Joanne through the years.

Reunited

The door handle turned and the door was pushed open slowly to reveal faces that I hadn't seen for over ten years.

"Dianne!" Zoe screamed and ran over to me, engulfing me in a massive hug. The others remained grouped around the door. They all appeared to be too shocked to move. Zoe wrapped her arms around me and kept them there. The room filled with a stony silence. Joe was no where to be seen. He was probably welcoming some of the guests. At long last, Byron spoke.

"Where have you been?" He asked slowly. His voice was deeper than I remembered. His hair shorter and a pair of large rectangular glasses now perched carelessly on his nose. I took a deep breath. This was going to be hard.

"Come on in. I'll tell you" my voice wobbled with nerves. They all came and gathered around me. They took a seat on the floor whilst I remained perched at the end of the bed which made me feel rather uncomfortable. Just then, Joe appeared in the doorway. Our eyes met and he gave me an encouraging smile before heading back off to greet more people. I wanted to ask him to stay but that wouldn't be fair on him. This was my mess that I had made. It was me who had to fix it and I had to do it alone.

I took a deep breath and began to speak. When I had finished there was silence then Jack spoke.

"You don't need to be sorry Dianne. We forgive you" he said quietly.

"But I mucked up so badly" I protested. "You don't have to forgive me but-" Josh cut me off.

"Of course we forgive you" he said. "You were one of our best friends. How could we not? I'm just glad that you came back and that you're safe. We had all feared the worst. We thought that you were dead!"

"I'm so sorry" a single tear trickled down my cheek and Zoe wiped it away. The boys stood up and gave me the biggest hug. I couldn't have asked for better friends. It was hard to believe that when I had first arrived in school, they had been so horrible to me. But yet we ended up becoming such good friends that after ten years of being apart, we could still get on as if nothing had happened and we could still forgive each other.

*

After around twenty minutes of just some quick catching up, we decided to head back into the party as it was Joes birthday and we had all kind of ditched him. He had poked his head in a few times just to check that everything was alright. As I entered the living room, the show was just about to begin. I sat down next to Zoe, our arms wrapped around each other. Joe sat as far away as possible from me. At first I thought it was because he didn't want to be near me before he turned around and winked at me and I realised that it was because nobody else knew his partner and he didn't want anyone guessing.

The show began and an air of excitement spread throughout the room. As the partners began being paired up, I got more and more nervous. What if my friends didn't like the fact that I was paired with Joe because of what I had done to him?

I told myself to stop worrying. What was done was done and there was nothing anybody could do to change it.

"The girl that will be keeping you in line when you're not online is..." Tess, the presenter began and my head shot up. This was it. "It's Dianne" Tess shouted from the screen. There was an absolute uproar in Joes living room. Everyone was cheering, Zoe was crying and Joe leaped over the legs of several people to get to me. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. My face burned where his lips had touched it. Before I could say anything, he had gone back over to where he was originally sitting.

"I'm so sorry for your loss" one of Joes friends Tom said loudly behind me, causing me to laugh.

After the show was over, the music was turned up, the cake was cut (which included Joe making a hilarious speech) and the dancing properly began. A party was always pretty crazy with professional dancers involved. Neil was upside down, pinning people against the wall and shaking his butt in their laughing faces. Giovanni was doing some sort of break dancing on the floor. AJ was dancing away, singing into his bottle of beer.

"Come dance with me" I called to Joe. He grinned and walked over.

"If I was sober then there is no way that I would do this" he smiled as I took his hands and pulled him onto the dancefloor.

*

Joe

I woke up on the sofa the next morning to a pounding headache. What had happened last night? The memories were slowly trickling away. It was like trying to hold water in your bare hands. The harder I held on, the more water that broke free. I remembered little parts. Dianne had made up with everyone and we were all friends again. We had danced together and I had kissed her on the cheek.

I didn't like her the way I used to. Well...part of me still liked her. I had never really stopped. But ever since seeing her again I was starting to wonder if they were just friendly feelings that I had mistaken for love as I was young and naïve. I didn't know anymore. I didn't really know her anymore. Sure, she hadn't changed in looks but in terms of the way I saw her...it was completely different. My feelings were all mucked up and mixed into a massive blob and I couldn't quite distinguish one feeling from the other. I was going to need time....and a lot of it.

"You alright bru?" Byron asked as he walked in yawning.

"Hm?" I turned in surprise.

"You look a little lost in thought. Is everything alright?" he came and sat down beside me, his eyes full of concern.

That was something that made Caspar and Byron so different to live with. If Caspar had seen me like this he would have tried to muck around or say something funny to make me laugh and forget about it. The only problem with that is that I always ended up thinking about it later again.

Byron always wanted to talk it out. To get it off my chest. I didn't know which one I preferred as I didn't like talking to people about my problems but I didn't like the constant thinking about them either.

"It's Dianne. Isnt it?" He said. I nodded quietly.

"Her coming back has done stuff to my head. Its mucked it all around. Its not just about what I feel for her because obviously I used to like her but its just...I cant explain it." I stood up quickly and walked to the kitchen. Byron followed me.

"I understand that this must be hard for you Joe" he began as I found my meds and took one. "But I think you just need to spend time with Dianne. Obviously that's going to happen but that's the only way to sort out what's happening inside your head."

"But Byron. Her being back. It's making my depression worse. I feel so depressed all the time. And I'm so confused. I don't know what to do. It makes me think about things. Things I don't want to think about. It makes me remember all the fun things we used to do and then Dad beating me and me being depressed. It makes me remember that day. The day we almost died. And then I think about the day she left and never came back or contacted me even though she promised that she would." the tears began to roll down my cheeks now.

Byron pulled me into a strong hug.

"Why am I so weak?" I asked him. He held me at arms length and looked deep into my teary eyes.

"You are not weak Joe. You're the strongest person I know. You have been through so much. You've been through things that people couldn't even dream of happening. And you've come out the other side of it. You are so strong and so brave. Your friends and family care about you so much. Don't ever forget that."