My brothers best friend

Chapter 18: No More Running

(Edited)

Chapter 18

Valerie's Point of View 

I could feel the heat rising in my chest as I stared at the assignment in front of me, my pen tapping nervously against the table. Astronomy wasn't supposed to be this hard. It was supposed to be one of the easier classes, one I could breeze through. But Jake had to make everything difficult.

The assignment had been simple: write a paper about the constellations we were studying, explain their significance, and how they relate to ancient myths. We had a week to do it, but somehow, Jake hadn't even bothered to take it seriously. His half-assed attempt was lying on the desk in front of me—scratched out sentences, incomplete thoughts, and an obvious lack of effort.

I looked up at him, fuming. "Jake, seriously? This is what you're turning in?"

He was sitting across from me, tapping his pencil on the desk, not even trying to hide the fact that he was already zoning out. He glanced at me, looking mildly confused.

"Yeah, what's wrong with it?" he asked casually, as if this was a normal conversation.

"What's wrong with it?" I repeated, my voice rising. "We've had a week to do this, Jake. A week. And this is all you've got?"

He shrugged, not seeming to take it seriously at all. "It's an assignment. It's not that deep."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was trying so hard to stay focused, but he just had this ability to make everything feel like it didn't matter. It wasn't even the assignment that was making me mad—it was his attitude. The way he always acted like he could just coast through things and people would be fine with it.

But I wasn't fine with it. I wasn't fine with him.

"This is exactly why you get under my skin, Jake," I snapped. "You don't care about anything. You don't take anything seriously."

His eyebrows furrowed as he stared at me, clearly not understanding what the big deal was. "Come on, Valerie. You're overreacting. It's just an assignment. We'll still get the grade. No big deal."

"Do you even listen to yourself?" I snapped, my voice sharp. "You just—ugh!" I threw my hands up in frustration, unable to keep my cool any longer. "You act like nothing matters, like it's all just a joke to you. And it's exhausting, Jake!"

I could feel my chest tightening with the effort it took to keep my emotions in check. But the thing with Jake was, no matter how small the issue seemed, he could always push me over the edge. Every. Single. Time.

"I don't get it," he said, looking completely perplexed. "You're really mad about this? It's not like it's the end of the world."

"You're unbelievable," I muttered, shaking my head. "You're always like this. I've tried so many times to make you see how much I care about things, how I need things to be done right. But you don't even—" I stopped myself, realizing I was making a bigger deal out of this than I probably should have. "Forget it."

I turned away from him, feeling a mix of anger and frustration bubbling inside me. This was stupid. I was being stupid. But I couldn't help it.

Jake's Point of View

I stood there, completely taken aback by Valerie's reaction. She was acting like I'd just ruined her entire life with this stupid assignment, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was so upset.

It was just a paper. A stupid paper. Sure, I hadn't put in a lot of effort, but who cared? I wasn't going to fail. And it wasn't like I was going to lose sleep over it.