Like I mentioned before, updates will be extremely slow because my average needs to be incredibly high so I can get accepted into University for next year. Thank you so much for sticking by and toughing it out until I can update again. Don't forget to vote and comment!

**also, you should totally check out my harry potter book, if you're into that sort of thing :)

||Jamilla Tate||First Person||

It's finally October, which essentially means that Halloween decorations(which are always a must) had went up all around Park-Stradley hall, especially the lounges. The temperature over the past few days has started to average around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, which wouldn't have been necessarily cold if it weren't for the fact that everyone got used to months of hot weather. Nevertheless, even though the heat in the lounge was on, when Tara and Scarlet invited me to spend the afternoon in the lounge to finish some English work, I had decided to wear a long sleeved shirt this time with my regular jeans.

My hand tightens around my ballpoint pen in frustration, my knuckles paling within seconds of my harsh grasp. I glare down at my paper in annoyance, absolutely hating the fact that though half of it is filled with a scribble of words, a good quarter consisted of complete and utter bullshit. I was never great at writing essays and essays are a figuratively large portion of our final marks, which is why it was always a struggle for me to keep my average at a manageable percentage. Honour Roll was never a given for me, but always a necessity.

"How much have you got?" Tara asks in exasperation as she drops her pencil on top of her notebook. Tara has her books spread across her portion of the table in a haphazard mess that rivaled Scarlet's rather organized corner, the two friends so similar yet different. I squint my eyes at Tara's paper instead of answering her just yet, noticing that it's filled with her quick and loopy handwriting. There was no doubt that it'd be worth a fairly decent mark with how concise it looks. I finally look back down at my own work, feeling rather terrible about its quality.

I was never the best at English, even less so when it came to the great Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet. Sure, the story is interesting enough and the live-action movies are supposedly not horrible, but it takes me far too long to translate certain phrases that make absolutely zero sense into modern English. I've reread the play once already and I've only grasped the most important parts, such as the fact that Hamlet is a rich kid that decides to avenge his father's death after said father's spirit tells him that Hamlet's uncle(who married Hamlet's mom), who is the new king, murdered him and disrupted the Chain of Being or something of the sorts. I know that Hamlet is a major asshole and treats his sweet girlfriend like shit(and kills her father, but that's totally okay because her father was actually the spawn of Satan). The play also ends with everyone's death, which apparently is meant to symbolize that the corruption in Denmark had died. Shakespeare is definitely not my thing.

"I finished the intro," I mumble dejectedly. Tara raises her eyebrows at that, surprised that I had only managed to finish the introduction of my essay. "In my defense, he did say he wanted the intro to be at least three quarters of a page." I add.

"That better be a damn good intro, then." Tara tells me with a laugh, turning her head to look over at Scarlet who had tucked her earphones in ten minutes ago after joking about how we were distracting her. "What's your hook statement?"

"Don't judge..." I look down sheepishly, chewing on my bottom lip. "Albus Dumbledore has some pretty great quotes..."

"You didn't," Tara looks at me with wide eyes.

"Nope, I think she did." I hear a voice say from behind me, and within seconds the scent of lightly sprayed cologne-- and is that cinnamon?-- registers to me. I can feel my face heating up and my hands start to sweat, so I jam them between my thighs so no one will notice. "It would be cooler if I could actually read it, but her handwriting is crap." I turn my head and look up to see Josh Dun standing behind my chair, leaning forward and squinting at my notebook in an effort to decode my nearly ineligible handwriting. I try to control my breathing because Goddamn, he is so breathtakingly beautiful.

"It's a reference to literature, which Stevens said we could use as the hook." I attempt to defend myself, but Josh only shakes his head with a little tut in response that makes Tara snort almost obnoxiously. I slip one hand out from where my legs held them captive and bury my face in it, shaking my own head.

"That does not excuse the fact that you are a Potterhead," Josh stands up straighter and crosses his arms over his chest as he looks down at me, "and you never told me." He raises his eyebrows at me, but I can obviously see the hint of a smile tugging his lips upwards.

"I wasn't under the impression that you needed to know," I can't help but laugh stupidly because the whole 'talking to boys that I'm incredibly attracted to' isn't something I'm very well-versed in. All I can hope for at this point is that my laugh doesn't look nor sound too terrible.

"I'll have you know--" Josh begins to say before Scarlet is looking up at the both of us with a lone earbud swinging between her manicured fingers and interrupting him.

"Josh, you're distracting the poor girl." Scarlet says in a cool voice, her eyes trailing back to her paper for a brief moment before she returns his gaze easily. It makes me awfully jealous for some reason when I notice just how calm and collected she is-- she makes the whole badass look seem practically effortless. Tara and Scarlet, my next-door neighbours and now my new friends, are an unstoppable duo with personalities that I can't help but wish I had. I often feel boring or plain whenever they're around, and I can't help but wonder why they even want to be friends with me still. They both just seem so sure of themselves, and it makes me feel more and more lost everyday.

"I think my new best friend would tell me if I was distracting her." Josh says lightly, swinging his arm around my shoulders without a second thought. I, on the other hand, hold my breath for a brief second because holy shit, Josh just wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "Am I distracting you, Ja-mee-lah?" He says with a joking grin that I know he shares with anyone kind enough to pull it from him. It's times like these, in my nearing two months of knowing him, where I wonder if he is aware of the affect his good looks have on people. I roll my eyes at him and simply hope that he won't notice the fierce blush on my cheeks that is no doubt his fault.

"Of course not," I gulp nervously and plaster on a smile. Why have I allowed myself to get so attracted to him so quickly?

"Then you won't mind if I make plans for us to go see the Goblet of Fire in theatres next month?" Josh says, tilting his head with a smaller smile teasing his lips. I know in that moment that whatever the hell I think this is, it is not that at all. Josh is a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbour. What he is proposing is solely because Harry Potter just so happens to be a common interest-- this isn't a big deal, so don't make it one, Jamilla.

"Uh--" I immediately open my mouth to say no, to give him a bullshit excuse about why I can't go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with him in theatres because my mother would honestly never allow it. It was always a no with Olivia, it would definitely be a no with Josh. Maybe she'd tell my dad too-- if I mentioned a Josh, I'd make things worse on myself. I can't go. "I don't know--"

"Are you going with Nate or something?" Scarlet blurts out, her eyes narrowed at me. I can practically read her expression, and it just screams 'what the hell do you think you're doing?'

"Nate?" Josh raises his eyebrows at me.

"No, I'm not going anywhere with Nate. What made you think--"

"Nothing," Scarlet turns away immediately and turns her attention back to her playbook, suddenly pretending to be fascinated by the glossary of William Shakespeare's Hamlet that decodes Elizabethan language. I bite my bottom lip. "If you have no plans, you two should totally watch Harry Potter." Scarlet says it as if it's an afterthought, like her words are only another tool to casually keep a conversation going. Tara and Scarlet alike have a way with making words sound... good. The phrase 'silver-tongued' suddenly makes sense to me, because with the short remark Scarlet made, Josh's smile is returning and he's unwrapping his arm from around my shoulders.

"November 15th, I think?" He looks at me for clarification, but I only shrug my shoulders. A sinking feeling overwhelms me as I shift in my chair, suddenly uncomfortable. "How's--" Josh doesn't finish his sentence because I'm pushing myself up to my feet and rubbing my palms against my jeans.

"I'll be right back," I mumble, turning on my heel and heading across the lounge and away from Tara and Scarlet and Josh. I pass by tables and sofa seats occupied by other students, some I vaguely recognize and others I haven't a clue of who they are. I head over to the row of vending machines placed along the wall, digging my hands into my pockets in search of a few coins. I push the change I retrieve from my pocket into the coin slot, chewing on my bottom lip as I stare at the selection of snacks behind the glass.

Josh isn't interested in me, I can tell. The way that he looks at me is the exact same way he looks at every other girl on our floor-- the charming smile of his with his squinting eyes has gotten the attention of people at least in a three floor radius. I'm not very funny, and I sure as hell lack enough life experience to be interesting at all. I'm just the girl across the hall that he gave a ride once and that's that. Harry Potter? He's only asking me as a friend, and the chances of him bringing along his best friend Tyler is very high. It's purely because we would both be seeing it anyways-- why not see it together?

My mother. It's been two months since I hopped on a train and left Cleveland to come here, to Columbus. She doesn't have control of me or my life anymore, and I know that, but I keep slipping back into the mentality that once belonged to me when I was still living with her. I keep forgetting that I can make my own choices from here on out-- I keep forgetting that my life is no longer hers and she and my dad can't have it.

My gaze settles on a bag of chips in the top left slot, so I punch in the code and wait patiently for my bag of chips to drop to the box where I can finally retrieve it. When the light flashes, I reach into the vending machine and grab hold of my bag of chips, turning on my heel and mentally preparing myself to march right back over to my table and tell Josh that, sure, I will watch the movie with him. Unfortunately though, when I crane my neck in the right angle, I can see the group from my vantage point by the vending machines. The only people left at the table are Tara and Scarlet, the dark-haired boy nowhere to be seen.

Josh left.

"You're an absolute idiot, Jamilla." Tara says the moment I return as I set my bag of chips on the table next to Hamlet. I raise my eyebrows at her and try not to think about the fact that Josh must have felt offended by my behaviour towards him. He was just trying to make friends with me, and I had to go ahead and make it difficult for him.

"Haven't heard that one before," I mumble under my breath as she opens her mouth to continue berating me. Tara scoffs in disbelief, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. I chew on my bottom lip and refuse to look up at her, staring at my notebook guiltily.

This whole making friends thing is much more difficult than I could have ever imagined.