Here’s the fourth chapter of ‘I’m Just A Girl’! Melissa has finally come. Enjoy!

A/N: omg! I realise that it’s been almost a year since I first published this story, and I’ve only posted 4 chapters! I’m kinda slow at this writing stuff, if you haven’t noticed. I’ll write waii more once school’s out, but that’s not until July, since we’re at school until the end of June this year (stupid…).

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything except for Melissa and her family and the plot.

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“Mari!” someone called.

Mariah and Emily turned around to see a girl with blue shoulder length hair walking towards them.

Emily couldn’t get over the fact that Mariah and this girl, Melissa, looked so much alike. Actually, they could even pass as twins! The two of them had the exact same hairstyles, except for the fact that Melissa’s hair was blue, and Mariah’s was pink. Their eyes were almost the same amber colour, but Melissa’s were a bit darker. Their body figures were exactly the same. Actually, if Melissa dyed her hair pink, they would probably be known as twins.

“Hi Liss,” Mariah said, as her cousin got closer, “How are you?”

“Oh, you know,” Melissa replied airily, “The usual. My brother’s driving me insane. You know, he actually had the nerve to ask me if he could borrow my car for 2 hours. I mean, imagine that! I’m gone for less than 45 minutes, and he wants my car already! And for two hours at that!”

Mariah turned around to Emily who was just staring at the girl.

“See what I mean,” Mariah mouthed.

Emily just nodded and regarded Melissa with a look of distaste.

“Oh,” Mariah said, “Well, you know what they say, boys will be boys!”

“I guess,” Melissa agreed.

Emily was actually quite surprised at how well Mariah was acting. Usually, it was Mariah who was about to slap a girl at their school because she really bugged her, and Emily who was trying to be polite while calming Mariah down. But, now, Mariah was being quite polite and talking normally, to a girl that she hated.

“Oh, did I mention,” Melissa continued, “Mommy and Daddy got me a new car for my quarter birthday!”

“Cool,” Mariah said, “What is it this time?”

“Mmmmm, I don’t know. I forget, but mommy and daddy had it custom made, so that it’s my favourite shade of blue, and the inside is all black! Imagine that Mari. My two most favourite colours in my car! But I really do hope that they get me a new bed for my next half birthday. The old one’s kinda getting…well, old. I mean, I’ve already had it for 5 whole months.”

Mariah turned around to face Emily and rolled her eyes.

“That’s really something,” she said, “Oh, and this is my friend, Emily.”

“Hello,” Melissa said, “So, how are we getting to your place?”

“Um, Liss,” Mariah said slowly, “Auntie Suk Yee (pronounced Sookee) and Uncle Kit did tell you that we’re staying at the dorm at our school, right?”

A frown appeared on Melissa’s face, “No, but is the dorm big enough for 3 people?”

“Uh, no, it isn’t,” Mariah told her.

“Oh, well, I guess you or Emily will just have to stay somewhere else,” Melissa said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Melissa, that is not a solution. Actually, there’s a five-star hotel about a twenty-minute drive from our school. You could just go rent a room there,” Mariah said, her eyes starting to narrow.

“Mmmmm, I’ll look into it,” Melissa said, “Of course, Daddy only gave me 15, 000 dollars to spend. I asked him if I could have twenty, but he said no. I guess I’ll just have to cut my shopping time here.”

“Sure,” Mariah said, starting to get annoyed. It always bugged her that Melissa not only thought she was better because she thought that she was smarter, prettier and nicer, but she thought her family was better because they were filthy rich. Melissa loved to go shopping, got everything she wanted and never looked at the price of an item.

“We should go soon,” Emily put in, “The boys are waiting, remember?”

“Oh yeah!” Mariah said, slapping her forehead, “Ow. I mean, I completely forgot. We’d better hurry. C’mon Melissa.”

With that, they headed out or the airport.

0-0-0

“Okay,” Melissa said as she got out of the taxi that she had taken as Mariah and Emily biked back to the school.

“Yeah,” Mariah said, “Um, Liss, maybe you should go check out a room at the hotel.”

“I guess so,” she said with a sigh, “I’ll go see now. Where is it?”

“Oh,” Emily said, “It’s just straight down this street, then go left and keep going until you reach the second lights…”

Mariah tuned out while Emily explained how to get to the hotel. She started to think about what the next two weeks were going to be like. She was almost positive that Melissa was going to be a nuisance.

Ever since they were little, her grandparents had always said that Melissa was the better girl. Melissa was so much more lady-like, while Mariah liked to rough-play and beyblade with her older brother. She hated dolls when she was younger –a thing that Melissa always loved. She also hated it when her mother made her wear dresses. Actually, Mariah was more feminine now, than ever before. The only thing that really stayed the same was her love for the colour pink.

Mariah was snapped out of her thoughts as Emily called her name.

“Huh? Oh, sorry, what?” she said as Emily waved a hand in front of her face.

“Um, we need to go find the boys. Melissa left to the hotel,” Emily explained.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Emily inquired.

“Nothing,” Mariah replied, “Nothing important.”

“Okay, but if you wanna talk, I’m right here, okay?”

Mariah smiled at her friend, “Yeah, thanks.”

They walked in silence until they got to Green Garden’s State Park.

“Mmmm, where are they?” Mariah said, “They said that they’d meet us here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Emily said, “Let’s call them.”

Mariah nodded. Emily pulled out her cell phone and dialled Michael’s number.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey Mike!” Emily said, “Where are you guys?”

“Heh-heh. We’re, uh, still at the school.”

“Che. Why?”

“’Cause, well, heh, we fell asleep,” was the sheepish reply.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Well, we’re at the park, so hurry it up a little.”

“Uh, yeah. Give us 2 minutes.”

Emily hung up the phone and turned to Mariah. “They fell asleep,” she said, rolling her eyes again.

Mariah rolled her eyes too. “Well, boys will be boys,” she said.

“Right.”

After about three minutes, the boys were in the park, panting slightly, having run from their school.

“Looks like someone’s outta shape,” Mariah teased.

Ray put on a mock hurt expression, “Aaaaw, but you still love me, right?”

Mariah giggled, “I might.” She laughed harder when she saw the expression on his face. “Of course I do!”

His face brightened instantly, “Yay! I can live happily!”

Mariah rolled her eyes, “Right Ray, right.”

“So, what do we wanna do?” Michael asked.

“Aside from going to the mall?” Emily asked, “We should show Ray and Mariah sometime.”

“Um, how ‘bout we do something else?” Mariah said. When everyone looked at her she quickly added, “Well, it’s just that since Melissa’s here for awhile, expect to be at the mall just about 24/7.”

“Oh, so she’s that sort of girl?” Michael inquired.

“Yeah,” Mariah replied, sighing, “Her and Lina would make excellent friends.”

Emily grimaced. “Shudder,” she said, “Let’s not think about that.”

“Well,” Ray spoke up, “We could go to se a movie or something like that.”

Michael shrugged nonchalantly, “Or we could, uh, I don’t know.”

They all stood there thinking for a while.

“I know!” Emily suddenly exclaimed, “Let’s go swimming!”

“Typical Emily hobby,” Michael said, shaking his head. At Mariah and Ray’s confused looks, he quickly added, “No, that’s Emily’s favourite hobby, not counting doing math problems and tennis.”

“Ooooo,” Mariah said, “I love swimming too!”

“Heh,” Ray said, “You’d better believe her. At our village, Mariah was the fastest swimmer there was. Well…”

“What he means,” Mariah said, “Is that I was the fastest female swimmer at the village. Ray was the fastest, fastest.”

They nodded.

“Well,” Ray said, “It’s decided, we’re going swimming!”

0-0-0

30 minutes later, saw the four teens at the swimming pool that both schools shared. There weren’t many people there, seeing as it was a Saturday and people were either at the mall shopping, at the park beyblading or watching Saturday morning cartoons.

“Okay, ready, set…GO!” Mariah shouted.

They laughed as Michael and Ray struggled to push the other one down. They were playing a game of pure strength. Two people would go to the deep end where neither of them could touch the bottom, and put their hand on their opponent’s head. Then, they would push down and see who went under the water first, all the while treading water.

“Go down, will you?” Michael said through gritted teeth.

“Ha! In your dreams buddy,” Ray replied.

Finally, Ray managed to push Michael under.

“Hey, no fair. You cheated,” Michael complained.

Ray laughed at that. “It’s not cheating Mike, it’s using your brains.”

“Nope, it’s cheating.”

Emily rolled her eyes at Michael.

“Why?” Mariah asked, “What’d you do?”

“If you push down so that their head bends forward, then they lose all of the muscles in their neck. They usually go down after that.”

“Oooooooh, you’re so smart!”

Ray laughed, “Smart and good looking! I guess some people are just lucky,” he said, getting out of the pool.

Unbeknownst to the four carefree teens, they were being watched by a pair of amber eyes.

Oh yes, some people are lucky. People like me. And this time, my luck isn’t going to run out. I’ll get you Ray Kon, I will.

0-0-0

To all the people who were so kind and reviewed.

starry-eyed angel : LOL! Yeah, it’s the future! I can’t wait until they have stuff like that. I want a watch like Mariah’s. Too bad they don’t exist… Um, Lina and her friends don’t know Mariah ’cause they didn’t know that there was a tournament going on until it came to America. So, they didn’t see it. They’re the definition of ‘blond-haired bimbos’. They give blonds a bad name. And Mariah is the best blader in China. Prollie is the best in Asia too! But, Lina and her posse are stupid. Lina and Melissa may or may not become friends. I haven’t decided yet. But, you’ll find out in the next chappie! Thankies so much for the review! I appreciate it a lot.

ray-is-sexy : LOL! Your review was funnie. I’m glad that you consider me a friend. And thankies very much for reviewing! You and Mariah are enemies. That’s not too hard to believe. I mean, who wouldn’t wanna fight over a guy like Ray? Lol, I love Shaman King. It’s prollie one of my favourite shows. But it’s not on fox anymore! cries. It’s horrible, they replaced it with some stupid show called ‘Alien Racers’. From, Beyblade, my friend and I, we rated the guys (I don’t have a life…). We came to a consensus that they top 3 hottest guys are Kai, Tala and Johnny. I like Johnny. He’s cool. I used to be practically in love with Ray, but he’s got Mariah. I like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, Digimon and Megaman too! Well, I loved Digimon. Especially the second and fourth seasons. But it’s not on YTV anymore, and I have no other way to watch it…sigh Thankies for the review!

Pikachu : Thank you for the compliment! Sorry I didn’t reallie update quickly. Meh, I don’t reallie need Mariah’s last name anymore. Thankies again!

Go stick your head in a toilet : Thankies for the review! I hope you didn’t reallie die after this long, long wait…

m : Don’t flip…because as far as I can tell, Melissa is exactly like Lina. Don’t worry, Ray and Mariah will always be together in my stories, for ever and ever. Anyway, thank you, thank you and thank you! I don’t think I can actually thank you enough for reviewing my stories! DS is reallie getting absolutely nowhere… I know it’s been ages, and ages since I’ve updated, but I can’t think of anything to write. And what I have written so far sounds like crap, and I don’t think I’d post it anyway. I hope you like this chappie!

Ayane : Thank you! Yeah, it does need a lot more Ray/Mariah. And so far, it’s got none. Absolutely none. But I promise there’ll be more reallie soon. I hope the next chapter’s the last, and there’ll hopefullie be more Ray/Mariah in there. Meh, I don’t need Mariah’s last name all that much and I get lots of different answers, so yeah. Thank you anyway though!

brittanymccullough : Thank you very much! Meh, I don’t need Mariah’s last name anymore. Thanks anyways though! As for your request, I don’t think I could write a Mariah and Mystel story. Reason #1 being I’m a Ray and Mariah fan until the very end. I love them as a couple and I don’t think I could ever rip them apart. Reason #2 even if I did start on a story, it prollie wouldn’t be completed for another 60 years and it wouldn’t be very good at all. Sorry! Maybe another author. Thank you again for the review!