"have fun with paris last night?" jamie asked once chris sat down in the seat behind her. chris just rolled his eyes. 

"have fun with matt last night?" he retaliated, making jamie scoff. 

"yeah, i did actually." she finally turned around to face him and the two held eye contact. chris raised his eyebrows.

"so what, are you like dating him now?" he asked. jamie opened her mouth to respond before hesitating. this was as good a moment as ever to drop the bomb, but it would be more fun to wait a little bit.

"why do you care who i'm dating?" she asked, making chris go silent. she looked satisfied at his lack of response and turned back to her own desk, where her creative writing journal lay completely empty. 

"i only care because it's matt." she heard chris say, softly. jamie tried not to look back to him. she couldn't let him know that she was guilty. she couldn't feel guilty, could she? the whole point of this was to make chris feel guilty, not jamie. jamie ignored him and bit her lip before looking down at her empty notebook. 

they weren't learning anything. the first few weeks of school consist of students working on their own narrative. they can write about whatever they want. and they have a whole month to do it without any instruction. once october comes, they start learning ways to improve and by the end of the year, they're going to rewrite the same narrative but using all the tips and tricks they learned throughout the year. jamie had to admit, it was a clever way of teaching. but her only problem was that she had nothing to write about. 

"jamie?" mrs. hadley walked up to her. the teacher glanced down at the notebook and picked it up, flipping through th empty pages. she set down the notebook and looked at the girl, concerned. "i noticed you spend class either drawing or daydreaming rather than actually writing. i would assume you're working at home, but your journal is empty." jamie knew mrs. hadley was only trying to help, but she couldn't help but be annoyed at her teacher.

"i've been busy." she said. mrs. hadley raised her eyebrows. 

"i hope you remember this is an actual college level class, ms. stember. i won't take the 'i'm busy' excuse. if you have time for other classes, you have time for mine." and with that she walked away, leaving jamie to feel even more guilty for not trying in this class. chris noticed jamie struggling and remembered how she helped him in art the week before.

"try thinking of a memory." chris suggested. jamie's head shot up, surprised that chris was speaking to her. she turned around and looked at him.

"what kind of memory?"

"any one. could be a happy one, a sad one, one that was happy but thinking of it makes you sad..." he trailed off, thinking of the memory he used for his own piece. jamie bit her lip, trying to understand chris' point.

"thanks." she replied before turning around. she thought about a memory. one that could inspire her to write a good story. suddenly, a certain one entered her mind. one from about a year ago. 

flashback - eleven months ago

jamie sat on chris' bed, scrolling through her phone while chris was downstairs getting something. summer was just about to end and the two were about to start their junior year of high school. chris walks in suddenly, holding a target bag and holds a pot of orchids, her favorite flower.

"what's this?" jamie asked, confused. she was here for the past hour and there was no way chris had just ran to target in back in five minutes.

"jamie, do you remember how we met?" chris asked, sitting next to her. jamie thought for a moment. 

"it was first grade orientation. you were coloring in the disney coloring book and i wanted to color the lightning mcqueen that you were about to start."

"and?"

"and you refused to rip the lightning mcqueen out so i stole the coloring book, ripped out the page, and gave it back. you started to cry." jamie smiled at the memory. chris' cheeks turned pink.

"i don't think i cried, but whatever. what happened next?"

"um..." jamie closed her eyes and tried to think. after a moment she opened them and her eyes lit up. "oh! i felt bad so i put the page between us so we could color lightning mcqueen together. and matt felt left out so we ripped out the pinocchio page for him." chris laughed before opening the target bag. jamie gasped when she saw the disney coloring book in his hands. "is that..." 

"i wanted to let you color the lightning mcqueen yourself." chris said, opening the book to a bookmarked page. on one page was lightning mcqueen and on the other was tiana, jamie's favorite princess. chris pulled out a pack of colored pencils. "i'll color tiana and you can do mcqueen." he remembered the orchids next to him. "also, i did some digging and i found out that exactly ten years ago today was our first grade orientation."

"oh my god." jamie looked at chris. "this is so cute, chris." she leaned in for a kiss. "i love you so much." she said. while they had been dating for over three years, this was jamie's first time saying 'i love you.' chris smiled as he kissed her back.

"i love you, too."

flashback over.

it used to be a happy memory. but jamie got so emotional thinking about it, she had to excuse herself to the bathroom. she wondered if this is the one chris was talking about. jamie wiped her eyes before walking out of the bathroom. when she returned to class, she could feel chris looking at her, but she refused. she couldn't look at him. not without that memory coming back. 

taking a deep breath, jamie began to write. by the time class was over, she had written over a page and a half and she was proud of herself. that is, until she realized her classmates, including chris, had over two pages done already. leaving the class with a sigh, jamie met with isaiah and told him about what had happened as they walked to math class.

"wait, so he said that he only cares about who you're dating because it's matt?" isaiah asked. jamie nodded. 

"yeah. but i didn't know what to say, so i just ignored him." jamie went on to explain how he tried giving her a tip that ended up making her leave the classroom.

"why is he always making you cry in the bathroom?" isaiah rolled his eyes. "he needs a new strategy."

"shut up, zay. it's not his fault that was the memory i thought of. but it ended up helping because i got about halfway to where i'm supposed to be right now."

"is this a bad time to ask if you did the math homework?" isaiah tried. jamie gave him a look.

"since when do i do the math homework?" she asked. isaiah sighed.

"right. i forgot you're a bad student."

"hey!" jamie protested. "i'm not that bad."

"it's the second week of school and you already have two c's." isaiah pointed out, raising his eyebrows. jamie narrowed her eyes at him.

"it's not my fault my teachers decide to give out pop quizzes in the first week!" the two enter their math class and as always, jamie gets through the class on the verge of falling asleep and manages to take not even a word of notes. she just wants to get through this class so she could get to her gov & econ class and tell matt about this morning. 

"jamie." her attention snapped to mr. lopez, who looked at her, as if waiting for an answer. 

"yes?" jamie replied, almost half-asleep. mr. lopez let out a disappointed sigh before shaking his head. 

"pay attention next time, jamie. i asked you what sin of pi over four is." 

"oh." jamie looked down at her empty notes. "sin of pi over four is..." she pretended to look through her notes as she felt the whole class staring at her. 

"i think you dropped a paper there." mr. lopez pointed to her foot. jamie looked at her feet and picked up the piece of paper. it was isaiah's notes. she let out a sigh of relief as she quickly studied the unit circle.

"um, radical two over two." she proudly looked up at mr. lopez, who shook his head again.

"be more organized next time jamie. and don't sleep in my class." she groaned as some students let out chuckles. when mr. lopez turned around, jamie turned to isaiah and mouthed a 'thank you' before copying the notes down in her notebook and gave it back to him. isaiah gave her a thumbs up. 

after suffering through the last thirty minutes of math, jamie and isaiah started to head to their respective classes after parting ways. jamie met matt by ms. rome's classroom. 

"so..." matt greeted her. "how was first period with chris?" 

"don't get me started." jamie rolled her eyes before recounting the whole morning to matt, including the part where chris and paris were kissing, which she "forgot" to include when telling the story to isaiah earlier.

"so he actually thinks we're a thing?" matt asked her. jamie shrugged.

"he seemed to care a lot about if we were or not. i didn't give him a definite answer, though."

"that's good!" matt exclaimed. "it keeps him on edge." but jamie could tell matt was starting to feel bad about it himself.

"matt, we don't have to do this." jamie said. "chris is your brother. i don't want your own relationship with him to be ruined because of this. i can ask nate or tyson to do this."

"no." matt shook his head. "jamie, i'm doing this to help you. yeah, chris will be mad, but he'll realize what's going on soon enough. he knows me well enough to know i wouldn't actually do that to him. if we were planning to date for real, then i wouldn't do it. but it's all fake."

"yeah." jamie nodded. of course she wouldn't ask matt to date her for real. she didn't even like matt like that. but seeing chris and paris kiss earlier made her feel like she had to kiss someone else to make it even. to get him back.

"you okay?" matt asked, looking concerned. jamie nodded, pushing her thoughts out of her mind.

"yeah! just thinking about how taylor swift is releasing 1989 next month." matt squinted at her, as if trying to see right through her lie. jamie pursed her lips at him, eventually making him sigh.

"alright." he said, but his tone showed that he didn't fully believe her. ms. rome opened the classroom door just then and the two took their respective alphabetically ordered seats toward the back of the class. as they sat down, matt whispered behind her.

"just this class and then we start 'operation: get him back' during lunch."

maha speaks :)

HIIIII

just to let you guys know, when they say they want to 'get him back' they mean in the sense of getting even. HOWEVER this is a double entendre meaning that in the end, it will ultimately mean that the plan while making jamie even with chris, it'll also make chris come running back to her!!! so the operation is intending to get even, but the results will be literally getting him back.

also, while this is set in no specific year, 1989 tv will come out in october of whatever year this story is taking place in, so since they're in september rn, i'll have jamie relating to say don't go in just maybe like 3-4 chapters bc that is literally chris and jamie's song like "i would stay forever if you say 'don't go'" LIKE ARE U KIDDING????? all chris had to do was tell jamie not to leave and this wouldn't be happening likeeee why is chris an idiot