I'm back!! Enjoy, more exciting things to come! Cerise xx
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RYAN'S POV

A-

Your essay was excellent as usual Ryan, but the reason I gave you an A minus is because you don't elaborate enough on the theme of star-crossed lovers. Your analysis of Romeo's monologues reveals his inner thoughts and intentions with remarkable clarity and eloquence. However, you are lacking the same depth in your exploration of Juliet's character. I don't believe that you aren't able to understand her, but I get the feeling that you are avoiding it?

But if I am wrong and you are having trouble, talk to Miss Maxwell. Oddly enough, she is the opposite of you; her exploration of Juliet is brilliant, yet she seems to be having trouble correctly analysing Romeo.

The problem with your essays is that the both of you seem to be biasing the love between the characters, when it is actually equal. You write as if Juliet does not love Romeo as much as he cares for her, while Ava writes as if Romeo believes that Juliet is more virtuous than she really is. I highly recommend that you speak to Ava and help each other understand the error in each other's interpretations.

Oh and a final point: despite Romeo being more vocal in declaring his love (in those long monologues etc), Juliet clearly reciprocates those feelings, as demonstrated by the magnitude of the actions she took so as to remain with him.

___

I sighed deeply as I finished reading the feedback Mrs Jones had given me about the most recent essay on Romeo & Juliet that we submitted for American Lit class.
This was bad. I was letting my own emotions affect my schoolwork, muddling them up with the fiction we were studying.

Stop thinking about her!

It was no use; she was always on my mind.

Mrs Jones mentioning Ava had just brought her to the forefront of my mind again, and I'd already gone and done something as stupid as imagining us as star-crossed lovers.

What if I let myself believe that my own 'Juliet' loved me back despite all that has happened? What if we're just victims of wrong timing, misunderstandings, other people interfering; obstacles of fate?

Yet, didn't the fault lie within Romeo? If he wasn't so hasty to kill himself after assuming Juliet was dead (without even bothering to find out what had really happened), then they would have been able to be with each other...

Crap. Am I actually Romeo?

I always just assumed that there was something wrong with me; that I'd gone and done something to push her away. I'd been so caught up in thinking like that, that I never stopped to wonder whether there was something else making Ava so conflicted. I never stopped to think about how I could help her, especially when all I've ever wanted to do is ease her worries and take away her pain.

*Click*

I heard the front door open and shut with a thud down the hall from my room, which probably meant that Brad had returned from wherever he had rushed off to before.

"Hey little brother I'm back." He said, poking his head into my room.

"Where did you go?" I asked nonchalantly as I continued to flick through my essay, skimming through the feedback again.

"Oh, just to Ava's house," He replied innocently as he wandered away.

"Brad..." I said in a warning tone as I steeled at the mention of her name, and got up from my desk. He knew that I would follow him out, but at this point I cared about finding out why he was at Ava's house more than I cared about trying not fall for his tricks.

"What were you doing over there? I asked as calmly as I could. But the glimmer in his eyes as he plucked a shiny red apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, told me that he knew I was unnerved by how much time he was spending with Ava.
Time that I wish I was spending with her.

"Nothing much. She asked for some advice, we talked about my psychology experiment, and then she did a sexy dance for me." He smirked as he took a loud bite.

"She what?!" I asked in disbelief, taken aback by the bizarreness of that sentence. He must be messing with me, trying to get me worked up for nothing.

"Don't be jealous Ryan!" He laughed unreservedly as he slapped me on the back.

I'm not jealous, I'm worried.
Worried about the things you might have said and done to Ava, charming your way into her heart.

"Haven't you finished that experiment yet? You're leaving in a few weeks." I spoke tersely, ignoring his mocking tone.

"Hmm, not yet. There are still a few more things I have to do with her before I leave." He mused.

His calmness set me on edge. He was deliberately trying to provoke me for some reason, but I was having a hard time keeping myself in control. Normally I would have ignored Brad; I was usually able to just walk away because whatever he was trying to push me to do wasn't worth it.

But this was Ava.

And for some reason, all the order and control I possess (not to mention my sanity), vanishes whenever the situation concerns her.

"What exactly is the topic of your experiment anyway? You never mentioned it." I asked, on the brink of snapping.

"Yeah, I guess I just never thought to tell you," He said, the corner of his mouth twitching into a devious half-smile, "It's the delusions of falling in love."

His eyes gleamed and locked unwaveringly with mine as he took another slow, deliberately loud bite of that damn apple.
That was the final straw.

My jaw locked and my eyes narrowed into an icy glare, causing Brad to freeze mid-chew as I swiftly walked up to him and snatched the blood-red fruit from his hand. I threw it into the trash can with enough force to nearly tip the whole thing over. His eyebrows were raised high in disbelief, but his expression was a mixture of surprise and amusement rather than the seriousness I had anticipated.

"Stop messing around and tell me clearly what you're trying to do Brad," I demanded with all the authority I could muster.

"Are you trying to make Ava fall for you? Is it all for the sake of your ridiculous experiment?!" I was so angry at the thought that maybe Ava was gradually developing feelings for Brad, only for him to break her heart for a stupid psychology report. It was harder than ever to dispel the persistent thought that last week what Ava was trying to say all along, was that she'd made a mistake and had actually fallen for the 'older, better' Haywood brother. Right when I thought she might have been trying to tell me she felt the same way I did.

"Are you serious about her Brad?" I asked quietly.
"Excuse me?" He queried, either because he couldn't believe I asked him that question, or because he was too busy studying me like an animal in a documentary, to hear what I said. Even now he wasn't taking me seriously, and this only served to make the anger within me flare up even more.

"I'm asking you if you have feelings for her!" I yelled. And finally, I saw him flinch.

"If you don't, then you need to stop playing around, stop leading her on! This is not a game and she's not a toy, she's-" I was seething at this point, and turned away from him suddenly too overwhelmed by what I felt to continue.
There was anger and frustration and then...a great flood of despair. The silence that followed was broken only by my attempts to bring my breathing back under control.
"Are you done?" Brad asked calmly after a few moments.
I wanted to glare up at him and continue my tirade but I was emotionally exhausted, and when I finally turned around I was met with the hardened expression and wizened eyes of someone who looked like they had seen a lifetime of troubles, inhabiting the body of my 21 year old brother.

"...Yes." I replied tentatively, trying to gauge this new person that Brad was revealing to me. This wasn't the robot that he used to be, but he still had that same superior air about him now.

He waited for me to stop, so that he could start.

"Maybe I do like her." He answered surreptitiously. I felt my blood run cold.
"Maybe I don't." He raised his eyebrows with a satisfied smirk. "Maybe I just care about her like a sister, or maybe I want to make her mine."

My eyes narrowed in annoyance, as I tried to decipher his cryptic words.

"Regardless of what I actually think of Ava, does it really matter what my feelings are towards her at all?" He asked me directly, looking me straight in the eye.
All traces of humour had disappeared.

"Ryan, are you really just going to let me snatch her away? Do you want that? Do you think she would really want that?"

"I honestly don't know what she wants Brad!" I shot back darkly.

"I'm not sure she even knows what she really wants herself," He muttered.

"Well that doesn't make things any better now does it?" I retorted, running a hand through my hair as I took a seat at the kitchen counter.

"That was before though, things have changed." He said cryptically.

"What has changed?" I asked, irritated by all the secrets he seemed to keep.

"Nothing. Never mind." He brushed off my question with a dismissive flick of the wrist. "Tell me this; do you think Ava is the type to cry easily?" He asked all of a sudden.

I paused for a second, uncertain of the train of thought behind his question.

"No. She doesn't get overly –emotional about little things, and she doesn't lose heart easily. I mean, I've never seen her cry, nor have any of our other friends except probably Rose. She isn't as tough on the inside as she would have people believe, but that's not to say she isn't incredibly strong."

"So it seems that it would take something pretty damn important to her to make her shed tears."
"Yeah I suppose. Rose once told me that Ava hasn't cried over anything since her Dad passed away."
Silence filled the room as Brad paused and seemed to contemplate how to deliver his next words.
"Did you know that in the last 2 weeks alone, I've seen her cry twice. Twice in the same day to be exact."

"..." I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't have any words that I could string together to form a coherent response. Because I didn't know what to say to cover up the dull ache that suddenly became more apparent in my chest.

Oh so nobody has seen Ava cry for years and now she feels comfortable enough to cry in front of Brad twice? No big deal, no problem. How great. Fantastic. Awesome.

It was the kind of throbbing ache against your ribs that resurfaces from time to time; when you think about her and your heart decides to painfully constrict.
Just a friendly reminder to tell you that it's already been bruised and battered before. Oh don't worry, I can take another beating. Throw another punch Brad, can't hurt any more than the other crap that's happened already.

"Woah since when did you become so sarcastic and cynical!" Brad exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up. Ah shit. I had no idea I had said that out loud, but I was too upset to try to cover up my mistake.

"Do you just tell me these things just to brag? Or are you trying to remind me how you're so much better than me in every way!?" I barked.

"No, I'm telling you these things because I care about you and I can't stand seeing you lose more and more confidence every day!" He replied, gesturing towards me with his arms in frustration.

"I don't see how any of the things you've told me are supposed to make me feel more confident! You being here, f*cking around with my life is just making everything worse!" I yelled.
But I instantly regretted retorting like that the second I saw the hurt that flickered in his eyes and over his face, before his expression hardened back into stone.

We fell into silence; both at a loss for words.

"Brad, I –"I began to apologise.

"It's okay Ryan." He stopped me with his hand, "I know you think I'm just messing around with you and playing around with Ava, and for the most part I do enjoy tormenting the both of you, but the truth is that I just want to see you happy. You never used to talk much about the things that interested you before, so I never quite knew what was really going through your head, even though I could always work it out eventually. I've never heard you swear, never seen you have an emotional outburst, never seen you trash your room. You were just my boring play-by -the -rules little brother until now;"

I just stared at him blankly; dazed by his in depth explanation and, to be honest, unsure of whether or not I should be offended.

"Until Ava." He concluded.

I didn't know Brad thought about all these things. When we were younger I had always just assumed that he would never be interested in the things I enjoyed. I thought he would think I was boring, just like every other kid in my class. I never knew that he wanted to know what I thought.

For the first time in my life, I realised that my older brother was lonely. He'd been lonely for a long time and yet, all I had done since he returned was shut him out.

"Ava changed you. You fight back now! You make way more jokes, you're not afraid to say what you're really thinking. Heck, you even swore at me! As your older brother I have never heard anything worse than 'crap' come from your mouth before." Brad exclaimed animatedly, and I couldn't help but laugh because it was true.

I have changed.

"She makes you angry, she makes you sad, she makes you happy and she makes you believe. She makes you want things for yourself, and realise that you deserve more than you'd give yourself credit for." He finished softly, leaning against the counter as he lightly crossed his arms.

Yes, Ava drives me crazy (in more ways than one), and she brings out sides of me I didn't really know existed. Or perhaps I did, but never had the courage to let them show.
But when I look at her, when I see her smile, when her eyes sparkle with laughter; it's like her confidence spreads to me and I feel like I can do anything as long as I'm with her.

And I've definitely done a lot of things for the first time, all in my senior year:

1. Helped to sabotage homecoming votes,

2. Busted an entire classroom of delinquents out of detention,

3. Threw a massive party at my house

4. Flew to another state and spent Christmas with my friends (not to mention all the 'other' stuff that happened there...)

5. Agreed to be a model

6. Tried being a 'bad boy' (even if it was only my clothes)

7. Finally stood up to Très

8. Had my heart broken

9. Trashed my room

And as of right now,

10. Understood a little more of what actually goes on inside my brother's head

I was never able to talk this freely with him before, especially not about my feelings. And by the same token, I don't remember ever hearing him speak so candidly and so honestly to me.

"She has. She's changed me a lot. But unfortunately I don't think I have that kind of impact on her at all." I confessed to him.

"Ryan you're crazy. You really don't know how you affect Ava do you?" Brad grinned.

"What do you mean 'affect' her?" I asked, sceptically.

"As in, how the things you say and do make her feel." He explained.

"Regardless of 'how 'I make her feel, I'm sure I don't have that kind of influence over her. She's quite opinionated and stubborn as it is, if you haven't noticed." The corner of my mouth twitched into a little smile as I remembered how she just wouldn't take no for an answer when I got hit in the head by that football and she dragged me to the nurse's office to make sure I didn't have a concussion. The expression on her face was so adorably concerned for a bad girl.

"I have noticed," He laughed loudly.

"Then you see my point." I sighed, feeling deflated.

"No I really don't." He countered instantly. "Look Ryan," he exhaled loudly, "Ava was crying because of you."

What?
'No, there's no way that I would be important enough for her to cry over.' I thought, cynically. But apparently I was. And as I listened to Brad explain the aftermath of the charity fête, (as well as the events of that night when I disappeared and Ava had rushed over), every thought I had been so sure about in the past, began to change.

"She cares about you a lot more than you know." Brad said sincerely.

"...Then why can't she just tell me?" I asked aloud; more to myself than to Brad.

"Sometimes people find it hard to express their feelings verbally. Maybe they believe what they're feeling is too complicated and immense to ever be able to properly convey through words, and that if they try to, it will diminish that significance. Whether it's consciously or unconsciously, those types of people somehow end up revealing their emotions through their actions." He offered.

"But I can't think of anything Ava has done that hasn't confused me more than her words have." I sighed.

"That's because I don't think you've ever given yourself enough credit to notice her reactions to you. I think you've been too caught up in thinking about the way she makes you feel. Haven't you ever seen anything in the way she acts around you, acts in response to you that makes you think that she cares about you?" He probed curiously.

'You haven't seen the way she looks at you when she thinks no one is watching'
Luke's smug words echoed in my mind. The more I think about the events that have happened in the past, the more I think that Ava was spying on me in the library that time. Her face was shoved in between the books glaring over at the girls I was tutoring. And when I teased her about being jealous, I never expected she would become so flustered...
And what about when I kissed her? What about the way she automatically lifted her lips closer to mine? So eagerly; as if she lost herself in my embrace.

"I can tell by the fact your face just went red that you can name a few times" Brad laughed knowingly. "You read a lot of books Ryan but you've never tried to read people. Trust me, she doesn't have to say anything for you to figure out how she feels," He grinned as he folded his arms loosely and lazily slumped onto the kitchen stool next to me, "Let her show you."

Maybe Brad had a point; I thought I had given Ava my undivided attention, yet I'd failed to really notice the little things, failed to take detailed notice of the way she behaved around me, failed to understand the things she was trying to tell me with her eyes, while her lips were saying something else.

And now that Melissa had threatened Ava with blackmail, I knew Ava wouldn't risk her Mom's job to speak to me directly. Instead, I'd just have to wait and see whether I could read something in Ava's actions that gave me answers to the questions she seemed unable to answer with words.

After all, they do say actions speak louder than words...

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I'm going to try really hard to commit to writing this year, but you'll have to forgive me if things get a little busy sometimes because it's my 3rd and final year of uni and that really scares me!

Don't forget to COMMENT, VOTE and SHARE!!! 

I truly appreciate all of you who have stuck by my side and supported me all this while, you guys are the BEST!