My Kind of Woman

10. Married Woman!

-Will probably upload tomorrow or later as well, as being isolated means more time to write. I hope everyone is being safe! 

After my midnight revelation, I started to spend a lot more time staying overnight at Jackie's. She wasn't bothered, she liked that I wanted to have more overnight stays. The first time after I spent that night with Mio, I went downstairs only to test whether she'd be there again. I slipped out of Jackie's room after she fell asleep and went down quietly. And she was sitting there again. Book in hand, leg crossed over. She saw me and smiled, and I smiled just as wide, knowing there was a possibility she'd been expecting me.

She didn't ask, but I told her: "I couldn't sleep again."

She nodded for me to sit beside her and we talked again for hours. But I stopped making excuses eventually, because she just knew. A couple of times I came down before she did, and she stopped bringing her book, knowing I would be there to talk to her. Those nights, tucked away from the world in the dim living room, I felt peace in my life. But only for a few hours, then every other minute was filled with confusion.

I asked so many questions about romance, and all the answers I was given, I tried to use to base my confusion on. I made myself a mental, and physical, romantic checklist, which I was trying to tick off every time I spent time with Mio. It seemed pathetic when I really thought about it. But, the only person I could talk to about my new complicated thoughts was me. Though, one day, Jackie discovered the checklist during our lunch break while we were sat in Ms. Bisset's classroom.

With a mouthful of sandwich, she absently flicked through my notepad I always had out on the desk. It wasn't for class work or art projects, more for doodling and for thought tracking. She wiped the back of her mouth before talking,

"What's this then?"

I glanced from the window to Jackie, then stared down at the notepad. She'd opened it to the page I'd listed with emotions and romantic associations.

I snatched for it but she pulled it to her chest and grinned. "Hey! Why can't I see?"

"It's just... mine." I chewed the inside of my cheek. "It's embarrassing."

"You have nothing to be embarrassed of around me." Jackie smiled, looking back down at the open pad. "Romantic checklist, huh?"

"Alright, alright, don't read it out loud" I mumbled, seeing that Ms. Bisset was smiling over at us from her desk.

Jackie went quiet as her eyes scanned down the list. I was trying to think of the things I'd ticked off on there. I'd ordered it in level of seriousness, starting with things like 'the butterflies' and 'wanting to be close to them'. Then, towards the bottom, where I could see Jackie's eyes falling to, were some other things I'd known about from girlish chatter. Jackie looked up from the list at me and smiled teasingly.

"I see you've started reading that book I got you." She said.

"Oh, you're an idiot. I'm not that clueless." I sighed, watching her laugh at my defensiveness.

"You are that clueless."

"Just because I've never been in love doesn't mean I'm clueless. I'm older than you!" I pointed at her, trying to subtly slide my notepad back to me.

She picked it up off the desk again. "And you're still a virgin."

"And you're not?" I retorted.

She shrugged coyly. "Who knows?"

"You're evil for being so secretive."

"And you're evil for not wanting to show me this!" She looked down at the desk again. "Is this about Giana?"