She's the Girl Next Door

Chapter Nine

Matt was kind of in shock, Jen cooper sitting with him and his friends. What would people say.
"Yeah of course" Aubrey replied

A few seconds later chaos erupted, Jen was still the most popular girl in school so people actually cared about what she did.

"Yo, Jen Cooper's a geek" some guy yelled

After that groups at different tables were yelling things, and talking about Jen. Jen looked like she was about to cry, Matt reckoned she was questioning running away from his group and going back to her old friends.

"Guys, let's go somewhere else" Liam suggested

The five of them walked out of the quad as quickly as they could. Liam led them to a grass area outside the science labs where there were only a few people.

"I'm so sorry for bringing all this attention to you" Jen apologised

Matt put his hand on her shoulder
"Don't apologise, you don't deserve any of this".
Matt and his friends spent the rest of the day trying to avoid everyone, which obviously didn't go well.

After school Jen came over to Matt's to finish the report, even though neither of them were feeling up to it. The two of them were sitting on Matt's bed reading through textbooks, after two hours of research they laid down next to each other.

"Sometimes I don't understand how we only became friends now, we could of had three extra years" Jen sighed

"It's because you're to good for me Jen Cooper, for some reason you started to forget that"

"I bet if I went out with guys like you instead of guys like Owen, I wouldn't be in this mess"

"Jen you could have any guy in our school, I have met very few guys who haven't had a crush on you"

"So are you one of those guys" Jen asked

" I'm the complete opposite, I have been head over heels for you since the moment I saw you for the first time" Matt confessed

"Oh Matt" Jen whispered

Her face started moving closer to his, the were interrupted by the door opening and Matt's dad entering the room. Jen and Matt quickly moved away from each other.

"Sorry Matt I didn't realise you had company"

"I should be going home" Jen said while rushing to the door

"So you and Jen Cooper, you're turning into your brother Matt"

Matt knew his dad thought it was a good thing he was becoming more like his brother, because that's who Matt was always compared to. At least he was at college now so it happened less.

"It wasn't like that Dad"

"I'm sure it wasn't son".

Matt avoided Jen the entire weekend, she had just got out of a relationship and she and Matt almost kissed. What was he going to say to her the next time they saw each other. Matt wanted to talk about it with someone so he called Ben.

"Hey Matt"

"I told Jen I have feelings for her and than we almost kissed" Matt blurted out

"Okay that's a lot of information to process, I mean that's great Matt"

"No it's not great Ben, I got caught up in the moment. I mean how am I supposed to see her on Monday, I can't handle the awkwardness"

"Matt just deal with you'll be fine, or if you don't want to deal with it just pretend it didn't happen"

"I'm going to go with the second option, thanks Ben" Matt said before he hung up the phone.

It was Sunday night and Matt got a text from Jen,
'I'm going down to John's holiday cabin for a week, so you'll have to take the bus to school. For our assignment we can just do our parts individually and combine our information when I get back.
See you next Monday xx'
Matt was relived, at least he had a week to prepare himself. Matt assumed that Jen was going away because she didn't want to face the people at school which was understandable.

The next week of school flew by for Matt, and he was dreading the confrontation. Monday morning he was waiting outside for Jen, his heart beating out of his chess, he practiced what he was going to say to her in his head over and over. Jen's car pulled up on his driveway and Matt was unsure what the outcome of the next few minutes were going to be.