No Matter What (Jaspar AU)

9. Accept

Caspar Lee
I wanted to run after Joe, I know I should have. I wanted to tell him that it was alright and try and stop the pain that I knew he was feeling. But a part of me decided I should let him go. So I did.

I let Joe run away from me, he probably went home and cried. I felt so bad. All I had accomplished by trying to help, was cause him more pain. I brought up all his shitty memories and then let him run away. I was such an idiot. God knows what he was going to do once he'd left. He would have probably gone home and cried himself to sleep, or even run away. What if he never spoke to me again? I found myself extremely worried. So worried, that I called Zoe to check Joe got home alright.

"Hey Casp, what's up?" Zoe asked.
"Hey, so I was doing a project with Joe, but he left pretty quickly afterwards without saying goodbye. He looked a bit upset. I was just wondering if he got home on time?" I asked.

Zoe was silent for a few seconds.

"Upset? What about?" She asked, she sounded concerned.

"I... I don't know, he never said." I lied.

"Well he's home now, do you think I should check on him?" Zoe asked.

"Um well, you can if you want, but as long as he's home that's fine." I told her.

"What? Did you think he was going to run away or something?" She asked.

"I don't know, I just thought he might be upset about something at home and might not have wanted to go home or something." I said.
"Well he's normally alright at home. He's quiet, but never really upset, that I can see anyway." Zoe told me.
"Oh, that's good. I guess it was just something I said then." I sighed.
"I don't know Casp, maybe he just thought of something that upset him." Zoe explained, clearly trying to make me feel less guilty.
"Yeah, maybe." I said.
"I'll let you know if I find out anything. See you tomorrow Caspar." Zoe said.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow." I said sadly, and hung up the phone.

I sighed and stood up from the bench I was sat on. I walked across the road and into my street. I went straight up to my room and flopped down onto my bed on my front.
"I'm such a fucking idiot!" I shouted into my pillow. I hit it with my fist, again and again, letting out the anger inside of me. The anger that was solely directed at myself.

I heard someone knock three times on the door.
"Cas, you okay?" I heard Theo say through the door.
"I'm fine Theo, just leave me alone." I told her. Of course, she didn't listen. She opened the door and walked in.
"Caspar, what are you doing?" She asked.
"I'm just lying on my bed, is that OK with you?" I asked sarcastically. She rolled her eyes and walked over to my bed, sitting down next to me.
"Caspar, what happened?" She asked.
"Life happened Theodora, life happened." I snapped.
"Don't be a dickwad, just tell me what happened. I can't help unless I know." She said.
"Urgh, you sound like mum." I said in disgust.
"Caspar." She said, almost threateningly.
"Fine! I'm doing a project with this kid. Basically, he's the ex friend of my new friends, but they all love him and miss him and shit. He misses them as well cuz he's pretty much got no friends anymore. So anyway, we were trying to do the project and I mentioned my friends and he got all upset and ran away. I called his sister to check he'd gotten home ok, and she said he was fine. But I'm just annoyed with myself because I upset him and then let him go without checking he was ok!" I ranted.

Theo sighed and smiled at me.
"Why are you smiling?" I snapped.
"You're a good kid Cas." She said then stood up and started to walk out.
"Are you not going to help me?" I asked before she left.
"Just check he's ok tomorrow and apologise, it'll be fine." She said, then walked out.
"Hey Theo?!" I called after her. She walked back and stuck her head through my door.
"Yeah?" She said.
"I'm not a kid." I snapped. She laughed.
"Bye Caspar!" She said.
"Bye Theodora!" I replied.

Theo thought it would be fine, but she didn't know Joe like I did. I doubted that everything would be OK, I doubted it very much. But there was nothing I could do right then, so I just got out my phone and wasted another evening of my youth.
~~~
I didn't have maths the next day. But I knew that I had to see him before the end of the day, so I went to find him at lunch time.

I'd been looking around and I tried everywhere. Well everywhere except the library. So I headed there. To be honest, I should have looked there first, but I was stupid, as you should have worked out by now. I walked in and saw a lot more people that I expected, they were all either sat reading, or walking around looking for books. I looked around the whole library, but it wasn't until I walked to the very back corner, that I found Joe. He was curled up in a little, upright ball, leaning against two perpendicular walls. I walked over slowly and sat on his right. I couldn't sit right next to him, since he was in a corner, but I was sat, sort of diagonally from him. He didn't look up.

It was weird, because I'd been looking for him for at least ten minutes, but I didn't have a clue what to say. So I decided the best thing to say was probably hello.
"Hey Joe." I said quietly. Again, he didn't even look up. But he did reply:
"Hey." He said.
"Um, Joe I'm sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have brought it up. That wasn't fair." I apologised.
"It's fine don't worry about it." He replied instantly. I was speechless
"But Joe..." I was about to protest, but he cut me off.
"I actually wanted to say thanks, for trying to help. But I think that you should stop, go back to your friends before I ruin that for you. Once we've finished the project, you need to stop talking to me, for yourself. Don't worry about me, I'm fine." Joe said.

"Joe, don't be stupid." I tried to argue.
"I don't want you to talk to me anymore Caspar, will you please leave?" Joe asked. My mouth opened wide in shock.
"Joe..."
"Leave! Caspar, leave." Joe ordered. I got up and walked away. I walked slowly at first, as I was contemplating either swearing at him angrily, or trying to convince him that I wasn't going to go. But I decided to just do what he wanted me to do. I walked out, without protest, without swearing and went to the cafeteria.

I sat in silence next to my friends. When they asked me what was wrong, I said I was tired. When they asked where I had been, I said detention. Other than that, I didn't speak at all. In fact, I didn't speak until the end of the day. I spent the day trying to think of how I would confront Joe about what he said.

On my walk from class to the library, I felt my palms become sweaty. I realised how anxious I was to confront this boy. I wasn't sure why, it wasn't like he was going to hurt me, he was a lot smaller than me.

I walked slowly into the library and over to the maths section, expecting to find Joe. Instead I find a note, it said:

Caspar,
Sorry, but I couldn't make it today. I've left some notes I've been making and the paper for the poster if you wanted to do it by yourself for today, if not, I'm sorry for leaving it with you. Just slot it behind the bookcase that I was sat by earlier and I will get I tomorrow.
Sorry again.
Joe.

Under the note, as promised, was a stack of notes and the big piece of paper Joe had left. I decided I would just do it and get on with it. I got a packet of coloured pens from my bag and copied every single note in the stack, onto the paper. Even then, I had only half filled the sheet. I got the not Joe had left and turned it over.

On it I wrote a simple sentence:

I am your friend, accept that.
C.

I picked up the notes and the paper and walked to the back corner of the library, slotting it behind the bookcase. I then walked out of the library. I knew Joe was going to see the note and the work. I hoped he would understand why I was doing all of this and accept it. I wanted him to know I cared about him.

There wasn't any point in trying to deny it, I cared about Joe Sugg.

Bit of a sad one there.

Just wanted to say thanks because this book now has over 100 reads which, to me, is insane.
I want to say a special thanks to EmoDanTrash for your constant support. You're great.

Thanks for reading.
Meg xx