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[goodenoughstories]

Such a Fairy Tale

Amanda Daniels walked down the cold, lonely street that was Orchard Street. Despite its beautiful name, it was the opposite. The crumbling sidewalk and pothole filled street made walking a complicated feat. Avoiding the pothile she affectionately named "Crater" , she made her way across the street. The street lamps turned on as she reached the end of the sidewalk. Looking for any cars, she crossed the street. To her surprise, she found herself on the pavement and a tall brown skinned boy laying over her legs. She glanced at the boy with confusion in her eyes. Gathhering herself off of the pavement and looking at the gnarly scrape on her elbow, she helped the teen up reluctantly.

"It's not even that dark out here." she said as she walked away. The teen brushed the dirt off of his palms onto his scratched uo jeans and grabbed his bike. He headed towards Amanda.

"I'm sorry about that," he said, keeping some distance. "Shit!" he exclaimed as blood drenched Amanda's lavender sleeve.

"I'm Eddie." he said.

Amanda glanced up at him.

"Great to meet you, Eddie. You sure know how to make an entrance," Amanda said with sarcasm. "I'm Amanda."

Eddie tapped Amanda's shoulder.

"I have band-aids at my house. It's right over there." Eddie said as he pointed to the dimly lit blue house. Ammanda sighed. Looking down the block and realizing her house was such a far way away, she agreed to go with Eddie to his house.

Eddie glanced over at Amanda, who's face was illuminated by her cell phone.

"This sounds stupid." Eddie said low enough for himself to hear. Amanda glanced up. "What sounds stupid?" she asked, pressing the power button on her phone, making her screen dark. "I think I know you from somewhere." Eddie said. Amanda smirked.

"Where from?" she asked as the headed towards the blue house. Eddie shrugged. "I don't know from where, but you seem so.. familiar." They reached the front steps of the house. Eddie motioned for Amanda to follow him around to the back of the house. Eddie walked his bike over to the little wooden shed and chained it up. He then made his way to the small wilting sunflower and lifted up the pot. He retrieved a brass key and unlocked the back door. Opening the door, Eddie and Amanda were greeted by Eddie's husky named Bruke. Bruke growled at Amanda and barked loudly Eddie scolded his dog and sent it to its room. A voice called out from the distance.

"Eddie? What's Bruke barking at?" the curious voice called out.

"Nothing, Mom. Hey, where do we keep the bandages again?" he called out.

"In the bathroom on the top shelf. What happened? Are you alright?" she called out.

"I'm fine. It's for a friend." he responded as he motioned for Amanda to sit down in the living room.

"Sit here. My mom hates stains." he motioned to a pair of wooden chairs.

Amanda took a seat on the cold chair and shivered. "Mmm. Comfy." she said. Eddie moitioned for her to stay put and he ran upstairs. Eddie's mother called out as she walked into the living room. "I've got the band-aids..." Her voice trailed off as she saw Amanda sitting in her living room. Eddie's mother was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. She grabbbed him and pulled him aside.

"What are you doing?!" she exclaimed while keeping her voice down.

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked, confused.

"You brought that here? To our house? God, you don't think!" she said quietly as she paced the floor.

"Mom, you sound crazy! I knocked her down as she was walking home and I brought here here to give her a band-aid and send her home!" Eddie exclaimed. Eddie's mother clasped a hand over her son's mouth. A teenage girl appeared at the top of the stairs.

"What's wrong, mom?" she asked.

"Grab Louis and go to your grandmother's, Sam. Call your father. GO!" she demanded.

Sam headed upstairs, gathered her brother, her cell phone, car keys and charger. She shoved her bedroom door open and she and Louis climbed down the fire escape and got into the car.

"Why are we leaving?" Louis asked.

"Can't explain. Just buckle up and be quiet." Sam said seriously. Louis put on his seatbelt as the car pulled out of the parking space and sped down the street.

Eddie's mother went to the kitchen and opened a cabinet. She retrieved a large bottle of green liquid and a powder made of red flowers.

"Follow me. Pour that on it and run. I'll take care of the rest."

Eddie looked at his mother. "What did I do wrong?"

"You put us in danger." she said.

They silently sneaked up on Amanda. Or so they thought. Amanda was nowhere to be found in the living room.

"You really don't know how to treat guests, Alissa." Amanda said. A symbol was burned into the front door.

Alissa, motioned for her son to come to where she was. Eddie tried to, but couldn't move. He was stuck in the middle of his mother and Amanda. "You can't escape your punishment. You do know, you still owe me your end of the bargain, right?" Eddie looked at his mother. "What is she talking about, mom?" Alissa sighed. "Oh! You didn't tell your own son about the mess you dragged him into? Perfect!" Amanda said with laughter. Amanda approached Eddie.

"I'm your aunt. More or less. Your wonderful mother over there made a deal with a witch to save our mother from the brink of death. It was going to cost her soul, but she could 't give up that, now could she?" Amanda said as she glanced over at her sister. "So she damned my soul and the soul of her firstborn son." she said as she walked closer to Eddie.

Eddie looked over at his mother with tears in his eyes. "Why? Why did you blame me? This was YOUR fault!" he said as he fell to his knees. The bottle of green liquid fell to the ground, shattering. Alissa collapsed to the ground as she sobbed. Amanda chuckled. "I love seeing you in anguish." Amanda turned around to Eddie. "Mommy dearest blamed you, huh? Guess the guilt isn't eating her up fast enough. Don't worry, though. We'll take care of her." She said as her hands began to glow. She placed them on Eddie's back, sending fiery pain through his body. His screams of pain were unbearable to his mother. Eddie stopped screaming. He stood up from the floor and stared at his mother. She looked at him for a moment.

"You did this to him." Amanda said. "Hell, you did the same to me. We can't grow old and die because of your selfishness." Amanda said as the two apprached Alissa. "I hope you're happy mom got ten more years! Some hell of a price we had to pay." Amanda held out her hand and Eddie followed. She nodded at her nephew and they shoved their glowing hands through Alissa. Her screams peirced the air, surging through the neighborhood. Her soul was being shredded apart. Amanda patted her nephew's shoulder, as he took his hand out of his mother's chest. Eddie walked out. Amanda grabbed the pouch of red dust.

"Eddie!" Amanda called out. He returned from the back of the house with his bike and helmet. "Let me introduce you to your grandmother." she said with an evil smile as they walked down the block.

Not all fairy tales have happy endings.

[goodenoughstories]

I have an idea for a beauty and the best type story about two queer boys. As I'm currently seeing it "the beast" would be black and "beauty" would be mixed. However, I can easily see this falling into a light-skinned= beautiful trope so I'm wondering if I should change this. I'm also wondering if there's a danger in associating blackness with being beastly. Is there any advice you can offer for things to do or avoid to ensure I don't write something problematic?

Queer Black Beauty and the Beast: Dark Skin Beast & Light Skin Beauty

I’m uncomfortable with this dynamic, as is.

The mixed-race person, who happens to also be lighter, is the beauty. The darker Black person is the beast.

This reinforces harmful colorist and dehumanizing roles. It adds nothing new that we haven’t seen before (i.e. Mixed Black People are better looking, more acceptable, and less animalistic than monoracial Black people).

Suggestion 1: Light Skin Beast and Dark Skinned Beauty

You could make the light-skinned man the beast and the darker-skinned man the beauty. From a representation standpoint, it’s nice for the dark Black man to be represented as the beautiful one.

Potential pitfalls with this would be harmful stereotypes still being enforced against another race of color. I’d suggest you include people of the same mix as the Light-skinned beast, who are perceived as normal and beautiful so we know it’s just the beast who is deemed unattractive. Also, avoid “Reverse racism” like plots with this dynamic. The beast should not be persecuted and hated by villagers because he is light.

Suggestion 2: Beauty and the Beast are both dark-skinned

You could make them both of darker skin tones. There’s so many shades of brown, so it’s not like they’d have to be exactly the same skin tone, but keeping them both on the darker side of brown would equalize the playing fields a bit. You aren’t associating dark skin to ugly when the Beauty character is dark-skinned as well.

Suggestion 3: Keep Roles the Same, But Address the Problems

If you were to keep this dynamic, I believe you would need to address it directly. The dark-skinned person being a beast could be symbolic for society’s perception of dark people as beastly or ugly. The beast may not be a literal beast, or ugly at all. Simply by society’s standards. Such a complex theme is best tackled by someone with experience as a dark-skinned Black person, or equiped with tons of research and appropriate readers. That goes for the queer aspects of this too.

Be aware: you are not providing escapism with such a plot. It’s clearly a tale of race, colorism and stereotypes which isn’t always a bad thing, but again, you should know what you’re dealing with and be ready to write it respectfully.

Suggestion 4: Play up non-racial connotations of the Beast

You could provide another explanation as to why the beast is Beast and commit to it fully. Sell this explanation so fully that their skin tone undoubtedly has nothing to do with their being the Beast. This theory is helped when you have other dark Black characters portrayed as attractive, even better if queer dark-skinned men. Maybe the Beast is just really mysterious and isolates himself, howling is heard from his property at night (pet dogs? wolves? Who knows) and rumors start to bloom.

~Mod Colette

From the queer side of things, you have two potential minefields with the dark/light dichotomy, and the beauty/beast dichotomy.

Attraction: Since “queer” is broad, I’m going to assume both Beauty and Beast can be either gay or bi/pan/poly. The caution is making the Beast bi/pan/poly and Beauty gay or favouring one gender very highly. This reinforces the concept bi/pan/poly is beastly, and they only “become loving” when they settle down with same sex attraction.

This narrative is already really prevalent within gay individuals especially, where any support of bi individuals is conditional on them expressing same gender attraction only. Should you have this split in the story, then you’re basically reinforcing this belief among society as a whole that bi individuals are beastly when bi/unattached, and only Good People when they settle down appropriately.

I’d strongly suggest both sides having the same type of attraction, just to mitigate this. You can either make them both gay or both bi with similar attraction preferences, but having one side gay and one side bi could lead to problems, although a gay Beast and a bi Beauty would also be acceptable from my perspective (if there are issues with this I’m not familiar with, especially in regards to skin tone, please comment!).

If Gaston is present this goes double for his attraction type, as he is genuinely the villain. If his attraction is the same as Beauty/Beast, that helps. 

Gender presentation: This, meanwhile, is a double bind. There are a lot of toxic beliefs around PoC queer men and gender expression, which leads to the following equations:

Masculine dark skinned man, feminine light skinned man= Beauty is feminine, queer men are more attractive when effeminate, darker skin people are masculine monsters (see: all of the toxic beliefs around masculine Black men)

Masculine light skinned man, feminine dark skinned man= Beastly queer men are feminine, black queer men are more attractive when not messing with gender, darker skinned people are feminine monsters (see: most queercoding in villains is making men effeminate, and they’re often darker skinned than the heroes as well)

Both more feminine= fine (so long as queer masculine side characters aren’t demonized, should they exist)

Both more masculine= fine (so long as queer feminine side characters aren’t demonized, should they exist)

Both dark skinned= fine

You do have some flexibility with a Beauty and the Beast retelling so long as you keep the pre-existing gender presentations when the Beast starts falling in love. Because people know the Beast won’t stay a monster, some of the unfortunate implications are mitigated. But that’s only true if end-of-story Beast keeps the same presentation as beginning-of-story Beast. Also, some people will be turned off by those unfortunate implications at the start, making the story less escapist.  

Even if you avoid the light skin/dark skin problem, you’ll still going to get accused of recreating heterosexuality if you have one side be more feminine or masculine than the other. It’s, unfortunately, inescapable in the current political climate. Do keep an eye on yourself to see what your motive is, but if you’re a queer writer you’ll be more familiar with the gender dynamics in same sex relationships (just do try to read m/m lit written by men who love men, to see how they write about themselves). 

This isn’t even counting how Black queer gender identity/expression is very, very different from white queerness, to the point I know lesbians have Black-exclusive identities (stud, which is related to butch), and there’s some argument that “boi” is PoC/Black exclusive. Not to even get into PoC drag communities, and most Houses are Black or Latinx founded. 

If Gaston is present, this also goes double. He is toxic masculinity incarnate, so there needs to be special attention placed on determining how he interacts with the narration. Black+ toxic masculinity without a positive masculine character will be a fairly bad thing to perpetuate, and even if he’s white, having some positive Black masculinity would be a good idea.

All in all, this isn’t to dissuade you from writing a Black queer version of Beauty and the Beast— it’s just pointing out issues that have the potential to exist in all PoC queer stories. So long as you’re aware of them, you have less likelihood of going into the story unknowingly perpetuating unfortunate ideals.

I’d really strongly suggest having more than Beauty and Beast be queer PoC characters, just because the intersecting issues are so fraught with possible bad paths. This is a case where tokenism would be exceptionally harmful, since they are technically twofer tokens. You need a wide variety of characters to make sure all identities aren’t singular tokens, because you plain old have more room to have tokens since you’re focusing on multiple identities at once.

~ Mod Lesya

[goodenoughstories]

Rape Escape

Easy and very effective

Requires nothing but your body

Includes attack

[goodenoughstories]

Phanniemay ‘16 Day 27 - Happily Ever After

if I’m going to suffer then I might as well get something out of it

pls enjoy my 10000% self-indulgant plotless garbage

[goodenoughstories]

[goodenoughstories]

CHALLENGE: Can You Get Through These 33 Tumblr Posts Without Laughing Once?

[goodenoughstories]

I finally talk about my addiction

[goodenoughstories]

I hope these sick things get punished for the atrocities that they've committed against this girl. Nobody, no matter anything, deserves to be raped. I am sick and tired of society protecting people based on their job title. If you do something that's fucked up, you should be punished for it. End of story. I hope that girl gets whatever support and love she can get to hopefully psychologically get beyond this.

14 Oakland police officers involved in the sex crime scandal, two have resigned and three others are on paid leave.

more details here

We do want to see arrests and convictions of the officers that were involved. You know, if I or you committed statutory rape, we would be arrested.

#BlackLivesMatter #Rape #PoliceBrutality #CrookedCops

#StayWoke

[goodenoughstories]

The X- Rated Version of Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices

In 1975, while I was in college, I was part of a committee to bring guest celebrities to the school for a speaker series the communications department had set up.

There were a diverse group of well known icons that were booked for the series. One week had famed attorney F. Lee Bailey and another week featured Senator George McGovern. The one that interested me was the Man of a Thousand Voices, Mel Blanc. As a fan, I of course knew Blanc from the multitude of cartoon voices from Warner Brothers, Hanna- Barbera etc along with his long running stint with Jack Benny.

Thus, I eagerly volunteered to pick-up Mel from the airport and bring him to the event. I eagerly anticipated having the alone time driving Blanc to the program. As I waited for him outside the gate, he was the final person that staggered out of the gate. Yes staggered and helped by a flight attended. It seems that Mel had sampled most of the alcohol on the flight in.

Mel was drunk as a skunk. And the skunk was not Pepe LePew. Mel leaned up against me as we struggled towards my car. I stopped off first at the nearest phone booth( yes there was such a thing in 1975) and I informed my professor of the state of inebriation that Mel was in.

“LOAD HIM UP WITH COFFEE, ” my startled professor demanded.

And I did. Or at least tried to. However, the next 45 minutes was hysterical. Mel did many of his famous voices from Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Barney Rubble, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig and others in the most obscene and hysterical “situations” that included Bugs screwing Porky Pig-I can still  hear the squealing of Porky in my head…and…. well… you get the idea.

For over 40 years, I can kick myself for not bringing a tape player to record for Mel for posterity. Unfortunately the smart I phone was not introduced until 30 years later.

By the time we reached the college, Mel was still bombed. However, they did load him up with coffee and he thrilled everyone with his great stories and his film presentation. Mel was a real pro.

However, for me it was a memorable night meeting the king of the cartoon voices and having my own special, unique performance of the great Mel Blanc.

That’s All Folks!

[goodenoughstories]

[goodenoughstories]

[goodenoughstories]

Floating

Allison sat on the steps to her house. The brisk, Autumn wind blew her brown hair into her face. A creaking sound came from behind her. She was startled as she turned around abruptly. "Its just me. Aunt Patti said that it's getting late." Allison's cousin Jaden said as he sat down next to her. "Are you okay? You've been really tired lately." He said with concern.

"Its just my parents. Their relationship is dead and home doesn't feel... home-y anymore. I'm still trying to adjust. That's what wrong." There was a silence. "I don't know what to do or where to go a lot of times. Nobody around me knows what its like and I always have to put on a smile and push through but that's really hard to do when it feels like you're dead inside." Allison started to sob. Jaden held her.

"I don't want to tell you sugar-coated lies. I don't know how this will turn out. But I want you to know that you can always vent if you have to." Allison's body shook as sobs left her. "Ally.." Jaden said quietly. Allison looked up, her eyes red from crying. "You know I care about you, right?" He asked. "Yeah. I know." She said. Jaden helped her to her feet. "Let's go inside." He said as he opened the door. They walked inside. Allison took off her grey sneakers and her hoodie. She sat her shoes down and hung her hoodie on the coat rack by the door. She went to the bathroom and turned on the cold water. She sighed. She was really tired. She could feel it in her very core. She splashed cold water onto her face. She turned off the water and dried her face with a towel. She exited the bathroom. "Do you want to eat Allison?" Her aunt asked. "No thank you aunt Patti. I'm exhausted."

Allison walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She grabbed her purple pajamas and her furry purple and white striped socks. She took off her clothes and put on her pajamas.

She turned on her CD player and put in a Luther Vandross CD. Superstar was the furst song. The lyrics filled the emptiness within her. She got into her bed. She placed her head on her pillow. Next to her bed was her dresser. She took the photo of her and her parents smiling and faced it away from her. Her eyes shut slowly as she sleepily hummed along with the music.

Allison woke up, or so she thought. She felt like she wasn't in her body. She looked around and she wasn't. She saw her body, resting peacefully under the covers. "Fuck. I'm dead." She swore. A soothing voice spoke. "You aren't dead. You're just not in your body." Allison looked around to find who was speaking to her. "Wow, I never would have guessed, considering my body's over there and I'm over here!" She said sarcastically. Something tugged at Allison's shirt collar. She gagged. "What the hell!" Allison shouted. Her bedroom window swung open. "Get to movin'. You've got 4 hours to find peace or you'll be miserable forever." The voice said, sternly. Allison was shoved out of the window. She watched as her body shifted under the covers. She was floating rather quickly through the night sky. A woman in silver appeared next to her. "Who are you?" Allison asked. "I'm Matilda, your guide. I'm here to keep you from getting into any trouble." Matilda said as she took ahold of Allison's arm. "Why am I not in my body in my bed? Its freezing out here!" Matilda looked back at Allison as she headed towards a building. Allison looked straight ahead and shrieked. "Calm down. I see you didn't listen to what I said before. You're supposed to find peace. You've got parent troubles, don't you?" Matilda asked. "Yes." Allison responded as they passed through the building. Allison saw her mother sitting at a desk with two large stacks of paper behind her. "Ten more files Andrea!" Someone called out to Allison's mother. "Okay Richard!" She called back. Andrea ran her hand through her hair. "So many greys.." Allison said. Andrea grabbed a picture of her and Allison off of her desk. She looked at it for a while and then placed it down.

Matilda took Allison's arm and they passed through the building. They headed towards a warehouse. Allison saw her father shutting off machinery. He headed up a staircase and turnt off the lights to the room. Allison watched her father get into his car and drive to a lot full of buses. He had a grey jacket and an ID on when he left the car. He went to a booth and showed the woman inside his ID. "Your bus is ready to go Darren." The lady said. "Thanks Stacey." He heads to the bus set aside for him and opens the glove compartment. He pulls out an energy drink. He starts up the bus and drinks the whole energy drinkm

Allison looked at Matilda. "So my dad works two tiring jobs and my mom's job is physically aging her. How is this supposed to help me find peace?" Matilda stopped for a moment. "I'll show you how. Hold on tight." Allison clung to Matilda as they appeared in front of Allison's home. There was something different about it. She sees a car park in front of her house. "Didn't the get separate cars?" Allison asked but was shushed. "Watch, girl." Allison sees her parents, appearing much younger than they were a little while ago. They enter the house, together. Allison enters the house. "I'm so tired." Andrea say as she takes off her coat. "I couldn't agree with you more Andrea." The couple walks upstairs to a little door. Darren knocks on it softly. "She's asleep." A voice says. The two enter the room. "Thanks Patti." Andrea says. "Anytime." Patti says as she kisses a very young Allison's forehead and leaves. The two sit at the foot of the bed. "I'm always so tired when I get home. But, as soon as I see her, our baby girl, its feels worth it." Darren says. "I'd do this for a thousand years just for her." Andrea and Darren sat together, watching their child sleep. "No matter what happens to our relationship, we have to work together for her." Andrea said. "Of course." Allison was pulled out of the house. "So, did you find you peace yet?" Matilda asked. "Not really, but I feel a little better about things. Thanks Matilda." Matilda waited. "You aren't being sarcastic, are you?" Matilda questioned. She wasn't walking into this one. "No. I'm being completely genuine. Now-" Allison yawned loudly.

"I'm tired, in a good way. Can I go home?" Matilda held Allison's hand. "Yes, you can go home now." She said as they appeared in front of Allison's aunt's house. Her bedroom window was still open. Allison floated towards her body. "How do I get back in there?" She asked Matilda. "You just lay down." Allison laid on her bed and got back into her body. "Good night, Allison. I'll see you around." Matilda said as she closed the window and drifted away with the breeze.

[goodenoughstories]

[goodenoughstories]

purest moment in tv history….

[goodenoughstories]

im calling out everyone who says “this cleared my skin and watered my crops” when responding to images they like

i know you dont have crops

and i know you dont have skin

stop lying for a “joke”, this is a serious website for people to make posts on their blogs about their life experiences, not about making a ruckus and acting like fools

[goodenoughstories]

Please can I get a spell to gain more followers on my blog and to help it be successful please ... btw I love your blog 😍

Thanks 😊

💯✔⤴🌅💻📈✨🍀👍💞🙆

[goodenoughstories]

Green Eyes

*some violence, swearing and i guess that’s it. Have a good read people :)*

Matthew Johnson walked down Abernathy Street. He slung his grey bookbag onto his left arm. He looked dowm at his scuffed shoes. “These could use a polish.” he said to himself. Little did he know there was a girl heading straight for him. “Look out!” The girl cried. The two teens collided. “Sorry about that.” The girl said as she got to her feet and stretched out her hand to Matthew. He grabbed her hand as she helped him to his feet. “No problem.” Matthew said as he looked up. The girl’s cocoa skin was glowing in the sunlight and her curly black hair flowed down her face ever so perfectly. There was one thing that struck him the most. She had green eyes. Not pale green but olive green eyes. To Matthew they were the most beautiful pair of eyes he’s ever seen. The girl’s voice brought him out of the trance. “I see you noticed my eyes. I’m Alex.” She smiled as she pushed a few loose strands out of her face. “I’m Matthew.” He stuck out his hand rather quickly. He never blushed in front of anybody before. Alex shook his hand.

A voice called out from the direction Alex ran from. “There you are, you little bitch!” The voice said. “Friends. That’s Lola. She’s a real piece of work.” Alex said sarcastically. She sat her olive green bag down and opened it. She pulled out a silver, shiny bat. “Go home Lola.” Alex called out. Matthew stepped back as Alex struck the bat on the pavement twice. Spikes stuck out of the bat as Lola tried to stop. Alex struck Lola’s leg. She swung the bat with sheer force as she broke Lola’s legs. “You won’t chase me ever again, you fucking beast.” The skin on Lola’s hands tore open as a clawed, misfigured hand emerged. Her tan skin and clothes turned a sickly grey as her pupils turned white. The beast snarled at Alex. She approached what was Lola and smashed her head with the bat. The creature’s body spasmed momentarily and ceased to move. Matthew retched on the side of the road. He wiped his mouth. “What… what the fuck was that?” He asked, avoiding eye contact with the dead thing. “A shapeshifter, were-thing, whatever you want to call it.” Alex responded as she reached into her bag to retrieve a red cloth. She proceeded to polish the bat, removing the blood and brain matter from the spikes. She put both items back into her bag.

“By the way, I’m your Guardian. Now, where’s the nearest ice cream shop?” She inquired as she looked at Matthew, who looked kind of pale. “You look fucked up.” Alex chuckled. “I think I’m gonna pass out.” Matthew said as he reached out for Alex. She grabbed his arm as he stumbled to the ground. “Oh no.” She said as Matthew’s body weight brought her down onto the pavement. She got on her feet and propped him up as much as she could. “Hey Matthew, wake up.” She whispered in his ear. A sly grin appeared on Alex’ face. She kissed Matthew on the lips. His eyes opened and his cheeks turned red. “How long was I out for?” He asked, embarrassed. “A couple of minutes. But no biggie, I’ve passed out a few times back in the day.” she told him as the two walked to the corner. “The nearest ice cream parlor is… two blocks over.” Matthew said, rubbing the back of his neck. “What’s up?” Alex asked, as she stopped mid step. “You want the truth?” Matthew said. “100.“ Alex responded. “I have feelings for you.” Matthew said as he walked foward. Alex walked beside him and grabbed his hand. “I have feelings for you too. The good kind.” She smiled at him and he blushed once more. Alex stopped, reached into her bag and grabbed a green ring. She opened Matthew’s hand and placed the ring on his palm. “What’s this for? You like me?” He asked, his cheeks starting to become red once again. “I love you. I chose to protect you.” Alex said as her cheeks turned red. “Now, let’s go get that ice cream.” She said with a smile. The two teens walked to the ice cream shop, hand in hand.