The Middle | ✔️

Chapter 25 (Zach)

Zach

"John! You here?" I call into the dorm when I get in. 

"Yeah!" I hear his voice coming from his room, then I see him emerging with that fucking acoustic guitar in his hand. 

"Been rehearsing again?" I ask, successfully hiding the exasperation from my tone. 

"Yeah, it's coming along really well!" He's ecstatic. "I'm going over to Jamie's again tonight to practice some more. She's been so awesome, I am literally eating into all her free time right now. She's so cool, I hope Noah gets over himself and realises that he likes her soon. He totally does, right?"

"Oh yeah, he does." I tell him. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up about that. He doesn't know what to do with this kind of feeling, poor guy, he's going through it right now for sure."

"I just don't get that." John frowns at me. "What's so difficult about liking a girl? I've liked Aubrey for years, and it hasn't killed me."

"I know, I know, Noah's just new to this stuff. He's not great with it. He has his reasons." It's not my business to talk about Noah's lack of romantic inclinations with John, so that's all I'll say about it for now. However, while we're talking about Jamie...

"John, has Will ever said anything about Jamie?" I ask him, folding my arms across my chest and leaning back against the kitchen counter.

"Will? Yeah, he calls her 'Lit Girl' all the time? He's always teasing Noah about her?" John says, confused by my random question. His responses is exactly what I expected. 

"Right, but have you ever stopped and realised - he must know her pretty well? They're both from North Bridge, same age, both went to NB High?" I await John's reaction to this. It's exactly as I expected. He looks confused for a moment, before the realisation crashes over his features.

"Oh my god, you're right!" John exclaims, setting the guitar down against the wall next to him. "He must have known her since they were in kindergarten. He's never really said much about her, though." 

John considers this, and I wait for him to realise what I realised about 45 minutes ago. 

"Hold on." John starts. "I've never seen Will talk to Jamie, you know, at the Grill or whatever. He's always off talking to other people whenever we talk to Jamie and the guys. That's weird, right? And... he hasn't said much about her at all, even though he knows she's Noah's English partner. Hang on..."

Come on, John.

"Maybe they never really talked much in grade school." He shrugs his shoulders and picks up the guitar again. I sigh.

"Remember last week, when we met Will, and he told us he dated someone for a while in High School Senior Year, but it didn't end well?" I ask.

"Vaguely." John says. "You don't think...?"

"I don't know." I say quietly, because the truth is, I don't.

Last week, I saw Jamie storming off toward the football field. She was pissed, she barely acknowledged me when I tried to talk to her. Then, there was Will. Hot on her heels. I watched as he walked after her quickly, and I watched as he followed her beneath the bleachers. I didn't think too much of it at the time, as I recall, I shrugged my shoulders, turned back around and carried on about my business. I think I forgot about it less than 5 minutes later, when some pretty little blonde with a cute nose ring started flirting with me outside the Sports building entrance. But when I saw Jamie there again today, it reminded me about Will following her under the bleachers. There's definitely something there. But, I don't know what.