(A/N): Oh my God, guys. I know. Epic update fail. School, holidays, insert excuse here...
Anyway, sorry about that :/ Won't happen again!

OH! And Next to Normal now has a banner...go to my profile to find the link! :)

SM owns all Twilight-ness.

"Edward, I really don't like the idea of you and Jessica," said Alice anxiously when we got home. For the fifth time.

I scowled. "Why not? Give me a logical reason."

She opened her mouth, but then clamped it shut again, probably because she realized that there was no reason at all. We'd been at it for twenty minutes—ever since we dropped Jasper off.

She heaved a sigh and figured that it was over now, so I stepped into the kitchen to fix myself something to eat. I never actually ate much at Olive Garden. I wasn't a super-awesome cook or anything, so I decided Easy Mac would have to do. Just as I was filling the bowl with water, Alice appeared by my side again.

"What?" I asked impatiently. "If you say anything else about Jessica—"

"No," she muttered, "I won't stand in your way. If you want a goddamn girlfriend, you can have one—"

"Language!"

"—but I just want you to know that it's all wrong. And you'll regret it."

Alice strode away with a smug, but irritated look on her face while I stood there with a measuring cup in my hand, dumbfounded.

My sister was turning into a teenager.

Whenever I changed for gym, I'd always look straight ahead at my locker and wouldn't allow my eyes to stray a centimeter. I was subconsciously paranoid about people thinking I was looking at them.

Of course, I didn't realize this until I finally let my eyes wander a little.

And with a slight vision adjustment, I was staring right at Tyler Crowley's ass.

It wasn't like he was actually nude or anything—he was in boxer briefs—but I couldn't tear my focus away from him.

My thought process was something along the lines of this: Woah. Nice. Oh shit, why am I staring? Look away, look away! No, look back…

I realized this far too late, and Mike Newton looked over Tyler's shoulder and shot me a puzzled look. I didn't give him a response.

I just fucking bolted.

When I stepped out into the hall, there seemed to be more guys than usual. Guys with nice asses. So I made it a point to ogle all the girls I possibly could in the three-minute period before the late bell rang.

Thank God I had History next—that was boring and would render me incapable of thinking anything other than "get me the hell out of here". There was, however, one problem: Jasper was in that class with me. That made me anxious. Not anxious in an entirely bad way, but not in a good way, either.

What if he noticed that something was up with me? I knew him—he'd ask.

I had to admit, I considered skipping class for a split second.

But a couple minutes later, there I was, sitting next to Jazz and tapping my fingernails on the desk to break our routine silence. Might as well get it over with.

He cleared his throat and glanced at my face. His eyes held there for a few moments, but I refused to make eye contact. I didn't know why, I just felt like it would be a bad idea.

"Dude, you look like you just got jumped."

I sighed and folded my arms across my chest, not entirely sure what to do with my hands anymore. Jasper patiently waited for an answer, but I refused to speak up.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he growled under his breath, more to himself than to me.

"Don't be such a hypocrite," I snapped. He swiftly grew silent and there was no more conversation from that point on.

I drove home alone that day, not that I expected anything different. Now I only had TV and food to look forward to, which wasn't much. I could've practiced the piano, but it was fairly obvious that I was severely procrastinating. I hadn't touched the thing in weeks.

Then I remembered Jessica and her number.

I could call her.

She probably thought that I was an asshole. I saw her in the halls between nearly every period, yet I hadn't said hi or anything. But she'd looked at me all day like she wanted me to. So…this was my chance to redeem myself, right?

And after the whole locker room debacle, hanging out with a cute girl sounded like a good plan.

I looked for the little piece of paper with her phone number on it for twenty minutes—I finally found it in my jeans from yesterday, all crumpled up, though still legible. I dialed the number a bit impatiently. Any other time I'd be nervous as hell, but right now, I needed to do this. If I didn't…I wasn't going to think of the consequences. Not now.

"Hello?" sounded a perky, feminine, slightly confused voice on the other line.

"Ah…hey," I said after a second or so. I wasn't actually expecting her to answer for some reason. "What's up?"

"Oh, is this Edward?" she asked, her voice even more chipper now.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Hi!" she greeted me enthusiastically. "I just finished my homework, what about you?"

"Umm…" What was I doing? "Just talking to you," I settled on.

There was a pause.

"We should hang out today," I suggested, feeling a little uncomfortable. What if she was just bullshitting when she agreed that we should hang out?

"Sure," she agreed easily. "Oh, and I know we haven't known each other that long…"

She hesitated. "Yeah?" I urged.

"But I was just wondering if you'd do me a favor. Or at least consider it."

I didn't answer right away, but I figured that if I said no, I'd look like a prick.

"Okay. What is it?"

"I'll…bring it?" she said unevenly.

Bring it? "All right, then."

We ended up deciding that she'd drive over to my house around four-thirty. So I spent my remaining hour in an obsessive-compulsive cleaning frenzy—straightening picture frames and pillow cushions, picking shit up off the floor that most likely didn't belong there, shoving Alice into the kitchen to do dishes (which she never did complete), and lastly, cleaning my room. It was about time that I tackled it, because it was beginning to resemble a black hole.

I was in the middle of deciding whether or not I should vacuum when the doorbell rang.

Guess I wasn't vacuuming.

I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, worried that I would leave Jessica out in the cold too long. Not that it was freezing, but girls always seemed to be complaining about being cold.

First I glanced at the mirror on the wall to make sure my hair wasn't sticking up in every direction. I sighed in exasperation—it was. But there was nothing I could do about that.

Then I opened the door.

It was a little weird, because I wasn't expecting Jessica to bring a pet. But there she was with a gigantic dog, panting happily with his tongue hanging out. She was wearing a nervous and guarded smile.

"Hey, Edward. This is…umm…my dog?"

It confused me, the way she said it as a question, but I smiled back, anyway. It was a small smile, but hopefully conveyed I'm glad to have you here and I'd like to know why the fuck you brought your dog, but I'm trying to be polite about it.

"Can we maybe take a walk?" she asked me.

"Sure," I agreed slowly. "Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere."

First I considered a pathway in the forest I'd discovered a couple years ago that led to a meadow, but then I realized that if Jessica's damn dog attacked me, there'd be no one around but her…

Okay, that scared me. Looked like we were going to take a walk around the neighborhood.

"That dog's huge," I commented to fill in the silence. "What breed is it?"

"He," she corrected with an irritated glance. "And I'm not really sure. Maybe he's a wolf and I just didn't notice." She chuckled.

"Why'd you bring him?"

She began to look very anxious, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. "Um…well…"

I wasn't sure what to make of her odd behavior—couldn't fathom a reason for it.

"Jess, just spit it out," I sighed.

"You don't happen to be a dog person, do you?" she inquired nervously in almost an octave higher than usual.

I blinked. "No…not really. More of a cat person, actually. Why?"

She slowed her footsteps and her dog followed suit. He really was well trained. Jessica looked at the dog and back at me, then again, and it began to look like she was trying to tell me something.

Oh…wait. Oh, God.

"No way!" I shouted. "No way in hell will I—"

"But I'm a cat person, too!" she complained. "Like, Jacob's fine and all—"

"Jacob? You named your dog Jacob?"

"Yes, Edward, his name is Jacob, now shut up and listen! I'd really like a cat instead and I think my mom would too if she would only warm up to the idea—"

"Who the hell names their dog Jacob?"

"—and I don't want to give him away to the shelter because they might kill him or something! You understand, don't you?"

I pressed on the bridge of my nose tightly. "Jesus, you've got to be kidding me."

She sucked in a swift break of air through clenched teeth. "I'd love you forever if you took him."

Oh, how I wanted to say no. But something tugged at my conscience when I looked at her, all pouty and wide-eyed. It wouldn't kill me to do something nice for a change, I supposed.

Without looking up, I nodded. "Sure. Why the fuck not."

"You promise?" she pressed urgently.

"Yes."

She squealed and threw her arms around my waist. Caught off guard, I stumbled a little, but nonetheless returned the hug…hesitantly.

"You're my new best friend," she declared. I could tell by the way her voice sounded that she was grinning widely.

And I hated that fucking dog already.

"God, this is so good," Jessica moaned. "Where did you learn to do this?"

I smirked, feeling smug. "Online videos."

"Oh," she said, taking another bite. "Like, I thought you just looked at a recipe."

I snorted. "Nah, I'm not that good a cook."

We were back at my house, watching Goodfellas and eating homemade pizza. Finally, someone who liked the movie enough to watch it a thousand times—I inwardly jumped for joy when she pointed to the DVD and request that we watch it.

Alice was sulking in her room, refusing to so much as look at Jessica.

Jacob lay at my feet, feigning sleep. I knew this because every once in a while, I'd see him peek up at me suspiciously. It was probably the food—from what I understood, he liked food, but was too proud to beg. What a strange dog.

After all the pizza was gone, Jessica and I sighed in contentment, reclining with our feet up on the coffee table. Thank God Esme was out tonight. She'd kill us—or at least me.

Jessica scooted over closer so that our legs were touching. It felt a little uncomfortable to sit close like this since I could easily enough guess her intentions, but all in all, it was nice.

"Edward?" she said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad I came over today."

I looked down at my lap and smiled. I wasn't sure how to react, other than being insanely pleased that she liked me. I didn't think it was even the fact that Jessica liked me—just that someone did.

"Oh, and sorry for basically forcing you to take my dog," she said as an afterthought.

I chuckled. "Nah, it's okay. My mom will absolutely freak, but Alice'll vouch for me. She likes animals."

"And you don't?" she asked, almost sounding guilty.

I tried to backpedal as successfully as was possible. "Well, I mean, they're alright—Jacob's alright, I mean—"

Jessica laughed and patted my shoulder. "You can stop rambling now. You know, I'm the same way—"

She stopped abruptly, her eyes darting between Jacob and me. Then she gasped.

"What?" I asked urgently, worried that something was wrong.

"You two match!" she squealed, beaming with delight.

My mouth hung open for a moment, trying to understand how the hell a furry mutt and I could match, but then I got it.

"It's only the lighting," I muttered.

She laughed. "No, seriously! Can't you see it? You're both, I dunno…coppery."

"So now you're comparing us to pennies? Nice, Jess, thanks a lot."

"That's not what I meant! Just the color. Which is very nice, by the way."

"Well thanks," I laughed.

A comfortable silence blanketed over us after that. We turned our attention back to the movie, occasionally exchanging opinions or speculations.

Halfway through, her head ended up resting on my shoulder. I looked down, half-expecting her to make another move which secretly terrified me to death, but she was fast asleep. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled softly. She looked kind of adorable. It startled me that I'd thought something so endearing—but I calmed myself once I realized that my thoughts were completely platonic.

I was not ready to take that next step. I wasn't sure if I ever would be. With Jessica, anyway.

But it was nice to think that it was a possibility. Somewhere deep inside me, I realized this would be good. I'd finally prove myself. And Jess was a great friend, which was a plus.

I felt bad about it, but I had to wake her around eleven. It was a school night, after all. Before she left, she hugged me and pressed her lips to my cheek. I couldn't really do anything else but dazedly stare at her. She took it the wrong way and grinned widely, darting outside to her car.

Whatever this was, I knew it wasn't right.

Jasper wasn't in school the next day. I texted him during first period to demand where he was, but he didn't give me any details besides telling me that he was sick. That worried me, even though I knew he had a great immune system and it'd pass in no time. I told him that I'd stop by after school, but he adamantly refused, insisting that it was really catchy. That did nothing other than make me worry even more.

His absence made my day torture, even if things had been strained between us lately. Especially lunch. I sat with Emmett and Tyler like he had taken to doing, but conversation was too forced for me to be comfortable with. If you also considered that I apparently found Tyler attractive, it wasn't the best place to be sitting.

I ended up moving to our old table and eating alone.

I suppose that I made a good choice, because Lauren was in the middle of a very interesting story. I couldn't help but eavesdrop once I heard Jasper's name.

"…so then I kissed him after that, but he was all awkward about it," said Lauren.

I felt a little hurt. Why wouldn't he tell me about his first kiss?

"It was like he didn't know how," she continued. "Then he apologized and ran away."

"Maybe he's just not interested," sighed Victoria, sounding bored. "Not every guy wants to get into your pants, you know."

James snorted and pulled Victoria into his lap. "I beg to differ. Every straight guy wants to get into your pants, Lauren." He looked her straight in the eye and arched his eyebrows meaningfully. "Every straight guy."

Victoria scowled and smacked his shoulder. He ignored her.

"Are you saying that you think Jasper's gay?" asked Jessica, head tilted in curiosity. "No way."

"My gaydar says otherwise," muttered Lauren. Everyone chuckled.

So Laurent and I were most definitely not the only ones. I should've been pissed, stomping over there to defend my best friend, but how would that make me look? Besides, as shameful as it was, I wanted to hear more.

Before their laughter subsided, the bell rang. I decided that was enough eavesdropping for the day, anyhow, and vowed that I wouldn't breathe a word of their conversation to Jasper. I couldn't make that mistake again and screw up our friendship.

Not that our friendship wasn't already screwed up.