All You Never Wanted

10. A Helping Hand

Monday morning was the first time that Jake was allowed back to school. He walked cautiously down the hall, towards first period. He was actually feeling almost as nervous as he had when Megan had let him come on a trial basis over a month ago. Of course, this time his nervousness had nothing to do with keeping someone in charge happy. That was still a factor, of course – he needed her to still let him come if he ever wanted to have any chance to extricate himself from this. But his main worry this time was about how he was supposed to face Megan.

He felt really bad about what he knew he'd have to do. And first period was going to be especially hard. At least after this, she'd know. He just wished he could explain it to her instead of having her find out by watching him ignore her.

Jake took a minute at the door to gather his nerves. He never would have thought that seeing someone who used to be in charge could be so hard. But then, he'd never actually cared about any of them before.

As soon as he walked through the door, he saw Megan getting up out of her seat. She looked even more relieved than Jake had expected. Great. As much as he wanted her to care about whether or not he was ok, it was only going to make this part that much harder. She tried to say something to him, but he wasn't really paying attention. Instead, Jake was thinking about how he was feeling; it almost felt like his ears were burning. What was this? It wasn't just his typical nervousness. Was it embarrassment? Well, whatever it was, he didn't like it. As soon as she paused for breath, he decided to take his leave.

He brushed past her like she didn't even exist. And as horrible as he felt doing that, the look on her face had only served to make him feel even worse.

At least she wasn't as shocked by it when he did it again in second period. And when she came up to him and Greg at the end of Spanish, she didn't even seem surprised when he excused himself. Actually, the only really awkward part had been chemistry.

It turned out that sitting directly across from a girl he had been dating and was now forced to ignore was even harder than he would have imagined. He vaguely wondered if humans had to deal with this sort of thing. But maybe they understood each other well enough that these situations never came up. Or they were handled in a different way when they broke up with each other, though Jake couldn't imagine what that could possibly be.

Jake sighed to himself, wondering just how much about human interaction he really had missed out on for all of these years. He'd known his relationship with humans had always been a little different since his curse. But he'd never thought it was this different.

Megan tried to act like she wasn't hurt, but of course he could see that this whole thing really bothered her. Jake found himself staring down at his notebook so he wouldn't have to make eye contact with her. Besides, if he wasn't allowed to talk to her, eye contact would probably only make this whole situation even more awkward. Maybe he really shouldn't have arranged it so everyone thought she'd broken up with him, but it had seemed like a great idea at the time. He'd hoped it would give her the hint that it wasn't his idea. And maybe she would realize that he wasn't exactly looking forward to the prospect. But it looked like she wasn't taking it quite the way he'd hoped she would.

Jake sat there in class, only barely listening to the teacher. He knew he really should be paying attention, especially since chemistry was definitely his weak point. But he had more important things to worry about than how all of these atoms were supposed to be arranged; he had to figure out how to get his life back – before this new girl got rid of him for good.

Jake thought about the restrictions this new girl had placed on him. He hated to admit it, but she'd been surprisingly thorough. But Jake didn't let that bother him; he'd been getting out of annoying rules for centuries. Still, this one was going to be tough. And he couldn't just learn to live with it – there was too much at stake this time. So what were his options?