Chapter Eighteen

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Joanna Dais, sixteen years of age (plus some) and not quite so much of a pessimist as she used to be, had her arms wrapped around a boy.

Yes, that’s right. Arms. Wrapped around. Boy. Her.

It was kind of creeping her out, too.

“This is really weird,” Jo muttered into Morgan’s shoulder. She felt him shaking slightly, and realised he had started laughing.

“Your face is really weird,” he said, his voice filled with mirth. Disentangling her limbs from his, Jo stepped back and regarded him with mock affront.

“Excuse me,” she said, placing her hands on her hips, “What did you just say to me? Did you just say my face was funny?” She paused, and then continued, “What kind of pathetic attempt at an insult was that, anyway?”

Morgan smiled. “Well, saying your face is funny would have been a bad insult, but I actually said your face is weird, which is just true.”

Jo raised one eyebrow, and quirked up one corner of her mouth.

“Gee, you sure know how to charm a girl, Morgan.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Morgan said, stepping forwards and taking Jo into his arms once more, “It’s a good kind of weird.”

“Hey!” Jo protested, and slapped his chest. “You’re supposed to deny that my face is weird at all.”

“There’s just no denying the undeniable, Jo.” Before she could speak again, Morgan quickly leant down and pressed his lips against hers.

It was the end of her five weeks of holidays, and for once Jo was actually sad about leaving. Usually she couldn’t wait to get home, see her friends and revel in the lack of nature, but this time what she was leaving behind couldn’t be made up for. Morgan was staying on for an extra week, using up the entirety of his holidays before school started. But, Jo considered, at least they did both live in the same city. What were the chances of two people who “meshed” meeting on holidays and developing a relationship and also being from the same state?

Zero to none. Or a million to one. Or something else meaning a big, impossible likelihood. Jo had never been very good at probability in Maths.

Jo melted against Morgan. She knew that her family would be waiting for her back at the beach house, and that she still had to pack everything, but she couldn’t really force herself to care.

Looking back to the very beginning of the holidays, Jo couldn’t believe how much had changed, including herself. While she still wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not, it was, as Morgan had said, ‘undeniable.’ For starters, she had fallen for a guy, something that she didn’t do very often. A popular, sporty, jock-like guy no less, which happened even less. As in, never. And now she had also developed a temporary truce with her parents. Not that there was ever a war to begin with, but their weirdness (which usually would have grated on her nerves 24/7) didn’t bother her so much anymore. Then again, that could have been due to the fact that she was just generally more relaxed.

Remembering how certain she had been that she would read all of the books she brought with her, Jo now laughed at the fact that she had read hardly any of them.

And all because of Morgan.

Things certainly had changed.

Although Jo had never liked the saying of ‘two people completing one another,’ finding it too needy and dependant, she almost understood it now. She had never known why people couldn’t just be together, but also complete as themselves on their own, but really it was about another person balancing you out and making you want to be a better person.

Not that there were wedding bells in the air, or anything. Seriously, she was only sixteen, and she didn’t even know how long they would last. While Jo didn’t want them to break up, she knew how fickle teenage relationships were.

Morgan pulled apart from her, and looked down into her eyes. “Come on,” he said, “I don’t want your parents to think I’m holding you up, and then hate me, or anything.”

Jo laughed internally. Only Morgan, with his stupid shaggy hair and dog-like appearance, would be worried about what her parents thought.

So although teenage relationships were fickle, Jo was kind of hoping that this one would last a long time.

That would be nice.

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Jo sat crammed into her car, window down, and looked out at Morgan. He had taken her home to pack, and now as the sun was setting she was finally leaving, and he’d never see her again. Well, never see her again for another week, anyway.

“I –uh- I –I’ll really miss you,” Morgan said, and mentally kicked himself for such a lame goodbye. But then again, not much more could be expected with Jo’s parents sitting in the car as well.

“You too,” Jo said, shortly, blushing slightly. Except that on Jo even the slightest blush lit up her entire face and clashed with her hair. It was cute, really, though he’d never tell her that for fear of being beaten with a stick. Well, at least she was embarrassed too.

“Um, I guess I’ll se you when I get back, then,” Morgan stammered. He could not believe he was stammering.

“Yeah, cool. Er, call me. And don’t fall in love with any Lily-clones while I’m gone.” Jo gave a nervous laugh, but Morgan thought it was probably more to due with the fact that she had no idea how to say goodbye, instead of believing that Morgan would cheat on her.

“Never,” Morgan replied.

As if he would. As if he could. While Morgan hated to be so completely and utterly whipped, there was no way he would cheat on Jo with somebody like… Well, anyone he had ever dated in the past. As sappy as it sounded, Morgan thought that Jo was one of the first girls he had ever really truly liked for their personality, as well as their looks. Besides, he almost shuddered to think of having to hang out with those kinds of people now. Morgan didn’t know how he was going to cope when he got back to school and would have to hang out with all his friends again. While most of them were pretty cool, there were some people who he had liked well enough in the past, but now that he would have Jo’s voice as a conscious he would most likely hate.

In some ways, it bothered him. How could meeting one girl make him feel so inadequate about the kinds of people who were his friends? But in the greater number of ways, Morgan was glad. Because being around Jo made him feel like a better person, as if by default. He knew that was stupid, especially considering that Jo wasn’t the perfect example of goodness, but there it was. He was also glad because he recognised, deep down, that Jo’s reasons for hating certain people were usually just. She didn’t always hate people just for the sake of it (though she did sometimes), but rather hated them for their actions.

Oh, yeah. He was a tamed man.

“So, yeah… Bye, then,” Morgan said, stepping back from the car. For a brief second Jo looked disappointed, but then she steeled her shoulders and smiled.

“Yep, call me,” she said cheerily. She began to wind up her window, and Morgan watched sadly as her red hair, burning in the glow of the setting sun, slowly disappeared.

“Oh, screw it,” he said suddenly, and reached out a hand to stop her ascending window. He pushed, and the window rolled down. He thanked whatever God existed for the fact that her car was so old and broken that the tension in the windows was pretty much dead.

“What?” Jo said, looking perplexed and sticking her head out of the window slightly.

“This,” Morgan replied, and leant down to give her a chaste kiss. Yes, it was lame, and yes, he probably could have said something a little more suave, but he didn’t really care.

They broke apart, and Jo grinned goofily. Morgan was sure that his expression mirrored hers exactly. Hooting came from inside the car (probably Jack and Jason) and Zac gave a quick toot of the horn.

Morgan laughed, and stepped back once more. “Okay, then, bye.”

Jo smiled. “Bye,” she said, and wound up her window. Morgan waved as the car pulled out of the driveway, and waved even as it drove down the street.

He watched as Jo drove away into the sunset, and shook his head, chuckling to himself.

“And they lived happily ever after.”

S

The End.

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AN. This story is now COMPLETE! I can’t believe it! Thankyou so much to everyone who has ever reviewed (or even just read)! I appreciate each and every single one of you! I love you all! I’m sop happy! I love exclamation marks!!

As usual, constructive crit would be lovely. Do you think I should have dragged this story out a bit more? Do you think this chapter need more dialogue and interaction between the characters? And I really don’t know about the end, what could I do to change it?

Again, I love you all!