Look! A chapter!

"So you think I should just tell him how I feel?"

The advice was definitely not what she expected, from a person she definitely did not expect to be getting it from. But, by some odd twist in the universe, she had ended up here, on the roof of the Wilderness School with Leo next to her, telling her what to do.

"Of course," the boy nodded, looking like he knew a whole world about this stuff. "It's simple logic, really: Jason like you, so he wants to kiss you. He makes a move but you back off-"

"I didn't back off!" Piper said quickly. " I just... Froze."

"Fine," Leo continued, rolling his eyes. "You 'freeze up', and because of that Jason thinks that you don't like him, and therefore do not want to kiss him. This leads to a turmoil of thoughts and depression, blah blah blah... And the out of the blue, you appear telling him that no, you really do want to have a soppy love story with him and then you two make out and skip off into the sunset."

Piper opened her mouth to tell him how stupid that was, but then thought for a second. Despite the fact it was coming from Leo, the advice actually made a lot of sense. Plus, there was nothing to lose from telling Jason about her feelings for him. The worst that could happen would be that he rejected her and ignored her, which was already happening.

There was just one flaw in Leo's otherwise surprisingly solid plan: Piper had no idea when or where to confront Jason and tell him how she felt, nor did she have the slightest clue as to what she should say. Piper, to put it lightly, was not good at these things.

"When should I do it?" She asked, figuring if Leo had gotten her this far, he could do a little bit more. To her dismay, he just shrugged.

"How do I know?" He asked. "Probably at night, or when you two are alone somewhere. And I would give him a bit of time to cool down.

"Is he mad at me?" Piper asked, and again Leo shrugged.

"You think he tells me these things? He replied. "I'm assuming he's confused, at the least, and yeah, probably a bit mad."

"Great." Piper seemed to deflate, and Leo jogged her with his elbow in an attempt to cheer her up.

"Hey," he grinned. "Look on the bright side. This gives you an opportunity to make it up with him, while simultaneously telling him how you feel. And you've been waiting all semester to tell him that right?"

"How did you know?" Piper questioned him. Leo smirked at her, amused.

"You really think it was that hard?" he laughed. "With you gawking at him every five seconds, anyone could have figured it out." A slight frown creased his features. "Anyone but Jason, that is."

"Worried about the weather, are we?"

Piper spun around in surprise, simultaneously exiting the web page she had opened and smiling at her teacher in what she hoped was an innocent expression.

"I was worried about a hurricane," she explained, mentally slapping herself for the lame excuse that she had thought of. Right now, Piper was sitting in computers class, where they were supposed to be learning the fundamentals of survival on a website. Instead, Piper had been studying the weather, and she was thrilled as to what she saw.

"Miss McLean," her teacher snapped. "This is the desert. We don't get hurricanes." Snickers broke out throughout the class, kids shaking their heads in dismay at her stupidity. She could see Isabel smirking at her and mouthing the word idiot. The only two people who weren't laughing at her were Jason and Leo. Leo, for his part, seemed to be laughing with her.

Leo, Piper had come to realize, was a bit of an odd case. Unlike Piper, who seemed to be a natural introvert and had trouble socializing, Leo seemed to be perfectly suited for human interaction. He was funny; he always had a smart comeback or clever remark, and he was a certifiable genius when it came to electronics or construction. Also, there was an unnamable trait around him that just made you want to be in his company. And, despite what he thought, Leo was decent looking in an elfish way.

Not that Piper had any sort of crush on him. No, her she had eyes only for Jason, but that didn't mean she couldn't note Leo had a hapless, cute look around him. Except for his eyes. His eyes were anything but hapless and innocent. They were guarded and injured, and eve though Piper was no expert reader of facial expressions, she thought she could see a lot of guilt hiding beneath the mysterious expression that usually came across his face. It was almost as if Leo physically tried to isolate himself from other people, choosing instead to enjoy his own company and that of a few others.

The other person who wasn't laughing at her was Jason, but he was a different case. His eyes were deliberately looking anywhere but Piper, scanning the whiteboard, his screen, finding something very interesting in his shoelaces.

Jason was another interesting case. Unlike Leo, who was the kind of person people would keep around for laughs, the kind of person who would crack jokes and never take anything seriously, Jason was the type of person who was always there for you— a strong, silent personality, with the look of a guy you immediately trusted and assumed would be able to give you advice. He was dependable, and he was none-judgmental. He was also extremely patient, and knew just the right moment to laugh or act amazed to make a person feel good.

In other words, Jason should have been the kind of person people flocked around, sticking with him wherever he went. It didn't hurt that he was as hot as a Roman god. But, like Leo, Jason seemed to isolate himself from other people. Unlike Leo, Piper actually had a theory as to why he did this. Jason was the kind of person who had no time for bullies, or any sort of cruelty. And from what Piper had seen (and she had seen quite a bit), the world was a pretty cruel and bullying place. Jason, it seemed, was well desired, but the desire only went one way.

Their teacher ordered the class back to work and stayed standing behind Piper, watching to see if she tried to access any external sights. Piper didn't mind though; she had found out exactly what she wanted to find out.

She quickly (or as quickly as the pre-windows-era machines allowed) opened up the survival page on Internet explorer and began to click random answers, not really caring that they were getting marked on this stupid assignment. What she was really focusing on was her apology to Jason, which she planned to do today. And then, if that failed, she even had a back-up plan. If Jason refused to forgive her, she was going to invite him on a sort of date. At least, as much of a date as you could get in the Wilderness School, short of running away and dying in the desert together.

There was a meteor shower tonight.

"Jason!"

The blonde boy looked over his shoulder, surprised, and saw Piper jogging quickly towards him. For a second, he had a deer-in-the-headlights look around him. Then he steeled himself and turned to face her fully.

"Yeah?" he asked, trying to keep his voice casual. She stopped next to him, panting from the short run. Piper took it as a good sign that Jason had stopped for her, although the look on his face was anything but encouraging. He didn't look mad, at all. Instead, he looked a bit nervous.

"I was… well…" And now that she had the opportunity, she completely faltered with what she was going to say. She had spent hours of class practicing this speech, everything from the wording down to the pronunciation and the pauses. It was like she was talking in front of the house of congress, not one sixteen-year-old boy. She was suddenly struck by the ridiculous image of Jason in long, flowing purple robes and one of those ridiculous wigs that courtroom judges where. A faint smile came to her lips.

"Do you hate me?"

Piper looked up, shocked. It was Jason who had posed the question, the very question that she had been about to ask. Now the blond boy was looking at her curiously. She made to answer, but she was too stunned.

"Uh… well…" she saw Jason face fall and quickly moved to cover it up. "No!" she said urgently. "No, I don't hate you. Why would you think that?" Jason shrugged, keeping up his indifferent attitude, but Piper could sense an undercurrent of relief flowing through him. He stood up a bit straighter.

"Well, you did turn away from me," he said, and Piper winced. This was the one part of her story that was a bit week, because she really had no idea what exactly had made her freeze up when she was about to kiss Jason.

"I didn't mean to," she explained, making an effort to stick to her script. "I was just nervous, I guess, and I had never really done anything like that before, and…" she trailed off, realizing Jason was looking at her with a single eyebrow cocked. She stopped, and he smiled for what seemed like the first time in days.

"So did you just come to apologize?" he asked, once again trying to keep up his casual, neutral expression. But something about his body language, the way he stood with his arms now unfolded, told Piper that he had forgiven her.

"No," she said. "Well yes, but no." he cocked his eyebrow again. There was something about the expression that was ridiculously distracting. "I wanted to tell you that there's a meteor shower going on tomorrow night."

"That's nice," he said, not catching on. Piper let out a long suffering sigh in her mind.

"I'm going to sneak onto the roof to watch it," she continued, hoping he would get the point, but again he just nodded. "Do you wanna— I dunno, watch it with me?"

Jason seemed to consider for an extremely long amount of time, although it was probably only a few seconds, before shrugging. Piper could tell he was still slightly guarded, but nothing close to what he had been.

"Sure," he smiled. "Why not?"

Not my best piece of work, sorry. Still, it's chapter!

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