And I wanted it, I wanted it bad
But there were so many red flags
Now another one bites the dust
Yeah, let's be clear, I'll trust no one

You did not break me
I'm still fighting for peace
Elastic Heart- Sia

"What happened yesterday?" My mother asks me the next day as I'm going through all of the clothes in my dresser.

"Nothing happened," I say, trying to sound as convincing as possible even though my mother has an unbreakable built in lie detector so I know that it probably won't get past her.

"Margaret said that you freaked," She explains. "Well, she used kinder words, but she was worried about you. She said that you seemed spooked by Beckett's friend."

"They aren't really friends," I say quickly as if that makes my situation any better. "I mean, they used to be but they stopped being friends when Kevin graduated after our sophomore year. He just stopped by for old time's sake or whatever but they aren't like, close anymore or anything."

"You don't like Kevin, I take it?" She wonders, stepping into the room to continue this interrogation even though I really wish that she wouldn't.

"No, I don't. He's a creep."

"He seemed nice, I thought," My mom tells me, sitting on the bed as I'm kneeling on my carpet by my dresser, continuing to fiddle with my folded up t-shirts.

"You met him?"

"Yeah, we all went to breakfast this morning before you woke up. He's in town for his sister's wedding and wanted to stop by to say hi to Beckett. I thought that it was sweet that they still keep in touch after so much time has passed," She explains. "Did something happen between you and Kevin back when he went to your school or something?"

"No," I say quickly. "Mom, I just don't like him. It's not a big deal."

"Okay then," She sighs, appeasing me and just dropping the conversation. "What are you doing to all of your clothes?"

"I'm just deciding what I want to take to London with me," I tell her with my back still facing her as I talk.

"You're planning out what you're going to pack for London?" She wonders incredulously. "Sweetie, you still have two months before you leave, I think you have some time."

I know that I have a lot of time before London but in all reality, I'm only doing it to keep my mind off of what happened yesterday. I've spent all day just trying to keep my mind off of last night's events. When I woke up, I organized my room and then I studied my song entries for my next video and chose which song I'm going to do next week and then I made sure that all of my homework was done before I started going through my clothes to mentally pack for London because I couldn't think of anything else to do.

"I just want to be prepared," I say instead of explaining all of that to her because if she sees really how perturbed I am by Kevin's reappearance, I know that she'll be able to make the leap and figure out that Kevin was one of the bullies from my freshman year and when that happens, I think that it'd be an easy assumption to make that Beckett was involved as well.

"I think that you need to calm down," My mom says. "Take a breather and tell me why you're acting so jittery."

"I'm not jittery," I argued and then focused on slowing down my motions to try and seem steadier and more in control of my movements because I did feel kind of jittery, I just didn't want her to notice so much.

"Jensen," She says my name in a way that tells me that she's not falling for my crap and that I need to explain to her what's going on. "You can talk to me, you know."

"I know, Mom," I assure her. "I just don't have anything to talk about."

"I think that you're lying and I think that there's more to this Kevin thing than you're telling me," She accuses me as she stands up from my bed again and starts walking out of my room. "But you're upset and I don't want to push it right now so I'm going to go but I'm not through with this conversation so don't think that you're off the hook yet, alright?"

"Sure, fine. Have a nice evening," I mumble to her, still not looking up from my clothes.

After she leaves, I realize how ridiculous I'm being, going to such an extent that I'm messing up all of my folded up clothes so I stop messing around with my shirts and I shut the dresser drawer. I want to go for a run or something but I'm afraid that if Kevin is still hanging out at Beckett's house that I could run into him again and that's about the last thing in the world that I want to happen right now.

So instead of getting all of my pent up anxiety out over running like I should do, I just grab my guitar and go for the second best remedy for this type of anxious feeling. I lay on my back on the floor of my bedroom because that's just the kind of mood that I'm in and I rest my guitar on my belly as I just start moving my fingers around, playing random chords that kind of sound good together and then I fall into playing an actual song. I don't sing or anything, I just play the music for it.

After a while of just laying on my carpet, staring up at my ceiling while strumming the notes to various songs, I hear a knock on my door and I assume that it's my dad because my mom doesn't even knock, she'll just walk right into my room. He's probably coming in here to talk to me about what's going on because my mom forced him to because she does that sometimes, forces him to ask me the same questions that she's asked me thinking that he'll get a different answer.

"Come in," I call to him over the quiet notes from my guitar.

I hear the door open but I don't look up because I'm really comfortable on the ground right here and if my dad wants to lecture me on worrying my mother with my emotions, he can do it while I lay down and stare at my ceiling.

"Hey," When he speaks, however, I realize that it's actually Beckett and not my father. Which makes this situation ten times worse.

"Hey," I respond, still not getting up from the floor.

"What're you doing?" He wonders curiously, stepping farther into the room and then he shuts the door behind him.

"Just practicing," I respond which is kind of a lie because I'm not practicing the songs that I need to practice or anything, I'm just randomly playing the songs that I already know by heart. He doesn't need to know that though. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to stop by to make sure that you're okay," He explains, clearing his throat at the end which means that he's feeling awkward right now because I've heard him clear his throat many times through our few years of awkwardly existing together. I don't feel awkward anymore, I just feel tired of talking to Beckett and tired of thinking about Kevin.

"I'm fine," I assure him with a long sigh.

"You don't look fine."

"How would you know what I look like when I'm feeling fine?" I ask him with raised eyebrows even though I still don't look up at him due to my high level of comfort.

"I don't think that anybody who's feeling fine just lays on their bedroom floor playing sad music," Beckett informs me with a quiet laugh under his breath.

"This isn't sad," I argue, strumming louder on my guitar as if that proves my point. "And I'm actually really busy right now so can you come back some other time?"

"You're busy?"

"I'm practicing," I remind him again, strumming my guitar again just to prove my point.

"I feel like you're mad at me about what happened yesterday," Beckett informs me instead of just leaving my house, which is what I was hoping that he'd do. He is very stubborn sometimes, I'll give him that.

"Why would I be mad at you?" I wonder dryly.

"Well, I know that you aren't Kevin's number one fan but I really didn't know that he was coming over. He didn't call or anything, he just showed up," He starts to explain.

"I'm sure it was a pleasant surprise for you to see such a near and dear friend of yours after so many years," I respond, my voice soft and dull because I don't want to come off as offensive and yet, I kind of do because it makes me a little sick to think that I was hanging out with Beckett at the same time that he was conversing with Kevin.

I know that Beckett was a grade A asshole at the beginning of high school but I've only been able to get over that because he was so passive about it all, he didn't actually instigate the conflicts. I know that it doesn't make it okay at all but it's better than how messed up Kevin was to me- instigating everything, taunting me every day, just generally fucking me up inside and out.

"He really isn't a bad guy," Beckett says in a quick breath and that's the sentence that finally grabs my attention enough for me to stop absentmindedly strumming my guitar and to actually sit up and look at Beckett and I look at him as if he's just grown two heads. "I-I mean, I know that he was a jerk in high school but he's been through a lot and-"

"You're defending him? To me?" I wonder incredulously just to clarify what's happening right now because I didn't think that Beckett would be stupid enough to try and make me feel sympathy for the guy who ruined most of my high school career. What Kevin and Bethany started during freshman year will haunt me for so many years, probably even into adulthood, and he did it with a smile on his face and I know that it was a long time ago but that crap isn't something that I'm just going to get over just because I got over it with Beckett.

"No, that's not what I'm doing at all."

"Yes it is," I argue, leaning my back against my dresser as I'm still sitting on the floor and Beckett's sitting on my bed so I have to look up to him and now I'm making it obvious to him that I really am angry. I try my best to glare daggers into his cheeks with laser vision or something. "That's exactly what you're doing. Jeez, Beckett, just get the fuck out of my house, alright? The absolute last thing that I need right now is to hear you tell me about what an absolute saint Kevin is now that he's grown up."

"Why is it so hard to believe that he's changed since then?" Beckett wonders with raised eyebrows, not in a defensive manner but his voice holds a curious tone to it. "You've been able to see that I've changed, what's so different about him?"

I give Beckett a pensive look before putting my guitar down beside me and stretching out my bare legs (I'm wearing booty shorts) and then I shrug one shoulder. "I don't know, maybe I don't really believe that you've changed at all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I've been so desperate for some sort of friendship that I've just so easily lied to myself, told myself that you're a better person than you used to be but what would give me real proof that that's true? That you've really changed?"

"Are you serious?" He asks me. "Jen, come on, we legitimately hung out for like three hours yesterday."

"So? Just because you're nice to me now that I'm kind of famous doesn't mean that you're not such a shallow prick anymore. For all I know, you're still knocking kids down in the hallways and stealing their lunch money," I refute, defensively crossing my arms over my chest.

"Kevin being here is getting into your head too much," Beckett decides. "I don't even talk to him that much anymore, we just text sometimes but it's not like we're still close friends or anything. I'm really not the same person that I was freshman year. You know that."

"I don't know that," I deny with a shake of my head.

"Well then what can I do to prove it to you?"

"Why does it matter to you? You have a lot of friends, you'll be just fine without me around to force your weird movie obsessions onto," I mumble to him. "Anyway, I'm not mad at you or anything and as far as freshman year goes, I really do forgive you for everything that happened. I forgive everybody, Kevin and Beth and all of them. But that doesn't mean that I'm over it. Because I'm not, obviously. And the whole idea of us being friends is kind of a joke. Who were we fooling anyway? We have too much awful history to ever be anything more than acquaintances."

"That's not true," Beckett denies as I stand up from the carpet and I grab my guitar to put it back in its case because he's obviously not leaving and I'm obviously not going to be playing my guitar for the time being. "You're only freaking out because Kevin showed up, you were fine with us being friends before that so let's just forget that he ever even showed up."

I hold my hands on my hips to show him that I can be just as stubborn as he is and that I'm not just going to give in that easily. "You didn't answer my question," I tell him and now that I'm standing up and he's sitting on the edge of my bed, he's the one looking up to me now.

"What question?"

"Why does it matter so much to you?" I repeat and I think that I stop breathing for a moment because I'm so nervous about what his response is going to be. I probably really don't even want to hear what he's going to say but I have to ask.

"I don't know," He sighs. "Because you're really cool to hang out with."

"You have a lot of friends," I state the obvious. "You have tens of other people to hang out with."

"Yeah, but-"

"Please don't say that I'm different or that I'm cooler than your friends because that is way too... cheesy and ridiculous," I interrupt him because I can sense that that's what he's about to say, which is not something that I want to hear right now so I might as well just save us both the trouble of having to hear/say it. "Seriously. You'll have to be more sincere than that."

Beckett sighs again and then runs his fingers through his hair, looking slightly stressed out as he really thinks about what comes out of his mouth again. "Because you're honest, and funny and brave and just a really awesome person to be around. And I really have grown up since freshman year, just like you did—just like everybody does."

I purse my lips, trying to think of a response that was neither angrily mean nor nice and forgiving because I wanted to be in the middle of those two things. "I still don't think that-"

I stop talking when Beckett abruptly stands up from my bed as if there is a fire under his ass and I wait for him to say whatever it is that made him stand up so abruptly but he doesn't say anything for a long time and he's just staring at me. Getting a bad feeling about this (even though I can feel a buzz start to grow in my stomach), I look down at my shoes and I pinch my lips together so that if his intent is to try to be romantic, he can't kiss me.

However, after an even longer silence, I can't just be silent anymore so I release my lips from their hiding spots and look back up at Beckett, who is still staring at me and I wonder if that's really why he stood up, if he's really going to try to kiss me. Maybe that's just me being too vain or too into the sappy romantic movies where the guy just abruptly gets up and goes for it.

Finally, I break. "What're you-"

And again, he interrupts me and just like in the movies, he goes for it. A little bit of a delay there at the beginning, which threw me off, but sure enough, his lips are now attacking my lips. At first, I'm completely prepared to push him off of me and to yell at him again because I'm still mad at him and he has no right to just kiss me like he is. I even lift my hands up to his shoulders and tell myself to push but I can't get myself to let go.

When I don't pull away from him like I think that he expects me to, his arm wraps around my waist and he pushes his lips tighter against mine. I try again to tell myself to pull away, but again, it just doesn't work.

I blame it on the buzz in my stomach that is now taking over my whole body like a virus and how warm and soft and slightly perfect his lips feel against mine. Despite him being Beckett- the guy who was a passive mega-jerk, the guy who put me through high school hell for a whole school year. Because yeah, we do have that past and it sucks but we also have the present, where Beckett is sweet and easy to talk to and funny and there for me and an amazing kisser and absolutely hot as hell.

But even with all of those great qualities, I know that I shouldn't be doing this. I don't like Beckett as more than a friend even though I think that he's one of the most attractive people that I've ever met. Physical attraction does not equal an emotionally romantic bond, and I don't have that with Beckett. So even though he's really fun to kiss right now, I worry that I'm leading him on by not stopping this. And yet, I'm still not pulling away.

Just as he's about to deepen the kiss, I hear my door swing open and then a high pitch squeal reverberate through the room before I can jump away from Beckett and he can do the same.

Looking toward the door, I'm slightly relieved that it's not my mom but I'm also incredibly mortified that it's Katy.

"We weren't-" I start to say something to my little sister but before I can start to beg her not to tell our parents, she's already disappearing from the doorway and running toward the stairs.

"MOM!" She's shouting as she's running and then I'm chasing after her through the house in hopes of catching her before she finds our mother and then I can threaten her to be quiet about what she just saw.

"Katy, get back here!" I snap at her but she probably can't hear me over her incessant shouting for our mom, who is tending to her small garden out front of our house. When I see Katy run out the front door before I can get to her though, I give up on trying to catch her and go back upstairs. Still not breathing steady from the mind blowing kiss, I wait outside my door to catch my breath for a minute before I prepare myself with a mental pep talk and then I go back into my room where Beckett is standing just about where I left him.

"We can't do this," I blurt quickly, shutting the door behind me and leaning my back against it to stable my quaking knees. I inwardly smile because I'm proud of myself for really saying that so that he knows that it can't happen again, even though my lips are already feeling a slightly desperate ache to feel his again.

"Right, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry," Beckett starts to apologize.

"I just mean," I start to say quickly and I can tell that my will power isn't as strong as I'd like it to be. I really have no pride at all. "Because my mom is downstairs."

"Oh," Beckett pipes, looking slightly relieved at my statement and I feel ashamed at myself for giving into that buzz inside of me but at the same time, I don't regret it. Having a little bit of fun won't hurt anybody, I suppose. "Well, I mean, my house is empty. If that matters or anything."

"Okay," I decide in a split second and I turn to leave my room in hopes that if we move fast, I'll avoid my mother who undoubtedly is learning about our previous kiss right now as we speak. "Let's go."