Just Friends

CHAPTER-1

JADE

7 years and 6 months had gone by since the last time she had seen Alec, and it had been a little longer since they had spoken to each other. (Jade had been counting.)

Jade had met Alec for the first time on the first day of kindergarten. And as most kids going to school on the first day, she had been bawling her eyes out, terrified to go in. On the other hand, the ever calm and laid- back, Alec went into class jumping and sporting various band aids all over his hands and legs, while his mother followed him trying to hand him his bag.

They were opposites. In every way possible. But something brought them together.

He was the first one to approach Jade and start talking to her. And she was so surprised that someone was actually speaking to her that her tears stopped in their tracks.

Since that day they became inseparable.

In the coming years as the two of them grew up, it was almost like they were stuck at the hip.

Alec kept Jade from living in her dreamworld while, Jade stopped him from becoming a complete cynic.

They could never keep secrets from each other and as a result they knew everything about the others life.

Their deep friendship resulted in their mothers also becoming good friends.

In high school Jade started getting jealous of any girl Alec seemed to like and Alec on the other hand would get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw Jade talking to any guy. These incidents led to fights and arguments. But they were still friends. Best friends. They passed of the incidents as friends getting jealous of someone else getting in the way of their friendship. Maybe it was something else. But they did not give it a chance to develop.

Once high school got over and they had to grow up at last, they realised how different they were from each other.

It struck them that life was not going to be as easy as making friends in kindergarten over a mutual love for pb and j sandwiches.

And they started drifting away.

Jade went ahead to get her Masters in English, while Alec did his course in Journalism.

And soon their friendship turned into a series of missed call, mails not replied and meetings cancelled.

On a last try to keep their friendship, they met up for summer break in the last year of their college.

But it was too late, they had grown too far apart to patch things up again.

Soon after, Alec had gone to Thailand to set up Wanderlust his travel company with one of his new friends.
While Jade's first novel had been published going on to become a best seller.

Now 7 years later, Jade was a successful author while Wanderlust was doing great in the travel market, having become very famous.

It was almost like they no longer knew each other. Let alone be best friends.

Even for Julia's wedding, Jade for some reason could not make it to the main ceremony and went only for the party after it and Alec left before the party.

So they did not meet.

And now Mrs Carter tells her that Alec was coming back to the city and that would mean they would have to meet.

After keeping the call Jade just sat on the floor and thought about the old days when spending time with Alec was the only thing on her to- do list.

She tried to divert her mind from thoughts about Alec and sat to write again, but her concentration had all but disappeared.

Instead she got up and decided to take a long hot shower.

Before going into the washroom she looked at herself in the mirror on her dresser.

Her black straight hair was almost completely out of the messy top- knot she had tied before she sat to write. And her moss green eyes which normally always twinkled with good humour were blood shot and looked tired.

She was wearing an old T- shirt which she knew didn't belong to her, but had no clue where she got it from, over a pair of faded grey shorts.

In short she looked like a homeless person with a good figure. Not a look she normally sported.

She desperately needed a shower.

After the shower she came out wrapped in a fluffy white towel and with another towel wrapped around her head.

The main objective of the shower for her had been to get rid of the disturbing thoughts of Alec which were moving around in her head.

But after half an hour in the steaming hot water she had still not gotten rid of the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

There was only one person who could help her. Nicole.

She picked up her phone which was still lying on the floor where she had dropped it after the call with Mrs Carter and dialled the number of her best friend.

"Hello!" Nicole said after the first ring.

Jade was always surprised at how quickly Nicole always seemed to pick up the phone.

"Hey, Nic! It's me Jade." She said trying to speak loudly so Nicole could hear her over the racket her children were making.

Nicole had become friends with Jade when they were room mates in college and since then they had always stuck together.

Now Nicole was married to her high school sweet heart, Jason and was the mother to the reckless twins, Noah and Nadia.

"Hey, Jade. Just wait a second I'll go out of this room.-" Nicole said before covering the speaker and yelling, "Noah , Nadia if you both don't shut up and play like good children I'm taking away your TV privileges for a month."

Jade couldn't help but chuckle. She was unusually proud of her god children for driving her normally cool and calm best friend mad, at the young age of just 3.

"Yeah... So what were you saying?" Nicole said once the noise in the background was a little less.

"Taking away TV privileges is hitting under the belt." Jade said.

"They are going to drive me mad!"

"I love my godchildren!"

"Your training is working. They don't let me sit in peace for more than 10 minutes. Thank God! Mum is coming in half an hour. I'll get some rest." She sounded so relieved at the thought of rest that Jade started laughing again.

"Lilah is coming? That's great! I need to meet you. Can we go out for coffee?"

"Sure.... But what's up?"

"I'll tell you once we meet. See you in half an hour at 'Beans'?"

'Beans' was the local cafe, which was their normal meeting place.

"Okay. See you."

Jade kept the cell phone down for the second time in the day and looked at the clock on her table. It was 10:30 in the morning.

She quickly went to get changed.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:-

Hey Readers!
This was my first chapter, and there are some grammatical mistakes. But I hope you can ignore them.
This chapter was just a filler chapter to give you'll the background on Jade and Alec's friendship. Hope you'll liked it!
The media on top is a picture of Jade.
Happy Reading!! :-D