A few weeks have passed. It's currently one week before winter break and Alex is on his way home, talking to Maeve.

"But wait- when we're sitting in biology class and learn something about our brain. Does that mean our brain learns about itself?"

"How do you even come up with things like that?" he asks in confusion, one eyebrow almost pinned to his hairline.

They both chuckle as they continue walking along the small path through the woods to Alex' house. The chattering goes on and on and both of them seem rather amused.

As they reach the door of the solitary house, she turns to him, shuffling with her feet.

"Can I come inside with you?"

"Yeah. I mean, sure." he unpacks his keys, opens the door and suggests "You know, my mom isn't home for another hour so why don't we go into the living room and.. I don't know.. Look at the books?" they exchange questioning looks, when he finally realizes that this isn't what you normally do when you have friends over. "Oh God I'm really bad at this." he whispers as he buries his face in his hands.

They can't hold their laughs in anymore. "It's alright, we'll find something to do." Maeve gets out between a few laughs. "I can try to help you be a good host."

He just chuckles, slightly embarrassed about his incompetence when it comes to this.

"Maybe try taking my jacket and hanging it?" she suggests while raising one eyebrow and grinning like little Satan.

They eventually got past the very embarrassing part and now sit, they're not really sitting but whatever, on the couch or rather armchair and read something they found in the shelves of Alex' mom. Yes, they really looked at the books and are reading now.

Sometimes Maeve climbs over to him, shows him a hilarious part, they laugh about it and then she climbs back afterwards. It's quite relieving and definitely not what he had in mind when he thought about having friends over a few years, well, even a few weeks back.

He always imagined having guy friends which is, obviously, not the case right now. And also he thought they'd be throwing parties, taking his house apart, redecorating his room to a football- and gaming-nightmare and forcing him to do anything but study. But this, this is so completely not what he imagined, that it kinda surprises him, how chill and adaptable he is right now.

They've known each other for just two weeks now and he already trusts her with his whole heart. She's smart, a year older than him, so she's in grade 11, and has a little sister and an older brother. Meeting up after school wasn't a thing until now, but apparently this stuff comes very naturally, so he doesn't have to worry about this anymore.

When they first met, he was just about to stumble out of the boys bathroom at lunch break, breathing heavily, eyes focused on the yellow wall opposite of the bathroom door, counting to 10 in his head. He was so caught up in his own world that he didn't notice the girls bathroom door opening and one girl running out of there straight into him. They fell to the ground, apologized and went on, each one their own way.

It wasn't a very pleasant way to run into each other, but it was memorable enough to be stuck in Alex' head for the next days. The image of her pink and brown hair strands falling to the ground and him trying to not hurt her too much while falling onto her is just a very interesting image. Besides that, he's never really had contact with anybody at his school, so that was something new too.

A few days later he stood behind her in the cafeteria of the school, again at lunch break, waiting for his food to find its way to his tray. She turned around, recognized him and he smiled when she said hello. They exchanged a couple of words and then went on to sit on different tables, she sat with her friends. This was when he realized she was a year older than him and he shouldn't even think about talking to her more, because it's very unlikely they'll become friends anyway.

So he withdrew back into his cocon. He didn't dare to look into her eyes, not even thinking about being near her, because what even would he be thinking? Her friends wouldn't like him and he doesn't know about her. She seemed nice, but what can he say, they've only talked once.

Unexpectedly, but gladly, his questions answered themselves when she approached him the next Monday, asking why he didn't even look into her eyes when they crossed paths. He mumbled something along the lines about being insecure and her being a year older than him and so on, while looking at his feet.

Suddenly, she grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at her and said "I don't know, where you got that from, but that's very funny". And then a smile began to form on his lips, because he realized how stupid he sounded. The two of them almost couldn't catch themselves, but then she reached out her hand.

"I'm Maeve and you are?"

"Alex"

And, well, what can he say, they became friends. Like, for real. And he's still grinning about it like a little boy, who just got a lollipop.

"Honey, I'm home!"

He looks up, notices Maeve saw him smile just a few seconds ago and runs away from that awkward situation to great his mom.

"Hey! So, first of, Maeve wanted to stay, so I invited her in. Is that okay?" he gets all shy while asking and tries to play it cool, but it probably doesn't work anyway. She comes up behind him, he can hear her footsteps getting closer, and just hopes for a positive reaction from his mom.

"Oh, hi Maeve! I'm Jean, I hope you made yourself at home. I'm going to make dinner in a bit, so feel free to join, if you want to of course." she smiles, shaking hands with Maeve. After that she continues carrying the bag with groceries into the kitchen.