Jump

Chapter 5

  ✖️ KAYLA ✖️

I walked back into the room after eating dinner and found Jaxon looking a bit distraught. Once we continued plotting everything on the map, he was acting really uncomfortable. I hope it wasn't me. 

'Hmm,' I thought to myself. 'I don't smell. Maybe it's my appearance. Let's see: I'm wearing a long sleeve wool gray sweater with my black Adidas sweats. My hair's up in a bun, I mean, I don't look too casual, do I?' 

So I decided to ask him about it. 

"Hey Jaxon, are you ok? You've been acting kinda strange ever since I came back.... is there a problem or something?" He looked me straight in the eye for a good 5 seconds before he replied. 

"Of course not. Why would anything be wrong?" He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself. I raised an eyebrow and he just smiled. Ugh. What was up with this boy and his stupid smile that showed off his stupid dimples that I maybe - just MAYBE - secretly loved. I shook myself out of it. Jaxon probably wasn't interested in me that way, with his golden hair and perfect smile and....

No, Kayla. Snap out of it.

"Hey," he said in a rush. "On second thought, my mom says she needs me back for dinner and soIshouldprobablygonowbecauseyeah." He started packing up his things. 

"Raincheck?" 

"Sure." With that, he sprinted out the door before I could even say goodbye. 

What was his problem?

--

I got out of the car and exhaled deeply. I was exhausted. Jaxon's odd behavior had kept me up all night. As a result, my driving sucked. I walked up to the courtyard and being me, stepped on my own shoelace. So I had to bend down and tie it again. 

As I was getting up, I noticed Jaxon leaning against the lockers, texting. I suddenly felt the need to know exactly why he had that outburst at  my house yesterday. So I walked over to him. 

We made eye contact just as the bell rang, and he immediately grabbed his bag and ran to class. He was avoiding me, I knew it. But if he thought that it would be that easy, he was wrong. And what he didn't know was that we had Creative Writing together first block. 

I walked into class and dumped my bag on the chair next to Jaxon's. He abruptly looked up and frowned. 

"Do you want me to move?" He asked. 

"Nope," I made sure to pop my 'p'. I removed my bag and sat down.

And just to my luck, today was a rare day in class where we got to work in partners. With the person beside us. So I slid my desk even closer to Jaxon's. 

"Okay," said Mr. Hennessy, "So today we have to do this stupid assignment from the idiot principal who believes that it will be beneficial to us. It will not. Let me tell you that from now. He wants us to help with a section of the yearbook. So go around the school and get quotes from staff and students." He waved us away. 

"About what?" Asked a girl in the 3rd row. She was a Junior, so I didn't know her. 

"I don't really care," he replied. "Just go away. I need to finish season 3 of Criminal Minds." 

Jaxon and I exchanged a look before getting up. I grabbed a pen and my notebook, and together we went out the door. 

--

We walked down the deserted hallways and I decided to confront him. 

"Jaxon, are you ok? Do you hate me or something? Because I thought everything was going well yesterday but since then you've been avoiding me."