The Connection (House Of Anubis)

[Chapter Seventy-One]

Amelia, Amber and Fabian headed back to Ms. Valentine's classroom to grab their books and bags that they had left behind. They walked in to see all of their stuff packed up and placed at the front of the room. "Are you okay Fabian," Ms. Valentine asked as they went to grab their stuff. "Yeah, uh sorry about that I just had a small breakdown." "But we are all perfect now," Amelia smiled as she wrapped her arm around Fabian.

They rushed out of the room before Ms. Valentine could ask them any more questions and ran around in search of Patricia and Alfie. "You guys check the lounge, I'm gonna go check by the vending machine; that's where Alfie usually goes after class," Amelia suggested. The other two agreed as they split apart. Amber and Fabian ran in the other direction, headed toward the lounge where Patricia was with Eddie. "Uh Patricia a word," "Like now," "Mhm," Fabian and Amber rushed out. "Later fish face," Patricia told Eddie as she followed the others out of the room.

Eddie smirked as he watched his girlfriend walk out of the room, "That's more like it." His eyes wandered over to Jerome who was sitting a few feet away from him, nodding off to his music as he closed up the book that he had been reading from. "So, um taking some time off from tailing Mara? Good for you," he chuckled as Jerome looked over at him, snapping out of his daze.

"Dude I never tailed Mara, we just often end up in the same place, that's all. At the same time, exactly," Jerome explained as he went back to reading his book. Eddie sat back, a massive smirk on his face, not believing a word that was coming out of Jerome's mouth. But then his talk with Amelia came back into his thoughts and the smirk was immediately replaced with a small frown.

"Eddie, how did you know you liked Patricia," Jerome asked him, breaking the silence. "I mean look at her," Eddie started causing Jerome to fake gag. "No seriously; how do you know if you like a girl as more than a friend?" "Are you asking because of Mara or because of someone else," he asked with a knowing smirk on his face. "Just in general," he said as he brushed off Eddie's comment.

"Well, I guess it all just depends on how you treat them in comparison to other girls you're friends with. Like can you imagine dating Amber?" "Ew no," Jerome shook his head. "Exactly; but there may be another girl that you can actually imagine yourself dating." Eddie paused for a moment, waiting for Jerome to say a name or make a face, but he was just staring back at him, waiting for more.

"You start to enjoy being around them in a way that's different from how you are with other friends. Like you might talk to one friend about school, but with her things take a much more personal route. Also, jealousy is a big key to knowing if you like someone as more than just a friend. Like with Patricia when I first came. When Nina showed the tiniest bit of attention toward me, Patricia started making up all this gross stuff about me to her to make me seem like I wasn't a good choice. And Fabian reacted the same way because he's obviously in love with Nina."

Jerome sat there and took in everything Eddie was saying. He tried to think back to every instance he had ever had with a girl to figure out who he had liked, and while he wanted to think about Mara, his mind kept wandering off to Amelia. He didn't understand why this was happening, until different instances started to connect with what Eddie was saying. Like how when she got that call earlier in the year from her American friend, and Jerome felt his first hint of jealousy when it came to her. Or how annoyed he felt when he found out about the date she had with Michael, and how relieved he felt when she brushed it off and said that he was just a friend.

He realized that every time he had a deep talk with someone it was with her. How the only times he felt secure with telling someone how he truly felt, or being able to be completely raw with them, it was her. He never realized how closed off he was when she was gone. He had never really talked to anyone like he had her. Did that mean anything? Jerome was beginning to realize that it did.