The Love I Needed

Chapter 1

Avery POV:

"Jake is so into you it's unbelievable," said Jade with an almost amused look on her face. My friend has been shipping me and my best friend Jake for years now and she was flipping out yesterday when I told her we got together. But I have to agree, he is super cute, so I just replied, "Yeah I know, he is trying so hard to make this work". It was monday and even though I loved my daily chats at her locker, I really needed to go, otherwise I would be late for math class, so I said goodbye and headed down the hall to get to class before my teacher noticed anything. Math was pretty simple that year and it was easy to keep up, probably because none of my friends were with me and I could actually focus on my work, but it also made it 100 times more boring. When the bell finally saved me from my boredom I walked to my locker, only to find my boyfriend, gosh it still felt weird to say that, waiting for me. His light brown fluffy hair constantly fell in his face because he was looking at his phone. He was so pretty. The last two days I couldn't stop thinking about how he actually felt the same way about me as I felt about him. For 8 years we had been friends now and the past 2 it had been an on and off game, did I like him, did I not. But it was finally over and I couldn't be happier. The smile just naturally appeared on my face while I walked up to him to give him a hug. "Heyy Ave," he smiled and slid his phone back into his pocket. "Are you ready for Chem?". I sighed, I would never be ready for Chemistry, not in a million years and he knew that, so I just looked at him with my "are you kidding me" face. As a response he started to laugh and I felt butterflies in my stomach. For the past month it had been that way. He just made me happy, it was as simple as that.

I think that whoever wrote the script for my life didn't quite get the memo that I had no intention of changing my good mood, because we got 3 worksheets of assignments that we had to finish before tomorrow's class, which meant that I had to do the rest at home. "On the right side of the reaction there are less molecules than on the left side, so when we increase the pressure, the Equilibrium shifts to the right side." Jake had been trying to explain this topic for 30 minutes now and even though I still didn't understand a single word he said I just nodded and tried to form the most convincing "Ah!" that I had in me. Considering that I saw the patients leave his body 10 minutes ago, I wasn't surprised that he just smiled softly and went back to his own work. My eyes stayed on him for a second. I was so lucky to have him, even though he couldn't explain Equilibriums or kinetic reactions to me, he was everything I wanted. Plus it would take some higher power to make my brain understand the lectures Mr. Kleid taught every day. After a few seconds I sighed and my eyes wandered back to my paper full of letters and numbers that made absolutely no sense to me. Chemistry was the last block today so I was extra happy when the bell rang and told us that this hell was finally over and we could go home. "Are you done with your papers?" I asked Jake, who was still collecting his stuff from the table. "Not yet, I probably still have 45 minutes of work to do." he answered, his voice was drenched from actually doing work the past hour. "You should come over after school so we can do it together," Jake added. My stomach already felt bad even thinking about doing more chemistry today but the thought of hanging out with Jake wasn't awful at all, so I smiled a "Yeah, sounds great!" and reached for his hand to walk outside to our cars.

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We have been studying and doing homework for 2 hours now. Out of procrastination or what I call "my mental health" I've been avoiding doing Chemistry for most of the time and even though I never thought I'd be able to say this, I officially did all my work. I have nothing to do except Chemistry and right now I wished Mrs. Ellens would have given me more Psychology work. "Can someone shoot me please," I screamed into a pillow on Jake's bed, where we both sat, hovering over notebooks. "Considering it's only me who is around right now, you can forget about that, I will not kill you," Jake laughed. He knows me well enough to not get worried, but I think I saw some pity in his eyes when he made eye contact with me. "Okay 20 more minutes of work for both of us and then I am gonna crush you at Mario Kart, my brain is going to explode soon," I tried to motivate myself and beating him at Mario Kart while seeing his face of disbelief always lightened my mood. "Sounds good, but I am definitely going to win," Jake laughed. So I actually tried to understand the topic and finished the assignment with answers that I wasn't confident about but atleast thought they were right. I put my pen down after I wrote the last chemical equation and fell backwards to look at the ceiling, silently screaming "I am finally done" in enthusiasm. Jake put his notebook away as well, at least that's what I thought because he fell on his back too and stared at the ceiling with me. "I am proud of you," he said to me softly without looking at me. Whispering "Thank you," I smiled into myself and relished this moment. I looked over at him and caught him already smiling at me. This is simple, this is easy, this is great, is what I thought, and I truly hoped it was true. As we held eye contact, the mood changed and the butterflies returned. We haven't kissed yet but I really wanted to, so I took all my confidence in me and leant over the few centimeters that separated us, closed my eyes and placed my lips gently on his. It felt weird and not exactly what I expected from all the movie scenes and books but it was still great. After a few seconds I fell back onto the mattress again and smiled. Even though the kiss didn't increase the amount of butterflies in my stomach, it was nice and I thought we just had to get used to each other. This whole thing was so new, no need to rush anything.