Najwa never bothers to tweet or text me much. By now, it's been going on for a month, and I'm almost so fed up with it that I could scream. Whenever she IS texting me however, she's never herself. Ever.

Single-word replies. No smiley faces, which she usually always has. No emotion at all, it seemed.

I tried to tell her that I was scared--because I honestly was--and I could sense something eventually happening that would break us up. I was scared shitless because we were so perfect together. I couldn't afford to lose her. I knew if I lost her that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I wanted to be the one to save us, when she wasn't making an effort to. It was almost our eleven-month anniversary. I wouldn't let us stop before a full year.

But at the same time, I was sick and tired of not having someone to be able to be physically with. I wanted her so badly to be here, but every time we attempted to work something out, it wouldn't work. I was starting to debate whether or not it all was worth it in the end. Is she worth this? All this waiting and trying to stay patient and this...torture? Does she even love me anymore? If she did love me, she wouldn't be doing this to me....Right?

Even at this time, I was still making up work I had missed from being sick the few weeks before, plus all of my daily work I had to do to continue to stay caught up. I would spend the time from when I got home from school to the time I went to bed just cramming in more homework. I barely had time to eat or have free-time of my own, and on weekends I did work from when I woke up to when I went to bed. Still, throughout all this, I made sure I texted or tweeted Najwa, because I couldn't just ditch her because I have a lot of work to do. I kept my hopes up that she might come back. I'd listen to our songs that I had on my iPod too, to stay positive.

I was stressed, almost to the point of a breakdown, and I needed someone to talk to. But...she wasn't there.

One weekend, my mom was sick of watching me do all of this homework, so she sort of made me sleep over at my friend Makayla's house to get a load off. I went over there at around 5 PM, and we had a lot of fun. We played her Kinect, went on her laptop, and watched TV for about 3 hours. We stayed up until about 1 AM, when she started to get a bit...moody.

I couldn't sleep, though. I had thoughts racing through my mind that wouldn't shut up. I was trying to think why Najwa would treat me like this; why she would...push me away. Did I do something wrong? If so, why couldn't she tell me? Did I fuck something up like I've done to other people? I sat there in my sleeping bag, Makayla sleeping in her bunk bed, and stared up at the ceiling. I didn't move for literally 20 minutes, and just felt....blank. Numb. Empty. I couldn't cry because I didn't have enough energy or tears left too. Eventually I built up the strength to text Najwa, and she actually replied.

"...Why do I feel like you don't love me anymore..?"

She replied:

"What do you mean? >,<"

"You're not talking to me...at all. And when you are, you're not yourself...I'm scared.."

"I'm....sorry? I'm really really busy >,< Why are you scared?"

"I'm scared for US...Just...I don't know...>,<"

"Okaaaaayyyy? Cool it. I'm just REALLY busy. It's college."

After that, I don't remember how it went. I just remember that she eventually didn't reply for a while, and I gave up and went to bed, not even wanting to cuddle my Bunny for once...

Halloween was a different story. That was a good day, by far. The band and choir kids got to skip half of the day to take a mini trip to the Middle School to watch a performance from a college band and choir from South Dakota. I was super excited to be able to miss a bit of school. And...secretly, to of course spend 3 more hours around Hayden....But I never admitted that. We all got to have first lunch--the hour where I usually have band--which meant I had the same lunch as Makayla, as well as my other friends Johanna and Jordan. My friends Emily, Jenny, Linnea, Laura, Brandon and I sat at the others' usual table. I was sad for a bit though, because sitting at a completely different table meant I couldn't, you know, take little peeks at Hayden like I typically did. I'm not gonna lie, I searched around the lunchroom for a while to find him, but I soon gave up. I thought it'd be easy to find him, with his poofy hair and all, but I guess I was wrong.

I had splurged to Makayla about Hayden was such a sweet kid and how I kind of....really liked him, and she was all "Oh my gosh show him to me!!" So...that's mainly what I wanted to do today.

As I was staring into space because at the moment no one was talking to me, I saw his face out of the corner of my eye. He was only TWO tables away this whole time! And I have a PERFECT view of him! What are the odds? I pretended to play with some food on my tray while I glanced up every-so-often to look at him. I felt tempted to tap Makayla on the shoulder since she was sitting right next to me and point him out to her, but I didn't want to risk Brandon or Laura seeing; they didn't know that I...liked him, and since we all have band together, it would just be weird.

When we got up to throw our trays away, I found my chance. "Hey Makayla!!" I whispered to her. "Wanna see the guy I like.....?" I hated saying that I "like" him. He was just serving as a distraction for me. A silly little distraction...to keep my mind of Najwa all the time.

"YES!!!!!" she squealed.

I scooted closer to her, "Over there...like, RIGHT there..." I was careful not to point to directly in case he looked over here. Him catching me pointing him out would be humiliating. "Poofy brown hair....Tight gray t-shirt...."

I waited for a few seconds until she went, ".....NOLLENBERGER!?!?!?"

First of all, THAT'S HIS LAST NAME!! I couldn't help but think that that name sounded eerily familiar....And for what reason? I wasn't sure. It was creeping me out...

Second of all, how she said it...this can't be good.

My eyes widened. "Uh...yeah....is that bad?"

"I just....I don't think he's cute. At all."

"Oh.....Okay..." I said.

After lunch, Emily and Jenny and I headed up to the music wing. We had to have our daily rehearsal before the trip, and I itched for it to go quickly so we could technically have the rest of the day off!!

I put my instrument together at my locker, everyone else in the room nearly doing the same, and I looked over to see Hayden beside me. Our lockers were right next to each other, so we got a good look at one another for a bit every day. He was taking his instrument out as well, but he finished faster than myself. As he stood and started to walk away to go get his folder at the other side of the room, I looked up only to see him do this....sexy hair flip thing. He shook his head back and forth, making his hair even poofier that it already was. I tried not to stare, in case someone was looking, but hot DAMN. I thought my ovaries were about to explode. I found myself wishing he would do it again and again.

We rehearsed for about 45 minutes, and then left to load the buses. I sat next to Emily and Johana on the bus that we chose--there were two buses for all of the students--and we talked the entire ride to the Middle School. It was funny, because Emily actually caught me looking at Hayden. I had talked to her before about how I liked him and that I thought he was super attractive, and now she was all over this. She teased me non-stop about it, and I couldn't help but go along with her because it was fun. The bus ride went faster that I expected because of that....

Once we arrived, we went into the auditorium and watched the performance. The choir was up first, and I'll admit that I nearly fell asleep. Not because that they were really good and it put me to sleep--they WERE really good--it's just that I was bored out of my mind. It seemed to lag on for forever, and I wished the band would just play so I could get pumped up.

Eventually the concert band was up next! They were really impressive, and I loved all the songs they played. I found myself wishing and hoping that maybe I could get as good as one of them someday. One can only hope...

After that, they had a professor who had a PhD and everything in music perform. He was an Alto sax player, so i got a kick out of this. The piece that he played had a drum solo in it--he just pressed a lot of the keys for this, without blowing--and even had times where he'd play two notes at once. it sounded extremely obnoxious, but really cool at the same time!!

We came back to the school at around 1:50, so we had nearly an hour to spare until school let out. Emily and Jenny and I hung outside of the music hall, sitting on the floor near the lockers and talked for a while. At one time, Hayden walked out of the hall and Emily smirked at me. I, again, started to giggle and blush. I may have also slapped her a few times, but that was only because I was embarrassed. And I get slappy when I get embarrassed....Geez! She wouldn't let me go, would she?!

Later we got called into the band room by Mr. Hoehn. As I filed my way in, nearly everyone was in their seats. I grabbed my backpack that I had left near my locker and sat down at...almost my assigned seat. Someone was already sitting there! I awkwardly sat in between the trumpets who are placed next to the saxophones. I hadn't noticed before I sat down, but there was an empty seat next to Hayden's because the French Horn player was gone. I cursed myself for not seeing it before. You could have sat by him! Damn you! I didn't want to move now because it'd be really..strange to get up out of the seat that I was already sitting in just to go sit by Hayden... Am I right?

My Director stood up on his podium and said a few things about the concert: whether we liked the choir or band best, what songs we liked the most, if we liked the saxophonist who played the solo, etc. Nobody said a word....

Mr. Hoehn ended up letting class out before the bell even rang. I walked down to the door that my mom picks me up at the end of the day with Emily, and of course, Hayden passed, his back to us. She did her usual smirk, giggle and now a nudge-nudge to my arm. I could feel my face turning bright red, and I slapped her arm like before. "SHUT UPPPPP!!" I half-whispered, laughing. I don't know why, but I really enjoyed it whenever she'd do that....I subconsciously wanted her to do it more and more and wanted him to talk to me more. I wanted to feel even more special....