Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Over the next few weeks, Analiese continues to dodge me.
On Tuesday I try a casual 'hey' by the lockers—she gives me a curt chin nod and walks away before I finish my sentence.
On Friday I message her on Connection Services.
Read receipt; no reply. The following week after AP Lit, I tell her I liked her analysis of the assigned reading, and she looks at me like I've sprouted a second head before muttering 'thanks' and disappearing down the hall.
Guilt fills me when I think of how she helped me when we were still talking anonymously—she was the first person I turned to about my suspicions about Braden, even if unwittingly. I never offered her the same support, and I can only hope that one day she'll let me try again.
My friendship with Jenna, at least, seems fully mended.
We sit together at lunch, we text constantly, and last weekend I slept over at her house.
Jake was home and decided to watch a chick flick with us—not anything we haven't done a million times before, but now things feel different.
At some point during the movie, he started braiding my hair.
I kept waiting for Jenna to say something, but she acted like she always does when Jake is around—like we're all friends who've known each other forever.
What Jenna doesn't know is that when Jake braids my hair now, a million butterflies take flight in my stomach.
Logically, he's still my best friend's little brother.
But ever since the start of this school year I've seen him differently, and I can't tell if I should dig into the feeling or shove it into a dark corner and wait for it to pass.
And now, as I sit in my room with Jake to study for our calculus final tomorrow, I make the choice to shove those butterflies into the metaphorical abyss.
My eyes track his large hand as he writes out a problem step by step on a sheet of paper in the notebook on my desk using the same pencil I gave him for his birthday. He’s used it every time we’ve done homework together. It must be a good pencil, after all.
His sandy blond hair has grown a little too long and swoops adorably across his forehead.
He bites on his lower lip as he concentrates—something I remember him doing when he was younger while building Star Wars Lego kits.
It also causes his dimples to pop slightly.
Those same dimples made those darn butterflies take flight when he flashed them at me an hour ago, and they have yet to settle down.
Cute face craters should be illegal after a certain age, especially on guys—they’re like tiny weapons designed to cause girls to lower their defenses.
My eyes narrow as I watch him, feeling annoyed that I’m so affected by something so small.
“Did you finish the problem yet?”
My eyes snap to meet his gaze and a blush starts to bloom. Was I staring? And no, I did not finish the problem. Didn’t even start!
I clear my throat. “Uh, no, sorry. I guess I’m distracted.”
He doesn’t seem to notice my embarrassment, or perhaps he misinterprets it.
“Have you heard from Braden since…ya know?”
“Since I found out he was a lying liar-pants?”
“Well… yeah.”
“He texted once to say,” I pause to pull out my phone so I can read Braden’s words verbatim, “‘Sorry, babe, I’ve been swamped. Miss you.’ That was a week and a half ago and I haven’t heard from him since.”
I toss the phone on the mattress beside me in disgust.
“Did you respond?”
“Of course not.”
“So you guys haven’t talked about what you found out?”
I scoff. “I couldn’t get him to stay on the phone with me longer than five minutes all semester, so what’s the point in trying now?”
Jake nods thoughtfully, then seems to hesitate before he speaks again.
“So do you still… consider him your boyfriend?”
“Why does that matter?”
It could be my imagination, but I swear a blush creeps up Jake’s neck as he shrugs and glances away.
“I guess it doesn’t. Just curious.”
Do I consider Braden my boyfriend? He’s been present in my life for so long it seems strange to realize that I…
don’t. I don’t feel the urge to call him or text him like normal.
When something happens in my life, he’s not the first person I think to talk to about it.
It’s been happening so gradually over the past few months that it’s like I didn’t notice.
“No,” I say emphatically, more to myself than to Jake. A weight lifts off my shoulders. “I don’t. At some point I’ll need to have a conversation with Braden for closure or whatever, but I feel like that conversation with Mrs. Patel was the final nail in the coffin for me.”
Jake glances up at me and smiles. “I’m glad.”
Before I can question why that makes him happy, he tosses another question at me.
“How are things at your dad’s new apartment?”
“How do you know about that?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, well Hunter mentioned it last week when I was here to study, and Jenna also told me some things.”
Huh. The urge to bristle rises—but that's silly. Jake is my friend, and my parents' situation is my new reality. It's not like it was my choice.
“It’s good, I guess,” I say with a casual shrug. “Hunter loves his room, and mine’s fine. The whole thing still feels a little weird, but what can we do, ya know?”
“I’m glad that’s going ok.” Jake drums his fingers on his leg with nervous energy. “I think we need to go make some chocolate-covered popcorn before we continue studying. What do you think?”
He stands and heads to the door. Alarm bells start ringing in my head. Isn’t that something Mr. Pi mentioned months before?
By the time I catch up with him, he’s already in the kitchen opening the cabinet we keep snacks in.
“Do you have chocolate we can melt for this?” he asks, placing it in the microwave and starting it.
I grab a bag of chocolate chips from the freezer and toss it on the counter.
“Jake, are you on Connection Services?”
His hand hovers mid-air over the chocolate chips. “That ridiculous beta program the school is running because our principal has a crush on a tech billionaire?”
“How do you know she has a crush on him?” I shake my head and slash a hand through the air, annoyed I’m letting myself get distracted. “Never mind, doesn’t matter. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Are you on it?”
“Of course I am. But you still didn’t—”
“Talk to anyone you like on there? Do you think the service works like it’s supposed to?”
My mind immediately jumps to Analiese. Do I like her? I mean, I understand her. I’m trying to be friends with her. It’s too hard to immediately set aside years of thinking of her as my ultimate rival to jump to using a word as strong as ‘like.’
“… maybe? I think it’s all been more hassle than it’s worth. Just look at all the stuff that’s happened at school because of it.”
Jake pours some into a glass bowl he’s taken out of a cabinet, then fills a pot with water. The pot of water goes on top of a stove burner.
“But isn’t there anyone on there that you’ve, you know, connected with or enjoyed talking to?”
I roll my eyes at his obvious choice. “I don’t know, maybe. You still haven’t answered my question—are you on it?”
He sets the bowl of chocolate on top of the now-boiling water so the steam can melt the chocolate. How did he know how to do that? Seconds later, he opens the microwave and carefully pulls the hot bag out.
I hand him a silicone spatula he can use to stir the chocolate as it melts.
“Thanks,” he says. “And yeah, I’ve looked at it.”
“Jake, this whole thing is weird. The popcorn and you being here—”
“Oooo, what are you guys making?” Hunter walks into the kitchen sniffing loudly. “Is that chocolate? And popcorn? Yum!”
Jake laughs, then opens the bag, takes out a piece, and tosses it at Hunter. Hunter catches it in his mouth and they fist bump each other. My eyes roll again.
“Want to play some video games before you leave today?”
“Yeah, but maybe only one round.”
“Cool,” Hunter replies, then swipes a couple more pieces before he wanders back out of the kitchen.
I look back at Jake, and before I can try to refocus him on our previous conversation, he asks me to get a large bowl out. I sigh and let it go—we do have to focus on calculus, after all. Even with my future plans in flux, I want to get the best grade possible.
Once the snack is tossed and set, we give a small bowl of it to Hunter, then head upstairs to finish studying. We sit on my bed with the bowl between us, our hands occasionally brushing as we scoop up handfuls.
The entire atmosphere feels both charged and comfortable at the same time.
It’s Jake. But it’s not. It’s hard to see the boundaries that used to be so natural, I didn’t even realize they were there.
Now… it’s different. He’s my friend, not just Jenna’s brother, and he’s also quite…
attractive. Every time he grins, my stomach swoops.
My fingers itch to move his hair out of his eyes or to touch the warm skin of his forearms. I try not to overthink it, but I can’t help it.
Then underneath all of that is an unfortunate layer of guilt.
Braden and I still haven’t talked or found any closure with one another, but it’s not like Jake and I are a thing anyway.
He’s never said anything to me to indicate he’s anything other than what he’s always been: a good friend.
Plus, I’m still not convinced all this stomach action isn’t indigestion.
As for noticing his attractive qualities—that’s really no different than looking at a work of art.
His finger caresses the curve of my ear as he scoops a piece of my hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear. Startled, my eyes jump from my calculus notebook in my lap to his face.
His sky-blue eyes wander over my hair. “Want me to braid it? No swim class tomorrow morning, right?”
How did he know that? And why?
He continues. “I’ve always liked how your hair looks like a mermaid princess after you take the braids out in the morning.”
Be still my heart. “A mermaid princess?”
He blushes and looks a little shy. “Yeah, I remember the year you dressed up as Ariel for Halloween and you did that with your hair.”
Technically, Ariel’s hair doesn’t even have waves like that, so I’m not sure why I did that for the costume. I just liked the look.
I consider his offer and decide… why not.
After moving the near-empty bowl off the bed, I grab a brush and a couple hair ties from my dresser before settling on the bed in front of him, tilting my head back.
Jake grabs the brush and gently pulls it through my long hair, detangling it before he starts braiding.
Jake’s fingers move steadily through each section of my hair, and I close my eyes for a second, pretending the rush in my chest is leftover calculus anxiety and not…
whatever this is. The pesky butterflies taking flight again aren’t because Jake’s hands feel amazing—they’re because of everything else going on in my life. Definitely.
A soft knock sounds on my doorframe.
I open my eyes to see Mom standing there in her scrubs, her hair pulled into a careful bun, her badge still clipped crookedly to her pocket. She takes in the scene—me sitting cross-legged between Jake’s knees, his hands in my hair, the half-finished braid—and her eyebrows lift a fraction.
Then she smiles. Not a teasing smile—a knowing one.
“Hey, Aves,” she says tiredly. “Just came up to let you know I’m home.”
Jake jumps slightly—he must not have noticed her—but continues braiding. “Hey, Mrs. James.”
I scramble to say something. Ideally something normal, casual, and not humiliating.
“Oh. Hey, Mom. We’re studying. Calculus final is tomorrow.”
“Mm-hmm,” she says, warmth in her voice. “I can see that.”
She gives me one more soft, amused look, then disappears down the hall.
My face feels like it’s on fire. Jake clears his throat behind me as he ties off the end of the second braid.
“Uh… ready to finish the last practice problem?”
I nod too quickly. “Yep. Totally. Let’s do it.”
But as I settle back into place, Mom's smile is burned into the back of my eyelids. She looked at me the same way she did weeks ago when I swore Jake never had a crush on me. Except this time, the embarrassing truth nudging its way forward is that maybe…
Maybe my feelings for him have changed.