He’s looking at me, he’s real, he’s not turning away. God, help me!

My name, he said my name! It sounds so foreign to my ears, years had gone by since I last heard him voice it out.

Now what should I supposed to do now that I have him here?

“Hi.”

Get pass the greetings, Savannah!

“Hey.”

No, don’t reply with a greeting, we’re never going to pass this!

I could hear my wall clock ticking, timing my moment and reminding me of my failure. Grabbing the edge of my curtain, I closed it, shutting my view of Jasper.

I’m so pathetic.

Minutes ticked by and I just stood there, gripping the curtain with a shaking hand.

When will my pride finally allow me to apologize?

“Savannah!”

Wait a minute, was that him? Did he just call my name?

“Jasper,” I called out but I’m not brave enough to face him.

Once again, I’m so pathetic.

On the plus side, I was able to get past the greetings this time. Baby steps!

“Please open the curtain,” his tone wasn’t exactly pleading, but it was something similar.

I’m not ready to see him face to face. Right now, I have the safety of my curtain, but if that’s gone, I may faint right here.

“Please,” he repeated.

Jasper Dean doesn’t say please. People gives him anything he wants, he just says a word and the whole school is at his beck and call.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the cloth aside, now staring at Jasper’s brown eyes, waiting for any sign of sudden movement that will put me to my end.

Wait, what?

“Hey,” I croaked out.

One more greeting from you Savannah Everett and I’m about to kick you in the shin. The whole point of this thing is that you no longer need to put so much effort in saying a simple hello!

Great, now I’m arguing with myself inside my head.

“How have you be-“ he started but I suddenly cut him off.

Prepare yourself Jasper because you have to keep in synch with whatever I’m saying.

“Look, I’m sorry that I ignored you, I’m sorry that I’m freaking out right now, I’m sorry that I can’t even get past the greetings, but I need you to know that I’m on the verge of fainting because this is the first time I talked to you in three years and if you think that I can act normal at a time like this then it’s like you haven’t been there when we were growing up!” I said all in one breath.

He stared at me like I was a lunatic, and I’m starting to believe that I am one.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m not repeating myself,” I grumbled under my breath without even thinking.

“Are you sane?” he almost chuckled, observing my movements.

Nope. Hindi. Nulla. Geen. Tidak. Non. Nicht. Nie. Nah. No.

 I bowed my head down and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“What did I do wrong?” he asked, fishing for an explanation why I suddenly cut off our longtime friendship.

I can never tell him. Admitting it meant that he will find out that I had this crush on him. I will never be able to live it down if that happened.

“It’s just…” I trailed off, keeping my head down so I didn’t have to look into his eyes.

Are we on speaking terms now?

“I’m sorry,” he suddenly apologized, using the same gentle tone as I did.

He did nothing wrong, he even made the effort to rekindle our friendship when I started to avoid him. He did everything to fix what I was breaking.

It’s all my fault and up until now, I’m wallowing in guilt and regret.

Kyla is an amazing friend, she was so oblivious to her involvement into this and I want it to keep it like this. Same with Jasper, he knows nothing and I want it to stay like this.

I know we can never fix everything and put it back the way it was, at least I want to tape the pieces together. You can see where the rips were but they still stick together.

“It’s been a long day,” I sighed tiredly, “I should probably sleep.”

With the coffee, burger joint, and now this, I desperately need a good night’s sleep.

He looked upset that I didn’t respond to his apology but he nodded nonetheless, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Wait, he’ll talk to me tomorrow?

“Goodnight,” he finally said, waiting for me to say it back.

“Night,” I mumbled, finally shutting the window and pulled the curtains so that I can no longer see him.

Well, I survived this night.

Walking to my door, I opened it and Kyla sat on the carpeted hallway, her head slightly tiled to the side as I saw her breathe slowly, indicating that she fell asleep.

Kneeling right in front of her, I smiled at my best friend, “Thank you, Kyla.”

I owe her for making me do this. Step one – getting past the greetings – check.

Looks like I have to make room for two on my bed once again. Slowly shaking her, I woke her up, “Kyla, let’s go to bed.”

She stared at me groggily before nodding, I helped her up and I allowed her to plop on her side of the bed.

I prepped myself up for bed and just when I was about to slip under the covers, I stared at the closed window and I smiled, maybe this isn’t such a lost cause after all.

The horrible morning though, I forgot to set up my alarm clock causing both Kyla and I to wake up late.

My eyes popped out of their sockets when I saw the time being showed by my clock and that’s when I started to shake Kyla so she would wake up.

“First period starts in twenty minutes!” I yelled at her, causing her eyes to open wide.

Yup, we’re definitely awake right now.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she groaned exasperatedly, shooting out of bed, “I’m borrowing some of your clothes.”

This isn’t the first time Kyla had a sleepover, in fact, her stays are so frequent that she has her own toothbrush in our bathroom. I called dibs while she dug through my drawers, looking for something that will fit her style.

We rushed downstairs and true to my speculations, both of my parents left early resulting to the expense that nobody was there to wake us up.

Each of us grabbed a granola bar from the pantry and we sprinted to Kyla’s car that was parked in my driveway.

“You didn’t even had a chance to tell me what happened with Jasper,” she complained, pulling into the streets of the city, her hands glued to the steering wheel as we sped through the usual morning traffic.

“We talked,” I replied vaguely, gripping my seatbelt as Kyla went over the speed limit, taking every single turn with precise calculations, never pausing or breaking.

“Seriously, he obviously did nothing wrong,” she defended his side, “You’re just being a sassy snob.”

“Thanks,” I snorted sarcastically, “You’re such an encouraging best friend.”

She started to slow down when we knew that we were close to the school, finally putting safety first.

“I mean, he looks like a kind friend,” she continued on, “Tristan looks satisfied with the position of being his best friend.”

“Why does every conversation we have seems to rotate back to Tristan?”

“Because he’s perfect,” she shrugged lightheartedly, releasing slight giggle.

The school finally came into view and Kyla made a turn to enter the students’ parking lot. She drove to her usual spot, turning off the engine before pulling out her keys from ignition.

“Made it at the nick of time,” I commented, swinging my bag over my shoulder as I exited her vehicle.

“So proud of my baby,” she grinned, patting the roof of her car, “Now let’s go.”

Today, I don’t want to do anything with Jasper. I’m going to try my absolute best to avoid him, the conversation last night was enough to put a wall of awkwardness between us. It’s thinner than what it used to be, but it’s still there.

Step two, make my brain function properly when I’m with him.

As usual, the people scampered away from me as I walked down the halls as if I had huge tiger growling at them right in front of me.

Seriously, I don’t have the energy to deal with these idiots right now.

Aside from the slight bump in the hallways, which is when I found the drinking fountain extremely fascinating, I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding Jasper.

Of course, English class had to butt in.

“Sit next to your partner,” Ms. Hughes smiled oh-so-sweetly, clapping her hands and gesturing for the class to do what she asked.

Still as awkward as we were yesterday.

Oh Ms. Hughes, you’re a spec of lint on my flawless “Avoid Jasper Dean during the Whole Day” plan.

“Romeo first met Juliet during…” she started to drone on, discussing the famous Shakespeare tale.

A piece of paper slid in front of me, I picked it up and I turned to Jasper but his eyes were glued to the teacher talking in front of us.

Are you avoiding me?

Great, we reverted back to passing each other notes. What is this, elementary school?

I’m seriously considering that I won’t reply to me but that’s just an extremely obvious answer.

Clicking my pen, I scribbled down a quick and shot reply that was obviously a lie.

No.

He threw the paper back to me.

What was that little escapade in the hallway then?

Is he really bringing that up?

Earlier, I saw him in the halls just between second and third period, I went into a state of panic. I couldn’t go anywhere but forward because people were literally a tsunami of students trying to get to their classes on time.

The solution my pathetic brain could think of is staring at the drinking fountain, looking at it with outmost interest.

It was so shiny, did the janitor used some special cleaner to wipe it?

Since my attention was occupied by the gorgeous drinking fountain, I failed to notice the trash can right in front of me.

Like a freaking tree that just fell at the middle of the highway, it clattered, pausing all of the rushing students’ movements. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the student body president just ran into the trash can. You may now take pictures for further embarrassment.

One of my many spectator was the reason why I even ran into the damn thing.

I was too busy appreciating the beauty of the drinking fountain to see the ugly trash can in front of me.

The stupidity of how it sounded was making me cringe. Seriously brain?

Right, good luck with that. So, was the trash can not worth the attention of your gaze?

For the first time, my lips curved upwards and I cracked into a smile.

“Shut up,” I mouthed at him.

He stuck out his tongue playfully and he placed his gaze back to Ms. Hughes talking in front of the classroom.

Conclusion, I did miss the times Jasper made me laugh with little effort.

We got past the greetings, I can now smile when I’m with him, what’s next with our little ladder called the rebuilding of our friendship?

 -------------------------

So who missed me, my little peaches? 

I feel so horrible to leave you hanging like that, and to end the last chapter with that cliff-hanger was the worst. In my defense, some of the comments pissed me off so much that I dropped all my insipiration. I'm back and I plowed through my busy schedule to finally type. I still have a lot to do during my summer break, so please understand that I don't have too much free time.

Question: What's our little ship name for Jasper and Savannah?

I feel so bad, but please understand. I missed you guys so much, believe me when I say that I've been itching to type a new chapter for a long time.