So hopefully you’ll find out who our mystery people are in this chapter and they’ll get around to introducing themselves. After ten days you’d think they’d know each other just a little well...just be glad I didn’t write those other seven days or you’d be so frustrated it wouldn’t be funny.

Enjoy.

2864 Trinity Crossroads

“Crap!”

I tossed my backpack away, staring down at my algebra book. This stupid bit of paper and binding glue had become a daily torment in my life, a reminder in ten-point type of how much I sucked at things involving the left half of my brain. Never had I been a logical sort of person; I wasn’t gifted academically so much as artistically. I mean, give me any subject and I could draw it, but tell me to solve an equation and I was useless.

All the tutors in the world wouldn’t be able to bring my grades up now, I bet, and they probably wouldn’t even try when they saw my latest test score. Practically the whole paper was covered in red pen markings, burning failure into my retinas. Not for the first time, I was glad neither of my parents were the kind that would go through your stuff to find your grades.

“Why is this so hard?” I whined, falling to my knees on the carpet to glare helplessly at my algebra book. It was four-fifteen, leaving me four minutes to complain and wretch about my miserable life before ending up uncontrollably content after meeting with the Guy Across the Street. But today I was in no mood for playful banter; I just wanted to die. Get the mail and die. “What did I ever do to anybody that I should suck so badly at math?”

Maybe I killed someone in a past life, or I was a really horrible person. Like, maybe I’d used toddlers to feed a concentration camp full of alligator-Nazi-soldier hybrids that–oh, I’m not making any sense at all. Even to myself.

I glanced back up at the clock–four-eighteen, and I’d spent three minutes wallowing in self-pity–and got up, still angry, and made the trek to the front door.

Outside it was excruciatingly bright, the few clouds in the sky tracing the edges and nowhere near to blocking the sun. Across the street I saw him taking a more leisurely pace, much like mine, decked to perfection in a violet shirt, sleeves pushed back to his elbows.

When we crossed the road I knew I was looking pissed, but I didn’t expect him to comment even when he noticed the way I was fumbling with the letters in my hands.

“Bad day?” he asked softly, and when I looked up he wasn’t condescending or smug, just concerned. For some reason that made me both irritated and pleased.

“Failed my algebra test again,” I told him without preamble. If he wanted to think I was an idiot he could take it that way; if not, I wouldn’t be overjoyed, but I wouldn’t be disappointed either.

A thoughtful look crossed his face, uncertainty written in his eyes, and he did a little two-step sort of move with his feet before asking me, “I could...help, if y’d like me to.”

Oh? I hadn’t been expecting that. Taking a look at him, he didn’t seem like a nerd. “That’d be great, sure.”

“Alright then. Tomorrow?”

“After we get the mail. Just come over and I’ll leave the door unlocked, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He was smiling, and I couldn’t help but smile back. And that was when I realized that I didn’t know his name. So I shifted the mail to my other hand and stuck my free one out.

“Jamie,” I said. I don’t know if I was imagining it but I think he almost laughed, but cleared a hand and slipped it into mine. For a moment I couldn’t help but marvel at how soft his skin was–it didn’t seem like he had a single callous or broken cuticle or anything.

“Taylor,” he replied, and I wanted to do some crazy sort of victory dance right here and now because yes, I finally knew his name. It was getting tiresome, having to use five different words just to think of him.

“Well then, Taylor,” I said, keeping my expression just...incredibly interested. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah...see you,” he said, voice shaking just a bit, and I wondered why before crossing to my side of the road and starting up my driveway.

I dashed the rest of the way to my house, stifling some form of hysteric excitement, and burst into my living room (mildly disappointed to find that no random burglar had broken in and stolen my algebra book, but I’d live). I gave my house a quick run-through, pleased to find that nobody was home, and broke into the crazy sort of victory dance I’d almost done on the street out there.

“Yes!”

---

2863 Trinity Crossroads

“Yes!”

I fell back onto the floor, resisting the urge to roll around on the floor laughing like the inner idiot no one knew I had, and grinned up at the ceiling. I’d almost laughed earlier anyway; I’d been planning to ask his name today anyway, and when he took the incentive for me it was almost too perfect.

Jamie, huh? It fit him, although the only other Jamie I knew was a brunette and not nearly as tan at that. It fit him like the smile that he’d given me earlier, green eyes lighting up, and now I had a name to the face. I would’ve gotten up to dance, but I didn’t want my sister coming in and seeing me like an idiot.

I sighed happily, remembering the feel of his hand around mine. His hand had been rough, but warm, and comforting somehow in a way I couldn’t explain.

“Taylor, you’re awesome,” I said aloud, clenching my hands against my chest and sitting up.

“Taylor, you’re talking to yourself.” Well, there goes that plan. I couldn’t bring myself to be irritated though, turning my head to look at my sister as she sat down next to me. “What’s right?”

“Jamie,” I blurted out, and then realized that wasn’t the best thing to say and clapped my hands over my mouth.

I blushed and my sister grinned, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “New girlfriend, huh?” She asked coyly, tipping her head.

Once again, I chose just the wrong thing to say and corrected her, as was my habit. “He’s a guy–” slipped from my lips, and her eyebrows skyrocketed. I tried to fix my slip again. “No, not my boyfriend. The guy across the street–we’re just friends–his name’s Jamie–I don’t know any girls named Jamie, anyway–”

“So there’s the guy across the street, the one you get mail with, and you don’t want to jump him but you like him, you don’t have a girlfriend and you’re single and he’s hot,” she summarized, adding in a few points I hadn’t brought up.

“Tara!” I snapped, now fully able to be exasperated and embarrassed. “I don’t get mail with him, first of all, and yes I’m single and I can’t tell if he’s hot because we’re both guys, if you haven’t noticed, and I don’t look at other guys like that.”

“You told me Luke was hot once,” she pointed out, smirking smugly. “I think that counts.”

“Only because you wouldn’t let me go to bed! I was half awake!” I rationalized desperately, waving my hands at her. “Don’t ruin my moment!”

“Alright, alright, Tay. I’ll leave you to your..momentum, yeah?” I blushed, and she chuckled and stood to wander away, perhaps in search of Skittles the cat.

I waited a few more moments to make sure she was gone before that stupid smile spread back over my face and I fell back on the floor again, unable to stop myself. I could care less what she thought of me at the moment; what counted was what I was thinking about right now.

The only thing on my mind was ‘oh my God, I’m going to Jamie’s house tomorrow’, and that was mind enough.

--

Took me long enough...blah.

And I actually didn’t realize until I’d named him Jamie that I had another Jamie..but now this Jamie is already Jamie and he can’t have another name because yeah, it wouldn’t work.

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