Tpov

I don't know what exactly was happening between Jason and I, but whatever it was I didn't like it. Over the next week he avoided me like the plague and I while I thought this would make me happy, it didn't. When I saw him I wanted to be around him. It felt like it used to between us and I wanted that feeling to stay but when he was gone I was so confused.

It didn't help that I kept having weird dreams about him. It seemed like wherever I went I ran into him and his friends, and whenever I saw him I didn't know whether I wanted to talk to him or ignore him. When I thought about it objectively, I didn't want to be anywhere near him. I wanted to be angry and I just wanted to be left alone, but when he was near, well that was a different story.

He still didn't talk to me at school, but I found myself hoping he would. I didn't know what I would say if he did. Would I want to yell at him and make him apologize for everything he'd done? Or would I want to see him laughing and smiling like when we were kids?

I didn't know what I wanted. He was always just around and I still got that weird vibe his friends were watching me all the time. And Alex.

Part of me felt like I was just being paranoid, but then I remembered how they were talking about him in the gym, and Rachel's expression when I'd asked about him.

I debated asking Jason what the hell was going on, part of me wondered if he was even having us followed, we ran into them all the time. But then Jason and his friends would disappear again for days, and even then I wasn't sure if I even wanted to talk to him.

Everything was confusing, and Jason seemed to be at the center of it. I wanted to hate him. I really, really wanted to hate him, but deep down, where I knew I couldn't lie to myself, I knew I didn't even if I refused to admit it. It was the same part of me that made my heart skip every time I caught him looking at me and convinced me, even for only half a second, that it meant something.

I dealt with it the only way I knew how, but throwing myself into art.

I didn't know what it was about aggressive music, but somehow it just helped me think, the louder the better. Drums, guitars, and screams blasted from my head phones as I tilted my head and stared at the canvas waiting to decide what I want to do next.

"Tani."

I picked up my brush as he singer shouted about the end of the world and continued to paint.

"Tani!"

Something was missing, I wasn't sure what.

"TANI!"

I jumped as my headphones were pulled from my ears and I looked around.

"Jeez Tan," Nona said as she heard the music blasting from the earbuds. "How are you not deaf?"

"She's built up an immunity." Alex said with a smirk. "Years of decibel abuse make her ears think that full volume is normal."

"What are you guys doing out here?" I asked confused. My aunt and uncle didn't have room for me to have paintings in progress constantly set up around in the house, but they did in their shed in the back yard. I'd managed to set up a few easels around the lawn mower and gardening supplies and had come outside after dinner to work on a new idea I'd been toying with lately.

"We came to find you." Alex said.

"I thought you had work tonight." I asked with a frown.

"I had work last night." He said giving me a strange look.

"Tani…" Nona said. "How long have you been out here?"

"A couple hours." I said with a shrug.

"Did you sleep?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why would I go to bed?" I asked annoyed. "We just had dinner."

They didn't respond.

"What?" I asked further annoyed when they exchanged bizarre looks. Why were they looking at each other like that?

"What time do you think it is?" Alex asked cautiously.

"I dunno," I said with a shrug. "Nine, ten?"

The continued to look at me, utterly astounded.

"Eleven?"

Still no response.

"Twelve…?"

"It's six thirty in the morning." Nona said.

"No its not." I said rolling my eyes.

"Tani that's why I'm here." Alex said. "To pick you up for school."

"Have you been out here for twelve hours?" Nona asked in concern.

"No." I said but then I glanced out the window and saw that the dusky night sky I'd last seen through it was now bright with early morning light. "Ok, maybe."

"Good god." Alex muttered while Nona's eyes went wide.

"Why didn't you go to bed?"

"I wasn't done." I said wondering why they were looking at me like that. They were acting like I was insane.

"Well go get your stuff." Alex said being the first to recover. "School starts in a half an hour."

"I'm not going." I said turning back to the canvas.

"What? Why?" Nona asked in shock.

"I'm not done."

"So?" Alex asked with a laugh.

"So I need to finish." I said picking up my brush.

"Well finish after school."

I shook my head.

"I can't stop, I don't want to forget what I'm doing."

"You can't just skip school." Nona said incredulously.

"Why?"

"What we supposed to tell your teachers?" she asked with a sense that she felt I was being unreasonable.

"This isn't art school." Alex said with a laugh. "They don't care about your about your artistic process."

"But I'm not done." I said in frustration.

"You can finish after class." Nona said soothingly. "But we've got to go to school. Like now."

"But-"

"Now." She and Alex said in unison pushing me towards the door of the shed and I sighed.

"Fine." I said grumpily.

"You are so weird." Alex said with a chuckle.

School passed in a blur of tiredness. I barely heard what my teachers went over in lessons, it was all I could do to stay awake, by the time I got to Art I was considering faking being sick just to go home, but then I remembered if I did I had no ride home.

We were learning about lighting today, the desks were set up in groups of three and four with a lamp and a random object from around the class. We were supposed to be drawing the object with the lamp positioned in different places, but I hadn't even picked up my sketch pad, instead I was doodling on the table.

"You forgot to sleep last night, didn't you?" asked a voice and I looked up in surprise.

While people usually talked as they worked in this class, Jason and I had been assigned to the same table, and the girl that usually sat with us, Carissa, had dropped the class. The passed twenty minutes had passed with silence between us. This was the first time he'd spoken to me in art.

"How did you know?"

"You've been a zombie all day. You think I don't remember anything from when we were kids?" he asked then hesitated before saying. "What are you working on?"

"What makes you think-"

"You've got paint on your cheek," he said and I touched my face to see that he was right. "Plus look the way you always look when you're absorbed in a project." He continued. "Totally distracted." He frowned suddenly looking concerned. "You didn't forget to eat again did you?"

"I-I don't know." I said honestly.

"Have you eaten anything since yesterday?" he asked patiently.

"No."

He let out a familiar laugh and rummaged in his book bag for a second.

"Here." He said tossing me a few granola bars.

"You don't have to," I started but he cut me off.

"I know I don't have to." He said. "But no offense Tan, you look like you're about to pass out. You need food."

"Alright." I said ripping open one of the wrappers and taking a bite out of the snack.

"You know you really haven't changed." He said going back to his sketch pad. "Like at all. I don't think you even grew an inch."

"Yeah, well. I think you did enough growing for the both of us."

He grinned.

"I still can't draw though." He said turning his sketch book for me to see, showing me his sketches. The shadows were inconsistent, the shading erratic, and lines weren't straight.

"It looks fine." I said a little awkwardly.

"You sucked at lying back then too." He said amused.

"Well if you know you're bad, why did you take art?" I asked frowning.

"Habit." He said with a shrug and returning the sketch pad. "We always used to take art together. It was the only class they mixed years when we were kids."

"What does that matter?"

"It was the only class I could take with you."

"You took art because of me?"

"Why else would I take it?" he asked raising an eyebrow. "All my natural talent?"

"You always said it was because it was an easy A." I muttered.

"Just because you're a terrible liar doesn't mean I have to be." He said erasing something and I felt myself blush. "Though I don't know why you believed me, you of all people should know this class isn't easy."

He scribbled something out looking frustrated then tossed the paper on the table.

"I think this is beyond saving." He said amused then looking at me.

"You're not going to try?"

"I think I've resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to be an artist, I'd be a starving artist."

"It's not that bad." I said.

"Yes it is," he chuckled. "But it's ok. I'm good at other things. You going to draw anything? I mean besides the nice collage you've started on the table."

"I don't think so." I said looking down at my blank page.

"Well looks like we'll both get storm clouds today." He said looking at the daily grade sticker boards that was marked with sun, cloud, and thunderstorm stickers that rated your performance for the day. "Think we'll survive it?"

"No." I said with a straight face. "It never rains here. I don't think I'm mentally prepared."

He grinned.

Seeing him smile was odd. It felt familiar and strange at the same time. Like looking at a picture of a close friend you stopped talking to a long time ago.

"I imagine they had a much different grading scale at your previous school."

"Nope." I said trying not to laugh. "Stickers are widely considered the be standard for evaluating artistic ability."

"Did you get lots of fluffy clouds?" he asked with mock severity.

"Straight suns." I said.

"Well that is impressive." He said with a sarcastic smirk.

"I'm kind of a big deal." I agreed unable to contain a smile and he laughed.

A moment of silence passed between us where neither of us seemed to know what to say, but again it was he who started the conversation.

"It must have been a lot different in California." He said eventually his smile fading. "I heard Nona and Alex talking about it once. Sounded like it was perfect for you."

"That's what everyone keeps saying." I said frowning.

"And what do you think?" he asked.

I didn't answer for a second, thinking.

"I'm happy to be home." I said eventually.

"You'd rather be here?" he asked in what looked like complete shock.

"Why does that surprise everyone?" I asked frowning. "Do people not want me here?"

"No." he said so quickly it was my turn to be startled. "It's just. You're different you know? Not in a bad way," he added quickly when he saw my expression. "You just are. You see the world in a different way. A way I wish I could see it." He hesitated as if he wasn't sure what he was about to say was smart, but it fell out anyways. "It's what I always liked about you."

I didn't know what to say.

Before middle school, if Jason had said something like that to me I would have believed him, but he'd spent several years showing just how bad he thought different was.

"I know you probably don't believe me." He said looking at his hands awkwardly. "After my parents died, I know you think I hated you. If you did to me everything I did to you I would have thought so too," he sighed. "But I never hated you."

The bell rang and I suddenly remembered we were in school, in the middle of class. Somehow I'd forgotten.

How did he always do that to me?

"Anyways," he said shaking his head and suddenly there was no trace of his smile left. "I'll see you around."

He shouldered his book bag and stood to walk out with the rest of the class heading towards the hall.

I watched him leave, not entirely certain what had just happened. It was the first real conversation we'd had in years. All of the sudden he wanted to talk to me?

But he didn't look back as he left and started talking to a boy in his year, and it was as if none of it had happened.

I walked into the hall confused and made my way to lunch.

"You will not believe what just happened in Spanish," he said laughing when we met in the cafeteria and went to wait in line. "Lewis was getting annoyed by Arnold, you know the guy in our math class, 'cuz he kept popping bubbles with his gum behind him. So Lewis takes a rubber band out of his pocket and-"

But he caught my expression and his story died.

"Are you ok?"

"I don't know." I said honestly as we each grabbed a tray with a burger on it and went to go sit in our usual spot in the back corner of the cafeteria.

"Did something happen?" He asked as we put our trays on the table and sat down.

"Yes. Well, no." I said in frustration. "I don't know. You know?" I finished looking up at him and he gave me a bemused expression.

"I'm going to need a little more than that Tani."

"Jason was talking to me in art."

"Wait, like an actual conversation?" he asked in shock. "I thought you guys were sort of not talking."

"Yeah me too." I said.

"What did you talk about?" he asked curiously.

"Nothing." I said honestly. "He asked about California and we talked about stickers. And then he just all the sudden out of nowhere tells me he never hated me."

"Well I could have told you that." He said shrugging.

"What do you mean?" I asked confused.

"Jason never hated you." He agreed.

"You do remember he broke into my locker and put a gerbil in it, right?"

"Yeah," he said chuckling. "That thing was kind of cute."

"It ate my math homework." I said incredulously. "And he hid my back pack in the boy's locker room after gym in seventh grade."

"I know." He said with a sigh. "But, you have to remember his parents had just died, and Jason always had anger problems. Remember when Chase pushed you off the swings in elementary school during recess? Jason broke his arm. Just because Chase pushed you a foot onto the ground, but now they're best friends."

"What's your point?" I asked.

"I'm not defending him for everything he's done, but he was going through a hard time. You were his best friend and he was dealing with something no kid should ever have to go through. He freaked out and you were the closest person in his life so you got the repercussions of it. But you weren't the only one." He said. "After his parents passed he got into fights almost every week. Don't you remember they were talking about expelling him? No matter how far he went, I don't think he ever meant to actually hurt you."

"I guess." I said frowning.

"Look Tani." He said seriously and his eyes met mine. "After he found out about what happened to you in the woods, he went to your house when you were still in the hospital and begged your parents to let him talk to you, to try and explain."

"He did?" I asked in surprise.

"Yeah, but your father said no."

"How do you know this?"

"Nona told me, she was inside with your Mom."

"Why didn't she tell me this?" I asked quietly.

"She knew you were still too freaked out about the attack to deal with Jason as well. I know you think he just left you, but it's not like he just turned up back on the reservation while you were still out there."

"He didn't?"

"No. Jason went missing too, but it was all hushed up when they found you."

"Why?" I asked frowning.

"I don't know." He said shrugging. "but I was part of the search party remember? We were supposed to be looking for both of you, but when we found you Sam said the search was over. He completely ignored everyone when they said we still needed to find Jason and told everyone to go home. Said he'd deal with it himself. But according to Nona, when he did turn up the first place he went was to your house and he looked pretty beat up as well."

"What happened?" I asked.

"No idea." He said with a shrug. "He wouldn't tell anyone. I think the elders forbid him to say anything. I know the adults aren't supposed to talk about it. That's why I believe you when you say something was out there that night." He said significantly. "Even if it's not around anymore, there's definitely something they tried to cover up."

I looked over at Jason who was talking to Lewis, they were laughing about something and I quickly looked away.

He hadn't left me after all…

"He felt really bad about it Tani," Alex said frowning. "All of it. He called Nona every day you were in the hospital asking how you were, and bothered us for weeks when you first move to California, he wanted to make sure you were ok."