wrong number ; jack gilinsky

ten

jack's pov

after collecting a few textbooks that i left at my house, i walked across the street to dakota's and rang the doorbell.

"oh, hello jack" dakota's mom greeted.

"hi miss richards, is dakota back from school yet?" i asked, as she opened the door wide enough for me to enter.

"she is, she's upstairs in her room. you can go ahead" she informed.

"thanks" i took my backpack off my shoulder and carried it with me upstairs to dakota's room.

"come in" she called after i knocked on the door. "oh, jack. you're early".

she locked her phone and sat up on the bed.

"yeah, i know" i scratched the back of my head. "should i just come back later or?".

"no, stay. it's fine, we can just get started".

"great" i smiled and unzipped my backpack to start taking out my notes and textbook.

dakota started clearing her desk space, "so, what did you want to work on today?".

"i was thinking substitution, because we did that in class today and it went completely over my head" i spoke, trying to find the page in the textbook.

"sure" she chuckled and took out a few of her own notes too.

+

dakota's pov +

about an hour passed and jack finally got the hang of substitution, so we decided to go onto another few topics that he's been struggling with recently.

"the answer to number twelve is actually 25, not 35..." i explained as i marked the work that he just completed. "...then thirteen is the square root of 6 and fourteen is wrong too—".

jack huffed and threw his head back, "i'm sorry, i'm just really tired".

"oh. that's okay" i closed the text book. "we've been doing this for over an hour, let's take a break. do you want anything to eat or drink?".

"yes, please" he groaned with relief as we both stood up to go downstairs.

i switched on the light to the kitchen, where i immediately noticed a note on the counter. i quickly read through it.

"looks like it's just us now. my mom is at the store and i don't know nate's whereabouts".

"what about your dad?" jack sat down on one of the bar chairs. "i think i remember him back in middle school".

i opened the fridge to start finding some drinks and then the cupboard for snacks, "yeah, a lot has changed since then. he walked out on us freshman year".

"oh. i-i'm sorry".

"don't be, he was a deadbeat any ways. there was this one time, where we were short on money, so he decided to rob some—" i paused and shook my head. "sorry, i don't know why i'm telling you this. you probably don't care".

"no, i do" he eagerly said as i started pouring some orange juice into two glasses. "please".

i took a deep breathe, "well, he robbed some money, went to prison for a while then when he got out, it changed him - he'd stay out late then come back a week later, he'd deal drugs and he just suddenly forgot how to care about me and my mom".

"so, you don't miss him?" jack asked, sipping his drink.

i shrugged, "i miss the memories, that's all. you know, all the happy ones before things went bad".