“Do you think that I did the right thing?” I asked Kyla over the phone as my eyes fell upon the clock hanging on my wall. It was already half past midnight, but I was lucky that she was willing to talk to me right now.

She was silent for a while, probably thinking of the right answer, but as she clicked her tongue, she spoke, “I’m not really sure, I think you were just talking out of fear.”

Well, I am scared. College is not as simple as high school, where if you live in the same city, you’re probably going to see each other again. It’s much more complicated to the point it’s unsure if you’re even going to stay in touch.

“Kyla!” I whined, even I’m sick of hearing myself think this over.

“How about you go get some sleep, the boys have their championships tomorrow and we have to be there to support them,” she muttered before I heard her yawn.

A small frown overcame my face, but I agreed with her, I felt kind of guilty for making her stay up with me, but like I said, I’m extremely lucky to have her as my best friend, “Alright, good night.”

“Night,” she mumbled before she hung up. I threw my phone on the bed beside me and I looked up at the ceiling, trying to get myself some sleep, it was nearly impossible though.

Pushing myself up, I walked to my window and opened the curtain. My eyes were expecting Jasper’s curtains, but to my surprise, his window was open. It was kind of weird considering he usually kept it close during the night.

I squinted a little bit and saw the moving light from his phone, indicating that he was still awake. I watch him glance up to his window, giving him a good view of myself. My eyes widened and I ducked down so he wouldn’t see me.

Not yet, I wasn’t ready.

“Savannah?” I heard his voice, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to prevent myself from saying anything. Once again, I heard him call out my name, “Savannah?!”

Thankfully, he gave up only after two tries. I peeked a bit and saw his retreating figure, probably going back to bed. I bit my lip and shook my head, slowly closing my windows and curtains, making sure they didn’t make a sound.

If you think that I got sleep after that escapade, then you’re wrong – completely and absolutely wrong.

When it was nearing six in the morning, I finally gave up and I kicked my blankets off after a night of tossing and turning on my bed. I was frightened by what I saw in the mirror, especially my eyes, they were nearing the color red.

I tip toed around the house, making sure I woke nobody up. The first thing I did when I got in the kitchen, I prepared myself a huge cup of coffee, I’m going to need it if I want to survive the day with a functioning system.

Opening the cupboards and fridge, I gathered enough ingredients to make everybody in house’ favorite – chocolate pancakes.

My mom was the first person to go down, she saw that I was already preparing breakfast and she gave me smile as she poured herself some orange juice, “I rarely see you up so early.”

“I figured it’s useless to push myself into something that’s impossible,” I replied to her statement, sipping on my mug of coffee, before I flipping the pancake on the pan. Whether if I was talking about my situation about Jasper or I was just being melodramatic about sleep, I may never know.

I finished up the last pancake and placed the big plate on the dining table as my mother prepared the rest of the breakfast as we waited for the other members of the family.

Dad was the next one to go down and he licked his lips at the delicious sight of the pancakes, “Good morning, girls.”

It took some time before Celeste and Drew come, probably because as they went down the stairs, they were already dragging their luggage with them. When they caught sight of me, Drew scrunched up his eyebrows as he stared at my face.

“What happened to you?” he questioned, sitting down on the chair next to his wife, “You look like you didn’t get a blink of sleep.”

“I didn’t,” I stated, trying to be nonchalant, but in fact, I was holding back a yawn so they wouldn’t press on more.

He shook his head as he settled a hand on top of my head, “You need to rest, don’t get so worried about one guy.”

Celeste laughed next to him and shook her head, “If a girl really likes that one guy, she’ll always worry,” she said, forking in some pancakes into her mouth, “And sometimes, that includes losing sleep.”

“Amen,” mom nodded from the other side of her table. My dad turned to her and she gave him a sheepish smile.

“I’m just worried about my little sister,” Drew protested, crossing his arms like a child, making the others laugh.

Celeste looked up at me and offered an encouraging smile, “It’s part of the learning experience.”

If I wasn’t upset enough, I stood there in front of the van that will drive my brother and my sister-in-law to the airport. They’re going to be gone again for a very long time, which is a bigger bad news than everything.

Drew packed the bags at the trunk while Celeste approached me and pulled me into a tight hug, “I’ll miss you.”

“What am I going to do?”

She laughed at this, probably finding this amusing, but for me, it was absolute torture, “Just so you know, everything will fall into place, just trust yourself and Jasper.”

I looked at her skeptically and she turned to back at Drew, before speaking, “I’m married to your brother, he’s my complete opposite and if we were able to stay together after all the crap we’ve been through, then I have confidence you and Jasper will too.”

I still question how Drew managed to get her. She’s prim and proper, on the other hand, my brother is the idiot who accidentally opened one of the bags while loading it, causing most of its contents to fall to the pavement.

Rolling my eyes, I walked over to him and helped him pick up the stray clothes. He stuffed them all back into the bag and closed the trunk, wiping the beads of sweat that was forming on his forehead.

“You’re leaving me again?” I asked, my voice small like a little child getting abandoned by her parents.

Drew laughed and shook his head, “I’ll be back, who else is going to pull you out of trouble?”

“I think I’m old enough to do that myself,” I retorted.

“To me, you’re still that annoying kid who jumps on my bed to wake me up every damn morning.”

For the first time all day, I smiled. He lifted a hand and I have him a high five, before I jumped into his arms, surprising him. His shoulders shook to indicate he was laughing once again, before returning the hug, “Finish your story with a good ending, baby sister.”

“Of course,” I fist bumped him, “We siblings need to have our happy ending.”

It was far from a tearful goodbye, mostly because I knew that I would be seeing them again. I waved at them as their van slowly drove away.

My eyes looked up to the house next door and they instantly connected to Jasper’s. He nodded a hello to me, and I gave him a soft smile back. He gestured for me to wait for him to go outside, but I shook my head, pointing back to my house to indicate that I needed to go back inside.

I opened my laptop and once again, went to the page where my application was ready to be sent. It just takes on press of the button and everything’s done.

This simple thing is the reason why I can’t go on peacefully.

So I did the mature thing I could do, I lifted my middle finger at the screen as if it would make a difference.

I fell down on the couch and blew a sigh, my eyes were still glued to my laptop, it was freaking taunting me, and the deadline was coming up soon, if I don’t make a decision, I wouldn’t have any choice at all. It may be a good excuse, but I feel like I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.

Somehow, I fell asleep while having my dramatic contemplation. When I woke up, my eyes bugged out when I saw the time and when I scrambled around to look for my phone, I almost fainted at the amount of missed calls coming from Kyla.

Panicking, I grabbed a jacket and my car keys, rushing out of the house, dialing Kyla’s number as I sprinted to my vehicle that was parked in front of the driveway.

“Where the hell are you?” she growled as I heard the loud noises coming from the background.

“I fell asleep,” I answered, my voice frustrated as I tried to maneuver to the street, “I’m so sorry.”

“I thought you got into an accident or something,” I heard her voice filled with relief, “Just come here, the game’s starting to get intense.”

“Got it,” I said, hanging up on my phone, concentrating on the road as I tried not to go over the speed limit. When I reached the school, the parking lot was already packed. Cursing under my breath, I just decided to double park, I’m going to get into a lot of trouble because of this, but I’m already screwed anyways.

I rushed into the school and I could already hear the loud screams from the gym. I puffed out as I entered, feeling like I just got slapped by the face with the huge commotion. I looked up at the scoreboard and felt disappointed to see that we were lugging behind.

Scanning the bleachers, I walked over to where Kyla was standing, right at the near bottom where she was already leaning to the railings, I was quite afraid she was going to fall.

“Oh finally,” Kyla mumbled when she saw me, “You should have seen how badly it’s been.”

The cheerleaders who was standing in front of us from the other side of the concrete separating the bleachers from the main court turned to us when they noticed my arrival. They nodded in agreement to Kyla statement and approached us, “This has probably been the worst game Jasper has ever played,” one of them frowned, “And he’s been doing this for a long time.”

Kyla looped her arm around mine to get my attention, “Look at him,” she whispered and my gaze placed itself on Jasper, “He looks tired and upset.”

She was right, he looked horrible. His eyes were puffed out and red, maybe a mirror of what I looked like before my nap, and his steps were slow, a huge change from his usual swift movements. That used to be his biggest advantage – his speed.

When the opponent shot another basket, our coach looked like he was ready to throw away the clipboard he was holding. Jasper scratched the back of his head, looking completely angry with himself and Tristan approached him to pat his back.

The referee blew his whistle and the boys went to him where the ball was once again passed to initiate the game.

“Excuse us, we have to do our job,” the cheerleaders smiled to us, setting into position as they faced court, executing their routine as they encouraged the crowd to yell whatever cheer they were calling out.

It looked pointless though, the boys were still doing a lousy job, that’s when I felt that they were really a team. If one of them were down, they all were. It wasn’t just ordinary teammate that was off his game, it was their captain.

Stupid Savannah, you just had to do it right before the game.

“Let’s go, Tigers!” the girls screamed at the top of their lungs, doing different tricks and flips.

I watched as Tristan snatch the ball from one of the players from the other team and he did a three-pointer. Our school hollered their joy that we finally got a shot in, Kyla squealed proudly next to me, her eyes set on her boyfriend.

“Go Tristan!” Kyla cheered, with her loud yell, Tristan was able to recognize her distinct voice from the crowd and his eyes fell on us. He grinned and waved to her, at the same time, Jasper turned to where he was looking and saw me there.

Last night, it was dark so it’s possible that I didn’t see it, earlier, I didn’t look at him long enough to notice it, but now, as we stared at each other, I felt like somebody punched me a thousand times.

His eyes showed distraught and every kind of sadness I could think of. His mouth was set on a perpetual frown and he was pale, an indication that he wasn’t in the best condition.

Oh fuck, I did this.

“Good luck,” I mouthed, forcing myself to show him a small smile. He needs this, I need to hide how depress I am for him. We’re going to fall apart more if we go on like this.

He nodded as he went back to the court. Kyla tapped my shoulder before telling me, “About your question earlier, you did the right thing.”

“What do you mean?” I questioned, thoroughly confused.

“You’ll know sooner or later,” was her simple answer before turning her attention back to the game.

Jasper finally shot a basket and I unintentionally allowed a yell escape my mouth, jumping up and down in excitement. Kyla laughed beside me, finding my sudden outburst amusing. He turned to me and grinned when he saw me with my hands up in the air, cheering for him.

That was all it took for Jasper to get his head back into the game, and our school quickly caught up with the score. With the consistency of our points, the supporters were getting wilder and wilder.

There were only a few seconds until the game ended, but we were still behind by two points. My eyes were glued to Jasper who was dribbling the ball in front of an opponent, trying to find a way to circle around him.

Tristan rounded up behind him and he quickly passed it. The gym fell silent, finally feeling the tension as the timer kept counting down.

Since he was finally free, he ran to the other side of the court and got the ball from Tristan. We all held our breath when he tried to run to their basket, but a bastard ran against him and he hit him. He started to fall backwards and everything went in slow motion inside my head.

I don’t know why or how, but I cupped my mouth and screamed his name, “Jasper!”

He snapped out of it and praying that the odds were with him, he threw the ball just before he hit the floor. The crowd gasped as all of us watched the ball zoom pass across the court. It spun around the rim of the basket a few times before it finally fell in.

Our side of the gym started going into a frenzy, finding the outmost happiness in our team’s victory. The boys of the basketball team shook hands with the other school before going to Jasper who refused to move from his lying position on the floor.

More and more people came to him, causing me to worry. Kyla and I exchanged a look before we pushed past the people to get down the bleachers and to where he was.

“Move!” I demanded, shoving the people who circled themselves around him. I found him at the center, clutching his right shoulder as he winced in pain. Tristan was kneeling beside him, patting his best friend, saying a couple of encouraging words to him.

I fell down on the floor and I grabbed his face, rubbing comforting circles on his cheeks. His eyes opened to reveal that I was glistening with unshed tears as he groaned, trying to even out his breathing.

“You alright?” I asked a very stupid question, but to my complete surprise, he closed his eyes shut and nodded.

“Alright.”

The team all worked together in order to carry him to the clinic while inflicting the least pain possible on him. Of course, I followed obediently behind them with Kyla who looked at me with worry, as if I was the one who came crashing down earlier.

We were all kindly asked by the school nurse to wait out as he looked over his injuries. I think I was about to waste my nails for I was so near to going back to my bad habit of biting them caused by the anxiousness.

Tristan wrapped one arm around Kyla’s shoulder and the other one on mine, “He’ll be fine, we’re talking about Jasper here.”

I nodded numbly as I stared at the clinic door, waiting for it to open so I could see him again. There were still a lot of people in the hallway, which isn’t a big surprise since the star player is in there getting treated.

“Poor Jasper,” one of the cheerleaders who was passing by said.

“But I think it improved his chances, the agent seemed really impressed with his last minute move,” her friend piped in.

My attention snapped to their direction and I felt Tristan stiffen, making me suspicious.

“So, do you girls want some ice cream while we wait?” he tried to divert my focus, but nope, I had to hear this.

“Just imagine,” the girl giggled, “A scholarship to Europe.”

What did the pompom waving love child of a rainbow and a drop of sunshine just say?!

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Am I sick or something because I updated before even a week passed by? Somebody give me something cold for my head, I haven't done that in months! Probably because I'm feeling extra happy that I finally got around to do some book shopping, but I'm also tearing up because of the hole it left in my wallet.

Question: What Savannah said, what did the pompom waving love child of a rainbow and a drop of sunshine just say?!

So I hope you guys had a fantastic week and I'll see you all soon on the next update. Before you click or tap away, please don't forget to leave a comment, vote and follow.

P.S. Love you guys!