Don't Play With My Heart - A Jai Brooks Fan Fiction (Watty Awards 2014)

Chapter 24 (Epilogue): I Could Get Used To This

*One Year Later*

Tamara’s POV

As I finish downloading the study notes for the up and coming exams from my classes, I feel strong, familiar hands on my shoulders from behind.

“You all done?” Jai says.

“Yeah, just finished now. You good to head off?” I ask in return.

“Yep, let’s go,” he says as I stand up and he slips his hand into mine.

It’s been seven months since we were both accepted into the University of Melbourne. None of us expected what we had experienced this year at university. It had been mentally and physically draining but it had also been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The fact that I had the support of both Luke and Jai as well as Sami was just one of the positives from the whole thing. The university was absolutely stunning and it made it even more so that it offered such a broad variety of programs which subsequently allowed all of us to study here. (A/N I am not really sure what programs are available at this university but this ‘version’ fits into the story so please bear with me if you actually go to the university and know this totally wrong :P)

James was absolutely revelling in being in his final year of high school. He was totally in his element and he had never worked harder in his life. He was striving to get into a medical course at the University of Melbourne next year and he knew exactly what he had to do to get there. Daniel had decided that he needed a break from school for a while to figure out what he wanted to do outside the Janoskians. He and Beau planned an around the world gap year and were currently in Sweden doing goodness knows what. (A/N Whatever you’re imagining them doing right now is probably spot on :P) Because of this and because of all the boys school work last year, the tour has been postponed until Daniel and Beau get back from their big adventure. Even though their trip was supposed to be purely fun, management managed to convince them to check out different venues for the tour on behalf of the group while they were out exploring.

Sami had always wanted to study pre-law and of course she was good enough to make it into the best law course on campus. She even received high distinctions for three out of four of her classes last semester and was set to do even better for this one. I always knew she was an incredible scholar but until I saw her grades for myself I couldn’t believe how much she had excelled and found her calling at university. Luke, of course, had applied for a photography and media course which he successfully was accepted for. He had always thought that school wasn’t for him but he found that when he was learning about something that he actually wanted to learn about, he had the time of his life. I’d seen his work for the Janoskians and had experienced first-hand the dedication and commitment he put into everything that he did for the group, and doing pieces for university work was no different. I could see in his eyes that this was what he was meant to do.

Jai was also successful in being accepted into his visual art course. He’d found a course that was tailor made for him; one with little to no analytical work but very much with a focus on the actual drawing and sketching side of things. He absolutely loved it and I had never seen him work as hard as he did on his pieces for university, not even when he’d been studying for final exams last year in grade twelve. I was beyond proud of everything he had achieved, because he never really thought that he could do it. I never stopped believing in him.

As for me, well I didn’t get the grades I needed for the course I had set out for. But I had been able to be accepted into the course of my dreams, one that I had never thought that I could have gotten into in my wildest dreams. All the work from last year had paid off and I was able to get into Veterinary Science: the highest ranked course in the university. I know that the extreme lengths I had gone to last year to catch up on all the work that I had missed the previous term had had a massive influence on where I was right now as well as all he preparation I had done for the HSC. But I also had someone else to thank: Jai Brooks. Without him, I knew in my heart that I could not have done anything that I had accomplished over the last eighteen months. Without him, my life would have been an endless struggle but with his support and love, along with the other boys, I was able to make it through.