A/N – So sorry about the wait! I think it's been 22 days since I last updated. That wasn't supposed to happen, lol. Part of the reason it took so long is because I'm an idiot. I was waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from my beta, so I eventually asked her about it and it turns out.... I never even sent the damn chapter! So now I'm posting really quick before I go to work. Excuse any mistakes you might see as a result.

Thanks for waiting!

And of course, I own nothing important.

CHAPTER 3

"Maybe they were breaking up?"

"Or maybe he's just psycho," Erica suggested for the thousandth time. We'd been talking about what I'd seen at the restaurant almost non-stop over the last several weeks. Erica was always my go-to girl when I needed to talk about something. She'd been interested in my Jared-restaurant situation at first, but around the tenth discussion she started getting bored. I knew she was tired of hearing about it, but I couldn't bring myself to let it go.

Talking about Jared kept him in the room with me when he was physically nowhere near, and I was genuinely worried about him this time. He hadn't been in school since I'd seen him at work. Every day I would hold out hope that he would walk into study hall like he always had, but every day I was let down. I was starting to get scared, antsy; I started coming up with worst-case scenarios that were seeming all the more likely as time wore on. Maybe he was seriously ill, maybe he'd dropped out of school... maybe he'd moved. My stomach hurt at the idea of never seeing Jared again.

Erica sat propped up against the pillows on my bed, rifling through one of my many school notebooks. I was lying on my stomach near the foot of the mattress trying to finish my math assignment. I'd asked Erica to stay the night tonight and our moms had agreed provided we get some homework done.

"Kim, seriously..."

Erica's voice issued from beside me, her tone flat, and I looked up to see what she what she was talking about. She held my notebook, opened to a random page, up for me to see. My heart fluttered when I saw what she'd found, what no one was ever supposed to find, not even Erica. Jared's name written in different colored inks all across the page, my first name with his last name attached to the end, and the 'LOVE' game that calculates the percentage you have of going out with your crush. I cursed myself for not remembering to tear the page out and throw it away.

"Alex probably did that," I defended myself lamely. I was only half serious and now more embarrassed by my cover story than the reason I had to make one. Nevertheless, I embellished it. "Probably just another way to make fun of me about it."

"Alex did what?" I jumped. Alex was poking her head through my doorway, looking at us expectantly. What in the world was she doing here?

"Nothing. Killed a cat. What do you want?" I answered quickly.

She let the cat comment slide, and thankfully, didn't actually seem interested in why her name was mentioned in the first place. "Mom's ordering pizza. What do you guys want on it?"

"Mushrooms," I answered automatically, turning back to my homework. My heart was still pounding from Erica's recent discovery, but the prospect of pizza took my mind away from the situation for a moment.

"It doesn't matter; I like everything," Erica responded. I knew she didn't like pepperoni, but she was too polite to say so. Even though she'd been my best friend since third grade, she was still a little shy around my family.

"We don't want pepperoni," I added for her as I filled in the answer to a particularly difficult problem.

"So, mushrooms... no pepperoni." I didn't even have to watch to know that Alex was ticking each item off on her fingers, and looking up at the ceiling with her gorgeous doe eyes. It was a habit of hers. "Extra cheese, sardines--"

My head snapped up and I looked at her, horrified. "You're not putting fish on it!"

Alex smiled sweetly before turning and running down the hall. I rolled my eyes. For a sixteen year old, she really could act like a child sometimes.

"She's just kidding," I assured Erica, who looked a bit disgusted herself.

"I hope so," she mumbled, turning back to the notebook resting in her lap. Instead of starting another inquiry like I expected her to, she closed the notebook and dropped it to the floor beside my bed. She must have been too appreciative of my sparing her from eating pepperoni to question the new angle of my obsession any further. Either that, or she really didn't want to talk about it anymore.

It wasn't until we were curled up under my covers that she decided to intervene.

"Kim?" she whispered, the first sound I'd heard in the ten minutes since I'd turned my bedside lamp off.

"What?" I answered just as quietly. It wasn't as though speaking in normal tones would have kept anyone else awake, there was something about the darkness that made whispering seem more natural.

"You're getting kind of weird with your Jared-obsession thing."

My heart faltered.

I didn't say anything. I could feel her turning to look at me, but I kept my gaze fixated on the blackness above us.

"Really, Kim. I mean, I know you like him, but..." She paused and sighed, a pitiful sound. "But he's never going to like you back. You know how these things work. He's just not your guy, Kim. And I think you should stop holding out hope for someone who's never going to come around."

My heart was beating rapidly in my chest now, and I glared at the ceiling without meaning to. It hurt. Not because it was Erica who said it, although I did feel a slight stab of betrayal at her words, but because I knew she was right and I didn't want to hear it. A voice in my head was screaming that everything she had just said was nonsense, that anything could happen... that Jared and I were perfect for each other. But the other, more logical voice, much quieter and very unwanted, was agreeing with my friend.

A few seconds passed before the conversation was continued.

I could feel the tension between us in that moment. Erica was holding herself up on one elbow, looking down at me, but I had yet to move or respond to her statement. I was debating on how to answer. A part of me wanted to tell her I wasn't crazy for having a crush, an instinct to defend myself, but another part of me wanted to voice my own concerns to the one person I could share them with.

Finally, I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding and turned my head.

"I know. I've tried to get over him because it is weird, I know it is, but I can't. I just... there's just something about him, and I don't care if he doesn't want me back, I know he doesn't, but I can't help wanting him just the same."

I could hear the desperation in my voice and Erica sighed again before landing back down on her pillow.

"Well just so you know he's never going to want you back."

"Of course I know that. I'm not stupid."

"And that you're wasting your time and only hurting yourself."

"I get it."

"And that you're probably missing out on tons of other opportunities."

I scoffed.

"Yea right. Besides, I don't want anyone else. I know it's dumb but I'd rather spend the rest of high school wanting a guy that will never want me back than settle for second best. And believe me, anyone else would be second best."

"Sure. Well, I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight," Erica said with an air of finality. She rolled over so that her back was to me and I did the same to her.

"Night," I mumbled.

Nothing more was said before we drifted off to sleep.

At school, I tried to take Erica's advice to heart by keeping my eye out for someone who might catch my interest, but going to school on a reservation made seeing any new faces nearly impossible. I'd already been through all of the old ones and none of them appealed to me the way Jared's did. I began to fear that none ever would.

We changed semesters the second week of January so I no longer had first period study hall. Instead, I had first period Home Economics, and fourth period World History. Even with the change of scenery the school year remained unexciting.

As the year continued I tried to think of Jared less and less. I missed him, but I'd accepted that he wasn't coming back. At least not to finish this year. He might be back next if I was lucky, but no one recovered from missing almost two months of school, and all of their midterms.

As much as I'd tried to not think about him, to think about anyone--anything--other than him, it rarely worked. Many times I would wonder if he was alright, or if he was still even on the rez. It had helped a little when the gossip surrounding his disappearance had died down, though not hearing his name in the halls, even if it was being whispered in connection with some new rumor, was bittersweet. I craved news of him, but I also knew that nothing my vapid, brainless classmates knew would be anything close to the truth.

It took me by complete surprise, when, during the second week in February, when cheap paper Valentines and chalky candy hearts were finding their way into lockers and onto desks, I thought I heard his name mentioned as I passed a cluster of girls near the front doors to the school. Frigid winter air followed me through the door, but through that and the knit cap on my head I heard one of the girls, Chelsea, say that she thought she'd seen him, but he looked so different, so much "hotter".

I shrugged it off. Surely she hadn't seen him. No one had. He was gone.

But later, as I made my way from my third period classroom to fourth, I could have sworn I heard his laughter. I recognized it, surely, because how many times had I wished that I was the one to cause it? To have told him something worthy of him eliciting a genuine laugh? My eyes scanned the faces in the hall, though, and he was no where to be found.

I got to class, found my seat quickly, and began rifling through my backpack. I was entirely unenthusiastic about the upcoming lecture on the Suez Canal. Not only that, but we were supposed to split into groups after we took our notes. The very prospect made my stomach churn. I hated group work. Either everyone in the group ignored me, or they expected me to do all of the work so they could talk and screw around. What made this class worse than the subject itself was the fact that I was completely without any of my friends. Being in a room filled with people who thought they were too good to even look at you made finding a group to join a terrible ordeal.

The tardy bell rang and the murmuring among my classmates ceased as they all settled into their desks. I pulled my composition out and began reading it over, wanting to check for any mistakes I might have missed before I turned it in.

I could tell when Mr. Reed entered the room without even having to raise my eyes off of the page in front of me. He shuffled when he walked, so it looked like he never picked his feet up off of the floor--he just dragged them along after him like an afterthought.

"Mr. Tipree, you can have a seat right over there," he said.

I froze.

I could sense the tension and curiosity in the air as everyone shifted in their seats to gawk at the intruder. I still hadn't looked up, afraid of what I would--or wouldn't--see. Each second seemed to drag and I became acutely aware of the sound of heavy footfalls across the linoleum floor. It seemed as though everyone else was as still and silent as I was.

I slowly lifted my head for a quick look and my breath caught in my throat. My heart began to race, faster if possible, than it had been before.

It was Jared.

Jared, In the flesh and standing not ten feet from me. Wearing my favorite black t-shirt and a scowl on his face.

I watched him stride toward the back of the room with an unnatural amount of grace and a level of confidence I hadn't seen in him before. His self-assurance wasn't the only change he'd gone through. If he was the subject of rumors about steroids before, he certainly wouldn't be dispelling those accusations now. His arms, chest, legs--his whole body--was enormous, and to his already substantial height he'd added at least four or five inches. He towered over his classmates as he made his way between the desks. He stopped at the seat directly in front of me, the only available one left in the room, and sat down in a slow, fluid movement.

The teacher cleared his throat again and all eyes reluctantly returned to him. But I could only pretend to hear what he was talking about as my mind raced with thoughts of the boy--no, man--sitting right in front of me. I could barely keep my fingers from reaching out to touch his back. I just wanted to feel him--to prove he was here, now, and not just some wonderful hallucination. I could feel the warmth emanating from his body, could watch his body expand with every measured breath, could detect his scent--like wind and sun and rain all at the same time. He was real, he was back, and he was sitting inches in front of me.

No one could keep their eyes on the projector for long, and I caught several students stealing glances in Jared's direction. He didn't seem to notice. He held the same tense posture and kept his eyes on his paper. He seemed, if anything, a little agitated. I could understand. Being free of the prison of school for a few months only to come back to inane classes with even more inane teachers must be frustrating. I wondered why he had come back now--what had made him return.

The lecture ran over so we didn't have any time left for group work. Normally I would have been overjoyed, but I couldn't find it in myself to care either way. We were given an in-class book assignment instead and I tried to focus on my reading. It was a vain attempt.

Five minutes before the bell, I heard an incessant clicking noise coming from somewhere near me. It took me a moment to realize that it was the sound of a mechanical pencil out of lead, and another second to notice that it was coming from the seat in front of me. Though I was trying as hard as I could to pay attention to the assignment on my desk, my eyes kept drifting up to take in the expanse of Jared's broad back and shoulders, so I noticed when he turned to face the boy across the row from him.

"Do you have any lead?" Jared whispered. He voice sounded more hoarse than I remembered.

"No," the boy responded carefully. He eyed Jared warily for a moment before turning back to his assignment.

At the front of the class the teacher cleared his throat again, looking pointedly at Jared, who let out a frustrated sigh and hung his head. He took a few deep breaths before straightening his body.

Afraid of drawing attention to myself by having to rummage noisily through my bag, I always kept my extra container of lead sitting on my desk. My fingers closed themselves around the cylinder now, as my heart began to beat faster. I desperately wanted to offer him some of my lead, but I didn't think I could initiate it. We'd never spoken, and now didn't seem like an appropriate time to do so. It looked like he was already in hot water with our teacher, and I didn't want to get him into any more trouble.

I released the container from my now sweaty hand, and once again tried to focus on the work before me. Before I could write a single letter, though, a hand rested on the corner of my desk, stealing my attention. It was tanned and rough, showing signs of wear. I followed the arm up to the wrist, elbow, shoulder, before I settled naturally onto Jared's face. Our eyes locked, and for the first time I knew he was looking directly at me.

A strange look came across Jared's face making him appear, at once, entirely at peace and completely enthralled. He was looking at me as though he knew I had all of life's answers. For myself, feeling Jared's gaze resting on me had the absolute opposite effect than what I had imagined. My heart, so recently beating so fast it felt like it might gain traction and plow out of my chest, settled into a comfortable rhythm. My hands relaxed out of their fists and I waited patiently for him to speak.

Jared opened and closed his mouth a few times, but failed to tear his eyes from mine. He licked his lips as he floundered for words, trying out a few sounds but finding none he was happy with.

After a few moments he found his words.

No, just one word, and it was one of the only words I'd ever really and truly wished he would say.

"...Kim."

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