September 7th, 2008

I needed to start inviting my friends over more. I probably needed to start making more friends, too. It seemed like my parents had a lot more friends than I did, and for some reason that just didn’t seem right.

They had friends from high school, friends from college, friends from work, and just pretty  much any other place you could think of. Yeah, they were so much older than I was, but I didn’t go out or see my friends nearly as much as they did. I really needed to fix that.

Mostly because I was tired of Austin babysitting me, even though I was fifteen-years-old. They wouldn’t even let me stay home alone, even though Austin was seventeen, two years older than me.

“Who’d you invite over for dinner, Mom?” I asked my mother as I placed the salad bowl on the dining room table.

“I invited Audrey Jacobsen, who works in the same office as me, and her two children, along with your grandmother,” my mother answered, not even looking up at me as she put the finishing touches on the cake for desert.

I stared, completely wide-eyed at my mother. “Audrey… Jacobsen?”

Austin didn’t look very happy either. “Yeah, I had the same thought that you did.”

My head started to pound, and I thought I was going to faint. Was this Audrey Jacobsen woman Jesse’s mother? They both had the same last name… But that didn’t necessarily mean that they were related at all…

My parents didn’t know about Jesse. At all. They had no idea that he had been ruining my life for almost an entire year. I didn’t know how they would react if they found out about everything that had happened… It wasn’t like they overreacted a lot, but it would have been weird to tell my parents about my enemy who had been ruining my life…

“You’re not the only one who isn’t looking forward to this,” Austin sighed once we were both kicked out of the kitchen. “I don’t think you know this, since I never told you, but I used to date Jesse’s older sister.”

I made a face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t even know they were siblings until I saw them together at Dallas’s graduation ceremony,” Austin shrugged, as if it was no big deal at all. First he didn’t tell me about dating Jesse’s sister, and then he didn’t even tell me about dating Emily! I seriously didn’t think that that boy ever told me anything, even when he knew pretty much everything about me!

But wait… Jesse was at the graduation ceremony? I hadn’t even seen him!

Had the person that had booed been Jesse?

No… it couldn’t have been…

When I heard the doorbell rang, my heart nearly stopped. He was already here! How could I possibly get out of this without my parents finding out why?

When Austin opened the door, I could hear him call out, “Hey, Grandma!”

I let out a sigh a relief. It was only my grandmother, not the most obnoxious person on the planet… But he still hadn’t arrived yet.

“Hi, Grandma,” I greeted my grandmother with a hug once she had entered the living room. “How have you been?”

This was normal conversation with my grandmother, no matter when or where I saw her. If I saw her three days in a row, every day I would ask her how she was. I didn’t know why I did it. I just did.

“I’m great, Jordan! As usual,” my grandmother smiled once she pulled away. “How about you?”

“Fine,” I nodded, even though it was a lie.

When the doorbell rang again, my stomach dropped. There was no way this could have been someone else. This was definitely Jesse and his family.

“I guess I’ll get it,” I heard Austin mutter, but I was sure my grandmother was too old to be able to hear him. I held my breath while my brother opened the door, not letting it out when he greeted with, “Hello. Come on in.”

I felt like I was going to faint. Jesse had been to my house before, so I was sure that he knew I would be there. So he probably already thought of a way to prank me… And that only meant that I was going to have to think of an even better prank.

Just as I thought, the first person I saw was Jesse, who smirked at me like he always did. The next person who I saw was his sister, their mother walking in with Austin right behind them.

When their mother’s eyes landed on me, I could have sworn they sparkled. Nearly pushing her son out of the way, Mrs. Jacobsen made her way toward me as quickly as she could.

“Hello, Jordan!” Jesse’s mother smiled, leaning forward and hugging me tightly, much to my surprise. “It’s so great to meet you!”

I blinked at her once she pulled away, not expecting this. “Uh… you, too.”

Camilla giggled, nudging her younger brother in the side, who shoved her away from him. I only glanced at Austin, who looked like he didn’t want to be there any longer. That definitely made two of us.

“It’s really nice to finally meet you, Jordan!” Camilla now said, stepping away from her brother and holding out a hand for me to shake. “Jesse talks about you all the time! Even in his sleep! It’s so cute!”

I thought I heard her brother choke as I asked, “He does? Really? Why?”

“They ask me why I’m in such a bad mood all the time, and you’re the answer,” Jesse informed me quickly, cutting his sister off and pushing her out of the way before she could say anything. “Duh. It couldn’t be any other reason, stupid.”

I scowled at him. “I’m not stupid, idiot!”

“And I’m not an idiot, moron.”

“Well, I’m not a moron, jackass!”

“Well, I’m not a--”

“Okay,” both Austin and Camilla snapped at us, causing them to only glance at each other. How had I never known about their relationship at all? Well, I didn’t go to the same school as them… That was probably the reason why.

And I was so fixated on Dallas in the past…

When my cell phone rang, I quickly dug my hand into my pocket and picked up without even looking at the caller ID.

“Jordan!” the familiar voice of Aimee rung out from the other line. “Can you talk now?”

This was a way to escape and get away from everyone! I quickly nodded, but then remembered that she couldn’t see me. I swallowed before saying, “Of course I can talk!”

I quickly started up the stairs, slamming the door of my room behind me once I had gotten inside.

“Thank you so much for calling me,” I thanked almost desperately, kind of out of breath from nearly running up the stairs. “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t save me.”

“What’s going on?” Aimee asked, and I could just tell her eyebrows were furrowed by the tone of her voice. “Is something wrong, Jordan?”

“Kind of,” I sighed, plopping down on my bed and covering my eyes with the back of my hand. “It’s just… Jesse’s at my house right now, with his mom and his sister. My parents invited them over because they work with his mom.”

“Jesse’s at your house?” Aimee nearly screeched into the receiver, and I felt like rolling my eyes at her. I could have, and she never would have known. “Oh, my God. He really is? Can I come over?”

“No,” I sighed, not in the mood to deal with any of my four best friends right then. “All you’re going to do is kiss him again when you see him, and I don’t really want to have to see all of that again.”

“Well, duh!” Aimee giggled, and I couldn’t help but make a face. “He’s hot, Jordan. You can’t deny that. No matter how annoying he is, that doesn’t do anything to how hot his face is. And his body. I bet he works out a lot. I wonder how. You can’t tell me you haven’t checked him out at least once.”

I couldn’t really remember if I ever had. Maybe to look at what he had been wearing that day or something like that, but not because I was attracted to him or anything.

“You can’t deny that he’s hot,” Aimee repeated when I didn’t say anything.

“Yes, I can,” I snapped, crossing my free arm over my stomach and cupping my elbow. “He’s not ugly, but I don’t find him attractive. The way he acts ruins everything about him for me. You can have him for all I care.”

“Yummy.”

“Disgusting.”

“Are you talking about me, Emery?” a new voice now said from above, almost causing me to roll right off my bed. My eyes wide, I looked up to see Jesse smirking down at me. What the hell was he doing in here?

“What the hell are you doing in here?” I asked, voicing my thoughts before I could scream instead. I then remembered who I was on the phone with, and how she was very much attracted to the boy I was speaking to. I quickly pulled my phone away from my ear. “I’ve got to go, Aimee!”

I hung up before she could protest, knowing she would have told me not to hang up. She probably would have wanted to talk to him… But I wasn’t going to allow that. If she was going to swoon after him like she was now, I didn’t want her to ever come into contact with Jesse Jacobsen ever again.

“Aimee, huh?” Jesse asked, shoving his hands into his pockets as he continued to smirk at me. “That hot redhead that kissed me? Aw, why couldn’t you let me talk to her?”

So he wanted to talk to her too, did he? Or was he just messing around? I honestly couldn’t even tell anymore.

But for some reason, the way he was speaking annoyed me greatly. I didn’t want him liking my friends. I wanted him to hate them, just as much as he hated me.

I kind of wondered if that was even possible…

When Jesse’s phone rang, I was the only one out of the two of us that jumped. He rolled his eyes at me, pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking the caller ID. I couldn’t read the expression on his face as he answered it.

“Hey,” he greeted, glancing at me only for a second before turning away toward my dresser. “Nah, I can’t make it tonight. Why? I’m busy. Doing what? Family stuff. I can probably do it tomorrow. No, I’m not flaking out on you. Yeah, I know this is the first time I’ve ever not been able to make it. No, I’m not with that girl! Hun--”

He was then cut off, and all I could do was sit there and stare at him. Hun? Did he mean that like the shortening of the nickname honey? Like… the nickname you would call your girlfriend? So… did that mean that Jesse had a girlfriend? It sounded like he was talking to some kind of jealous girl or something…

Not that this bothered me at all. Of course it didn’t. It was just pissing me off that he was stringing Aimee along when he probably already had someone he could call his girlfriend. He probably had several girls he could call his girlfriend…

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” Jesse finally said when I zoned back in to listen to him. “Yeah. Okay. See you later.”

He hung up on whoever he was talking to then, and I sat there with a questioning look on my face. He wasn’t looking at me, but our eyes locked in my mirror on my dresser as I continued to sit on my bed. The look he was giving me was unreadable, and all I did was wait for him to speak.

Was he going to talk, or was I going to have to force him to?

“A friend of mine,” he answered my unasked question, looking away from me in the mirror and down at my drawers. “He doesn’t really take no for an answer, if that wasn’t obvious.”

He? Did that mean that…

“Are you gay?” I blurted, not even meaning to do so.

“What?” Jesse nearly shouted, spinning around to face me again.

It didn’t really matter if I was making these accusations to Jesse, since he was Jesse and everything. It wasn’t like I was ever going to meet the guy he was talking to on the phone, so that didn’t really matter at all…

“Well, you were fighting like you were talking to your girlfriend,” I shrugged, as if that was enough to prove everything I was accusing. “And you said it was a he, so I only thought that maybe…”

“I’m not gay,” Jesse informed me sternly, and I shrugged. When he saw that I didn’t believe me, he let out a groan. “First my mom and Camilla for some reason think that I’m gay, and now you too, huh?”

I shrugged again. “You do go to any all-boys school.”

Jesse’s face hardened. “But you go to an all-girls school.”

Damn it! He had gotten me there. If I didn’t think of something to say quickly, he would have known that he had gotten me. He would have won this argument…

“But I’ve been in love before,” I quickly defended, even though it was probably a lie as I held a hand over my heart as I crossed my legs. “In love with a guy.”

Jesse’s face darkened as I said this, but I ignored it as he said, “And who says I haven’t been in love before?”

My eyebrows rose. “With a guy?”

“With a girl,” Jesse snapped, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared down at me. I couldn’t help but smile up at him. “You really have no idea about anything that goes on outside that stuffy brain of yours, do you?”

“My brain is not stuffy,” I spat, sitting up straighter now just in case I needed to hit him. “I happen to be the smartest girl in my grade. What about you, huh?”

He probably had horrible grades, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. He was probably just a screw up. I wouldn’t have been surprised if all he got were C’s and D’s, maybe even F’s.

“Hmm…” Jesse hummed to himself as he ignored what I had said, suddenly opening one of the drawers in my dresser. “What could possibly be in here?”

“Hey,” I glowered, moving to get off of my bed. “Get out of there!”

He turned back toward me, smirking now as he pulled something out of the drawer. My eyes widened when I saw a pick bra laced through his fingers.

“You’re bigger than I expected you to be, Emery,” Jesse smirked, examining my bra as he held it up, just high enough so I couldn’t snatch it from him. “You should wear more revealing shirts sometimes.”

“Give it back!” I cried, trying to grab it from him but failing. “Give it back to me, Jacobsen!”

He winked at me. “I don’t think so.”

He then took off, right out of my room. It took me a few seconds to realize what he was doing and react to it.

“Hey!” I shouted, chasing right after him and down the stairs. “Get back here right now!”

“Come on, Emery!” he called, getting our families’ attentions immediately.

“I’m going to kill you one of these days, Jacobsen!” I cried, nearly grabbing his shirt before almost tripping over the bottom step.

“Jordan?” I heard my mother nearly shout, but she was the last of my worries right then. All I cared about was getting my bra back from Jesse before he did anything really stupid.

“Jesse!” I heard Jesse’s mother call after him as well, but this didn’t even stop him.

We were out of the house three seconds after that, and suddenly we were running around the block about fifteen times. I was starting to get tired, but Jesse wasn’t even breaking a sweat. How could he have been so good at running?

“You gotta run faster than that, Emery!”

“Jacobsen, get back here!”

And we didn’t stop. We kept on running for another ten minutes straight, and I was completely out of breath by the time Austin grabbed me when I passed by our house again. This caused Jesse to stop as well, knowing that his fun was over with.

Our parents made us both sit on the couch in the living room, and we all had a very awkward get together. I had no idea where my bra was, but I didn’t really care at that moment. This was so embarrassing and very awkward, considering both of my parents and my grandmother was there with us.

“That was actually quite entertaining,” Mrs. Jacobsen smirked, placing her hands on her hips as she looked at Jesse and then to me. It was kind of scary how much she looked like her son when she smirked. “Dinner and a show. I’m impressed.”

She might have been impressed, but I hadn’t ever felt so embarrassed in my life.

“Would you like to explain what’s been going on?” my mother now asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared down at me.

I bit my lip before finally explaining to them about what happened between Jesse and me ever since we had met. My parents looked surprised, but I didn’t blame them. I hadn’t been the type of girl to do this before I met Jesse Jacobsen.

“I don’t get why you two would just keep on fighting for such a long time and not just stop talking to each other,” my mother blinked, looking like she was still trying to process this entire situation in her mind.

“It’s quite simple,” Mrs. Jacobsen concluded, shrugging her shoulders before crossing her arms over her chest. “He does it because Jesse loves--”

The aforementioned boy coughed, cutting his mother off quickly and giving her a look. Noticing this, Mrs. Jacobsen smiled before finishing with, “Jesse loves to play pranks.”

“And Jordan hates losing,” my father sighed, and I couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed since I knew that he was right.

“How long has this been going on?” my mother now asked, her arms crossed over her stomach.

“Almost a year,” I answered, not even looking up at her. “It’ll be a year in November.”

The room fell silent, and I said nothing to fix it. I had never felt so embarrassed in my life, not counting what had happened with Dallas months before.

I looked over at Jesse Jacobsen and glared at him, but this only caused him to smirk right back at him. I turned away from him in a huff, surprised when I came to see the look on my grandmother’s face. I hadn’t ever seen her look at me that way before, and it honestly kind of scared me.

I did not want to know what that look meant. 

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There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate was uploaded today a year ago. <3 This is actually kind of emotional for me... It was the start of my favorite story. :)

I love how everyone thinks that Jesse's gay just because, for absolutely no reason at all. Especially when he's as madly in love with Jordan as he is. I wonder how he felt when the girl that he was in love with thought that he was gay. xD

I just wanted to laugh at Jordan and tell her how this wasn't going to be the last time Jesse saw and touched one of her bras... ;D

I put my story Our Song in the 2012 Watty Awards! Vote and share, please? Jordan and Jesse make a small cameo in it... and I'm planning on more in the future. ;D

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)