Kismet

Chapter Three :: Latch

A/N: I know, I know. Long time coming. Senior year + part-time nursing school + part-time job = NO TIME WHATSOEVER FOR ANYTHING.

I'm trying, though. I promise.

Hope you enjoy!

Class has already started by the time Jared walks in, without a pass and looking beyond exhausted. He half-heartedly apologizes to the teacher, admitting that he slept in this morning, and assures him that it won't happen again. When he's excused, he walks over towards our corner of the room.

Ray nudges me when Jared gives me a small smile. "Are you gonna say something?" She asks, knowing that I'm upset that Jared never showed up to the party last night.

I look him over, sending him an even smaller smile back as he comes closer. "Yeah," I murmur, not looking at Ray, keeping my eyes on him. I don't really know that I should, though.

He looks like he's had a rough night. Maybe he has a good reason for not showing up. Maybe he's planning on apologizing for it.

"Hey, Kimi," he greets me, plopping down ungracefully into his seat. He rubs at his tired eyes, trying to wake himself up.

"Hi. How was your night?" I ask innocently, not wanting to reveal just yet that I'm upset.

He lets out a deep exhale. A frown pulls the corners of his lips down. "Okay," he says in a way that assures me it was everything but.

My lips mirror his. "Do you wanna talk about it?" I'm hopeful. Not only because I want him to tell me something that dispels the feeling of rejection that has sat in my stomach since the party last night, but also because I want to help him in some way. I'm not used to seeing him look so . . . Depressed, and worried. He's always so happy – it's part of the reason that I've liked him so much.

I want him to stay that way.

He deserves to be happy.

But he says "nah," waving his hand in the air. "I'd rather hear how your night was. Do anything fun?"

Seriously? He would bring it up? Maybe he really did just forget . . . "You missed out on a great party." My smile is genuine, because even though I'm sad he didn't show up, I still had a good time hanging out with my friends.

At first, he's confused. "What par –" then it dawns on him "- oh shit!" He whisper yells, glancing at the teacher to make sure our conversation has gone unnoticed. "I completely forgot. And I asked you to save me a dance!" He drops his head into his hands for a minute, takes a deep breath, and then his eyes flicker back to me. "I'm so sorry, Kimi. I swear I didn't mean it."

Now I wave my hand in the air, dismissing his apology and making an ugly 'it's totally okay' face at him. Complete with a double chin. "Don't worry about it. You're not the first person to forget about me," I tease him.

Evidently Jared doesn't realize I'm just kidding, because he turns his body in his seat so that every part of him is facing me, and reaches out to put his hand over mine on the desk. "No, I didn't forget about you, Kimi – please don't ever think that." His eyes are as sober as I've ever seen them, the dark amber irises warm and true.

I swallow, trying to clear my head of cliché thoughts. "Uhm," I clear my throat, but his hand never leaves mine. "Seriously, don't worry about it." I need to stop being so weird. I'm finally able to smile again, and I say, "I just gave your dance to Tag."

And then he's frowning again.

"Do you two need to be excused?" The teacher snaps, grabbing my attention as Jared pulls his arm back and turns to face the front in his seat.

I give him a guilty smile as a response, properly chastised for talking during his class.

"I'm sorry, sir," Jared murmurs, and I wonder if he remembers the teachers name, "that was actually my fault. I'll stop bothering her."

"You're both at fault for speaking during my class and ignoring your first academic lesson. And because of that, you'll both be joining me for detention after class today."

Ray tries to stifle her laugh.

"You can join your friend, Giggles."

I smirk as Ray lets out a loud groan.

That's what bitches get.

"No," Ray says through a mouthful of food, "it actually was very cute. He's all like, 'I'd never forget you, baby,' and then –"

I cut her off, "That is definitely not what he said."

"Is, too!" She sticks her tongue out, which is totally disgusting because there's still food all over it. "Kane! Back me up, here." Kane gives her an odd look from his seat across the table, clearly not wanting to be a part of it. She doesn't settle for that. "Just tell everyone that I'm right."

"I would," he says. "But I don't eavesdrop on peoples conversations, so I don't actually know what he said."

I give her a smug grin.

She glares at him. "Who asked you anyway?"

Pipa giggles, leaning her head against Kane's shoulder. "So what happened after that?"

"Well," Ray starts.

"I was actually asking Kim," Pipa states, rolling her eyes at our over-eager friend, who just so happens to be prone to exceptional exaggeration. "So, Kim? What happened?"

I shrug. "Nothing really. He basically just told me that he forgot about the party."

"And you're okay with that?" Pipa asks, eyebrows so high that they half-disappear behind her side bangs. Kane mumbles something under his breath then, probably something along the lines of 'you wouldn't be,' earning himself a slap on the arm.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I answer her with a question.

Maia coughs, drawing my attention. "Incoming."

I turn to see Tag approaching the table, lunch tray in hand. "Hey! Mind if I sit with you guys?" He asks gesturing towards the space between Maia and I.

"Not at all," I answer, and Maia and I separate to make some room for him between us.

"That party, though," Ray smirks, starting a conversation that doesn't involve Jared, and one that we can all participate in.

"Thank the ancestors for Naira," Maia jokes.

Tag laughs. "Nobody can say that girl doesn't know how to throw a party. I'm pretty sure everyone was there."

Not everyone. I prevent myself from frowning, and instead say, "I can't believe she got a DJ."

We continue to talk about last night, and I'm actually pulling out of my half-bitter mood when I notice Jared walk into the cafeteria. There's only about fifteen minutes of lunch left, so I'm glad to see that he has a brown bag in his hand. If he'd only just gotten in the lunch line, he'd barely have enough time to finish eating.

The lunch ladies move so slow it should be a crime.

I'm about to remark on Kane's dancing skills – or the lack thereof – when I realize that Jared is walking towards my table. And his eyes are focused on me.

I don't say anything until he makes it to the table.

"Kimi," is his greeting. Silence breaks out over the table. Jared's eyes flicker over to Tag for a moment before they shoot back to me. "I was wondering if you'd wanna sit with me today?"

Pipa clears her throat obnoxiously.

"Well," I swallow, "I told Tag I'd sit with him today." I don't really know why I say that. I want nothing more than to be with Jared. But he forgot about me, and I know how that felt. And I know that Tag has a thing for me, and don't want him to feel like I'm blowing him off.

"I'm sure Tag won't mind," is all he says before nodding towards a table in the back and waiting for me to join him there.

This is really awkward. I'm not sure if I'm okay with the way he just acted in front of my friends, but I don't know if I should say something because he looks just as upset now as he had earlier this morning.

Jared isn't typically rude, and I would hope that there's a good reason for it.

"What's going on, Jared?" I ask quietly, softly, interrupting him from glaring at his lunch bag on the table. I want to understand him. I want to help him.

He grabs the back of his neck with his left hand and squeezes. It cracks.

He is crazy tense.

"Are you in pain?"

"I'm okay, Kimi," he murmurs, leaning back in his seat to look over me. "I just had a rough night is all. Everything is okay, though."

"What happened?" I try.

It seems like he contemplates for a minute whether or not he should tell me. Ultimately, he decides he should. "My friend and his girlfriend went for a hike in the woods yesterday, around the same time school let out."

A lot of kids go for hikes in the woods surrounding the reservation. "Okay, and . . ." I urge him to continue.

He sighs. "And they went off the trails – ran into a bear."

I gasp. "Oh no. They weren't . . ." I trail off, not wanting to say the words.

"They're alive," he assures me. "Sam didn't get hurt at all – it was his girlfriend that . . . She's been in Forks hospital since it happened, and probably won't be out for a while. Her face is . . ." He drags his fingers down the right side of his face, I assume imitating a bear paw, showing me what damage was done to the girl. "She's lucky she didn't lose an eye. Her mouth is real messed up, though. All the muscles on the right side of her face were pretty much destroyed. She can blink but that's about it."

"I'm so sorry, Jared." I don't know what else to say.

"Docs say she'll be okay, and it won't look as bad once the stitches come out. But it's gonna leave a nasty scar."

"I can't even imagine." And I really can't. "And Sam?" He really wasn't hurt at all? And how does he feel about what happened to his girlfriend?

"Feels horrible, of course. But we don't have to get into that – but that's really the reason why I didn't show up last night. With everything that happened . . . the party just slipped from my mind."

I dismiss that, "I totally understand, Jared. Seriously – don't worry about it at all."

"I would have called, or probably texted you to let you know, but I don't have your number." His frown tells me that this fact displeases him.

I reach into my backpack and rip a piece of paper out of one of my notebooks, and grab a pen. "Here," I say, writing down my number and then sliding it across the table to him.

He instantly pulls out his phone and programs it in. "Smile," he instructs, and takes a picture of me to set in my contact. "I'll send you a text now so that you have my number, too," he tells me. "And Kimi?"

I look at him expectantly.

"Use it whenever you want."

My phone dings just as the school bell does, ending our time together with the promise of speaking again soon.

"I hate him," Ray announces, talking about our gym teacher as he blows his whistle for us to do our warm up lap.

Knowing his ways from last year, we both know that the only reason he's allowing us to walk this warm up lap is because he plans to make us run the next eight. Mr. Rhai doesn't do 'the' mile. He does 'the' miles. As in two.

And he times us.

And if you don't make it in twenty minutes, he makes you run another lap.

And there is nothing that Ray Thail hates more than running.

"And if he makes me run the extra lap I'm gonna –"

"You're gonna what?" I cut her off, rolling my eyes. Ray is all talk. All of her threats are empty.

She sends a glare my way. "I'm gonna hate him even more. And you, too, because you never wait for me."

"Listen," I say, "unlike you, I have no personal issue with running." I don't dare tell her that I enjoy physical activity. She might actually shoot me. Or at least, like, kick me in the shin or something. "But I like to get it done as quickly as possible. And that way I don't have to run another lap. If you would just run more than one lap, you'd make it in time and not have to do the extra lap every time."

"I don't want to talk to you," she says as we approach the end of our lap.

"Two miles today!" Mr. Rhai yells as loudly as he can so that every student knows. "Once you pass this yellow line, I wanna see each and every one of you running. And that includes you, Ms. Thail."

She hisses at him under her breath, but I can't actually hear what she says. And just as we reach the yellow line she snaps, "bye," to me, and I take off.

Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, my long strides quickly take me past most of the other students, and in about six and a half minutes I'm finished my first mile. Adrenaline is racing through my veins, allowing me to keep up with the fastest kids in the class.

One of which being Jared.

When he notices me behind him, he falls back, leaving Paul to pick up his pace and speed past everyone else to finish his fifth lap in record time.

"You're pretty quick on your feet, Kimi," Jared comments, not too subtly trailing his eye from my feet to my face, and not sounding even slightly winded. "You think you're up to a little bit of a challenge?" He asks with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Like what?" I ask, very winded.

"Maybe . . . A race?"

Just then we pass Ray then, who is walking, of course, and she screams, "You're a bitch!"

Jared's eyes go wide at the insult and I quickly assure him, "That was aimed at me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't walk with her."

He shrugs that off and says, "Well what do you say? You up for it?"

To answer his question, I push my legs as hard as I can and race past him.

I hear him laughing from behind me. The next two laps go easy and I'm still a little bit in front of him. But just as I'm reaching the line on our final lap, he blows past me.

And I lose.

Once I pass the line I get off the track, grasp my knees and try to catch my breath. "You cheated!" I complain once I'm able to speak.

"No way! That was totally fair!" Jared argues playfully.

"You made me think I was going to win so I didn't try as hard!"

He bellows out a laugh. "That's not my fault! I should have warned you before – you can't beat me, babe. I'm just too fast."

Internally thrilling at the pet name, I say, "I call a rematch."

He smirks. "Alright. I'm up for beating you again."

"Tonight then, Mr. Arrogant." I use a challenging voice to try and hide the fact that I'm more or less asking him to come over my house and hang out after school. "The street that my house is on is long and mostly carless. It's the perfect spot."

He's smiling and smirking until he's not.

And then I know he's caught on to me.

"I can't."

Completely put out, I breathe, "Oh."

"No, no, no, Kim," he steps towards me, reaching down as if to hold my hand and then decides against it. "I don't mean it like that. I have to go to the hospital after school today."

Well I feel like an insensitive asshole now. "I'm sorry, that was so – I can't believe I just did that. Of course you have to go to the hospital." I rub at my face, sweaty and ashamed.

"Don't feel bad. If it weren't for that – believe me I would. Maybe I could get a rain check?"

"Yeah," I murmur, still feeling pretty horrible, "of course."

Ray, Pipa and Maia show up, completely uninvited, around four o'clock that night, dressed in their swim suits and holding too many bags of junk food in their hands.

"The water is freezing," Pipa complains, wrapping her arms around her chest and gripping her shoulders in a warmth inducing self-hug.

"Well," Maia draws sarcastically, "it only rained all day."

"I think that we should talk about Jared." That's Ray's brilliant and totally predictable idea.

"Of course you do," I mutter.

Maia frowns. "It's completely unfair that all the exciting stuff happens when you and Kim are alone."

"I thought it was pretty exciting when you shoved Pipa face-first into the bush outside the Clearwater's store last winter," I snicker, and even Pipa laughs.

"I also found it quite hilarious when you two charged at each other from opposite sides of my basement and ended up flying back onto your asses," Ray adds.

"Let me rephrase," Maia rolls her eyes, "all the exciting Jared stuff happens when you two are alone."

Now I'm grimacing. "Can we not do this again?" I groan. "All we do these days is talk about Jared and Kane, on the off chance that he's not around. I miss the days when we didn't only talk about boys."

There's an awkward silence that follow my rant.

As per usual, Ray breaks it. "I'm pretty sure Mom is cheating on Dad."

Pipa, Maia and I all have the same exact reaction. "What?"

"Yeah," she sighs. "She hasn't been coming home 'till like, three in the morning every day. I always wake up when she pulls in 'cause the headlights flash in my room."

"I'm so sorry, Ray," Maia murmurs.

"That really sucks," Pipa remarks.

"How do you know that she's seeing someone, though?" I ask, always hoping that there's a better answer. Just because she comes home late doesn't mean she's sleeping with someone else.

"Whenever her phone rings now, she jumps to grab it so that nobody else does. And a lot of times she'll take the call into another room or outside so that nobody can hear her."

That's definitely suspicious.

"I think Dad is starting to catch onto it, too, and is thinking the same thing."

We all fall silent then, none of us really knowing what to say.

I can't imagine my parents not being together. As much as my dad gets on my nerves sometimes . . . He and my mom are a team, and a good one, too. They belong with one another.

And I'll bet Ray had felt the same way about her parents before all of this went down.

The girls leave after eating with my family, and I'm ready for bed by ten o'clock, just like I always am. And, just like always, I start thinking about Jared.

Tonight is different, though, because instead of turning to my diary, I turn to my phone.

I have his phone number know. I don't have to write what I wish I could say to him, or what I'm wondering in that moment. I can go straight to the source.

Flipping my outdated phone open, I scroll towards Jared's new contact in my phone, and quickly type out a message: hey. hope your friend is doing okay.

At some point while I'm waiting for Jared to text me back, I end up falling asleep.

Ding ding!

I rub my eyes, blinking them open at the sudden noise. Squinting at the clock across the room I see that it's not time for me to get up for school yet, so it's not my alarm.

The sound comes again and it dawns on me that it's my phone that made the noise and the small screen is flashing, 2 new messages.

I practically fall out of bed, scrambling to get to my phone that'd fallen on the floor at some point during the night. Flipping it open with my thumb, I read the messages in the order that I'd received them.

They're from Jared.

she's getting better.

have sweet dreams Kimi.

Butterflies flutter in my stomach, and I have to put serious effort into keeping myself from squealing like some pathetic loser.

But I'm past caring, so I instead keep my focus on being quiet while I do.

I climb back on the bed, phone in hand, ready to fall asleep when my phone dings again.

It's from Jared.

of me.

It takes me a minute to connect the texts, to understand the meaning, but when I do?

I'm squealing again.

. . . lift my heart up when the rest of me is down . . .

. . . you, you enchant me even when you're not around . . .

. . . if there are boundaries, I will try to knock them down . . .

A/N: As always, I hope to hear your thoughts!

~ Madison ~