chapter 1
"smile"

chris never understood what dejahs problem was with him, and although she'd never say it out loud, everyone could tell. she found it so easy to talk to his two brothers, nick and matt, but just always had a grudge against him.

he watches from afar, as she speaks to nick. she's laughing, what was she laughing about? why does she never laugh at chris? he rolls his eyes and faces her older brother, nathan, who's in college. he comes every now and then to their school as his campus is right next to it.

"i gotta go back to campus" speaks nathan, standing up from his seated position on the table. chris does the same and daps him up.

"cya" he says, making his way over to nick and dejah. "hey guys" he says, introducing himself. nick smiles at him, but dejah stayed quiet.

"i actually gotta go, i'll cya later nick" she says, taking a quick glance at chris before walking away. she made it very clear that she was saying goodbye to nick, and nick only as she emphasised his name. chris watches as she walks away before turning to nick.

chris furrows his eyebrows, "what were you guys talking about?" he asks, trying to see what had made her laugh.

"oh, just something about how mr musgrove fell over in history, it was soo funny" giggles nick, laughing just talking about it. chris gives him a half smile and grabs his phone out of his pocket.

he goes onto imessages and messages matt, asking him where he was, "i haven't seen matt all day" he says, looking up at nick for a quick second

nick nods his head in agreement, "yeah, neither." he says, "i'm gonna head to class, i'll cya later." he says, walking away.

chris waits for matts reply, which doesn't come so he decides to head to maths by himself. he tucked his phone into his pocket and made his way towards the stairs to get to maths. on his way there, he spots dejah walking by herself, and chris being chris, he saw this as an opportunity to start conversation as they're both alone. chris takes a shortcut so that they could meet halfway and he doesn't seem like such a creep as it will seem natural, "oh, hey dejah! didn't see you there" he says, walking beside her. dejah looks away and pretended to not hear him, walking faster to loose him. "did you hear about the fall with mr musgrove?" he asks, hoping she would laugh at him.

dejah smiles, but it's so minuscule that you could barely see it, but hey! atleast it's still a smile. chris jogs slightly towards her, "you're in maths right?"

dejah stops for a second to scoff, before speaking, "yes, i'm in your next lesson" she says, slowing down to walk with him as she knows he's not gonna give up trying to talk to her anyways. she opens the door to the classroom and sits at the back. chris sits in the seat in front of her, as that's the only seat available. dejah tapped chris on the shoulder, "have you seen matt by the way?"

chris turned around in disbelief, "d-did you just... actually talk to me first?" he says, shocked. dejah rolls her eyes and begins to write in her maths book. chris turned back around, not even answering the question as she wasn't interested anymore anyways. chris smiles at the thought that she actually wanted to talk to him, that's definitely a first and probably the last but it's something? could this be a spark beginning to form?

*3 hours later*

"chris really thought it meant something when i tapped him on the shoulder in maths" says dejah, laughing along with abbie.

abbie laughs, but stops laughing once chris walks past. he waves at dejah who ignores him shocker. "i don't know why he's constantly trying to be friends with me, it's just weird." she explains, "i love nick and i love matt, but chris is different. i can't even love chris, let alone even tolerate him. well i definitely can't love, love him, ive made that mistake before" she says, talking in a low voice. she faces the ground as she spoke, only looking up at abbie a few times.

abbie grabs her hand and does a circle motion with her thumb, comforting her. matt and nick take a seat next to them, placing their bags onto the floor. "hey guys" says matt, taking his airpods out of his case, placing one into his ear.

dejah smiles a little bit, taking the other air pod from his case, placing it in her ear. when the song started playing, she immediately got sent back to middle school, when her and chris used to listen to it together. that song was her way of trying to get talking with chris again as they would always sing it in a funny way. she couldn't bare but hear another lyric from drake, before taking the air pod out. "dude? who told you is an amazing song, why would you take the air pod out?" jokes matt, watching as abbie takes the air pod to place it in her ear.

abbie and matt start singing along and her mind is filling with chris, chris, chris when she left him back in middle school. she seems like everywhere she goes, there's something reminding her of chris, and she can't stand it anymore. she can't stand hearing this song any longer. she stands up and begins walking to the library. she sits down in front of a book shelf, taking the nearest one from her reach. she wasn't gonna really read it, she just needed an excuse to be in the library, she just wanted a quiet place to chill out and listen to her own music, to be away from reminders of chris. she plays, right where you left me by taylor swift. she just sits there, enjoying the music.

the door opens up wide, revealing a load of boys who burst in being loud. the last thing dejah needed right now, was some loud obnoxious boys being loud and annoying her while she's trying to listen to her music. "miss conningly said that we could go on the computers for a bit" he shouts to the receptionist, who nods her head slowly, looking confused, "cheers" he says, pointing to the computers at the back of the library. they all make a run for it, except for one, jude. jude and dejah never really spoke, but they knew of each other and they would smile at each other occasionally in the hallways, he seems nice from dejahs perspective.

they make eye contact and jude starts to make his way over to dejah, sitting down next to her on the floor. it's silent for a moment, but dejah didn't mind, "whatcha doing?" he asks, looking at the book that she's 'reading.'

dejah looks up at him, putting the book down, "nothing really, just using this book as an excuse to be here. i'm just here to listen to music." she says. jude laughs and grabs her headphones, "oh, um okay" she says awkwardly as he just takes her headphones and starts to place it on his head.

he makes a disgusted face before taking his headphones off, "ew, i hate taylor, she's so ass" he says, plopping the headphone back into her hands. well, that was.. eventful?

"whatever" she says, smiling awkwardly, "so.. are you not gonna join your friends?" she says confused, watching him shake his head.

"too loud i guess" he says, coming to the conclusion.

dejah laughs and nods her head, "we may not agree on taylor, but atleast we agree on that" she jokes, making jude laugh.

🝮❧ఌ

"bro, literally shut the fuck up. it's not as good as cake, are you stupid?" says chris, arguing with nick who thinks that goldfish are better than cake. chris was the first person to walk into the library, looking straight to dejah who's sat on the floor.. with another boy?

nick walks behind him, about to say something else to prove his point about goldfish, before stopping to look at dejah, "the fuck is that?" he says. abbie, matt and liv all walk in soon after, walking towards jude and dejah to see what's going on. chris rolls his eyes and trudges forwards.

"hey dejah" says matt, sitting down in a bean bag, abbie sitting in the one opposite from him. dejah smiles at them both, waving. matt looks at jude then at dejah, as if to say who's that?

liv makes her way over, sitting on the floor near dejah, followed by nick who sits on a pillow on the ground. chris finally makes his way over and plops down onto the floor in front of dejah. they both look at each other and dejah looks away quickly. specifically looking at jude to introduce him, "so, this is jude" she says, pushing her lips together from the awkwardness. chris laughs which gets dejahs attention, making her smile a little bit for a second before taking her eyes off of him. the whole group says their hellos apart from chris.

chris was stubborn, and he wasn't going to allow this random dude to just waltz on in here and befriend dejah in two seconds when it's taken him years for her to even smile slightly at him like she just did. "hey man." he says, putting his arm out to dap him up. chris looks at his hand and laughs.

dejah glares at chris, "stop being a dick chris, and actually want to make friends for once" she snaps at him, sensing the tension already brewing between them already after a few minutes.

chris looks at her and shakes his head, "sorry my bad for never 'trying to make friends', even though every time i try and talk to you and make friends with you, you put me down? so how about you stop being a dick for once and try make friends." he says, lashing out. he was sick and tired of her being horrible to him all the time and making him feel small. every chance she gets she tries to put him down and make him seem small, and he wasn't going to let it slide this time, just because he doesn't want to mess what he's nearly built with her.

dejah furrows her eyebrows at him angrily. every day, she gets on his nerves, but today? she has gotten to her last nerve with him, "shut the fuck up chris, just because i don't wanna be friends with you, doesn't give you the invitation to follow me around everywhere."

jude puts his hand to his side and begins to stand up, "i'm gonna.. go.." he whispers quietly to himself, before walking towards his other friends, messing around on the computers.

dejah stands up and leaves too. not just leaving the library, but the whole school. she told the receptionist lady at the front that she was sick and that she needed to go home.

the rest of the group all share looks at each other, matt starts to whistle and look around the room, "that's a.. nice ceiling up there.." he points out, making abbie laugh.

chris sighs and runs a hand through his hair. he knew not to follow her as it would make matters worse, hence the reason why no one else followed her because they all made an agreement that when she's mad, nobody should talk to her for a while.

"rough" says nick, tapping his shoulder. chris looks at him and rolls his eyes, "why would you do that? i mean, you were being a dick" he says, watching chris nod in agreement.

he hated the fact that he had just lashed out at dejah like that. he hated that he felt bad for her even though he kinda feels like he's in the right. he hated that he wanted to apologise to her. he just hated today overall.

²⁰³⁶ ʷᵒʳᵈˢ

maisie
💌

correct me if i'm wrong, but lashing out on her isn't gonna make her like him more??
jealous chris 👀