<<Prev|First|
This whole thing has been one big meh. I like romance, writing it, but this had been uninspired, unoriginal drivel. So I ended it. Hopefully ItSotV will be good. I know it will, though I'm not a huge fantasy guy, I have tons of ideas for it.

Read Five A first please! Otherwise nothing makes sense!

Similarities between characters and events in this story and real people and events are purely coincidental.

Edited

Ah, fuck it I had fun writing this.

---

Leanna awoke feeling absolutely miserable.

It was the day Mark was supposed to go to the charity fair with Jill. She took out her phone and cradled it as she checked her messages. Only one. It was from Mark, and she had yet to respond to it. Every time she looked it over, she wished she had misunderstood, or misread the message. She cursed the universe for taking someone else from her. She’d never been in love before, never had time for it. And now that she’d felt its exquisite burn, he was being taken away from her by some random girl named Jill who she had only met once. She opened the message again.

i said yes of course XD-
were going to the charity fair.-

Leanna sadly smiled at the terrible English Mark texted with. It was adorable. She threw her phone into the bed and curled up into a ball around one of her pillows. She thrashed her tail around in frustration, then rolled off the bed and sprawled on the floor. “Screw you, fate!”
Fate didn’t respond to every heartbroken girl in the world, and it ignored her exclamation. There was a soft tap on the door. “Leanna? Breakfast is getting cold.”
“Go away!”
Robert didn’t respond, but something was pushed under the door. She crawled over and picked it up. It was her morning pills. Painkillers, mostly. She gulped them down dry and returned to her bed. The charity fair would begin in an hour, and Mark and Jill would be holding paws and sharing cotton candy…
She sprang up and rummaged through her closet. She pulled out the least conspicuous clothes she could, threw them on quickly and ran out her door. “Leanna? Going out- Hey! Your ear!”
She didn’t hear him. She dashed out the door and down the stairs. She ran as fast she could down the street, getting a few looks because of her stub of an ear, and jammed her paw in the door of the bus, which was just closing. She took out her wallet and swiped her bus pass, getting a disapproving shake of the head from the bus driver. She sat down in the front, wondering what she was doing. Was she going to run up and separate them? There was nothing she could do besides watch.

~~~

Leanna arrived at the fair very early. Not many people were around, only a few trying out some of the rides. The fair was huge. Leanna had only been to one before, and it had one or two rides and a couple of stalls. This one had a small roller coaster, a good collection of small kiddie rides, a tall Ferris wheel, and a few dozen stalls with food or games. She paid the entrance fee (Which was quite expensive, as it gave her access to all rides for free, excluding games and food) and walked around, looking up in wonder at the daunting size of everything going on. She strolled around and took in the sight, keeping an eye out for Mark, though she doubted he would be there yet. He was probably having breakfast with Jill…
She shook the thought from her brain and climbed on the teacup ride. She hardly felt the spinning, but she found it fun none the less. Though, somehow it didn’t matter when she got off the ride. The fair still looked grey and unattractive, people milling about and buying things, couples laughing to each other, children laughing or crying. One such child wandered up to her and looked up into her face, sucking his thumb. She looked down. He was a wolf, and he backed up slightly when he saw her scars. “Hh… D’you know mommy?”
“What?”
“Mommy!”
She glanced around, not seeing any wolves in the vicinity. “I don’t know.”
The child decided Leanna knew where his mother was, and he grabbed onto her leg. “Fosk! Go mommy!”
The child looked hilarious, but Leanna didn’t laugh. “Go away, I don’t know where your mother is.”
A woman ran up and pulled the child off Leanna’s leg. “I’m sorry, Miss! … Um… I hope he didn’t bother you too much.”
Leanna tried to conceal her scars the best she could, but it was too late. “No… It’s fine. He’s… uh… cute.”
“Thank you. Good day.”
They walked off, the wolf child now clinging to the mother’s leg. She sighed, and walked around some more.

~~~

Leanna listened to the excited screams of the roller coaster riders as they thrashed about in their wooden coffin. She couldn’t imagine herself on one of those things. All it would do was force sounds out of her. She walked around a giant potted bush and caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Mark. She pressed herself to the bush and watched, completely frozen and unable to think. He was holding Jill’s paw, and they were sharing… ice cream. Each laugh was hard to hear, and by the time they had climbed aboard the merry-go-round, Leanna was sitting dejectedly on the ground. She lost. And to the winner, goes the spoils. Jill was more attractive, sociable and easygoing than she, a better choice for a mate. She watched them ride around in the carriage, and she turned away, walking towards the exit. A whisper in her ear made her stop. “See?”
“Go away.”
“See? See? See?”
“Stop it!”
She ran into a shed, full of tools and rakes, clutching her ears. “See? See? See? See? See?”
“No!”
Her side began to ache, the voice growing louder. “See?!”
Leanna sat down and started breathing deeply, trying to calm her hallucination. Mark was still her friend. She could still be with him. After a good chunk of time spent breathing, the voice stopped, and the pain subsided. She knew she could not live in peace unless she told him everything.

~~~

Leanna climbed onto the Ferris wheel, into the cart right behind Mark and Jill. Their backs were to her, and they couldn’t see her from where she was. She could see them. She watched them talking, then Mark fiddled with his paws and said something. Jill looked up, and he met her gaze. Leanna’s imagination went wild, and their conversation played out in her mind, constructed purely from their lip movements.
“Jill…”
“Yeah?”
“Um… You’re really nice… I like you…”
Leanna watched as Jill sighed in relief. “Oh, Mark, me too! I have so much fun when we hang out…”
“…And there was a spark, you know?”
“Yes, I understand completely.”
Mark sighed, and Leanna felt all hope seep away. “I thought you would… I dunno, not feel the same.”
Jill laughed. “I pledge my undying love to you, Mark. I couldn’t turn you down.”
Mark chuckled. “Heh, me too.”
“So… A couple?”
“Yes.”
The Ferris wheel creaked as it reached the highest point on its turn, and a metal bar passed by Leanna’s carriage as the Ferris wheel stopped to let people off on the bottom. The bar blocked the view, and Leanna missed the rest of the conversation. However, she didn’t miss the last part, as the Ferris wheel resumed.
“… Just no tongue.”
Jill laughed and slapped his arm. “Just shut up and kiss me!”
Their lips touched, and Leanna averted her eyes. Although she doubted the conversation went exactly as she had imagined it, the kiss could not be misconstrued. Leanna rode the Ferris wheel another time, trying to convince herself she could get through the rest of her life. She had done it before, why not now? She smacked herself in the head and got off the Ferris wheel, hoping to catch Mark alone somehow.

~~~

Mark stood, stunned. “You…”
“Ever since I met you, you’ve been so perfect. You… accepted me for who I am and…”
She shook and shed tears into the ground. Mark was speechless, and didn’t know what to think. Leanna? In love with him? She continued in a small voice. “Now I’m losing you…”
“What? You mean… Jill?”
“Yes. God, and I thought things would finally…”
Mark watched her for a second, then smiled. “There’s nothing between us, but-”
“What?! But… The Ferris wheel, the ice cream…”
“We decided against it…”
She smiled broadly, the color returning to the surroundings. But when she looked up into Mark’s eyes, he was grey, an apologetic half smile on his face. “But…”
“…I don’t know.” He said.
Her face fell once more. “It’s not your fault, Leanna… You’re just… Not my type. N-not because of your scars I-I mean… I don’t know what I mean!”
He turned around and clasped the bridge of his nose. “Why did you have to spring this on me now? You could’ve gotten me drunk first…”
“Sorry…”
“No, don’t apologize.”
He turned around. “Just… Let’s stay friends.”
“No…”
Mark saw the bus pass by, and stopped on the other side of the street. If he didn’t want to wait another three hours, he would need to catch it. “Look, I need to go. I just… I don’t know…”
He stepped out into the street and looked back, unsure. “Leanna-”
Everything happened in an instant. First Mark heard something and turned his body, then Leanna screamed. Then the convertible slammed into Mark at sixty kilometers an hour, crushing his ribs and throwing him four feet down the road. The car skidded to a stop, bystanders freezing for an instant before pandemonium broke out. The driver of the car scrambled out and ran up to Mark. “Oh. Shit.”
He grabbed his phone and dialed 911 as fast as his fingers allowed. Leanna saw Mark’s mangled body, she saw he wasn’t breathing, saw, once again, a loved one dying. Not this time. She dashed over and placed her head to his chest, listening. She could hear a sound, and not just from the guy above her telling her to get off. She sprang up, her mind knowing exactly what to do, somehow. “Give me your pen.”
“Wha-“
“PEN!”
The guy handed her a Bic. She ripped it up, so that only the tube that held the ink reservoir remained. She looked around at the crowd that had gathered. “Give me a knife! Now!”
Someone ran over and handed her a Swiss army knife. She unfolded the largest blade and jumped over to Mark, once again putting her head to his chest. She could hear where the rib had punctured the lung. She stabbed down near the spot (but not on it) as hard as she could, ignoring the gasp from the crowd. She took the pen tube and jammed it in, pushing until she heard the sound she was searching for: the sound of Mark gasping, the crinkle of lung tissue, and the air rushing in through the pen tube. She sat back and watched as he breathed slowly, still unconscious. Soon after, the ambulance arrived and EMTs jumped out with a stretcher. As they checked Mark over, one of them remarked. “Who did this?”
A few people pointed at Leanna. The other counted to three and they hauled Mark up and onto the stretcher. “Are you a med student?”
She shook her head and stood, running over to join them in the ambulance. “I didn’t think so. You did save his life.”
They jumped in, and she jumped in too, the ambulance rushing down the road.

~~~

Mark awoke slowly and painfully. The light was off in wherever he was, so he couldn’t see much. At least his eyes weren’t blinded. A soft light from a drawn curtain shed some light on the situation. He could see many medical apparatus sitting around the room, a table stuffed with flowers and cards, and a single person sitting on a chair, motionless. He tried to move, but he gasped when he did. It felt like a truck was sitting on his chest. He just sighed and looked at the person in the room. He tried his voice, and found he could croak a few words. “Leanna…?”
He heard the chair move, as though he had startled the person. A book closed, and the figure approached the bed. “Mark? You’re awake. Who’s Leanna?”
His father stepped closer, and Mark could make out his face. “Dad… She’s a friend.”
“Hmm… How are you feeling?”
“Dad, don’t doctor me. What happened anyway?”
Mark’s father pulled up his chair and patted Mark’s arm. “You got hit by a car. Some guy was texting… People these days… You cracked five ribs and punctured a lung. You were saved by the most amateur stop-gap I’ve ever seen… Was it Leanna you were with?”
“Hold on… Let me remember… Yeah. I think. Oh-”
He remembered everything. “I remember now. So Leanna saved my life?”
“Yes. We had a conversation. She’s around here somewhere… Seems like a nice girl.”
“Dad, I’m in a cesspool of broken ribs here.”
“Sorry! Sorry.”
“So, is mom here?”
Mark’s father faltered, and bit his lip. “She’s… In China right now.”
“Oh…”
There was an awkward silence, then Mark spoke up. “Dad, I’m really hungry. Could you-”
“Say no more!”
He ran out the door, but stopped right before he exited. “Oh. Leanna. He’s awake.”
He strode out, and Mark cast his gaze towards the door. Leanna stood there, a shadow against the bright hall. “Come in.”
She came and sat by his bed. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“It was my fault-”
“Don’t you even dare.”
She was silent. They sat for a long time, Mark lost in thought. He was cursing himself. His thoughts ran thus: ‘Who is Leanna really? Who is she to me? Why don’t I like her like that? Rrg, too many goddamned questions.’
He glanced at her. ‘God, she looks so sad right now… She must really care about me. Michael was right, I am a bastard! She isn’t my type. Who the fuck cares? She’s my friend. I’ve been wrong before. Why did I do all those things for her? I was being nice. Why did I like it? Because I’m a good person? I’m a bastard. … I must really care about her.’
Mark reached up and placed his paw on Leanna’s cheek. He pulled her close to his face and kissed her without hesitation. His father walked in, saw them locked together, turned on his heel and walked right back out. When he broke the kiss, she looked at him, stunned. “Why…?”
“I wanted to see what the inside of your mouth tasted like.”
He took her paw. “And… I want… to see where we go.”
“You… do?”
“Yes… I’m sorry I said you weren’t my type and… oh, just forget it.”
“… Ok…”
It was like her whole world opened up. At long last, the world was giving her something back. She smiled, and for the first time since he met her, Leanna let out a small, joyous laugh.