Beeks1105: Thank you so much for your review! Hope you like the new chapter :-)

superfaller8: Thanks for your review! Glad you liked it so far :-)


I could practically feel my heart beating against my ribcage, while I sat there, my eyes resting on Vince and observing his face for any signs of a laugh or grin. But there was nothing about his look that would've told me that he was just messing with me. He didn't say anything like "Just kidding!" or "Got'cha!". He was dead serious and obviously waiting for me to respond.

But my mouth must've lost its ability to speak because there wasn't even a single word being pronounced, even though I wanted to.

I wanted to ask him if he was actually serious. I wanted to ask him how he knew that TJ was in love with me (which I was still doubting). Why would he just drop a bomb like that and don't give any further explanation?

Vince seemed to realize that I was speechless and also seemed to understand that I didn't know what he was talking about.

"You look surprised. Please, don't tell me that… that you didn't know?"

All I could do was to shake my head slightly, but it seemed to be enough of an answer for him. His expression changed from confused to shocked within a matter of seconds. Without giving me any time to realize what he was about to do, he stood up from my bed and put his jacket on.

"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have come here. Just forget what I said, ok? This is just one big misunderstanding. I was so drunk last night and no matter what I said then or now cannot be taken seriously. I probably still got residual alcohol in my system. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

And with that he opened the door and left the room, leaving me behind with a baffled face and unable to process what had just happened. I only realized what was happening, when I heard the front door slam shut and I knew I couldn't let him leave like that.

So I ran downstairs and out of the house, without even thinking about putting on shoes. Vince was just getting in his car and as soon as he saw me, he got even more hectic.
But he wasn't fast enough and I tore open the passenger door and seated myself on the passenger seat.

"Get out of the car, Spinelli." Vince demanded, but of course I didn't move. I just kept staring at him. Apparently I had received my ability to talk back because suddenly balled up words were coming from my mouth.

"You can't just leave… like that. What you just told me… what you said about TJ… about TJ being… you know. You told me… and what does that even mean? Were you serious?"

Vince's face showed me that he wasn't very pleased with the situation, but he also knew that he couldn't just kick me out of the car and that I would never just let it go.

"You can't tell TJ what I just told you. He made me swear to never tell anyone."

"When did he tell you anyways?" I interrupted. So many questions had been boiling up in my head in the past few minutes and I desperately needed the answers to all of them.

"It's been two years since he told me. He didn't want to, but I kinda forced him into spilling. I had already suspected so it wasn't that big of a surprise. He was so angry at me because I had made him tell me and then I had to swear to keep it a secret. He was just scared you'd find out and that it would ruin your friendship."

He really looked sorry. He was probably feeling horrible because he had just spilled his best friend's secret but I couldn't really pity him in that moment, because I was just too outraged about everything that had just happened.

All of a sudden I remembered something that Vince had said to me last night. And even though there were much more questions nagging for answers, I had to know the answer to one specific question even more urgent.

"Last night… you said that I took TJ for granted. Why'd you say that? What made you think that… and is that also what he thinks?"

I wasn't so sure if I wanted to know the answer to that last part of the question. But probably I had to know in order to save TJ's and my friendship.

"I don't know, really. I just… after he told me and he made me promise not to tell anyone I said to him that I always thought the two of you would end up together sooner or later. He was so happy to hear that. Before he was devastated because he thought he'd never have a chance and that he'd always have to keep his feelings a secret if he didn't want to destroy your friendship. But I finally gave him some hope. He tried hard to make you realize what he felt for you. He bought you flowers every time you failed a test or had a fight with your parents. He kept inviting you to the movies or to dinner, but you usually just invited all the others as well. He was the one who stood up for you when everyone was spreading these rumours about you, back in middle school. Even though afterwards everyone was talking about him instead. He was there for you for days when Lawson broke your heart and when you got back with him you yelled at TJ in front of everyone at school, because he said that it was a bad idea to get back with him. And he was hurting a lot back then, because of you and Lawson. But he just brushed it off and wanted to be a good friend to you. He would've done everything for you. And you treated him like he was just another friend of yours. One that was only good enough when you needed him."

I didn't realize I was crying until I tasted something salty on my lips. Somewhere in between Vince's rant tears had started to fall from my eyes and now that I had realized I didn't care about wiping them off. I just sat there, stared at Vince and let the tears flow down my cheeks. I didn't even make a sound.

After what felt like an eternity, Vince moved a little closer to me and tried to put his arm around my shoulders in order to pull me into a supposedly comforting hug. But after what he had just told me, I didn't feel like I deserved to be comforted. Instead I pushed Vince back, shook my head, opened the door of the car and looked back at Vince one last time.

"Thanks for telling me.", was all I got out, before I turned away and made my way back to the house.

I barely heard my mother asking me if I was ok, when I passed her by and went upstairs into my room. It wasn't fair of me to ignore her like that, but I couldn't help it. She would've never stopped asking, once she realized that something was actually wrong. So I just locked the door and threw myself onto my bed, my face buried deep in my pillows.

The next 18 hours felt more like 18 seconds and when it was Monday morning and the sunlight was starting to lighten my room, I wished I could've just laid there forever. But my mother was already knocking on my door and informed me that breakfast was ready. Not that I could've eaten anything anyways.

The rest of Sunday I had only moved out of my bed if it had been totally necessary. My mother had been nice enough to bring me dinner to my room and to my surprise, didn't even ask what was wrong. Maybe she had understood that I didn't want to talk about it.

But that had obviously changed. When I had finally been able to lift myself out of bed and then downstairs, she was already sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me to join her.
"Sit down, Ashley. I think we need to talk."

I knew I should've never left my bed.

After I sat down, she waited for me to start eating, but I wasn't sure if I could hold anything down this morning. Just the thought of going to school made me want to throw up.

When she realized I wasn't going to touch anything edible, she sighed heavily and then examined me with a concerned expression.

"Ashley, honey. What's going on? You know you can talk to me, right?"

Of course I knew. But that didn't ultimately mean I wanted to.

"I know. But I really don't feel like talking about it, ok?" – "I just want to help you." – "Well, I don't need your help. I'm not a ten year old girl anymore, which needs advice from her mother on how to live her life right. I make my own decisions now and I want you to respect that. I gotta go take a shower, otherwise I'll be late for school."

Without waiting for an answer, I got up and went to make myself ready. I knew that I had been a little bit rude, especially since my mother hadn't even done anything wrong. She was just worried.

I pushed aside any thoughts about feeling guilty about being rude to my mum, because I had already enough feelings of guilt on my account that I had to deal with.
And I really had tried to deal with it. There hadn't been anything else that I thought about when I was spending the majority of my weekend in bed. All my thoughts were concerning TJ and what Vince had told me. The most present thought in my head was definitely "He is right." Vince was right about everything he had said, none of those things he had said had been an exaggeration. I had been taking TJ for granted and I hadn't realized until it was too late.


Since I was sure that TJ wouldn't pick me up this morning, I left a few minutes earlier than usual because I had to walk all the way to school. At least that gave me more time to think about how I would react when I saw him in school that day.
Finally I came to the conclusion that I should wait for his reaction and then just go with whatever he would do. If he decided to ignore me, I'd probably just ignore him as well.

When I finally arrived and was standing at my locker, I sort of hoped that everyone would just leave me alone, but of course I wasn't granted solitude. Gretchen appeared next to me, a wide smile on her lips.

"Hey Spin. Why didn't you return any of my calls? I wanted to hang out yesterday, but you didn't respond. Are you alright? You look sick."

I tried my best to return her smile, but I knew that she wouldn't buy it anyway.

"I'm just feeling a little bit tired, that's all. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

She was eyeing me suspiciously but didn't get the chance to express her suspicion, because Vince was just arriving right next to her and she totally seemed to forget what we had just been talking about.

"Hey Vince.", she said with a giggly smile appearing on her face. He just nodded in her direction and then glanced at me.

"Can we talk?", he asked and it almost seemed like he wouldn't accept no for an answer anyway. But I really didn't want him to make me feel even worse and so I shook my head no.

"Sorry, but I can't. Gotta get to class."

And with that I turned around and left the two of them alone, Gretchen looking confused because she didn't know what was going on and Vince looking angry because I had turned him down like that. He'd get over it.


Since I had left way before the bell had rung, I was at my classroom early and luckily my teacher was there already, so I could sit down. I was glad to have a few moments of silence for myself until all the others were arriving. I had decided that I would just try and distract myself from everything else by actually trying to pay attention and maybe even make some notes.

But of course fate wasn't on my side, because a few minutes after class had started, the door opened again and someone slid in quietly. I recognized him immediately. The brown hair, red baseball cap that was sitting backwards on his head, the letterman jacket with his name printed on the back and needless to say – his trademark smirk resting on his lips.

"Sorry Mr. Smith, but I just transferred into this class."

He handed Mr. Smith a sheet of paper and he looked it over for a few moments, before he gestured TJ to sit down somewhere.

TJ turned to the class and when his gaze fell on me, he hesitated. But he seemed to rally and walked to the back of the classroom to sit down next to one of his teammates from football.

I actually thought I'd get through that class without any further incidents, but Mr. Smith seemed to have different plans for me. After almost 90 minutes of lecture about Russian history, he explained to us, that we would have to do a project about a topic of our choice and we'd have to hand it in by the end of the month and we had to do it with a partner. I was already exchanging smiles with the girl sitting next to me. Her name was Spencer and I liked her, plus she was really good in this class so she'd probably help me get a good grade.
But just like that, Mr. Smith jumbled all my plans.

"I got a sheet right here which will tell you whom you'll be working with. Take a look at it when you leave and remember to let me know which topic you want to be working on."

Just in that moment the bell rang and everyone got up immediately in order to see who they've been paired up with. After most of the people had left, I got up too and took a look at the paper that Mr. Smith had pinned up to the wall. My eyes were searching for my name until I finally found it somewhere on the bottom of the sheet. "Ashley Spinelli and TJ Detweiler."

I never believed in karma until that very moment. But I wasn't able to explain it else. Because of all people I could've been paired up with it had to be TJ Detweiler. My (former) best friend, the guy I'm in love with and also the guy whose heart I broke without even realizing it.

Suddenly I heard a way too familiar voice right next to me.

"Guess we're partners then."


And that was chapter 4 :-) Reviews are welcome, of course :-P