vertigo ; eden/jonathan ng fanfiction

five.

Aria's POV

I take some random white bag out on one of the racks and rush downstairs where the Uber was waiting. I had woken up late and realised where I had to be so I took a quick shower, put some random outfit together and left. Thankfully the diner was just a few blocks down. I would've walked except I was too tired to do so. This girl just woke up and got ready in the span of ten minutes, I think she deserves an Uber ride.

When I got in the diner, they were already there waiting for me.

"What do we do to make you not late whenever we meet up?" Megan asks as I take a seat next to her.

"I'm sorry," I giggle. "I tried really hard this time, I swear. I didn't even put make up on."

"Oh wow," Alex says as he rolls his eyes. "That's supposed to be a valid excuse?"

"Of course its a valid excuse." I wink.

"So what's the great big news, Alex? C'mon spit it out already, we're all here now. " Mikey asks.

"So remember how I jokingly applied to Google the other day? Well yesterday I received an interesting email from an important guy." Alex pauses, looking for a reaction.

Kayla was first to show her excitement, "Holy shit, are you working for Google now?"

"No, that was just something misleading. But I received something even better." Alex continues. "It was Jon, he said he's coming home tomorrow!"

"Are you serious?" Mikey jumps up in excitement. "Dude if you're joking right now I might actually kill you."

"I'm for real, man. We're all having dinner together at this fancy restaurant tomorrow with his family." Alex explains further. "He's having a break this entire summer before he leaves to go touring again."

"Does he know about our summer plans? We have to include him! He didn't come for three years straight and this is the last one." Kayla says.

Alex just smirks. "I'm way ahead of you, sister. I booked him the tickets and I'm pretty sure we can ask for an extra bed in the hotel room so we're good."

They discussed further about how excited they were for Jon to finally come back home after years of being away. I stayed silent the whole time, not really knowing what to say. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's coming back. I just don't know how to act around him anymore. A little part of me is hopeful that it all goes back to normal but I know it's going to be different. He's a big artist now, touring in different parts of the world. He's probably learned a lot on his three year journey. He's probably changed his views, humour, style and everything too.

"Oh yeah, Aria I know Scott's your boyfriend and he's kinda part of our group and shit but Jon just told me that he wants it to be just the six of us and his family for tomorrow night." Alex says, catching my attention.

"That's okay, he'll understand." I nod at him.

We continue eating our fries and drink our milkshakes before going to school together. It was the last day of classes and we had just skipped the first two periods but we didn't exactly care, we all knew we were passing anyways.

End of the school year is normally a good time, it's when you're most ecstatic about the summer. For some reason, I can't stop overthinking about the dinner tomorrow. Three whole years of not talking to someone, not being part of his life, missing what happened for three whole years. Its like a whole gap of a timeline that's just blank. Sure, he's gonna tell stories but it's never gonna be the same as experiencing it with him.

Suddenly, I realise that the reason why I'm nervous of him coming back is because I'm scared. I'm scared of my feelings for him resurfacing. I'm scared that he might've changed and I'm still the same and our personalities wouldn't get along anymore. I'm scared of confronting him again and making contact with him after not doing so for three god damn years.

***

"Scott? Are you home?" I say out loud as I make my way in Scott's flat. He would usually be in his flat around this time so I decided to drop in and tell him about tomorrow plans and hang out a little.

"In the computer room!" He replied, a stressed tone in his voice.

"I just passed all my requirements for the school year and it feels great." I chipper as I walk up to him. I give him a quick kiss on the cheek, a smile forming on his lips.

"Well I've just got a little reflection essay to pass and I'm all yours, babe." He says, typing on to his keyboard.

"Well do you want help with that?" I offer seeing as I didn't have to do anything anyway.

He shakes his head, a smile still on his face. "I'm good. Why don't you start cooking the pasta and I'll be out to help you in a bit."

"Sounds good, just shout me when you need anything." I reply, giving him another kiss on the cheek before leaving the room and making my way to the kitchen.

I take out all the ingredients and start boiling the water. While waiting for the water to heat, I grab my phone and scroll through some emails, messages and social media. One email in particular caught my attention. It was from the film school I had signed up for a newsletter from months ago. I've always wanted to go but gave into my parent's wish to study business and economics instead. Since I was taking up the course they wanted, I had the choice of picking which school to go so the whole gang just decided to go to one university. Megan and Alex were taking up business and economics with me, Mikey took up architecture while Kayla stayed with the arts and design course. It was really lucky for us to still be stuck in the same school, although it helped that our parents were already loaded and knew each other pretty well now.

"I'm done with my essay." Scott says, hugging me from behind and planting a kiss on the top of my head.

I giggle a little as his lips went from my head to the nape of my neck, "Good, you can help me with the pasta then."

"Fuck, I should've told you do something else instead of making the pasta." He says, a look of dismay in his face.

"It's okay, I'm all yours after this is finished, babe." I wink as I use his own words against him.

He just grins and probably put a mental note to not say anything I could potentially use against him.

"Oh yeah," I say in the midst of the pasta preparation. "Do you still remember your old teammate Jonathan? He left after freshman year."

"The band guy? He left to go touring right?" He asks, making sure we were talking about the same guy although not a lot us dropped out last freshman year so I didnt think he would be referring to someone else.

"Yup. Well he's coming back tomorrow and we're all having dinner with his family and I'm extremely nervous." I confess. "I mean we haven't talked in three years you know? What if suddenly we don't click like we used to? A lot can change in three years and I just hope our friendship stays the same."

He gives me a deep kiss before cupping my cheeks with his hands and replying, "You have nothing to be worried about, okay? You're going to meet him for the first time in three years tomorrow, eat in a nice restaurant, wear nice clothes, talk about what's happened that you guys haven't told each other yet and have a good time."

I find comfort in his words. This is one of the reasons I loved Scott. He almost always knew what to say to make myself feel safe. There would be days where I'd just feel like shit from being so stressed out and he'd help me get through it all. He was always so positive and reassuring and literally all you needed from a guy.

Except, I didn't know why I was still looking for Jon.