Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, I simply get to play in their universe :)
Night Time Thoughts: Andi
Andi sighed, turning over in bed restlessly to look at the alarm clock on her bedside table. The blue, glowing numbers read 12:38 a.m. She needed to sleep, wanted to sleep - wanted to do anything really - to escape the torrent of thoughts that refused to stop cycling through her brain. She kept picturing Jonah's face in front of her, remembering the look of what could only be described as sheer terror when she talked about one of them dating someone else. And then he was gone, practically running to get away from her, before she could even think of something to say back to him. She couldn't believe how quickly he had moved on. It hurt. A lot. But the moment the hurt would start to sink in, the second the tears threatened to make their presence known, she would forcefully shove them back down, deep inside, along with a million other emotions she didn't know how to process.
The problem was that Andi knew, in many ways, her pain was self-inflicted. She had been the one to tell Jonah first that she just wanted to be friends. She was the one who spent most of the summer analyzing every thought she had about him, and relishing the fact that when he wasn't around, the world felt a whole lot less complicated. It wasn't that she felt nothing for Jonah - far from it in fact. It was more that the pressure to be the kind of girl who dated Jonah Beck was too much for her. She wanted to own who she was, to stand firm in her ideas and beliefs, to not care what people thought. And being his girlfriend, bearing the weight of that title and everything it stood for - well it made her act like someone she wasn't. She was constantly worried about what he (and everyone else around them) was thinking about what she said, what she did, heck even what she wore (since when did she care what people thought of her clothing? She started trends out of nowhere for goodness sakes!). And so for the second time since they met, she made the decision that being herself was more important. The only problem was that the second time was so much harder than the first. She had started to see flickers of true depth in Jonah's character, to observe that below the surface, there was more to him than the popular athlete with the devastating dimples. She had always felt that he held back when it came to who he really was. She knew next to nothing about his family - he never talked about them and she was always too nervous around him to inquire herself.
Something about his countenance had changed though, right around the time he started hanging out with Bowie at the Red Rooster - Andi still had no idea how that even happened. How, exactly, did Jonah end up in the guitar shop that her Dad worked at as his sudden musical protege? Out of nowhere Jonah had this incredible voice and an insane talent for playing guitar and wrote songs that made her want to cry and kiss him all at once?
She shook her head from her reverie. She felt pulled in half. Half of her wanted to stand on her own two feet and figure out who she was - that was the part of her that had pushed for the no break up break up. But the other half of her was dying inside at the thought of Jonah with another girl. How fair was that? She couldn't say that she didn't want him but be upset when someone else did! But she was. She was just starting to truly enjoy herself around him, to let go of the anxiety and be herself without fear, and she felt like he was starting to let her in….until today. Now she felt as if she'd never be at peace with any decision she made concerning Jonah, and that was beyond maddening.
Andi picked up her phone, mindlessly searching for a distraction, and opened her text message chain with Buffy. She started to type, knowing that Buffy would wake up and answer her. Until she read the last exchange they had shared:
Buffy: Why didn't you come?
Andi: Something came up.
Buffy: (sad face memoji)
The date read 1 WEEK ago. 1 Week. She couldn't remember when she'd ever gone a week without texting Buffy. They were hanging in there at school, faking it - for Cyrus and for themselves, but there was tension. Definite tension. Andi put her phone down, and against her will, the hot tears started to fall as she realized how incredibly alone she felt.