Story Of A Teenage Nothing: Epilogue

"Here you go. One cup of spicy hot Mayan chocolate." Logan hands me a thoughtfully brewed cup of gourmet hot chocolate - even though it's July.
"Logan, I recall asking for lemonade." I say, rolling my eyes, but taking the proffered drink from his hands.
"I did hear your request, but figured I'd get you something much, much better. You'll thank me after you take a sip." He states, grinning cockily.

I bring the whip-cream topped drink closer to my lips, and give it a whiff. It does smell delightful. Logan wouldn't make me drink any hot chocolate that was not thoroughly delicious. I glance up at him from my position on the floor, and see that his eyes are wide in anticipation, and he's hungering for me to try his latest concoction. I sigh, knowing that he's got me between a rock and a hard place. I blow on the mix, before taking a hesitant gulp.
It's none other than heaven in a Harry Potter mug.
I swear my taste buds are doing chart-wheels in my mouth.

"Logan, this is scrumpti-didily-umptious." I say to him.
He gives a little shout, and does some sort of jig to emphasize his happiness.
"Hazzah! See? And you doubted me!" He says, smirking.
"Not really. I just wanted some lemonade, but I do admit this is a great replacement."
"Replacement? This is no replacement. This is ambrosia! The drink of the gods. Nothing can trump its majesty." Logan says, his head pointed towards the ceiling and his hand over his heart.

"I don't know, Logan. I mean, after all, there is apple juice." I say teasingly. I know just what buttons to push. He gives an over dramatic gasp, and makes to grab the chocolate. I playfully nip at his fingers.
"Watch it, Logan. Test me, and you'll end up missing a digit." I say, attempting to be stern.
"Evil lies within you!" He cries, buckling and falling to his knees on the floor besides me.
"Now that you're on the floor, you can help me clean up your mess." I say pointedly.

I've been at Logan's house for an hour and half. While I was at home, I received a call from him. He said that he desperately needed my help. His pleas were very cryptic, but nonetheless, being the concerned girlfriend I am, I readily agreed to come to his aid. He picked me up from my house, and all the while I pestered him to tell me what this emergency was all about. It wasn't 'till we were in his room that I was given the answer.

Over the course of the school year, papers, books, gum wrappers, and other miscellaneous junk had appeared all throughout Logan's room. By now, they'd amassed to a degree that was no longer tolerable by his parents. Apparently, Logan's parents had told him that he wasn't allowed to leave the house until he organized his room. Logan had decided to recruit me to help with the mission. I told Logan that I did not appreciate his trickery but he gave me his puppy dog face, and a little whimper, and, well... let bygones be bygones.

By now we've gotten maybe two-fourth's of his belonging sorted out. The job would be going much faster if Logan was actually participating in the clean up too.

"Logan, what's all this stuff?" I say pointing to a couple of unmarked boxes underneath his desk.
"Mm. Some papers from school, like essays, and tests."
"And you have them why?" I shuffle on my knees towards the boxes;
"I never liked throwing away school items. You never know when you might need to use them in the future."
"And have you ever gone back to the paper's you've saved?" I say while opening one
"No..."

"Well what does that tell you then?" I question him.
"...I don't know. What?"
I shake my head, not bothering to answer. There's no point in continuing. As smart as Logan is, he can be utterly clueless sometimes.
"LoLo, come here." I say, while going through a pile of papers.
"What?" He says when he's by my side.
"We're going to make two piles. They're the 'Keep' and 'Save' pile. I'm going to declare what the papers should be called, and you put them in their corresponding piles. Capiche?"
"Yeah. I can handle this."

We do this routine for twenty minutes or so but I don't get as much done as I'd hope to, what with Logan pestering me the whole time. And by pestering I mean attempting to tickle me, and distracting me by bringing up random discussions. Though, I manage to keep myself on track. While Logan is going on a tangent about the history of Coco Cola, I come across a manilla folder marked "Photography Portfolio." I open it and quickly scan through it, recognizing a collection of all the pictures he and I took, during our class.

"Lolo, you saved all of these projects and stuff?" I say, cutting him off mid-sentence.
"Whaaa?" He says, confusion staining his face.
"This!" I say, waving the folder to bring it to his attention. He still stares confusedly at me, till realization dawns on him.
"Oh! Yeah. Our photography stuff." He sputters. "Nothing special to see there. I can take that off your hands." He continues. He attempts to be sly as his hand moves toward the folder, but I draw it away from him. I can't help but notice that he's taking quite a fancy to this here folder.
"Not so fast there bucko. What are you hiding, huh?" I say, squinting my eyes at him suspiciously.
"Don't go getting yourself paranoid. Just hand it over." He says, reaching towards it once more. I maneuver it out of his reach again. Next thing I know is that he's lunging towards me and I give a shriek. I fall back onto the floor, and Logan comes tumbling after.
"Logan, are you crazy?" I shout, fighting not to burst out laughing.
"Just hand me the folder and no one needs to get hurt." He says irritably.

We grapple with each other on the floor. It's a unfair fight though, being that I'm one using one arm to fend him off, the other guarding the folder. Logan hits me below the belt though by going for my sides in a tickle attack. I launch into a fit of giggles, and I release the folder, which falls onto the floor. The contents of the folder spill out, adding to the room's disarray.

"Now look what you've done!" I say to Logan, using the moment of distraction to scramble out from underneath him.
"Me? You're the one with the butterfingers!" Logan goes back to rest on his knees.
"Ya, well, I only got those butterfingers, only after you usurped me using unfair methods of attack!" I say breathlessly, still winded from our mock battle.
"There are no rules in war!"
"Say that to the Geneva contract!"
We are silent for a moment before we both begin to laugh at our own silliness.
"Seriously, Logan, all of this for a couple of Polaroids?" I say as I pick up one for the shots that had fallen to the floor.

"No need to rummage through the past!" He retorts. We both know that excuses is a weak one, being that he's Mr. History Lesson. I shake my head, and pick up another photo. There's nothing very special about them. One of these is a amateurish shot of a field of grass (I'm sure I too that one). The other is blurry. I bet that resulted from the time we had to capture motion.
"These aren't a real big deal." I tell Logan.
He says nothing, but presses his tongue against his cheek, as usual.
"Whatever. Just help me clean these up, will you?"

I begin picking up the pictures, and Logan does so as well. I can't help to notice that he's working more hurriedly than I, obviously frantically trying to stop me from viewing anymore photos. I notice that he pockets a couple of them, but I say nothing. Eventually we have them all picked up, and we insert them into the folder once more.
"Was that so terrible?" I say to him. "Let's keep working."
We scoot back to our original positions and I'm just about to go back to what I was doing before, but I see something out of the corner of my eye.

"Oh. We missed one." I say out loud, and I grab a photo that was wedged underneath one of the legs of Logan's desk chair. I hear Logan suck in air behind me as I pull out the photo.
I take a moment to examine it, and I instantly realize what it is. It's a photo of me. It's me standing in the field behind our school, near that rusty playground. I'm sniffing a flower with one hand, while the other holds the camera that I was using at the time. I faintly remember doing the action myself, but here it is, captured- that moment in time staring me right in the face.

"Logan, I don't remember you taking this... or showing it to me." I question.
"Listen, Kim, before you get the wrong impression. That's just a picture I took from a while back, and I didn't necessarily get your permission to take it at the time. I'm sorry for that. Let me take it off your hands." He nears me, and tries to grab it, but I evade him.
"Why did you take these?" I say.
"I mean, what can I say? I liked you, Kim. But at that moment it's not like I could' e just confessed my attraction for you without seeming like a downright creeper."
"So you took pictures of me without my knowledge?"
"Yeah... there's no way that I can not make myself sound like a creeper at this point, and that's why was acting so strange before. I didn't want you to look at those."
"Those? As in there's more of them?"
"Jeez, yes, I might have taken one... two..four more... on occasion." He says. His face is staring to tinge pink, and I can tell that he's embarrassed.

My back is turned to him, and I can only imagine that he's thinking there's a look of horror plastered on my face. He doesn't know that there's actually a smile on my face, and a strange-but nice-warm feeling blooming in my chest.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Logan." I move to face him. "Had I come across these then, I'd probably label you a creeper. But come now, after all that I know about you, that these pictures would be enough to scare me off?" I say gently, conveying to him that I was not at all displeased. "What with your odd cravings for hot chocolate, and your obsessive love for the Lord of the Rings?" I say.
Letting the photo fall from my hands I get close to him and placing my hands on his chest.
"Hey! Samwise Gamgee was a pivitol-" He beings, but I stop him by placing a finger to his lips.

"Shush, Logan."
"Not the time?" He sheepishly says.
"Not the time." I grin, letting my hands wander up his front and around his neck. I lean towards him, and rest my forehead against his.
"So you promise that you're not even slightly weirded out?"
"Not in the slightest." I assure. "I must say, at this point, there's not much you can do to get rid of me. Look's like I'm here to stay."
"I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to act upset or something... but we both know I'm not very good at acting the opposite of what I feel."
I back up a bit so that I can look him in the eyes.

"Logan, I know why you took them, but why keep them? I mean you have me already."
He ponders this for a moment, his thinking face on.
"I look back on the pictures from time to time. I know I have you-flesh and blood, but these pictures-that one in particularly- are symbolize the two things that I hold dearest in the world. Photography, and well... you."

My breath hitches for a moment from his declaration. I have no clue what to say, but I give him my best megawatt smile, and lean in to give him a tender kiss.
"Well in that case, no need to hide them. Feel free to frame them and have them on display." I reply.
"I might take you up on that offer." He mummers, and I can't help but notice that his eyes are no longer concentrated on mine but on my lips.
"Please do." I whisper, as I lean in for a kiss that will be lasting much longer.
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Note:

There you have it folks. That's officially the end. 'Story of a Teenage Nothing' has official come to a close *sigh*. It's so bittersweet, ain't it? I wish Kim and Logan all the luck in the (fictional) world! And I hope the same for all my readers. What a great way to bring in the New Year right? Out with the old, and in with the new! I have plenty of more stories lined up so stick with me y'all.

Oh and I do suggest taking a listen to the song I mentioned above. It's so sweet, and perfect for this story.

And please do the poll below, and if you could, comment and let me know why you felt whatever way. That'd be very appreciated.