Second Chances

Chapter 3

The car trip was painfully awkward. Mr and Mrs Wilson keep up a steady conversation between the two of them and occasionally Jasper joins in. Mrs Wilson asks me questions every now and then about myself, but other than that I stay out of the conversation.

When Jasper isn't talking to his parents he's either looking at his phone or looking at me. Not in a creepy way, not a curious way, just a neutral way. I do my best not to look at him. We haven't spoken since our awkward exchange at their house. We're only two hours into the eight hour drive, and already I want to jump out of the car and run all the way back home.

"I think we should stop for a toilet break, eat something and revive from the trip for a bit, don't you think?" Mrs Wilson asks us.

"Yeah sure." Jasper and I say at the same time. He looks at me, trying not to smile, but I ignore him. I'm barely managing being this close to him as it is.

Mr Wilson pulls over at a small resting spot on the highway. We all get out of the car.

While Mr and Mrs Wilson take out some bags of food from the car, Jasper and I start walking over to a nearby picnic table. We sit on opposite sides of the table. His parents come over and put the food on the table.

"You both start eating, we're just going to quickly go to the loo." Mr Wilson says.

We nod as they walk away to the distant public toilets. Knowing they'll take at least ten minutes, I lean over and take an apple out of the bag. As I take a bite, Jasper starts speaking.

"How are you, Katie?"

I don't look at him, trying to keep my expression blank as swallow my apple. "I'm fine."

"Haven't seen you in a long time."

This time I don't answer. I just keep eating my apple.

"Are you going to university next year?"

I nod.

"Which one?"

"UTS."

"What are you studying?"

"Biochemistry."

"Cool."

You don't actually care, though, do you, Jasper?

We both stop talking while we eat for a few minutes. That was a normal conversation, right? It was a bit stiff but we were interacting like normal humans. That's a good sign. I don't want to talk to him, but I guess I can't avoid him for the entire two months, and even if we talk more, we don't have to talk about our past, do we?

"So why did you leave our school?"

Or maybe we do.

I shrug, trying to keep calm. "Just wanted a different learning environment."

He fucking knows why I left. He's just tormenting me. He nods.

"Are you going to uni?" I risk asking him.

He nods. "I got into Macquarie University on a sports scholarship."

Scholarship? Wow. And a sports scholarship. For soccer, I'm assuming. Jasper is really good at soccer. I was pretty bad, but I was a good goalkeeper, so whenever someone started a random game on the school field, we used to play on the same team together. I quickly shake those thoughts out of my head.

"Mmhm." I hum, not wanting to continue the conversation. Jasper doesn't press to continue it either.

We continue eating in silence until his parents come back. They start talking and again I remain mostly silent. The conversation continues back in the car as we continue this trip.

Over the next few hours I switch from reading to listening to music. I was trying to preserve my phone battery.

Jasper taps me on the shoulder. I look at him in surprise.

"My phone ran out of power." He says. "Do you mind if we share music?"

Not wanting to be rude, I agree. "Uh, yeah alright."

Jasper shuffles over into the middle seat. He's a lot closer to me now. I pass him an earplug and I start playing my 5SOS Playlist before he can tell me what to play.

After about half an hour of music and no communication whatsoever, Jasper takes out his earplug.

"You have the worst taste in music."

"Don't insult 5 Seconds of Summer."

"I only lasted 5 seconds before I got sick of them."

I roll my eyes at his stupid joke. "Fine, don't listen then."

"But my phone's out of power."

"Who's fault is that?"

He doesn't reply to that. He puts his earplug back into his ear. I decide to play some other music. I don't know what motivated me to do that. Jasper clearly doesn't either.

"You can listen to 5 Seconds of Torture if you want, it's alright."

"It's fine." I say, inwardly shuddering at his horrible sense of humour.

"No, seriously. They're honestly not that bad."

I raise my eyebrow at him. He shrugs and tries not to smile. "Just play your music."

And I do. We sit there in silence while 5SOS is playing in our ears. There isn't much awkwardness between us anymore. He's acting exactly like what he did in my last few weeks at his school, good natured and positive towards me, like he used to be. And I'm comfortable with that.

And I don't want to admit it, but I'm actually kinda enjoying myself.

I'm sure it won't last, though.