Do You See Me Now? ✔

Chapter 17 - The Mistake

Tuesday, October 23rd

     Jesse, for once, didn't feel moody in the morning. He had stayed the night at Yoni's place, where they had talked for hours on end about their crushes. It felt good to be able to talk about Calix freely for once.

He knew he could talk about it with Loek, but Jesse felt weird talking about his crush with a guy he had kissed repeatedly during a night out. Things were too complicated between them.

But with Yoni, it was different. She had no feelings towards Calix, but she understood exactly why Jesse was in love with him. Even she had to admit Calix was pretty damn close to perfect.

Besides, talking about Calix to her, made their conversation two-sided. She could tell him about Donna, and the things she liked about her, while he could do the same about Calix.

Their deal was perfect, really.

As long as nobody would find out, that is.

Calix had noticed Jesse was happier in the morning than he had been in a while, and he asked what happened.

And Jesse didn't lie when he told him he didn't really know. Nothing changed, everything was just the same as it had been the day before, the week before... Well, technically, last week he still lived at home, so that changed. But it wasn't a reason for Jesse to be happy.

Or was it?

Was he relaxing more each day he didn't see Felipe? Was it because he no longer felt ignored, or invisible even, like he had felt the week before?

Jesse didn't have an answer. He didn't know why he felt more relaxed than ever, while his wall of defence had started to crumble bit by bit. Maybe the secrets he kept had been weighing heavy on him, and now that he had two persons to talk to, he felt... liberated.

"Jesse!" Yoni called out his name while he was walking towards the lunchroom, accompanied by Calix and Simon. "Hey!" she greeted him when he stopped and turned to wait for her to catch up.

"Hey," he greeted her back, and for good measure, they kissed each other on the lip shortly.

"Let's go, Simon. I don't want to see them be all lovey-dovey right now," Calix sounded depressed while he was already dragging Simon away. Jesse didn't mind, he understood why. Maybe kissing Yoni on her lips had been a bit inconsiderate towards Calix.

If he wanted Calix to hang around him all the time, he shouldn't scare him away with his relationship with Yoni. For all Jesse knew, Calix could decide just as easily to hang out with Axel most of the day instead.

"Good, I wanted to talk to you in private," Yoni told him, trying to catch her breath. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the main hallway, into another that was empty of students.

"What's up?" Jesse asked, frowning because he was worried.

"Donna asked me out," Yoni breathed out with a smile on her face. "Look!" she showed him her phone, where a conversation between Donna and Yoni was visible. "She apologized for doing it over the phone, but this way nobody could overhear us talking."

"Oh, that's great!" Jesse replied happily. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know, she suggested going to another town or something, so that nobody could walk in on us," She replied happily. "I can't believe it, I'm so happy."

"I'm happy for you too, sweetie," Jesse told her before chuckling. "You seem excited, which is good. Besides, Donna took the first step, which shows that she's really interested in you too. No more doubting, okay?"