"You're sure this is the right address?" Sebastian asked, furrowing his eyebrows as the person on the other end of the line reiterated herself.

"Young man, weren't you the one who gave me the address yourself?" The older woman responded rather snappily. Sebastian reckoned it was because he'd called her twice in the span of ten hours just to reconfirm the address he'd written down on a piece of paper.

He chuckled nervously, his left hand finding its way to the back of his neck—a nervous habit of his—as he replied sheepishly, "Just wanted to be sure. Sorry, ma'am."

The line ran dead soon after the older woman waved off his apology and said she needed to tend to her customers. Tearing his phone away from his ear, Sebastian tapped on the home button on his screen and pulled down the notification panel to see if there were any messages he'd missed but there weren't any.

He felt like someone had kicked him hard in the chest, delivering a profoundly hard blow right smack in the middle of his chest. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, ringing and ringing and ringing as he screwed his eyes shut and locked his phone.

The plan he'd devised at the very last minute suddenly seemed like the worst idea he'd ever come up with. It practically backfired on him, and all he could hope for now was that he hadn't blown it all to hell as he locked his apartment door behind him.

. . . . . .

"You know. . . maybe you could call him instead of waiting for him to call you," Jon piped up after a while, a shrug of his shoulders following suit as he topped his own high score on Fruit Ninjas.

A brief but sad smile grazed Jean's lips and it faltered as quickly as it came as she averted her attention back to the phone that was clasped tightly in her hands. Lately, she realized that just the mere mention of Sebastian has had her halting in every little thing she was in the midst of doing, and she hated the fact that she was completely affected by just the mention of his name.

Christ, I've only known him for three months. . . he can't possibly have this much of an effect on me, she thought to herself, biting down on her lip absentmindedly.

"It's been a week, Jean," Jon voiced out, interrupting his sister from further diving into her unrelenting thoughts.

Jean snapped out of her daze and looked at her brother briefly before looking down at her phone again. "I know," she said in a whisper.

"A week," he reiterated as he dropped his phone on to his lap—Fruit Ninjas could wait.

"I know," she said, her voice now louder and sterner than it was two seconds ago.

"One fucking week."

"I know, Jonathan."

"We can all see that you miss him terribly."

"I know—ugh, you little fucking weasel," Jean gritted, groaning in utter annoyance once she managed to catch on to her brother's ruse.

Jon threw his sister a proud and knowing look as a smirk crept on his lips, but the look on his face was wiped off immediately as soon as Jean flung a pillow at him, hitting him square in the face. He'd intentionally repeated what he said just so he could get his sister to admit this subconsciously and much to his delight, he'd succeeded in his conquest.

"Has he texted you?"

"No," his sister dead-panned, shooting him a glare before sliding her phone on to the coffee table. "I didn't expect him to, anyway. Probably busy with his audition," she shrugged, her voice growing more nonchalant as they continued to thread on the same subject.

Jon let out an amused scoff and mimicked his sister's actions by sliding his phone on to the coffee table as well. "You're dense, Jean."

Jean's eyes instantly shot up at him as her mouth hung agape. "I'm dense—?"

"Yes, you are," Jon replied, cutting his sister off. "You're so dense—oh my, God. Can't you see that he's afraid to call you? Afraid of how you'd react and how you'd respond—"

"Well, I'm not the one who lied in the first place—"

"—okay, fine. I'll admit, I didn't like the fact that he didn't tell you the truth either but maybe he has a pretty good reason—"

"—like what?" Jean spat rather furiously, pushing herself up by the palms of her hands as she held her brother's gaze.

Silence befell the Pierce siblings as the air around them started to cloud into something much thicker, darker and excruciating. Three months—it had only been three months and heck, they weren't exactly dating, were they? She didn't even know where they stood at this point and she knew, she just knew—deep down, she knew that the anger she was feeling right in this very moment and this past week was beyond unjustifiable.

Hadn't she been the one to request for them to take things slow? Hadn't she been the one to allow him to do the chasing rather than meet him halfway?

Sebastian had the right to his own life. He had every right not to tell her everything that goes on in his life but God, she wanted to know every little detail that goes on in his life as much as he did her. All this while, she'd been the one on the receiving end. She'd been the one to receive questions about her life, like how her day went, what her favourite flowers were, what time she was going to sleep and. . . perhaps—perhaps he'd gotten tired of this one-way relationship they had.

Perhaps he was finally tired of her.

"He's not cheating on you, Jean," Jon assured her, his voice small and soft as he shifted a little closer to his sister who was still on the opposite end of the couch. "Sebastian's not that kind of guy—I know it."

Jean took in a sharp intake of breath before releasing it slowly as she felt tears pricking the back of her eyes, threatening to fight their way through to taint her cheeks. She wanted to refute her brother but at the same time, she wanted to agree with him—she knew Sebastian wasn't the kind to do such a thing but then again, she thought the world of Terry. She knew, back then, that he wouldn't do such a thing but three years down the road, he did the exact opposite of what she thought he'd never do—and it broke her.

It impaired her.

It crippled her.

It ruined her.

It completely ruined and shattered her, knowing that her judgment wasn't as spot on as she thought, knowing that the people who commended on her unerring judgments were wrong, in the end. They were so incredibly wrong because she had ended up being wrong about Terry.

"I know my fears are irrational," she admitted, her voice as tremulous as her quivering lips. "And God, I wish they weren't so fucking irrational," she sighed deeply, a sad chuckle slipping past her lips.

"I wish my mind isn't tainted by all the things that Terry has done. . . so that I can finally stop comparing him to every guy that I meet—so that I can finally stop thinking that Sebastian might turn out to be like him. I never wanted Terry to serve as a benchmark," she sniffled, pressing the back of her hand to her nose as she looked away from her brother in shame.

"But my mind. . . and more importantly, my heart, just wants to stay guarded all the time. It's to prevent my heart from coming out all bruised and battered again because I couldn't stop blaming myself, for being the cause of our breakup," she sucked in a deep breath as a tear slid down her cheek, "for being boring, for not being adventurous enough, for not being as exciting as the girls he'd meet at the bar that was just five blocks away from our building. . . for not being enough."

Jean released a deep yet shaky sigh as she allowed the tears to trickle down her cheeks—allowing them to taint her rosy cheeks, allowing her thoughts to swallow her whole like a famished beast. She heard her brother take a sharp intake of breath, releasing it slowly after as he looked down at his hands, silence besetting them once more.

Jon could still vividly remember the many nights where he'd heard his sister crying in her room, sobbing into her pillow with her blanket against her lips to muffle her cries—it killed him to know that she used to think of herself that way, that she used to think she wasn't enough.

Just as Jon was about to say something—to reassure his sister in any way possible—a knock sounded from their front door. Instinctively, Jean quickly wiped away her tears with the sleeves of her shirt as Jon peered at the door with curiosity and confusion etched between his brows. He was sure it wasn't their parents because they were out of town for the weekend, so who else could it be?

A second knock came, but this time, it sounded a little more urgent than the first. The person on the other side of the door seemed to be shuffling about nervously on their feet because from where Jean was seated, she could clearly see a faint shadow moving about through the small crack beneath the door.

Jean softly nudged at her brother to get the door and see who it was, to which Jon nodded almost immediately before pushing himself up from the couch. It was close to 6pm, and Jon was pretty damn sure of himself that neither he nor his sister ordered two boxes of pizzas for dinner. Another knock sounded again for the third time this evening and Jon blew out a sigh before pulling their front door open.

"Sebastian?"

Jean's head shot up as soon as she heard her brother mention his name and my God, the look on her face was something that Sebastian was sure he would remember for a lifetime. Jon quickly moved to the side, allowing Sebastian to step in and place his hand luggage at the side of his feet. Jean rose from the couch a little too quick for her liking because damn it, it would serve as a clear indication that she liked him way more than he knew and way more than she'd care to admit but the look on his face right now—the relieved and adoring look he had in his eyes—washed that all away completely.

"You are enough," Sebastian said, his voice firm yet soft at the same time as he held Jean's gaze, inching a little closer to her. "You're more than enough, mermaid girl," he sighed, his lips curving up into a smile—the same smile he gave her when they went for waffles back in Helen, "you're so much more than enough."

---
a/n; surprise surprise, jean!!! so, now we know why seb "blew" her off at the very last minute
i'm writing part two as we speak! x