  But quickly shook them off and refocused on the task at hand.  He walked almost ceremoniously to the trash can and held the box above the opening, and then quickly removing his hands and watching as the purple box disappeared into the receptacle and then hearing the unforgiving “thud” it made as it hit the bottom.  Ron stepped back and took a breath as Tara shut the lid.

“You did it!”  she commended proudly as she ran over to her friend and embraced him in a deep hug. “I’m so proud of you!”

“That seemed a lot easier than what I thought it would be,” he confessed as he wrapped his arms around his friend and hugged her back..  “I think I’m starting to feel a little better already.”

“Terrific!” she said as she released the hug and turned to her friend’s side as they looked back at the closed trash can. “We really threw a lot of things of hers out didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did,” Ron said in a tone that started to sound somewhat relieved.

The two turned and started heading back into the house when they felt a tug at their arms, at the same time, they both looked down and saw that they were holding hands before gasping and quickly pulling apart.

“So … um … I need to go now,” Tara spoke as she awkwardly snuck her hand into a pocket of her khakis. “I have kind of a long drive back to school ahead of me tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sounds good. I, uh, need to start cleaning up from dinner anyways,” he responded, sliding his hands into his pant pockets as well and showing his friend to the front door and walking her out to her car.  Once she got in and turned it on, she rolled the window down to talk to her friend.

“Oh, I almost forgot, Logan is coming home from his abroad studies in three weeks.  And I’m going to be throwing a welcome home party, that will double as an end of the school year party at my dad’s house to celebrate.  And I’d love for you to be there, either with a plus one or stag.”

“Hmm, that’s the week after my finals, yeah I’ll be there,” he confirmed.  

“Great!” Tara said as she began to roll up her window. “See you then!”

“Oh, hey Tara,”  he continued, leaning into the car window.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering ...”

“About what?”

“Well, about us … errrr … uh, I mean, do you want us, as in me, to help out with any of the party plans?  I’ll be happy to help out, seeing as I’m local and all.”

“Ron, that is so sweet of you.  But, I already asked Stacey to help me out with some of the planning, and I think after tonight it might make things a little awkward, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand,” he replied underwhelmed.

“But,” she added, “if you wanted to make up some of your lovely chef-grade pastries that I have heard rumors about for the party, I won’t stop you.”  She gave him a wink and a smirk. “I gotta go now bud.”

And with that Ron watched his friend drive off and disappear out of view over the hill.  This was starting to become a common sendoff for the two. As he stood there in the road, he turned his gaze down to his hand and thinking about the Freudian touch he and Tara had just shared. To satisfy his own curiosity, or maybe due to the roller coaster of emotions that had taken place earlier in the day, he had wanted to ask her the question which had bothered him for years: would she have gone out with him if he had asked.  However, as he had chalked up enough courage to try to ask her, he thought of what adverse effects asking such a question would do to the friendship the two shared and quickly changed it to a benign inquiry.  He knew she loved Logan unconditionally and that all that would come of asking would be a bout of awkwardness, and possibly even cause irreparable damage to their relationship. He would have to get over his past relationships and find someone else.


-END-
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Pizzaronny's avatar

Kim and Ron will always be together.