Witness

45| Scary Situations (pt. 1)

It had now been a little over a month since Jaxon broke things off with me, and a few weeks since our moment with the fire alarm.

We were still awkward with each other, but the fire alarm seemed to be what we needed to move back into neutrality instead of hostility; even distant friendship. When I spent the night in his dorm room that night, he sat with me on the futon until I warmed up and stopped shaking, but we didn't sleep together in the same bed. Unfortunately, this was a line I figured he wouldn't let us cross again.

When Hannah then asked me about spending the night in his room, I had to lie to her... again. This time, I covered by saying that things with Jax, or Mason, were complicated, and that we were trying to work through them.

This seemed to be enough for her, because she didn't press me further. Instead, I ended up spending the next few nights on his futon also. Jax just really wanted to be on the safe side since we both had had such a bad feeling about the alarm situation.

Besides, Blake had spent those same nights with Hannah in my dorm room, so nobody ever questioned why Jax and I weren't sharing a bed. It kind of worked out nicely.

All of this alone time with Jax had forced us to talk, and I found most of my hostility melting away. It was also much harder to stay mad at him when he took me out for ice cream on my birthday; my real birthday.

I hadn't expected him to do anything for me after everything that had happened between us, but I was wrong. After class, we had detoured to an ice cream parlor right off of campus, where he bought me my favorite flavors. Then, we went back to his dorm where we had a "Die Hard" marathon.

He had let me pick the movies, but I wanted to avoid watching anything romantic with him. I already had too many romantic feelings; I didn't need to watch relationships play out on the screen. We didn't cuddle or even sit very close to each other, but it was nice to feel like I was getting a piece of our friendship back.

I missed how things had been though, and I was lying to myself every day that I didn't act upon my feelings.

Still, even though I felt my hostility towards Jax melting away with each passing day, I couldn't shake the feeling of dread that something bad was going to happen. I couldn't explain it. Nothing even remotely out of the ordinary had happened in the last two weeks, the alarm didn't seem to be related to the mob, and still, I was constantly feeling jumpy and paranoid.

Jax and I were walking to class in silence today. Though I didn't enjoy the silence with him, the silence didn't feel quite as loud anymore. I was comfortable with where the two of us stood; I didn't love it, but I was comfortable.

I supposed another thing I could be grateful for today was the fact that it was an unseasonably warm day for February. I had on my oversized jean jacket, but I probably didn't even need it in the late afternoon sun.

Jax and I had just settled into our usual seats in the lecture hall. I watched his arms flex as he pulled his laptop out of his backpack while I shimmied out of my jacket. We were a little early today, so I leaned back into my seat, pulling my blonde hair up into a pony-tail while more students began to filter in.

I yawned, leaning closer to Jax. "I'm tired," I said, "Wake me when this class is over."

He smirked, "You're always tired. Maybe you should have—"

He was cut off when an ear-splitting "BANG" sounded throughout the room. It was like the sound was ricocheting off the cold, cemented walls and flooring; it sounded like the noise was happening over and over again.

This was definitely not the sound of a projector falling or a car backfiring; It was a gunshot. Perhaps even several gunshots. I was sure of it.

I froze with fear. Everything seemed to happen all at once, and I couldn't even process the situation enough to act on it. In a split second, students were screaming, running, ducking between the seats, and whatever else they could do as more gunshots rang out around us.