Always, Princess (a jackxpenn au fanfic)

Ch 9: The Cafe

-Jack-

For some reason, I didn't feel the need to back away from ditching school. I honestly didn't really care about school, like the actual place, anymore, and I never really did.

Plus, this would give me an opportunity to hang out with Jenn after school for once.

We got in her car and she started driving us to who knows where. That's another thing I would have done: asked her where the heck she's taking me.

The ride was quiet for a couple minutes. Then Fancy came on the radio and we both immediately started trying to sing, but failing. Or at least I failed.

"You have a nice voice," I told her. She immediately blushed up and looked embarassed, but managed to get out a quiet thank you.

We continued for a little while, talking about random stuff, until we parked at a cafe. I hadn't realized that we had gone into the city, so we were actually pretty far from school. The cafe was probably the brightest and smallest building amidst the dull and towering skyscrapers.

We got out of the car and entered the cafe to see that it was actually pretty big inside. There were plenty of people in it, but not too much that the cafe was busy.

Jenn went up to the counter and hugged the lady behind it. "Jenn, it's so nice to see you again! How have things been?"

So apparently Jenn is friends with this lady. She looked very professional and older, so I assumed that she owned the cafe.

"I've been good, what about you? The cafe looks like it's doing pretty well with business." She replied, and the lady nodded, which soon launched them into a conversation that lasted a couple of minutes.

Then the lady saw me behind Jenn and asked, "who is this? A boyfriend, maybe?" She asked politely whil smiling. Jenn looked at me and turned around again.

"This is Jack, he's a pretty good friend of mine. I'm still dating Jc." For some reason when she said that, I cringed inside. I just like Jenn as a good friend too.

The lady rolled her eyes. "Well, my name is Wilma, and it's nice to meet you Jack. I don't know why Jenn is still dating that troublesome boy when she could be dating you." She looked at Jenn and continued, "You've never brought this Jc boy here anyways, let alone anyone else."

She gave Jenn a bag of muffins and said with a more caring tone now, "good luck, Jenn. Make the choices you know are what you want."

We sat down and started munching on the muffins. They were really good, I wish I had been to this place before.

After awhile, Jenn spoke.

"This is where I come when things get difficult for me. I find it really relaxing here. I found it one day when I ran away from home during my bullying days in middle school. I ended up getting lost in the city, while it was raining, and I had nowhere to go. Wilma was just locking up the cafe when she saw me and invited me in for food and shelter. Afterwards, I obviously went back to my house, but Wilma and I have been friends ever since."

I nodded simpathetically, and said, "Jenn, I'm really sorry you had to go through all this. This bullying, this having to change your life stuff, it's just really awful, and I don't think you deserve it."

She laughed a little. "Well, changing my life was my choice, but I guess it was all I could really do to protect myself. I didn't want to make my family move just because I was being bullied at school."

I took her hand and squeezed it. "Well, you survived," I smiled at her, "some people...some people do worse you know? And we only have a year of this torture left. You'll survive Princess, I promise."

She had a genuine look of happiness on her face, but then it changed to a smirk. "Jack, if you really think about it, we're not that different. I almost did worse, contemplated possibly killing myself, and it's obvious that you did too, but the thing is, we found something that made us want to continue."

Wow did I really let on that I contemplated suicide once? Well, she did have experience with bullying, so I guess she could tell.

I felt awkward knowing that someone found out about my past thoughts, so I put the light on her. "What was your something? What made you happy enough to continue on?"

She thought for a couple seconds. "Well, my family has helped me through all this, so mainly for them. I also had gotten to national science competition around that time, and I didn't want to give that up, along with my secret "talents" of singing and art. I was obviously smart enough to come up woth a plan to change myself and I knew I could continue to become something better than I was. And, I know this sounds cheesy but, I knew, somewhere out there, there was someone who would love me for who I am. Not for who I pretend to be, but me. I hadn't found them at the time, and I'm not sure if I have found them now, but I knew that they were out there waiting for me, and I was waiting for them."

Wow. I almost gasped at how powerful her words were.

"It's not cheesy. That's actually a very pleasant theory. I guess I'd be lying if I didn't say I hope for the same eventually." Hopefully this would end this subject. She already knew too much about me for just being a recent friend, but then again I knew too much about her too.

"So, what about you? What inspired you to keep going on?" Yep, she asked me.

"Well, I, um...make Youtube videos." She was definitely going to think I was some weirdo now.

On the contrary, she looked fascinated. "Woah, really? That's awesome! I always wanted to make a channel, but I didn't know much about technology, let alone I was too shy to do it."

"Well I know you'd have an amazing channel." I said cheekily.

She blushed, and asked the question I feared for the most. "So, how many subscribers do you have?"

"....700,000." I said shyly. Her mouth dropped and all the sudden she looked at me like I was a celebrity. Weird, the most popular girl in school looking at trash like me like I'm a celebrity. Never saw that coming.

"How come nobody at school knows?! They would treat you way better!"

"On the contrary, Jenn, some people do know and they bully me more because I'm "stupid" and "talentless" and other stuff along those lines. So hopefully no one else finds out about them." I said sadly.

"Well, I think it's cool. I know I'll be checking out your channel when I get home.Shall we go?"

We got up and left the cafe, enjoying the rest of our ditch day.

Hey guys! Long time no see. I hope you guys like this long update, 1200+ words. Also thanks for almost 1k reads! I love you guys and thanks for enjoying this story. Also, maybe vote, share, and comment so I can chat with you guys! Thanks, hopefully I'll be able to update next week, I'm going on a trip out of the country so I won't be able to do much possibly. See ya soon!

Ps: I'm obviously just messing around with facts such as Jenn liking to sing and Jack having 700,000 subs when he has more. Just making it interesting I guess lol =]