✩☆ In The Stars ☆✩

[Chapter 3] "Cause When People You Love, Leave, You Lose." [Chapter 3]

- Words: 1568 -

Time Taken: 1 hr & 50 mins

A few weeks since he had met his friend, now best friend, March. She was very nice to him and considerate about his emotions. Whenever Jake hadn't had enough time to pack himself lunch March would offer her food to him. And when I mean 'offer her food to him', I mean she didn't eat anything and let Jake, who was starving, enjoy the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the ripe strawberries.

Occasionally, he would hear the taller girls stomach grumble and he immediately felt bad. She would look awkwardly off to the side and say 'she was fine' and that 'she wasn't hungry anyways' and Jake would know that she wasn't fine and that she, hundred percent, was hungry.

Over the course of these few weeks he realized how scrawny she was, way to scrawny, like she hadn't been eating. He remembered one Friday morning he had decided to ask her about it.

The both of these friends were walking through the corridor, Jake could feel people glaring at him as he hummed softly to himself and next to him, March, would be scribbling up small lyric ideas in Jake's notebook. Jake liked to read them in his past time, the ideas she came up with were quite remarkable. He never thought he'd meet someone who was also as invested and interested in music as he was. Most of the time, when he was at home, he would make a small song from the small ideas him and her had wrote down and he would sing it. While playing his ukulele, of course.

He kept glancing over at her scrawny figure, he wanted to ask about it but didn't know how to prevent it from not being awkward. But he didn't have to ask, March could already guess he was nagging to ask her a question. And she wanted to know what that was, she already told Jake that he could ask her anything about her and she would tell him. Why was he still holding back from asking?

"What?" She said, continuing to keep her eyes on the notebook as she scribbled in some song lyrics. In the glare of her glasses you could see the blurry notes she was writing down

Jake stopped humming and looked at her instinctively, "what?" He asked. She continued,

"What do you want to ask?" March said, looking up from the notebook to meet his hazel brown eyes. "You seem like you want to ask something"

"O-oh... I probably shouldn't.." he said, putting his head down and looking at his shoes

She sighed, "Jake. Just ask it.." she grumbled, Jake could be like this sometimes. Stubborn. Which made March want to explode so he could finally just tell her what was up

"Why.. I mean- I don't mean to offend you but uh..." he stuttered, "why are you so uhm- scrawny..?" He asked

March completely stopped walking, dropping the notebook and pencil that was in her grasp. Jake hurriedly caught the two items and looked back up to her, worried that he had asked something he shouldn't have.

"I- I'm sorry..." he started saying, "I probably shouldn't have asked tha-"

"I don't eat much." March interrupted, much to Jake's surprise. "I don't eat much because of my mom."

This immediately confused Jake, was her mother holding her back from something? "What do you mean?" He asked, "I mean- you don't have to tell me!"

"No, no, I will. I trust you. Your my best friend after all.." she muttered quietly, the both of them started to walk again, Jake held his music notebook close to him and put the pencil in his pocket

"Ever since my dad and my mom divorced I've been living with my mother." She started, her voice quivering, "my mom. Well, my mom is usually in the kitchen and... and she's usually drinking so I- I'm scared to go in the kitchen to get food... the only time I can really get food is in the morning. Because she's usually passed out on the couch.." March answered truthfully. Jake was surprised, maybe he didn't know exactly everything about his best friend.