A/N: Jeez. 45 reviews for 3 chapters. Y'all are AMAZING. Thank you soo much! Here's your new chapter. :D

Note2: I am currently listening to "Over-Rated" by, duh, Alexz Johnson/Jude.

"In Which An Old Love Is Remembered"

In the eleventh grade, I met three guys: Vincent Spiederman (who would only go by his surname), Wally Robbins, and Kyle Bateman. These guys were some of my closest friends that year, as Jamie hadn't had any classes with me.

One day, near the beginning of the year, I walked into the one class we all shared to Spiederman, looking confused, and Wally and Kyle, looking amused.

"What's going on?" I asked, taking my seat beside Spiederman. I tucked my then-cherry-red hair behind my ear and watched them.

"Dude…" Spiederman said after a second. "They're trying to say that you can be your own grandpa…"

Spiederman was usually the type to be spitting out stupid stuff, not the one confused by it. This was an odd change. I blinked at him, then at Wally and Kyle. "How, exactly?" I asked.

As the two of them explained—well, let's just say that I soon joined Spiederman in Confusionland.

Give me discombobulation.

Flash.

Give me "what the mess?"

Flash.

All right. Going to the same movie as them, okay. Snapping a picture of him at work, fine. But this was ridiculous. Not to mention borderline stalking.

Gah. Anything for the sake of my assignment.

Shay, Lizzy, and I were sitting by the fountain in front of the class that Ty and Tommy were going to come out of. We were all drinking sodas, looking bored. None of us even had classes today. We could've been home or at the mall like always.

"I feel like a stalker," I muttered to Shay, who had come up with the idea.

"You pretty much are," Shay whispered back. "Following the dude around with a camera is like, beyond stalking."

"Oh, shut up, it's not my fault."

"You're, like…the stalkarazzi," Shay continued, looking over at Lizzy who nodded in agreement.

"Do you want me to push you into the fountain?" I asked flatly. "Cuz that can totally be arranged, Shayla."

Shay turned and looked at the nasty, coin-filled water behind us and said, "Eh…I'll pass."

"I thought so," I said, slightly smugly. "Oh, look—there they are."

Ty and Tommy were walking out of the building to our left, carrying books at their sides and talking. Tommy was still wearing his bomber jacket and faded jeans, this time with a grey shirt. Ty was wearing a black Third Eye Blind concert-t and a pair of blue jeans that very possibly could've been girls' jeans, though they may have just been a bit tight on him.

I raised my camera to my eyes and snapped a picture. Two pictures in two weeks—heckz yeah, I rock. He still hadn't caught on. (Thank God.)

I looked over at Shay, who was watching Ty with a sad expression.

Give me longing.

Flash.

Give me that need again.

Flash.

I leaned over to him and whispered, "He's wearing girl pants…you have a chance!"

Shay went scarlet and buried his head in his hands, embarrassed because, y'know, I'm right. Oops. "Jude," he said, voice muffled. "Do you want me to push you into the fountain? Cuz that can totally be arranged."

"What? I'm just trying to help," I pouted.

"She's right, Shayla," Lizzy added teasingly, backing me up. "You should go for it."

"He thinks I'm straight," Shay said, looking up again.

"Who's fault is that?"

Shay frowned. "I'm not going to," he said, "ask him out. We're just friends."

"Psh. Whatever," Lizzy sighed. "Your loss."

The nickname "Shayla" came from the first day the two of us met Lizzy.

It was the week before classes officially started, and Shay and I were walking around town, bored and looking for something exciting. We found it, all right.

Two girls were standing in the Dollar General parking lot (the one by Morgan's Records, of course). One was an obvious street rat—punkish clothes that looked like they'd been pulled from a trashcan, dreadlocks, all over dirtiness. She was holding a glass beer bottle, occasionally taking sips from it while she listened to the other girl babble.

The other girl was a whirlwind of color. Bright red-orange hair, hot pink eyeshadow, hot pink tank top, red mini-skirt. She was talking enthusiastically. "So, is it fun to live in your car? I'm gonna end up living in my car, cuz my roommate's a whre and got someone to switch me out, so I get my car! Woo! What about you? Why do you live in your car?"

The street rat blinked slowly at the rainbow and then got into her beat up car and drove off, nearly running over me and Shay. The rainbow sat down on the ground, resting her chin on her hand. "God, I'm screwed," she said to no one.

I felt bad. I knew what it was like to have nowhere to go. "Should we help her?" I asked, not loud enough for her to hear. "I mean, how much would it suck to have to live in your car?"

Shay was already walking over to her. "Hey—you need a place to stay, girl?"

The girl looked up at us and smiled brightly. "Yes! I'm Elizabeth Alexandria Way—you can call me Lizzy." I guess living with two perfect strangers was better than living in your car.

Shay and I introduced ourselves, and Lizzy smiled. "I'm going to call you Shayla," she giggled to Shay.

"Okay—why?"

"You don't look straight enough to be a 'Shay'," Lizzy exclaimed.

I burst out laughing, and Shay hugged her. "Girl, you're gonna fit right in…"

Throughout the rest of the week, Lizzy and I left notes all around the house, saying various things such as:

"Ty + Shay LOVE!!"

"ASK HIM, SHAYLA!"

And, a repeated favorite, "GIRL PANTS, SHAYLA! GIRRRRL PANNNTS!"

Shay kept finding them all over the place. "So funny," he said sarcastically, holding up the first note. "And not gonna happen. Get over it."

"Nope! Not until you tell him!" Lizzy grinned, batting her purple mascara-covered eyelashes at him.

"Not going to."

"Then me and Jude will just have to keep writing notes!"

We did. Each note got more and more out there, until we finally started printing off Ryan Ross pictures and writing, "Ty Clone! Luff him!" on them.

Shay finally got fed up with it and refused to talk to either of us, which was rather depressing. He completely ignored us, at home, at school, and at work. I was starting to miss him, so I gave in.

"Okay, I'll stop," I told him. "Just stop being mean and ignoring me. It sucks." I must've looked really desperate—or else he just missed me too—because he hugged me.

"Fine, I'll stop ignoring you. Not Lizzy though—she's gotta cut the notes crap too." He frowned. "Cuz that's really annoying."

"I'll try to make her stop," I assured him, nodding. "It was getting old anyway."

Lizzy, of course, put up a fight against this, of course. She was having too much fun with the notes. After a few more days of getting the PMS-y cold shoulder from Shay, though, she caved as well. Of course, her cave in was much more dramatic than mine.

Electric blue eye-make-up half-down her face from the tears, she clung to Shay. "I'm sorry! Stop ignoring me, you big jerk!"

So, with that temporary mental breakdown over and done with, things got back to normal, which—for us—was not very normal at all.

"I'm bored."

"Me too."

"Let's watch a movie."

"Let's not."

Spiederman and I sat on the couch at my house, both bored out of our skulls. It was just one of those days, I guess, when we didn't do anything but laze about doing nothing. This tended to happen when it was just the two of us. And when Spiederman hadn't had his morning Red Bull, but that's a different story.

What we were really doing was waiting for Wally to get here with Kyle and his car so that we would have a ride to Pirates of the Caribbean 2. For some reason, though, they had not yet shown up.

"This is lame," Spiederman moaned, glaring at the door.

"Your face is lame," I told him, tone flat and bored.

"Your mom is lame."

"Your mom's mom is lame."

"Your mom's mom's hairdresser's mom is lame!"

"Okay," I laughed, "you win."

Spiederman looked smug. "I always do, Harrison."

"Well, except for that one time…"

"I thought we agreed not to bring that up again. Ever."

I giggled at the wide-eyed look on his face, and then shoved him playfully. "Dork," I teased.

Instead of shoving me back and calling me something as usual, he just looked at me.

Give me adoration.

Flash.

"Hey, Jude?" he said, suddenly seeming a bit anxious. His brown eyes did not leave my face.

"Yeah?" I stopped laughing as I realized how serious he was.

"I…I think I really like you. Like…more than a friend."

The next thing I knew, he was kissing me, slow and sweet.

Wednesday was always a slow day at Morgan's. Several people were at church, night classes, or hurrying to finish all of their papers due that Friday. Most of the time, there were only a few people in the store all night. This was the night where I would look over my pictures on my laptop while manning the cash register. (This was the one day we never needed two cashiers, and so Lizzy cleaned up and resorted the CDs. I had offered to do this, but I was the best at math of the three of us and EJ The Annoying Manager wouldn't let us switch.)

So now I leaned against the counter, staring intently at my Tommy photos. (I now had three—I had taken one of him leaning against the wall of the music building earlier today.) On all three pictures, I add back-lighting—as they were, they were too dark. On the picture where he was talking to Ty, I ran it through Channel Mixer, bringing out the greens of the grass behind him and the cyans and blues of his eyes and the sky. This was a bit intense, so I mellowed it out with a low-saturation layer.

There. Perfect.

I save the picture as "01" under Portfolio on my laptop, and then started working on the other two.

Give me concentration, baby.

Flash.

I didn't notice that someone was standing in front of me until he cleared his throat and said, "Jude?"

It was him.

"Why are you here, Speed?" I asked, angry at his timing.

He shrugged, giving me that innocent smile of his. "I heard that you were here and I thought I'd come say hi."

"Oh, right. You just happened to be in town," I shot sarcastically. I threw my keys down on the counter and turned back to face him, arms crossed.

"Well, yeah," Spiederman said. "Spiederman's Mind Explosion's really taken off, dude."

"For the last time, my name is Jude."

Give me anger.

Flash.

Give me bad memories.

Flash.

Give me a shotgun, cuz I'm a pop a cap in this (insert explicit of choice).

Flash.

"Well, sorry," Spiederman shot back. "I'm sorry that it's so wrong to come and see how you're doing!"

"I don't want you coming to see how I'm doing!" I shouted, losing it. "You gave up that right when you cheated on me, you (arse)hole!"

"Fine," Spiederman replied. He looked hurt. It made me feel better for some reason. Possibly because he'd broken my heart when he'd cheated on me and I was still a bit angry at him. "Just—fine. You want to know why I really came here? To tell you that me, Wally, and Kyle are recording our first CD here. They wanted to see you…and so did I. But now I'm not so sure, Jude."

He left me standing there as he walked out of the house, out to his car, and hopefully out of my life for good.

"So, uh, who was that?" Shay asked, walking in just as Spiederman was walking out.

"No one," I said, glaring out the door. "Just a huge jack(arse) who can't take a hint."

Later, I realized that it would be sort of nice to see Wally and Kyle again. I just didn't want to deal with Spiederman. He was not my favorite person since our ugly break-up in the beginning of senior year. (This had been brought on by me walking in on Spiederman shoving his tongue down the throat of Wally's cousin, Monica. Oh, I beat the mess out of that skank.)

Wally and Kyle, though, had taken my side on the matter, and stayed friends with both of us. Unfortunately, I didn't see too much of them that year, and haven't spoken to either of them since I'd left.

I just needed someone to come with me. Emotional back-up or whatever. I'd probably just get Shay to come. Lizzy would be all over Spiderman, and that's really not what I needed.

Now, the problem was that I didn't know how to find them.

Give me clueless.

Flash.

Give me lost.

Flash.

Give me that shotgun…

Flash.

A/N: Sorry for the lack of Jommy? Lol, there's some next chapter. :) I hope you guys liked this! Review, please.