CHAPTER 15

“Jared...can I ask you something?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,”

“Why did you break up with Shannon?”

“V,” Jared said simply, sighing.

“What?”

“Let's not talk about this,”

“But...”

“I broke up with her. End of story,” Jared shrugged.

“But why?” Jared looked down at the floor. “Jared...?” He sighed.

“I...you,” He said softly.

“What?”

“Look, can we please not do this here?” V looked around. They were in the middle of the hallway, but there were no other people there.

“Answer the question, Jared,”

“You, okay? I broke up with her because of you,”

“But...that doesn't make any sense,”

“Yes...yes it does, V,” Jared sighed.

“I don't get it,”

“Yeah...I know. Just...I'll tell you, okay? Someday. It's just...I don't want it to be awkward between us,”

“What? What would make it awkward?”

“You don't wanna know. You'd freak out, just trust me,” What gave him the right to assume she'd freak out? She didn't always freak out. She knew herself. She could handle it. It wasn't his decision, it was his. And if there was something that would make it awkward it was probably something she deserved to know.

“I won't freak out! Why won't you tell me?”

“I already told you that,”

“Come on? What could possibly make it awkward?”

“V...”

“Jared! It can't be that bad,”

“Yeah it can,”

“No it can't,”

“Yeah it can,”

“No it can't – Oh come on, we're not five. You don't know what it is, I do, I know it's bad,”

“I don't know because you won't tell me!”

“Oh for god's sake...”

“You know what? Whatever,”

“V...”

“What? Obviously you don't care enough to tell me. Never told me when you and Shannon broke up, did you? Never told me about your family, never told me why you're upset,” V was counting off her fingers now, “God, you're just such a goddamn boy!”

“I'm not-”

“Yeah? Then why didn't you tell me when you broke up with Shannon?”

“You guilt tripped me into doing it! Plus, I think it's pretty obvious that you don't even care one way or the other!”

“What's that supposed to mean?!”

“Exactly what it does mean!”

“You know what? Fine. I don't know why I even bothered. Goodbye!” V stormed off in a huff. Obviously he wasn't even her friend. Didn't even try to come after her, the idiot. Wait a second. Even her friend? What the hell was supposed to mean? She never thought of him as more than a friend, and he never...

Oh my...god. He...? He...Well, that's what it looked like, but...it can't possibly be. No, no way. This was Jared here. Honestly. No frickin way.

V blew off the thought. It really couldn't be. But then what could it be? Everyone seemed to know except for her and she was more than miffed about it. One thing kept coming back to her. If he wants to be more than my friend...if he wanted that from the very beginning, than we're not, and never were, friends.

V found out just how easy it was to come back to old habits. She spent her days avoiding Jared and the rest of the human population. As much as she tried to deny her new found theory, she couldn't convince herself not to believe it. And now that hse believed it, she couldn't believe she hadn't realized before.

It was Tuesday afternoon and she'd (apparently) agreed to help Kai with an upcoming math test. She now wished she could just skip it but she knew she couldn't just ditch life like she'd done before. Eventually it caught up with you and that was never fun.

She'd die before admitting it, but Kai was quickly becoming perhaps the best friend she had right now. Sure, they fought, but rarely about the stuff they used to before. They helped each other with school stuff and talked, and they had a silent agreement not to act like they knew each other other than that.

“I think I figured it out,” V told Kai.

“Well, hello to you too,” he smiled, “you mean with Jared?”

“Yup,” V said in a sarcastically happy voice.

“Ok, I'm interested. Let's have your best guess,”

“He likes me,” She said to the floor. Kai nodded.

“Yeah...” He said in a “So what? Go on” voice.

“Oh, don't do that. You know perfectly well that I don't mean platonically,” Kai laughed.

“So, you know. The question is, what are you going to do about it?” What was she going to do about it? She knew what she wanted to do about it (pretend nothing had happened and go back to who she was before). Was she going to do that? It certainly was the easiest solution she could think of.

“Pretend nothing happened?” Why did she feel guilty telling Kai that?

“Oh, come on, you can't do that,” Kai frowned.

“Says who?”

“V...it's not fair, to you, to Jared, to me,”

“To you? You're not a part of this,”

“Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of 'this'”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you're right. But what can I do?”

“There's no easy solution...I think you should just talk to Jared,”

“Did he put you up to this?” V asked quietly, like always when she felt herself becoming angry.

“What?”

“Did he make you tell me to talk to him?”

“What? No! Why would he do that?”

“Because he knows I won't talk to him,”

“You should talk to him?”

“Why?”

“To work things out. Do you always do this?”

“Do what?”

“Expect unconditional friendship and no hard times,”

“What?”

“You know it's true,”

“I...” V was lost for words. Was it true? And if it was, how had he known before even she herself had figured it out? It wasn't true, though. No, it couldn't be. Of course it wasn't! No hard times, right. She'd gone through plenty of hard times. Was someone who'd be there for her no matter what too much to ask for? Maybe it was. Maybe the world was just a much too cruel place. Maybe she wasn't meant to have friends. “It's not true. I've gone through plenty of hard times,”

“Enough to know how to avoid them, which is what you do,”

“Well, doesn't everyone?”

“No. You know, when I first met you, it certainly seemed you strived on conflict. But now I know you avoid it,”

“I do not avoid conflict!” V cried. What a ridiculous idea.

“But you don't like it. Though I suppose no one does. Still, you can't deal with it once it's there. Not a real conflict. Yelling at someone you don't know, sure. Nothing to lose there. But yelling at a friend? No, better just ignore them. You're already lost them. Why go through unnecessary conflict with someone you know, someone with the ability to hurt you. That's your reasoning, isn't it, V?”

“I...no it's not,” V defended herself, albeit not very well. How the hell had he figured her out like that? No, he hadn't figured her out, he was just being a pompous ass and acting like he was so much better than her. She knew that wasn't true. What he'd said was true. It had to be; if it didn't, it wouldn't hurt so much. “Just leave me alone,” she whispered.

“You're doing it again,” he smirked. V felt the familiar anger build up inside her. She welcomed it. She wanted nothing more than to rid herself of that awfulness she was feeling. What gave him the right to hurt her that much and then smirk at her?!

“Fuck off,” she sneered and then felt blood rush up to her face and her chin shake. She didn't need this right now! She didn't have a family, she lost her friend who, turns out, wasn't ever really her friend, a person, pretty much the only one left, she thought she could trust figured her out and used it against her. Used her trust against her. She trusted, she let people in, that was her mistake. Where was the old her, with the attitude and sense of everlong detachment? Why did she bring this on her? For fucks sake, why could she never learn?!

And then she started to think about what Kai said. She didn't like to lie to herself. It was true, she admitted. It was true, true, true...She didn't like it, but it was true. She put on a brave act but when it came to things that really scared her she was a coward and nothing more. She hated it about herself. Still, it was herself, a part of who she was. Love yourself, right? Well, what if you hated yourself, for a reason? What if you knew that if you were who you wanted to be and you met who you really were you'd hate them? She supposed admitting it was a step, but a step towards where? She wished she could love herself in spite of her faults, or perhaps because of them. She didn't want to be perfect. She hated “perfect” people. Once you were perfect, you stopped being real. Nothing and nobody is created perfect. The “perfect” people were all fake, really.

She fell asleep that night thinking of how weird it was that this was the first time she'd ever really beaten herself up over something. As her consciousness flitted into nothingness, she hoped this feeling of hating herself wasn't going to last long.

V didn't feel so great the next morning. Obviously this feeling of self hatred wasn't going to go away that easily. Logic dictated (and V liked logic) that since whatever she was feeling was caused by not liking herself it would go away when she started to. And since V felt pretty sure there was no way she could ever like the person she was now, she had to change. And not change towards perfection, or at least society's view of it, but towards someone who stood up for herself. It was at the moment of reaching that decision that she recognizsed what she was feeling. Guilt. She felt guilty for acting the way she had, running away (in the figurative sense of course). It was strange that she hadn't even noticed before Kai pointed it out. Kai. She'd told him to fuck off. Not the first time. Still, she guessed she owed him an apology but that was something she really didn't want to do. She'd sort it out with Jared first, though quite honestly she saw no hope for anything there. Sure, they'd spent some great times together, and she'd always treasure the memories but it was over. Things changed. V was actually pretty surprised at how well she was taking it. She hated change. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it wasn't a change towards the unknown. She'd been friendless before and she'd gotten used to i.t She could do it then, she could do it again.

She approached Jared at his locker with the intention of clearing up some stuff.

“Hey,” She said.

“Hey!” He blinked a few times, obviously surprised to see her. “Listen, I'm sorry,”

“Yeah...I am too. Jared...I need to talk to you,” perhaps a nicer way to say “we need to talk” but not by much.

“Okay,”

“I think...I think I know...you know,” Why was it so hard to say? Jared was staring at her, confused. V took a deep breath. “I know you like me,” Jared's face expression became unreadable to V. He looked pretty calm, though. He didn't say anything. V realized he was waiting for her to say something.

“And...well, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Us. I mean, we can't be friends, it would just be way too weird. When did this whole thing start, anyway? Because I remember you asked me out but I said no, no wait, I think I ran away, but...?” V rambled. She wished she'd prepared a speech or something. Jared sighed.

“Sit down,” he motioned to a bench, “Look...I've liked you ever since Kai started non-stop complaining about you when you first got here. I figured I didn't just want to ask you out out of the blue, cause that would freak you out...” V looked down. She was too startled to form a coherent thought, let alone say something. “So I got to know you, and I liked you more and more. And then...well, I asked you out, you said no. I figured, okay, you're a great person, different from anyone I've ever known, so I still want to hang out with you. I figured my feelings would just go away in time, but...okay, I'll admit it, I still like you. And I know it would never work out for us, but I couldn't just stop, you know?” No, she didn't know, and she didn't want to think about it. “And yeah, maybe there was a part of me that hoped you'd change your mind but...look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry,” V still didn't know what to say. All plans of telling him goodbye went out of the door. He was so...so honest. She didn't know what to do. She'd thought he'd pretended to be her friend. He hadn't. It was had probably been harder for him than for her. But...they couldn't go back to the way they were before, and, well, V was too confused to think about anything right then.

“I...just give me time to think, okay?” She asked, looking up. Jared nodded.

A/N: I know, ridiculously short, but at least not a filler. Lots of dialogue. Love dialogue :) Sorry for the wait. Surprised? Or thinking "well duh"? Tell me how obvious (or not) you found it :)