Anti Cupids

Thirty Six

C H A P T E R  T H I R T Y  S I X

The next morning started out in a rather sluggish manner. I woke up, earlier than I usually woke up on Sundays because I had lots of schoolwork to catch up on.

I chose the dining table as my make-shift study place since Jace was sleeping upstairs (still) and the idiot was snoring on top of that! Mom had locked herself up in her own study. She was in one of her writer modes. I could imagine her crazily typing out her articles and reports with a look of sheer concentration. You did not disturb mom when she went into a writing frenzy. You just don't.

As for Dad, he was out in the garden area, talking with a couple of his friends who had come over. Overall, everything seemed quiet yet full of life. Peaceful. Normal. And it felt nice.

Ever since I'd started being friends with Julian, every day seemed like a roller-coaster ride. Take yesterday for example. I still couldn't shake the feeling that Valerie actually knew it was us. It was highly likely that she was being her usual phony self and faking the whole thing.

I mean, Julian and I, we hadn't become completely invisible with camouflage body paint and all that jazz. We had only dressed up a bit differently and messed up our hairstyles. That's all! That only makes you hard to recognize from afar. Not from closer look.

She talked to us. She looked at us, at me especially. The fact that she missed such obvious giveaways still felt too good to be true.

Anyway, moving on to more important matters... Study. I need to study. I need to work. Hard. Valerie and all these shitty break-up strategies aren't going to lead to anything substantial. But studying will. It will land me in a great college!

Focus, Jasmine. Focus. Forget about all the other useless stuff and focus!

I kept repeating the same lines in my head to shut my thoughts out. It turned out to be a good idea because I actually did something productive in the next two hours instead of brooding. Or worse, going back to sleep. Mom would've kicked my ass if she found me over-sleeping till past noon (that too, after showering and eating my breakfast) which I totally would've done if I hadn't exercised some self-control. 

At about eleven thirty, Jace finally made an appearance. I was taking a short break, sitting atop the kitchen counter and munching on an apple when he marched in, heading straight for the water jug on the table top.

The speed with which he gulped down the water made me apprehensive of the possibilty that he would severely choke himself and start coughing. Thankfully, he did not.

"Is there no breakfast left?" Jace asked, looking rather desperate.

"How come you're suddenly so hungry? You went in a kill-all mode yesterday whenever I mentioned food," I laughed, getting down from the counter to stand next to the shelves.

"I don't know! I'm not even properly hungry. I don't want to eat but my stomach is paining and it seems like the only solution would be to eat a bit of something," he explained, not laughing in return. He must really be uncomfortable then.

"Mom wasn't sure if you would feel like eating when you woke up, so she left it to me. I can make you a PB&J sandwich if you want," I offered, already looking through the shelves for the ingredients.