Author's Note: Oh my... you guys really know how to flatter an aspiring author, don't you? It's hard to believe you all love my story enough to review and not only review, but give me great feedback, so another huge thank you (and a big dessert of your choice) goes to PutYourSmileOn, ScribblingKunoichi, Vrai Amour, jesscaa, xxZacBabyVxx, JaBoyYa, Toshiba19, JoBroHSMfanatic, XxhAPPyJoNASfANxX, Florchuchizz, dancerPat, ShikallllTema, not so random, skittleysweet, SaphirePhoenix, Nikkieee02, ashlee09, Kurukus, butterflygoodbye, pr0udpnaii x33, foolwiz, musiclvr21, Noorah, nrisley19892007, Konnichiwa Minna, katie (anon.), jonasxsister, Live Like Music., KimberlyCullen, Shizuku Tsukishima749, PaoHalliwell, EllsBells08, have-a-cookie, JustASmile, creative-writing-girl13, NorthernLights25, JonasLover22, milkteaxoxo, NiCkJjOnAsIsMiNe4EvA, sernity1806, SHAWTii328, if.looks.could.thrill, BlackBeauty613, supergurl03, Dancer4life15, xXriujooXx, Mina (anon.), Anglefacedcutie, Interlocking Pieces, KungFuDuckie-x3, Rei Tamashii, Ange-ange, hollywoodgal205, Troyella4everinluv, xoxojonasbrothersluva101xoxo, charmedNluckyP3, pink princess 16, freaky-callback-girl, Nicole Kathrine, QueenSusanLovesKingCaspian18, Paupu, pyrolyn-776, Butterflygrl08, monko25, Princess.KaylZ-808, LosingTrack, IAMSOAP, Maiqu, epobbp, House.Cam-xx, and afta4ever!
Hope you like this chapter!
Second Chances
by PiperPaigePhoebe01
Chapter Eight
A week and a half passed.
Nothing out of the ordinary occurred—Shane and Mitchie only talked while necessary, Lola and Caitlyn not talking to him at all, and soon enough, their stay in the cabin together seemed to be working out quite well. Even though Shane and Mitchie were bottling up everything they wanted to say to each other, it seemed like they were uncommonly good at holding in their sarcastic retorts for the peace of the whole cabin.
Unfortunately, that was not meant to last.
After all, Shane was not good at holding in his feelings, especially not when he just wanted to yell. As day after day went by, and it seemed like his interactions with Mitchie were becoming exactly the same, he was getting restless—wasn't there something he could do to shake things up a bit? If there wasn't, and this went on for much longer, he was going to explode.
For the past few days, he had been getting increasingly frustrated with his situation. Every little thing Mitchie did, it seemed, annoyed him, whether it be a simple "turn around" when she was changing or a whispered curse as she stubbed her toe early in the morning. It was becoming extremely hard to ignore her when she whispered the lyrics of the song she was writing under her breath beneath her covers at midnight, when he would normally have been fast asleep. He knew that if something else went wrong...
Well, let's just say I hope my uncle won't be around when I finally explode.
Shane shook his head. This was why he didn't want to share a cabin with Mitchie—there were too many excess feelings to just ignore them, and Shane was too stubborn to ever admit that Mitchie had been right and that they should talk about things.
He had already decided it would be better to just ignore her, but it was proving to be harder than he had expected it to be. No matter what, it seemed like they were always in the cabin and, more than that, it seemed like they stopped doing something important every time he walked in. To be honest, it was the most annoying thing Mitchie had ever done, and he was soon getting sick of it.
And so he found himself staying out of the cabin as much as possible.
It's odd feeling like you're not welcome in your own cabin, Shane thought on one of those days when he didn't feel like going into the cabin and hearing Mitchie, Caitlyn and Lola abruptly stop their conversations. He had decided to walk along the lake as he usually did, but once again, nobody was out on the water—everyone was either in classes or in the mess hall.
Except him, of course.
He finally reached the place on the edge of the lake with the two benches, sitting on one of them. He looked out across the water, deep in thought.
He knew he wasn't going to be able to ignore Mitchie for much longer. Part of him was incredibly fed-up and annoyed with everything she did, but another part of him was trying to get his feelings to let him confront Mitchie about what was going on. Reason knew that things would be better in the long run if he talked over things with Mitchie, but the emotional part of him refused to.
And one of them is going to beat the other up.
Even though I'm not sure which one that's going to be.
Although... he was leaning toward the "continue being fed-up" route. For some reason, he just didn't want to talk to her anymore. He hadn't wanted to talk to her before, but now, he was particularly unwilling to.
It's because of Uncle Brown's lesson, I think. It's like he's particularly impressed with her, and it's almost as if he knows something I don't know about her singing.
Restlessness overtook him again at that thought. He stood up, walking back to the cabin. He did have to admit that Mitchie's singing was interesting—it made him think, almost as if there was something he should remember but didn't. That song she sang the second day at camp sounded similar to something, but whenever he tried to fish it out, it retreated deeper into his mind.
But his uncle knew the similarities.
There was no way he couldn't—the huge smile Uncle Brown had on his face after Mitchie had finished singing gave him away. He knew why Mitchie's voice seemed so familiar, but he was determined not to tell him.
Well... I'm determined to find out.
Shane quickly walked through the camp grounds, looking around for his uncle. He had to be around somewhere, considering he always wandered around the grounds whenever he wasn't in a lesson and, if Shane remembered correctly, his uncle no longer had any lessons for the day. Sure enough, Shane was right, and found his uncle heading back to his cabin, only a few minutes after beginning his search.
"Uncle Brown!" Shane called.
His uncle stopped and turned around. "Shane!"
"You know something," Shane said, easily catching up to Uncle Brown. "I've been thinking about Mitchie's song. You had an interesting reaction to it. Why?"
"You haven't figured it out yet?" his uncle said, a devious look on his face. "I'm surprised. You're normally more perceptive than this."
"Figure what out, Uncle Brown?"
His uncle grinned. "You'll understand when you figure it out."
Shane rolled his eyes. "That doesn't help," he said. "Why aren't you telling me anything?"
"Oh, you wouldn't believe me even if I told you," his uncle said. "It will be better if you found out yourself. Maybe if you head to your cabin right now you can figure it out."
And with that, he turned, heading back in the direction he had been going in before, leaving Shane to stare at his back, confused out of his mind.
"Maybe if you head to your cabin right now you can figure it out"?
What is that supposed to mean?
Shane didn't know, but he found himself heading to his cabin regardless. He walked up the steps, hoping that Mitchie and Caitlyn weren't about to stop talking as soon as he entered the cabin, and luckily they didn't—the first floor was surprisingly empty. Wondering what in the world his uncle was up to, he headed up to his own floor, stopping in his tracks as he saw Mitchie.
On his bed.
Reading a song.
"What are you doing?" Shane snapped, feeling anger rise up inside him.
Mitchie looked up, startled. "Shane, I—" she began.
Shane didn't bother waiting for Mitchie to respond. He half-ran, half-stomped to his bed, tearing the paper out of Mitchie's hand. Sure enough, it was exactly what he thought it was—it took him only a few minutes after reading the first few lines to know she had read his song.
"How dare you?" Shane said angrily.
"I'm sorry, Shane," Mitchie said quickly. "I just—"
"—decided to snoop around my stuff, did you?" Shane asked, knowing he was being unreasonable but didn't care.
"It was right in the open," Mitchie defended. "How could I not want to read it? And besides, I didn't even know what it was!"
"I think that would be obvious once you read the first line," Shane said, folding up the paper and tucking it safely in his pocket. "You know, I should have known you would snoop around in my stuff sooner or later. It was obvious, considering everything else you've done."
"'Everything else'?" Mitchie said, standing up. She now looked mad, unlike the last time they had gotten in a fight. "Shane, the only thing I ever did against you was not tell you my secret last year. That is it, and I think we should have gotten over that by now."
"Well, you thought wrong," Shane said. "And, besides, you were more than overdue for another offensive thing."
Mitchie rolled her eyes. "Please, Shane. It's not as if I was seriously thinking about stealing the song. In case you were wondering, I read it all because I enoyed it. The song was great."
Normally, Shane would be content with the compliment, but not today. There were too many frustrated pent-up feelings in his heart, and he was not about to just let them go now.
"Oh, really?" Shane said. "Did you really like the song, or are you just saying it to 'fit in'? After all, you haven't done anything to try to get close to me again—I must say I thought you had given up."
Mitchie visibly looked stunned at his comment. "Are you serious?"
Shane didn't say anything.
A glare was directed his way. "Apparently you are," she said. "And I am so sick of you talking to me this way! I am so sick of you refusing to even hear my story! If you can't hear my side, then why the hell do you assume you have the right to look down on me and insult me every time I 'offend' you? All I did was read the song that I loved! How is that threatening?"
"It's not threatening," Shane said, raising his voice. "And I already told you there's no point in hearing your side of the story, because it's not as if it can change my mind in the slightest! So why bother?"
"You should bother because it could prevent this from happening every single time I do something a bit offensive!" Mitchie said fiercely. "If you had just listened to me the first time I told you that you should listen to my story none of this would have happened! Believe it or not, I don't want to get close to you just to break your heart, and if you had an ounce of logic and the common sense to use your eyes, you'd see that!"
Shane opened his mouth to respond, but Mitchie brushed past him, thundering down the stairs. For a moment, Shane looked at the spot where he had been, unreasonably wanting to go after her, then he made an incredibly frustrated noise, throwing himself onto his bed.
I. Am. So. Stupid.
Mitchie had seemed so... fiery just a few moments ago, when she had defended herself. In that moment, she had seemed like she actually was telling the truth, regardless of his feelings not wanting to agree with that. Over the past week and a half... had she ever tried to get close to him? Had she ever talked to him more than necessary? Had she done anything?
Nope.
"Agh!"
Shane hit his pillow a few times.
It was so stupid that it had taken Mitchie finally getting upset enough to yell at him to allow him to realize that she had changed somehow. He still hadn't forgiven her for lying to him, but—
Shane sat up on his bed, glancing around on Mitchie's side of the room. Her side was oddly clean, everything in its place... except one thing. A yellow paper-bound notebook was sticking out beneath her pillow by the corner, the very sight of it stirring a strange curiosity in Shane.
What is that?
Shane was tempted to walk over and investigate, but kept himself contained. Although... Mitchie had looked at his song, which was embarrassingly just out in the open, so...
"Why shouldn't I look at that?" Shane asked the air.
There was obviously no response.
Shane stood up, walking over to Mitchie's bed. Plucking the yellow home-bound notebook out from under the pillow, he saw "Mitchie" written in curling blue letters on the cover. Intrigued, he flicked through it, opening it to the last used page.
He sat down on Mitchie's bed, interested. He ran his eyes over the words, reading the following:
I don't know why I'm doing this. I never normally write in this like a journal, but I can't help it. I'm just so frustrated, and it's not something I can really write down in a song, so...
Here I am, opening up my hardly-used journal for the first time in a year.
And, amazingly, it's because of boy issues.
I can't believe Shane Gray. He goes around ignoring me practically all day, then talks to me at night as if nothing happened. I mean, what is his deal? Either he hates me or he doesn't, but I HATE this constant "peace." We're obviously going to snap soon—I'm close to snapping already. I cannot understand why he can't just listen to my side of things. It's not as if I'm trying to get him to agree or anything, I just want him to hear it, so that we aren't constantly in this state of... well, limbo, I guess, but no, he won't.
It is so annoying.
And so routine!
If this goes on for much longer, I am going to snap, and it won't be pretty. Shane is being completely obnoxious. Sometimes I just want to punch his face in, and other times I just want to sit him down and force him to listen. I hate it when we do the same thing every single day. We've done it for nearly two weeks now. All I want is for us to work all this out, but—crap. He's coming.
Gotta go.
And there the journal entry ended.
Thinking back on it, Shane remembered Mitchie writing this—it had been last night or the night before, when he had climbed the stairs to see Mitchie stuffing something under her pillow, but he never thought anything of it.
Until now, obviously.
She's right. This is getting a bit ridiculous.
And I think... well, it can't hurt to hear her side of things. Better that than have us constantly fighting, right? Or in that stupid "peace" thing I tried to do. I should have known that wouldn't work.
Shane took a deep breath—it sounded like he had already decided. Like he said, it definitely wouldn't hurt to hear her side of things, even if he might not agree with them. At least it would put things in the open.
He nodded to himself and stood up, tucking Mitchie's journal back under her pillow, making sure to put it back in the exact same position he had found it, so that Mitchie wouldn't know he read it and get mad at him.
Even though it would be fair if she did.
With that thought running through his head, and an oddly nervous feeling in his stomach, he walked down the stairs, where Caitlyn had suddenly appeared, lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. She looked up as Shane emerged on the first floor, an angry look on her face.
"Where's Mitchie?" Shane said before Caitlyn could say anything.
"Why do you care?" Caitlyn asked.
"I need to talk to her," Shane said. "I think there's something I need to fix."
Caitlyn looked surprised at this. "That's shocking," she said. "Mitchie went out a few minutes ago, as you probably know. She's most likely down by the lake, where you've been seen lately."
Shane nodded.
"Thanks."
Ignoring Caitlyn's increasingly shocked look, he walked out of the cabin, heading down to the lake for the second time that day. Everyone was, by now, heading back to their cabins, but Shane ignored them, walking straight toward the two benches Mitchie was sure to be occupying. As he got close, however, he heard a soft voice, a voice that sounded familiar, a voice that he still couldn't quite place, wafting through the trees.
He could never understand why, but he somehow knew that the singer didn't want to be disturbed.
So Shane ducked behind a tree, listening to the oddly familiar but yet so different voice that kept him out of sight, utterly captivated.
-
Author's Note: Oh, I am so evil.
I love this chapter, though. I don't know why, but... I just want to snuggle it. The ending is something that could use a bit more work, but I... gah, I love Shane, so, so much. And I love how he acts (hopefully it's in character)! So, hopefully you enjoyed, and please review!
(Oh, and just for those interested, before I leave you to review, I'm going to be putting up a new one-shot up, so if you want to read it, keep an eye on my profile page or put me on your author alert list, please? Thanks!)