Something's Wrong With the Different Realms

Twenty-Six: Apologies Pt. 2

Isla Venus

"Is he going to show up?" I tapped my foot against the table and checked my watch repeatedly. "He was supposed to show up 15 minutes ago."

I sighed and leaned back against the chair, then gazed at my empty coffee cup. After some deliberation, I got up from my seat and headed to the counter. The barista who Jasper found cute was there and he gave me a weary look. It made sense since Jasper and I had a fight when he was working and we probably disrupted the entire café. I tried not to cower in embarrassment as I placed an order for another medium hazelnut latte when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and found Jasper's medium brown eyes staring back at me.

"Sorry I'm late," Jasper said, "I was talking to Caspian."

"About what?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Oh... you know... religion and sexuality since I'm gay and Catholic and he's bisexual and Muslim. It was an interesting conversation," Jasper tilted his face down, sheepish and embarrassed.

I patted Jasper on his shoulder, "good for you. Now, what type of coffee do you want? Or you can try one of their new milk teas or smoothies or something. You know... so we have something to drink so talking about our book won't be too awkward."

"I'll get one of the Tropical Surprises then," Jasper called out.

We picked up our drinks and headed to the table where I had set my backpack. I clenched my fists and noticed how sweaty my palms were. I was nervous. I realized that Jasper might not want to help Allaira and Horizon and I would have to be okay with that. Besides, this meeting was supposed to be for straightening things out so that we could focus on getting our book done instead of worrying about the drama of everything that was going on.

After Horizon had told us the truth about him and Allaira, a split had formed in our group. Jasper and I both needed time to process the truth. Allaira seemed to be angry with Horizon for telling the truth and Horizon felt sorry about it. Jasper and I disagreed about what to do next. And with no one getting along with each other, it was difficult to write our book. Even Ms. Valance had noticed our diminishing progress and suggested that we try some sort of bonding activity to fix whatever it was that caused the tension between us.

I blew on my hot hazelnut latte. "We're really behind, huh?" I laughed awkwardly, trying to break the strain between us.

Jasper finally glanced up from staring at the barista. "I'm sorry, what?" It seemed that he had blanked out.

"Oh, our book. We're super behind right now. I've written a few chapters but I don't even know where the rest of you guys are so I don't know if our story makes sense at this point because it seems that we're just writing four separate stories at this point."

Jasper set his drink down, "oh, yeah. What should we do about it?"

I pulled out my laptop and clicked open the document Ms. Valance had sent me. "How about we try one of those bonding activities that Ms. Valance suggested?"

"Those are total BS."

"Do we have any better options? I don't want to fail creative writing class but at this point, it just looks like I might with how behind we are. The book's worth 50% of our final grade, you know?"

"Okay, fine, only because I don't want to fail either."

I shoved the laptop towards Jasper. "I've accumulated a few bonding activities, just pick the one that sounds the least stupid."

"We can do this or that? It seems the least time-consuming out of all of them," Jasper shrugged.

"Cool, I'll begin," I clicked on the link in the document, "tea or coffee?"