Chapter Twenty-Eight: "Issue Number One Thousand."

EVERYONE I KNOW knows I love Fridays. There was no special event that occurred on a Friday for me to love the day that much. There was just something about that specific day that filled me with more energy to get through the day like any other. There was a random association of joy that I had when it came to Fridays.

I didn't hate any other day of the week, but I was starting to on the Monday classes resumed. Because I was having the worst day I had ever experienced in a very long time and not because of one thing.

It was a multitude of issues.

In the morning, I had woken up at 5 AM. For no reason. It was two hours before my alarm was ready to be set off. But that was just issue number one.

When I couldn't go back to bed, I scrolled through my social media. I held my phone over my head and before I knew it my phone slipped out of my hands, hitting me on the bridge of my nose and sending a flaring pain that spread throughout my face. Gritting my teeth in agony, I groaned, rolling to my side and closing my eyes as I waited for the pain to subside.

The feeling barely abated as I sat up and ran to the bathroom. I was lucky I didn't have a nosebleed. Eventually, the pain dulled down but my nose was left throbbing and still continued to throb as I sat down at the kitchen counter close to 8 AM, eating avocado on toast when Yasmeen plopped down in the chair next to me. She was wearing a black hijab and a brown long sleeve turtleneck very similar to the purple one I was wearing.

With only two issues in this morning, with my nose and the dark circles underneath my eyes, I managed to conceal with light makeup, her presence was something I needed. I almost hugged her, about to even comment on our similar outfits but stopped myself when her eyes went wide at the sight of my nose.

She gasped in motherly-like concern, "What happened to you? Your nose looks like someone hit you."

"I dropped my phone on my face," I explained, looking at myself in the camera. The skin on the bridge of my nose was starting to turn a darker colour underneath my makeup. I was too tired to try and conceal it even further. Forget it.

I didn't know if what happened next was considered issue number three, but I was going to consider it so.

Mariam entered the room.

She had told me last week, before the silent treatment, that she was going to return this morning.

She had returned last night. Minutes after Yasmeen had come home with her parents and two brothers. We were sitting in the living room with Larine as well, talking for so long as I ate another great dish her mom had brought me and Yasmeen's little brother bouncing off the walls. I was laughing at a story Yasmeen's oldest brother was telling me about when Mariam had walked in through the front door with her big duffel bag.

She had given Yasmeen a big smile and completely ignored me as she went to her room to unpack.

She decided to do the same this morning. She entered the kitchen, her brown curly hair up in a high ponytail today. Her light blue puffer jacket was already on with a black scarf around her neck. She took out her thermos from the cabinet and poured herself hot coffee.

She was in a hurry. She was so in a hurry that she flashed Yasmeen a smile on her way out and practically ran out of the door without another word. Without another gesture.

I was going to be sick.

Yasmeen pulled her gaze away from the hallway where we could see the front door slam shut before she looked at me. She rolled her eyes, as she's done multiple times since last night when Mariam chose not to speak to me. "This is getting lame," Yasmeen mumbled.

"It's been lame," I admitted. When Mariam and Iman broke up, no sides had been taken. I stayed friends with both of them. But this? Over Kyle?

"I just wanted our family back," Yasmeen said. "And with Larine now in the mix, I wanted a movie night with all of us but if this keeps this up, wholesome movie night is going to turn into war and bloodshed like something out of Spartacus or The Last Kingdom and I will not stand for it."

I could've laughed if I wasn't so bothered by Mariam's exit. "Okay, stop being dramatic."

"You two are my best friends, do you think I wanna see you guys fighting? What if I get married and you two are still fighting?"

"What does your future wedding have to do with me and Mariam fighting?" We're not even fighting. At least, I'm not fighting.

"Because I want my wedding day to be filled with peace and love, not peace and the battle of friends over a stupid boy," She said 'stupid boy' like someone had insulted her entire existence. 

"Yasmeen."

"No," She said in that tone that meant she wasn't going to argue. Yasmeen was not a person I ever wanted to argue with when she spoke like this. Especially when she straightened her posture. She should consider going into something involving public speaking. "For the sake of my future wedding and all future events in my name, you two need to talk and I will be making it happen the next time you are in a room with each other."

And I knew she would act on her words.

Just then her phone rang out and she sighed, getting up. She had to go too. Out of everyone in this household on a Monday, Larine was the luckiest. Her earliest class was at 1 PM. I didn't even think Mariam knew that Larine and I became friends or what happened with Benny.

I fought the need to rub my eyes awake, quickly eating my breakfast and leaving minutes later to grab an iced coffee from Tim Hortons.

Iced coffee (whether it was winter weather or not) would make my day better. I was sure of it. I was hoping.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iced coffee failed.

The Tweedledees didn't even bother me. One had asked me why I had a bruise on my nose—and the other just stared at my nose for most of the class even after I explained what happened. But they definitely weren't the problem.

For almost three hours, from 8:30 to 11:30 AM, Ashton was the fourth issue. He stayed being the issue closer to 12 because he failed to believe that we had done our part of our upcoming assignment correctly and made us all have a discussion with the TA, wasting their time and wasting our time in the process.

I didn't have time to be angry at his stupid questions and his stupid face because he had made me late for work. Bolting out of that lab, I almost tripped over my boots a hundred times to get to the bus stop throughout the snow.

To make things even worse, the snow wasn't just sticking to my snow boots or covering the grass and sidewalks. The snow was also blazing throughout the wind as a heavy snowstorm. 

I loved the cold. But I hated snow. And I hated snowstorms even more. This was the fifth issue of today. 

The wind was whipping the snow aggressively through the air. Out of my peripheral vision, people looked as if they were fighting the weather as they tried to make their way to class. I was struggling to keep the hood of my jacket over my head as the wind kept pulling it back.

By the time I arrived at the mall for my shift, luckily, I, along with a few others, was excused for being late but I was holding onto most of the annoying details concerning today inside of me. By my grip on keeping everything inside loosened when I got into an altercation with a customer (the sixth issue of the day) that had to have two of my managers involved, a finger pointed in my face and a voice raised in my direction from said customer.

At that point, I was latching onto everything inside of me, locking up boxes of feelings and emotions. One of the worst things for me to face was someone shouting at me. I went to the back, willed myself to not let the customer's words get to me collecting myself and returning to what I had been doing. One of my coworkers, Rebecca, gave me a reassuring smile and I failed to give her one back, but I gave her a nod as if to say I got this.

I did not get this.

The worst part of my day wasn't even the shouting.

The worst was when I received an email minutes before my shift had ended. An email I didn't mean to look at. An email I would have looked at when I got home in my bedroom to prepare myself. My thumb accidentally hit the email notification and before I could look away, before I could kid myself, before I could attempt to convince myself that I wasn't seeing what I saw, issue number seven hit me like a freight train.

It hit me so hard, all the feelings I had been attempting to hold in were ready to burst out of me. I felt like a dam that was holding back so much water but right in the middle of the wall, it had one tiny, little crack from the pressure.

Staring at the email, staring at the number made me feel as if someone had two hands on my lungs and was starting to place an enormous amount of pressure.

I was about to be one of Josiah's mentees crying in his dms just as he said back in Toronto.

In the quiet break room, I bent over with my hands on my knees, and I took five deep breaths. Each one was longer than the last, but the tiny crack in the wall of the dam was getting bigger as tears welled in my eyes. As the pressure increased, the force increased, and the area of the dam's wall seemed to be too small to bear everything.

I shoved my phone in my pocket and I wiped under my eyes before the tears could escape. I needed my own escape.

The moment, the second, my shift was over I made my way back to campus. I walked down Edgar Hill and walked straight to into the warm building whose basement held a set of rooms I didn't think I had ever needed to be within so badly until this moment. The music rooms were the only rooms I was able to gain privacy to a piano of my own. A piano I knew would be finely tuned. The piano was an instrument that I had lost myself in countless times since my first lesson as a child. I knew its keys like the back of my hand.

But when I walked towards the music room while searching my backpack, searching my jacket—I stopped when I realized issue number eight.

My key was on my desk at home.

The piano room wasn't fucking open.

I took a deep breath, the familiar sensation of my chest squeezing as I willed myself not to attempt to kick the door open and my vision started to blur at my frustration.

"Jaime?" Laurence's voice clouded my thoughts for a split second until everything else flooded in, everything about today from the second I woke up to the bruise on my face to the yelling still ringing in my ears flooded into my body. I felt like I was drowning. The wall of the dam crumbled and easily overcame me.

His hands were on my shoulders, attempting to steady me. All I could see was the bleariness of his flushed face and mop of sandy blonde hair, his reading glasses on the top of his nose. A few seconds passed by as if he was thinking of the right words to say. The right question to ask. "Not having a good day?"

"I'm not having a good day," I admitted in a shaky voice, closing my eyes once before opening them again. I sniffed, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand with hostility. "I'm sorry. The-the room wasn't opening."

"No, don't apologize," Laurence said when the doors opened behind him again.

"Jay?" Aven's voice cleared through and I almost groaned, my heart dropping. His voice didn't help at all. If anything, it just triggered more tears to well up in my eyes.

Suddenly Laurence was moved out of the way as Aven looked at me, cupping both sides of my jaw in his hands. My vision may have been fuzzy, but I was able to see the slight alarm in his expression. "Hey, hey, hey. What's wrong?"

I shook my head, trying to move his hands off but he wouldn't let me go. "She's having a bad day," Laurence said from behind me.

Aven's eyes searched me, the dent appearing between his eyebrows, "Anything we can do to make your day a little better?"

I shook my head, putting my hands over his own remove them from my face. This was too much. Crying in front of them? I'd lost it. This was embarrassing. I quickly wiped my face again. "No, I'm just going to go Lambton."

I bolted out of the room before they could say anything, but it didn't matter because Aven was right behind me as I made my way out of the building. "Jay."

I didn't respond.

"Jay." He repeated, continuing to follow me.

I didn't respond.

"Jaiyesimi."

I stopped in my tracks. "Aven," I didn't turn around, but I felt him walk closer to me. "I just want to go to the library."

I continued to take very deep breaths, opening my lungs as much as they could go, biting back every tear that continued pricking my eyes as I waited for him to say something. He didn't. He came up next to me and continued to stay next to me as we silently made our way to Lambton. I really didn't want him to follow me. I just wanted to be at my area, in my spot in my chai—

My lips rolled into my mouth at the sight of five people whose faces I didn't recognize occupying the table. My table.

Issue number nine felt like issue number one thousand.

I was going to have a breakdown in the middle of the library. Right where I was standing.

The promise that I had made to myself earlier this year just flew out of the window.

Suddenly I was being pushed in the direction we came from. "C'mon."

Aven grabbed my hand, pulling me down the staircase instead of the elevator we came from. Once we were outside, he pulled me past the University Community Center, past Roger Hall, and almost down Edgar Hill when he took me into another lecture building. I didn't have the sense to know where the hell I was being taken.

Aven's long strides made it nearly impossible to keep up if he wasn't holding my hand. But he could sense it. He could sense that my tears were falling down my cheeks without even looking at me, that my chest was starting to hurt with every breath I sucked in, and my mind was on the verge of spinning. I was so unbelievably exhausted. 

Aven moved me forward, pushing me into a small tutorial room. The lights were off, but a small stream of the evening light came in from the high windows allow me to see the interior. Whiteboards were plastered on one side, a projector hanging on the ceiling and the seats elevated as if I was in a movie theatre, each level with its own landing.

He locked the door behind us, taking off my backpack as I tried to make my way to one of the first-row seats. I unzipped my jacket, yanking it off my body and setting it on the ground but I didn't manage to get there when my hands covered my face.

"Jay," Aven said, dropping his backpack next to where he had set his jacket and making his way over to me.

Everything I had said to him last night was forgotten. The space I had declared was broken momentarily when my face was pressed into his chest and his arms held me to his warm body. My shoulders shook I sobbed from an overwhelming day filled with stress at everything and mostly myself. And for a few minutes, he didn't say anything. He let me cry and shudder until the tears finally seemed to stop. When I pulled back, I noticed the wet stain on his blue sweater, resulting in me fizzling with embarrassment as I wiped my eyes. "Sorry."

"Don't." He said to my apology, continuing to wipe under my eyes for me with his thumb as I started to relax, not caring if my makeup was smudged.

"The Jay stress scale was at a high number today, wasn't it?" He asked. 

"The Jaime stress scale was at a 10," I put on a tight smile that dropped just as quickly as it came. "The Jaime disappointed scale was at an 11."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He whispered back; his head dipped so he could hush the words by my ear.

At his question, I hesitated, taking my hat off of my head before hopping up on the table a level higher as Aven leaned on the back of the chair in front of me on the level below. 

I started explaining my day to him. His eyes glanced down at my nose, not touching me, but staring at me with such concern it felt like my heart was hurting in my chest. When I described to him the work situation which was simply a return policy misunderstanding on the customer's part, he rubbed a hand over his jaw. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I know. I just," I took a deep breath, tears still spilling over. I was quick to brush them away. "I can't handle being yelled at. I don't know. I-I just can't."

"I'm sorry."

I shook my head, looking down at my hands. Of course, he would be apologizing for something he didn't do. "It's not your fault."

"But that's not the worst of today, is it?"

I took a deep breath. "I did really really bad on my physics midterm."

"How bad is bad?"

"For me, it's bad. Especially in the subject that I love the most." If this was organic chemistry and I had gotten the mark I received, I would be sad with the goals I had in mind, but it wouldn't leave me this devastated. With physics, I was the most confident in compared to any other subject and with this mark, a part of me felt like a failure. Not to anyone but myself.

Aven pushed off from the chair, wrapping his solid arms around my shoulders, tightening them as tears fell down my face once again. "I think you were right on Saturday," I mumbled against his chest. "I am burnt out."

Aven's removed his arms from my shoulders, setting his hands on my waist. He watched me stop crying as I exhaled deeply, my lungs thankfully opening up. At that moment, the worst was over, and he waited for me to acknowledge him. "What?"

"How much was that one worth?"

He asked question after question, and I answered them even though it hurt to even discuss everything. He pulled out his phone as we talked even further, pulling out a grade calculator. Although there was no way possible for me to get a 90 with the mark I had received on my midterm, I needed a 94 on the final to get an 85 on top of doing extremely well on the quizzes and assignments.

"That's near impossible," I mumbled but the look on his face let me know that I wasn't going to be able to doubt myself out loud in his presence when it came to physics. Even though I kept sighing, my head against his shoulder as the disappointment in myself lingered, I kept my head up as he used the additional two years, he had on me in university to give me advice I needed from office hours to resources to talking to Laurence who apparently had taken the class back in his second year.

I absorbed everything he had told me, what we discussed, in my heavy mind. My gaze was on my hands in my lap when he encircled his arm around my waist, lifting me from the table and setting me on the ground to hold me against him properly. "You're going to be fine." Aven whispered just as I buried my face against his shoulder. I felt the light pressure of his lips against the side of my head and instinctively, I held him even tighter towards me and he responded with the implication that he was not going to let me go any time soon.

"You know," He whispered. "I might have something that'll make your bad day just a tiny bit better."

I shifted, looking down as he brought his phone out from his pocket once again and held it in front of me, "It's not finished but..."

The breath knocked itself out of me as I gripped his arm that was around my shoulder, holding the phone. Unlike most of his playlists, which had numbers correlating to whatever mood or genre they fell into, this one was a solid black colour that was declared by one letter.

J.

"You were talking about Yasmeen and you making a playlist," His voice trailed off and when I glanced up at him, he kept his gaze on the phone as he scrolled through the device. His ears were red. "It's songs that you like, a fuck ton of Frank Ocean, and songs that remind me of you."

Songs that remind me of you. I gripped his arm, smashing my face against his chest in gratitude. Easily, he made my day a little bit, a lot better, by what could be taken as a tiny gesture. "Is there country music?" I asked, my voice scratchy. 

His laugh rumbled through his chest and hit me down to my toes, "Yeah, there's country music."

"Good," We sat there for the longest time until I pulled away, wiping at my face once more. I needed to go to the bathroom and wash my face, but it didn't stop me from looking up at him and saying, "Thank you."

Aven nodded, hopefully sensing that my gratitude was towards more than just the playlist. "Anytime."

"I should get going," I said, putting on my jacket and picking up my backpack from the ground. It was close to 6 PM. He was probably still on campus because of his thesis, and I still had an exam tomorrow and a person to see later on tonight.

Aven watched me put my stuff back on. Then the dent reappeared between his eyebrows when he asked, "You still doing that space thing with us?" When I opened my mouth to speak Aven winced. "Shit, I shouldn't have asked that."

Please, don't, I wanted to say. Not because I haven't thought about him but because this was the wrong timing to bring it up.

"Never mind," He said, understanding, "I'll see you on Wednesday."

Thank you.

"And I meant it," He continued, starting to walk towards his things. "When I said you'll be fine."

"You think so?" I asked just as he shrugged on his jacket.

A ghost of a smile played on his lips and when he spoke there was such assurance in his voice, "I know so."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I arrived home, my makeup and tears were cleaned from my face and I changed out of my clothing into comfortable attire. I called Abisola the second I had changed into very fuzzy socks. My sister picked up on the first ring. "Hey."

"Hey," I tried to keep my voice upbeat for her. "What are you doing?"

"Just came back from shopping at IKEA," She sounded so happy it put a small smile on my face. Only she would be so excited to go to IKEA. It was her favourite store. "I got a new lamp. I'll send pictures."

"Abi." I laughed.

For a moment, she didn't speak, and I guessed she was setting down her new lamp. But then I heard a door shut and she asked, "Are you okay?"

How was she able to read me in just a small laugh? Abisola was someone I was always surprised I had become so close to even with our age gap, even with her always being so physically distant from me, she had never ever pushed me away. She knew me like the back of her hand, always made time for me even when she was busy with school, her own friends, her own life. Abisola spoke to me almost every single day.

Of course, she noticed something was off with me.

"I, uh, I was having a bad day." I sigh into my phone.

"Call me."

My sister hung up.

Her 'call me' meant to video chat. Putting my braids in a horrible ponytail that I had no energy to correct, I placed my phone against the wall of my desk crossing one leg under the other. When my sister appeared on my screen, she was in her den sitting on the comfy couch overlooking the waters. She only lived in the town one over from our hometown, where her husband had grown up. They had acquired the house from his grandparents a few years after they had gotten married after graduating from PA school.

When I told her everything that happened up until I had gotten to campus, she asked, "Did you talk to anyone?"

"Aven."

"Not Yasmeen? Mari? Iman? Clayton?"

"I haven't seen them all day and," I cursed under my breath, grabbing my phone as I pulled up Clayton's message thread. "I was supposed to see Clayton tonight."

She sighed, watching me as I texted Clayton if I could come over later than we scheduled. He responded that it was fine and one of his meetings was being held back anyways. "I told you to take care of yourself."

"It's hard sometimes," I admitted. "Sometimes I just want to sleep in my bed for the rest of my life."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be dramatic."

I chuckled. "You sound like mom."

"And you sound like a mess."

"I am a mess."

"I said you sound. Can you listen?"

A smile broke out on my face. "I miss you."

She was fighting the smile that was slowly taking over her face at my words. "I talk to you almost every single day."

"I still miss you," I confessed. Just when I thought I was running out of tears, they brimmed to my eyes for the hundredth time today. What I would give for a hug from my sister. From my mom or my dad. I missed them more than I realized.

My sister's face softened as said, "Soon." I nodded, brushing away my tears and recollecting myself as she asked her next question. "You have a midterm tomorrow, right?"

"I do."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Then take the rest of the night off. Watch a movie. Watch one of those Youtubers you used to make me watch. I'll stay on with you and we can screen share or something."

The idea lifted my spirits. "Really?" We used to do this when she was in university. We typically watched her favourite movies and screen share didn't exactly exist back then. It was us yelling at each other to make sure we were watching a movie at the exact same time, screaming when one of us was too far ahead or too behind.

"Yeah," Abisola sighed. "Jaime, you know you can always call me."

"I know," I mumbled.

"No, I don't think you do," Abisola muttered. "But now you know. Don't ever think you can't. Promise?"

"Promise."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." I nodded, grabbing my phone and laptop and settling down on my bed. "Tomorrow will be a better day."

"Who says you'll have to wait until tomorrow?" Abisola asked, getting comfortable on her couch. "A good day can start right now. Forget waiting the whole 24 hours. It's like 8 PM. Your next good day starts now."

"Actually, I think it started a couple of hours ago but you're always making it much better," I confessed.

A smile graced her face before she narrowed her eyes at me as she fully processed my sentence. "Was it the Aven guy? The one that went with you to see Ms. Green?"

"He made me a playlist," I said sheepishly and her eyes lit up. 

"A playlist?" She prodded me for details of anything and everything I hadn't told her from over the past week. We watched video after video, ordering pizza for ourselves despite being kilometres apart. I ate a slice of tropical Hawaiian pizza, and she was finishing a slice of her meat supreme pizza when Clayton messaged me that he was home.

When I showed up at Clayton's doorway that night after Larine dropped me off, one of his roommates allowed me inside. Trudging through the different smells of cologne that was a huge contrast from the air freshener smell of apartment 704 and the laundry smell that was always lingering in Iman's house, I glanced around. A table littered with cups from the weekend was in a corner in the common area. I made my way over to Clayton's bedroom room, knocking.

"Brett, I swear to God, man, I'm not watching that stupid documentary--"

Brett was the roommate that opened the front door. Clayton appeared, stopping himself when he took me in. "I'm not Brett but if you want, I think I can do a good impression of his voice."

Clayton broke out into a short laugh. He stepped to the side, allowing me to enter his room before closing the door behind him. His room was flashing random LED lights, highlighting the numerous photos he had displayed on one wall in his room where his desk was pushed against. His bed wasn't made, (it never was) and he had a bunch of plants hanging from the windows. He also had a big flag hung on one side of the room that said 'Saturday Nights Are For the Boys'.

I took a seat on his bed while he sat down on his tall desk chair. I took a deep breath, looking around the room as if anything changed. Nothing changed. Nothing between us should change either. "How was your break?"

"Good," He said, sounding more at ease. Remember, Jaime, confront and conquer is the plan. "Couldn't do much because of schoolwork but I got to see a lot of people."

"Family?"

"Loud. Like always." He had two younger brothers and two younger sisters.

"Friends?"

"Different reading weeks for most so limited. What about you? How was yours?"

"Fun," I admitted, a smile crossing my face as I met his eyes. "Really fun. Went to Toronto."

Clayton met my smile with one of his own, "No way?"

"Just for a day but that was a really really fun day. I went with some friends including Larine."

Clayton's lips parted in surprise, "What?"

"Right?" I said. "She's pretty cool."

He looked impressed, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his chair with astonishment crossing his face. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Me too. I'm really glad we're friends now," I admitted with a grin before frowning. "Okay, so um, listen, I came to talk to you about what happened during Halloween? You know..."

"Yeah." He quipped, running a hand through his dark hair.

He was just as awkward as I was. "We are really not the best people for this to happen to."

"What do you mean?"

Somehow his question made me crack a timid smile, relaxing me, "I mean that we'd rather do everything in our power to avoid a conversation that could have happened in like less than two minutes, and we could have moved on but we're so awkward about this when we really shouldn't be."

Clayton and I had one odd conversation in the middle of a club. A conversation that led to the two of us not even being able to speak about it until today, leaving me thinking that it could strain our friendship. That was the issue: me thinking that something that could be resolved so quickly like this could ruin our friendship.

With Clayton, and judging by the way he shook his head, almost cursing himself just as much as me for behaving this way, I knew our friendship was here to stay.

With Aven, our friendship had never been the same. It has never stayed constant like the one I had Clayton. 

I wanted more.

Things were already happening. Things had started to happen from one moment during Halloween and I was in such denial that even Ms. Green called me out on it within hours of seeing the two of us interact. It was only a matter of confronting him about it first-hand just as he did last night, and I pushed away because I didn't want to break what had already been broken long before the conversation. I shouldn't be so hesitant to do the same.

I crossed my legs on his bed, lacing my fingers. Clayton's lips twitched as he copied my hand movements, making a similar serious face. "Clayton."

"Yes?"

"We're friends, right?"

"Yes."

I squinted at him. My next question felt loaded, even though it shouldn't have been. "Always will be?"

He gave me a sincere smile, one similar to the one I caught a glimpse of as he chased me around my house on the morning of Homecoming weekend a few months ago. "Yes, Jaime."

"Okay," I said unlacing my hands. "We're okay?"

"We're okay."

"Good," I let out a long breath of relief. My sister was right, my good day started a couple of hours ago and I was going to be certain to let it continue for as long as it could. "And for the record blame Yas, Mari and Larine for this. They thought you liked me."

"For the record," He mocked, shaking his head as he got off his chair to sit next to me on the bed. "I don't and I'm actually, kind of, seeing someone."

"What the hell? Why didn't you tell me anything? You should bring them to the next pre we have." 

Clayton and I shared a smile as he pulled out his phone and started discussing his love life. And just like that our friendship was restored, and I felt ready to handle the next 'confront and conquer' conversation.