Bridge To Terabithia 2: The Last Time - Part 2 || ✓

Chapter 15: Set-Up

     Jess woke up from the sound of knocking on the door. He rubbed his eyes and lifted himself up, looking to the side of Leslie's bed. Even she had woken up and was looking sleepily at the door and then to Jess. "I'll get it." He said with a small smile and let out a yawn as he went to the door.

Last night was awfully awkward between him and Leslie ever since his kiss with Amelia. On their way to heading back, Jess would find himself staring at Amelia and it was either Sally or Jake who would elbow him to snap him out of it before Leslie would notice. She was also quite... unfazed with the situation before, as if it didn't have any effect on her whatsoever. That bothered him a little bit but luckily, he managed to get through the night without confronting her about it as he knew that there would be unwanted tension between them if he did.

He opened the door with his eyes half open and he opened them wide when he saw the person standing in front of him. "Miss- Miss Edmunds!" He stammered and blinked a number of times before rubbing his eyes. "Am I dreaming...?" He mumbled to himself and looked shyly at the woman.

     "Jess, hi!" Miss Edmunds greeted and flashed her wondrous smile as she proceeded to give him a brief hug. She released him and exhaled. "You've grown so much taller since I last saw you," she noticed their height difference and chuckled lightly. "You're only a few inches taller than me."

Jess was lost for words. Shocked, surprised, amazed, flabbergasted - whatever the word was, he couldn't say anything and his mouth just hung slightly open with a confused expression. The feelings he had for the teacher slowly started to come back and a blush was creeping to his face when he realized that she had hugged him earlier. It was only when he heard Leslie's voice was he able to voice out some words.

"Oh, um.. um.. Miss Edmunds is uh here." He informed the blond nervously, himself somehow getting fidgety all of a sudden. He turned around and looked at Leslie who was beginning to get up. "Miss Edmunds is here." He repeated with a look of shock and his tone was also exaggerated.

     Leslie raised an eye brow at his statement and walked over to him. Her eyes went wide like Jess's when she saw her music teacher by the door. "Miss Edmunds! Wow, how are you?" She exclaimed and hugged the woman with a big smile. "You haven't aged a bit!" She said with a hearty laugh as she let go.

     "Oh, Leslie. I'm so happy to see you again." Miss Edmunds told her and smiled. Her student that had such wonderful imagination and personality had grown into a beautiful young lady. She looked at Jess who was oddly quiet. "Do you still draw, Jess?"

     "Trust me, Miss Edmunds. He has gotten a lot better. He's here because of an art scholarship." Leslie said and grinned as she knew that Jess couldn't say anything at the moment from the shock of seeing his first crush. "Please excuse him for his quietness," she leaned to her teacher and chuckled. "He had a crush on you back in 5th grade."

"Really?" Leslie nodded vigorously.

Jess watched in silence as the two chatted happily. It was quite awkward for him to see his old music teacher, after he had just kissed her niece last night. The vast resemblance between them was weird too. If he didn't know it, it would've seemed like he had kissed a younger Julia Edmunds.

Miss Edmunds explained the reason for her sudden visit to them. She was there to give a lesson to those majoring in Music and would be staying at the university for a week before flying back to Virginia to visit the Elementary and then returning to New York after. She stayed for a few more minutes of catching up with her past students before going off to visit her niece who was two floors above them.

Leslie waved goodbye to her teacher and then retreated back into the room, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. She glanced at Jess who was sitting down and staring at the floor.