‘Hello?’ I mumbled as I heard a phone ringing not far off. I yawned softly before sitting up quickly and rolling off of the bed to answer the phone. ‘Hello?’ I said once I had it in hand.

‘Jaimee, Sweetie, its Lauren’, a rather happy cheery voice sounded on the other end.

‘Oh, hey’, I mumbled, sitting back on the floor, trying my hardest to stay awake.

‘I woke you up, didn’t I?’ she sighed as I just shook my head, before realising she was on the phone.

‘No…well yeah, but I had to get up anyway’, I yawned, causing her to laugh, then making me laugh. ‘What’s up?’

‘We never really got to finish our discussion about David Edding’s books, and I don’t know anyone quite as obsessed as ourselves, so I thought we could pick it up again’, she said, all in one breathe as I blinked quickly and frequently, trying to clear my vision after another yawn.

‘Uh, yeah sure, fit me in where ever you can, I’ve got nothing going on’, I sighed, standing up off of the floor and heading towards the door.

‘That’s why I’m calling, I have all this free time, I’m not sure when’, she laughed softly, and I heard pages flicker, which I figured was her planner. I heard her huff a few times and sigh a few other times as I made my way down stairs and into the kitchen.

‘How about…’ she sighed again, before making a disagreeable noise and continued flicking through her planner. I smiled at Sharon as I grabbed the fruit loops out of the cupboard and made my way over to the table with a bowl, the milk and the cereal.

‘How about next week, Friday?’ Lauren sighed in my ear as I laughed softly, pouring my breakfast.

‘Next week Friday is fine…’ I said before Sharon came up to me, shaking her head, mouthing no. ‘Okay, I take that back, next week Friday is a bad idea’.

‘Damn, all right, next week Thursday?’ she tried.

‘Next week Thursday?’ I said out loud, so Sharon could hear. She just nodded and smiled, giving me the thumbs up before disappearing. ‘Next week Thursday is perfect’.

‘Let’s say, noon at, what’s good take away food?’ she asked, catching me off guard so that I choked a bit on a fruit loop.

‘Um’, I coughed, clearing my throat, ‘I’m not sure, I don’t really…’

‘Okay, well how about Sisarello’s then, my treat’, she laughed, as I continued coughing discretely.

‘Uh, sure, Noon?’ I confirmed.

‘Noon’, she repeated, ‘I’ll see you then, next week Thursday, Noon’.

‘All right, I’ll talk to you then’, I smiled.

‘Bye, Jaimee’, she sung.

‘Bye, Lauren’, I laughed before taking the phone away from my ear and hanging up.

‘Who’s Lauren?’ Sharon smiled, sitting across the table from me as I dug into my fruit loops.

‘Lauren Graham’, I said through a mouthful of fruit loops.

‘The actress from that show you watch all the time?’ Sharon mumbled in disbelief as I just nodded and took another mouthful of Fruit loops. ‘Wow, you’re stepping up in the world, girlie’.

‘We read the same book, we started talking about it and got interrupted, she just wanted to finish the conversation’, I laughed before stuffing my face full of fruit loops again.

‘If your sure’, she smiled. Sharon always did that. She would smile thinking she knew everything. In the end she was always right, but no one ever let her know that.

‘What’s happening Friday anyway?’ I muttered, taking another mouthful of my fruit loops.

‘Seriously?’ Sharon laughed, looking at me. I shook my head, trying to work it out. ‘It’s September’.

‘Oh shit’, I snapped. ‘Sorry for my language’, I said quickly before abandoning my cereal and bolting upstairs again.

It was nearly 3:30 and I thought I’d save Tom the torment of catching the bus. Sharon wouldn’t let him drive his car to school, not today anyway. I yawned once more as I waited in the senior student’s parking lot. Two minutes to go. I yawned again as I thought of yawning. One minute to go. The siren rang out loudly and I reached for my phone.

‘Hello?’ Mumbled a rather upset sounding Tom.

‘Hey, I’m in the parking lot’, I sighed. Something had happened today, something he probably wouldn’t tell me.

‘I’ll be there in a tick’, he mumbled, hanging up before I could say anything. Something BAD happened today.

‘What happened?’ I yawned as the Ute’s passenger door swung open and Tom sat down.

‘Nothing, why?’ he smiled. That smile wasn’t right. It wasn’t his normal smile.

‘Fine, don’t tell me’, I grumbled, starting the car and revving it a few times, trying to clear the way so I could reverse.

‘There’s nothing to tell, why are you getting defensive?’ he snapped at me.

‘It’s fine, it’s something you don’t want to tell me, I get it’, I barely whispered as I reversed slowly, revving a few more times.

‘Jaimee, just drop it’, he groaned.

‘Okay’, I muttered, ripping around the corner and out of the school grounds. He didn’t need to tell me. ‘I’m going for a drive, do you want me to drop you off home?’

‘No, if that’s okay?’ he mumbled.

‘It’s all good’; and I turned up the radio, knowing full well that we wouldn’t be talking for awhile, when he was in one of his moods, we never talked.

I stopped off in the middle of nowhere and filled up my tank before driving on again. We were heading further and further out into the country side. I didn’t know what it was – whether it was Friday and I needed a break from everything or whether it was because Tom was sitting beside me, gripping my spare hand like no tomorrow – I felt oddly at ease, as if everything was going to run along the line of good luck from here onwards.

The tree’s started to thin out and we were now driving along the edge of a hill, looking down into a valley. I sighed softly looking down at it every now and then, wondering whether there could possibly be anything more beautiful than the valley below. I looked up just in time to see a turn off for a lookout and I swerved sharply into it.

‘What is your problem?’ Tom screeched, causing me to smile. He wasn’t angry, I had just shocked him. I drove fast and sharp as I swerved around fallen branches and around the bends. It didn’t take long to reach the look out and I swerved sharply as we reached the top so that the tray was facing the edge. I reversed quickly coming to a standstill just before the edge. ‘What…’

I snatched my keys out of the ignition and jumped out. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I flung the cover off of the tray and rolled it up, stashing it in the gap at the back. I had flung a sheet covered mattress, a doona and several pillows in there not two weeks after I got back into the UK, telling him (and myself) that I was bound to use it for something.

‘Jaimee…’ Tom said cautiously as I jumped up into the tray and propped a pillow up behind me before sitting back and looking down at the valley from a new height. It seemed much different from this angle, not as beautiful, but still an unusual stagnate beauty. ‘Jaimee, what’s going on?’

‘Nothing’, I mumbled, smiling softly. I never felt so comfortable in my life as if nothing from here on out would or could hurt me. ‘Are you just going to stand there?’

He shook his head and got back into the cab of the car. I sighed softly, feeling instantly upset but I just pushed it to the back of my mind and stared out of the sunset. I hadn’t really taken notice of the time as I was driving, but I’m glad I didn’t. This was absolutely breathtaking.

Grabbing my phone out of my pocket I dialled in Tom’s home number. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey, Sharon’, I mumbled.

‘Jaimee, where are you? Where’s Tom?’ she screeched worriedly.

‘Sorry, Tom’s with me, I picked him up from school, we’re at the lookout’, I sighed.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked, a little more cautious now.

‘I’m not sure’, and I smiled, ‘I’ll give you a call before we start to head home, yeah?’

‘Yeah, that’d be nice’, I could hear the smile in her voice.

‘Don’t wait up okay, if we won’t be back till morning, I’ll send you a text’, I mumbled, knowing full well I didn’t intend on going home till morning. I heard Sharon sigh and knew she was instantly okay with that. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Shaz’, and I hung up. I needed to find out what was going on in Tom’s head. He has never been this distant.

‘Was that mum?’ came a rather quiet voice from the open passenger door.

‘Yeah, I just called her to let her know we’d be late home’, I mumbled, pulling the pillow out from behind me and scooting down on the mattress. He didn’t say anything else as he got up and jumped up into the tray with me. He tore the doona from the side and threw it over the both of us before resting his head on the spare end of my pillow.

‘Hey’, he smiled softly. He reached his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. I sighed.

‘Hey’, I muttered, smiling quickly. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’, he snapped before wincing. ‘Sorry’.

‘Are you sure?’ I mumbled, kicking off my sneakers and bringing my feet up underneath the doona.

‘Not really’, he sighed, I felt him twitch slightly beside me and I knew something was wrong. He sighed louder now and used the hand wrapped around my waist to pull me with him as he rolled over. I had one leg resting in between his and my head on his chest.

‘Lauren Graham called this morning’, I mumbled, changing the subject.

‘Yeah?’ he sounded grateful.

‘We’re meeting up next week Thursday’, I sighed, looking back out at the dying sunset.

‘That’s all right then’, he whispered.

‘Yeah’, was all I was able to reply with. I felt him kiss the top of my head and I sighed. ‘You will tell me when you’re ready, right?’

‘Promise’, he mumbled, giving me a tight reassuring squeeze. ‘So what did you do today?’

‘I didn’t get up until just before lunch, but that was because Lauren called. After that, your mother attempted to try and engage me in her sport’, I laughed.

‘Her sport?’ he questioned, chuckling slightly.

‘She tried to get me to make a shirt’, I smiled. Tom had started to rub his finger up and down my side, causing me to shiver slightly.

‘And did you finish it?’ he smiled in return.

‘I did actually, it’s not the greatest looking shirt, but it’s not too bad’, I laughed again, ‘it’s supposed to be the top half of one of those hooker shirts’.

‘Was it her idea?’ he laughed uproariously now.

‘She wanted a daughter, so she tried to turn me into one’, I smirked. ‘Maybe one of us needs to tell her that will never happen’.

‘Jaimee, I did something bad’, he blurted out and I felt his body tense up. I didn’t dare pull away for fear of seeing his face. He always gave away what he did on his face.

‘Okay, is it something you think you can work through, or something we can work through, or will it…’ I couldn’t finish.

‘I’m hoping we can work through it’, he mumbled.

‘Which one did you kiss?’ I sighed, a little bit of laughter in my voice.

‘Well…’ he paused, ‘it was a little more than that’.

‘Okay…’ I said, unsure of whether I wanted to know how far he had gone with someone.

‘Are you okay?’ he questioned, squeezing me softly.

‘I’m trying to figure out whether you’re worth it, at the moment, the cons list is winning slightly’, I muttered. Ever since Gilmore Girls I had resorted to make a pro’s and cons list. To be honest, he had nearly seventeen pro’s and only three cons. I had already made my decision. ‘How far did you go?’

‘I didn’t do anything’, he sighed.

‘What?’ I questioned, sitting up. ‘Then what fuck is going on?’

‘I…Why do you overreact when nothing happens, but when you resigned to the fact that I had done something, you were okay with it?’ He snapped sitting up beside me.

‘Because it’s easier to be okay with something when someone’s willing be honest about it’, I shouted and he sighed.

‘Nothing happened, but I thought about it’, he leant back against the cab of the car.

‘Thought about doing what?’ I questioned, sitting opposite him with my legs crossed.

‘What it would be like if I had gone out with someone else’, he muttered, ‘if I hadn’t started dating your sister, if I had of started dating that Brittney chick at school’.

‘You do realise you don’t have to stay with me right?’ I laughed softly. ‘We’re still eighteen, Tom, we don’t have to settle down’.

‘I know, but then I keep thinking how hard it would be to go back to dating someone that I knew nothing about, I can’t go through all that again’, he sighed again, crossing his arms across his chest.

‘Tom…’ I paused, ‘don’t stay with me just because you don’t want to date somebody else’.

‘But that’s it, I do honestly love you’, he muttered, reaching forward and pulling on my arm. I pulled back, and he stopped. ‘I just want to know if I’m meant to be with you, or if it will end later on down the track’.

‘I’ll tell you what’, I smiled, not really sure whether I was happy or not, ‘we’ll go on a break’.

‘No, don’t, it’s okay’, he tried.

‘No, Tom seriously. We’ll go on a break, and if anything happens it doesn’t matter because we’re on a break, by the end of, let’s say, two months, we still think we love each other, than we can make the decisions from there, yeah?’ I sighed before nodding, clarifying to him and myself that it was a go.

‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ he questioned, pulling at my hand before giving up and just holding it.

‘We’ve been mates forever, Tom, I’d rather know that you’d be happy once you’ve had a chance to think about things. If we end up being mates after two months great, if we’re still together after two months, even better, but as long as you’re happy, I really could give a shit’, I laughed softly before kneeling in front of him.

‘Well, okay’, he sighed again for the umpteenth time.

‘Now, give me a hug, bitch’, I snapped with a smile. He just shook his head and kneeled in front of me before crushing me in a bone tingling hug. ‘You know, Brittney wasn’t that bad, I might even tap that’, I joked.

‘I’ll see if I can organize it’, he laughed softly. It was then that I saw a single tear run down his cheek. I smiled and rubbed it away with my thumb.

‘We’ll be okay, either way’, I muttered, hugging him back to me.

‘Hey’, someone whispered to me, nudging me slightly. ‘We’re home’.

I groaned as I rolled over, before grunting as I smacked my head on the window, ‘How?’ I moaned.

‘I drove?’ and I recognised the voice as Toms. ‘And don’t worry, it’s not dented or scratched’.

‘I’m about as paranoid about others driving my car as you are yours’, I muttered, reaching for the handle to open the door.

‘Sure’, he scoffed, reaching across me to help me open my door. I sighed as his arm stayed across my body before I looked up at him. I stared into his pale blue eyes and I instantly relaxed. There was always something about him that calmed me. It was then that I felt his breath, hot on my face.

‘Thanks’, I muttered, kicking the door open and getting out quietly.