The Makeover

Stolen Away

"Addison, would you like to retake this test another day? You are one of my best students and I don't want you to ruin your day because of a bad day," Miss Daniels tells me kindly.

"Thank you so much! Can I take it tommorow morning? I'm sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"It's okay. Be here at 7:30, and you'll have an hour to take the test," Miss Daniels advises me as she takes up my test, stashing it away for tommorow. Normally if this happened, I would've remembered the questions and taken the time to search them, but I was so distracted I don't remember a single thing! 

I close my eyes and put my headphones in, blocking everything out. I gradually began to fall asleep, thoughts of James swimming in my mind, when I heard the final bell ring, and I sprung out of my seat. I skipped dropping off my books at my locker and hurried to the bus station a block away. My friends wouldn't exactly be happy if I told them why I was going to the arcade and Noah would take it even worse. Looks like hitching a ride from them isn't an option, so this bus is my only way there.

As I stand at the stop, waiting, I hear a honk, interrupting my thoughts. I swear I jumped ten feet in the air and looking into the tinted windows, I can't see who it is. The window rolls down and of course, it is James.

"Get in, princess," he says and without hesitation, I hop in, closing the door behind me.

"I thought I was going to meet you there," I say, as I buckle myself into the car.

"Your welcome," is all he replies and he starts driving to the arcade.

"Your welcome?" I ask confused.

"Your welcome for saving you for riding the bus with a smelly old man with moldy cheese and a mean goat," he says.

"You must have not ridden the bus before. It's actually not bad at all," I tell him.

"I've had bad experiences, that's all. Hows Noah?" he asks and I sense his tone change to annoyance.

Really not wanting to talk about Noah with him, which is obviously a sore subject, I change the subject. "So why do you suddenly want to become friends again?"

"Why wouldn't I? Though you have bad taste in boys, except for me, and make horrible life decisions in the guy department, you're actually not half bad," James says, turning to face me as we arrive at a red light. Since he changed the subject back, his goal is to obviously make me feel guilty, which is not going to happen.

"Well, as friends again, we are surely off to a great start, don't you think?" I say sarcastically as the nearby arcade comes into view. James doesn't say anything and parks the car. I get out, but instead of walking to the enterance, I walk away from James.

"Addie, wrong way," he shouts to me, putting a hand on my shoulder, making me angry.

"No, right way. I knew it was a mistake, thinking that you were actually genuine when you said we should be friends again. You liar! You're just trying to make me feel guilty for choosing Noah instead of you. You know what? I won't feel guilty because I made the right choice, I picked a man instead of a boy and if you want to make me think that I made a mistake in picking Noah, you are totally not heading in that direction, let alone any direction in the friend zone. Would you just stop playing games for once and tell me what you really feel?" I ask him and notice his eyes changing emotions. First, there's worry, then anger, then sadness, then some undectable emotion, maybe admiration, but then he's already blocked.

"Fine, the truth is, I miss you, okay? I waited for you to come to me, but you didn't. You don't need me, you never did, so instead of you chasing me like I had hoped, no, you just carried on without a care in the world. Did you even value our friendship at all?" he asks me and I have a perfect way to deflect his "pity me" act.

"You needed to do some more apologizing, James. You're the one who screwed up. I understand you were upset, but you just shut me out, okay? Don't put this all on me! You were the one who needed to man up and talk to me first, which you did. Is that it? Friends again? Great! I have to go right a geography paper now, if you'll excuse me," I tell him, walking away.

"I'm sorry, okay? I just couldn't handle seeing you with him. I kept wishing I had done more to get you to like me, I was wondering what made him so much better," he says, truth shining through his eyes.

"You didn't do anything wrong! You were perfect, okay? And I really liked you, but just not enough. I'm sorry, too. I feel so bad for hurting you, James. That was never my intention, I just want you to know that," I apologize and he pulls me in for a hug.

"See? I actually do just want to be friends. How hard was that?" he asks me and I grumble some profanities at him as he smiles down at me.

"Let's go play some jump rope on that machine," I tell him.

"What about your geography paper? Oh wait, you lied about that, considering we had a test today and she didn't assign a paper," he catches me on my lie and I smile sheepishly.

We walk in and since we are not dating, we each pay for ourselves and I head over to the machine James and I had played on last time, where you jumped over the light beam. It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

We had started the machine and were at one hundred jumps, we were coming close to a two person record, I was sure of it.

"Oh shit," I mutter and pull James out of the area of the machine and behind a large Pac Man machine, ignoring the large amount of tickets shooting out of the jump rope machine.

"What?"

"Lily is here," I reply.