County Falls

Chapter 37: Always You

The front of Jason's house hadn't changed at all, not that it would. For some reason I was expecting it to be bigger or be a different color because so much had changed in five months that it was hard to believe that something stayed the same. His mothers Range Rover was in the driveway next to his truck, so the front door option was out. I thought about calling him first, but what would I say? "Sorry that I've ignored you all these months, by the way, I love you?" No, the phone was definitely out of the question.

I noticed movement from his window and a tree resting conveniently against the roof which sparked an idea.

"Maybe..." I said thinking to myself out loud. I crawled out of my car and scaled the tree. I had some mishaps at first, scraping my hands and bumping my knees. After about 100 curse words, I finally managed to scale up the tree. I didn't know how Jase did this so often. I was banged up and bruised but he made it look so easy. I peered in to the window when I made it to the roof. The lights were dimmed but a shadow was laying on the bed. I inhaled deeply and then tapped on the window. Hearing the noise, Jase shot straight up, ready to attack if he needed to. When his eyes adjusted and he saw it was me at his window his mouth parted and I saw him inhale deeply. He looked just as nervous as I was. He opened the window and without saying anything, helped me come inside.

"I never thought I'd see the day when Kaia Evans climbed through my window."

"First time for everything." I said, my voice shaky. My eyes scoured the room, looking anywhere that wasn't Jase. "Your room hasn't changed at all."

"I'm not in it much," I heard him say.

" I miss you." He whispered in to my ear. I did not notice that he moved behind me. His close presence made the hairs on my arm stand on end. I cleared my throat and stepped away from him. I needed a clear head if I wanted to say what I had to.

"Jase before we get in to all of that, I have a lot of questions that need answering and in order to do that, you need to stand at least 6 feet away from me". He looked disappointed at first but then agreed. "Also, I'm going to need you to put on a shirt." It didn't even register in my mind that he was shirtless until my mind cleared. He laughed a little and picked out a shirt from his dresser.

"Better?"

"Much."

"So what did you want to ask me?"

I shook my head. I had forgotten my reason for being there. I twitched nervously and in a panicked state, asked the first question to pop in my head. "Where have you been eating lunch?"

Jase stared at me blankly but after processing the question, he started laughing. The question was absurd and I lightly laughed with him but in all honesty, I did want to know the answer.

"That's what you ask first? You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me. Dana said you stopped eating with them."

He mindlessly ruffled his hand through his hair which was longer now. "I started eating lunch in my car."

"You what?" How ironic. We both used our cars to hide from the world.

"I was sick of the same conversations and I was tired of watching Vanessa and Lauren act like they were better than everyone. I hid in my car to get away and I actually studied in there. You would be proud to know that I passed all my finals. I tried hiding out in the library for a bit, hoping I would run in to you but you never showed."

"I was usually in Seth's classroom." I clarified.

"I figured."

"What about Taylor?"