SILVER LINED DOUBT. [JESS MARIANO]

TWENTY-SIX.

(woohoo!! i'm back!! i actually updated!! yay! this chapter's a mess and there's a lot going on for a chapter like this. it's a bit shorter than i've been writing lately, but i hope it's something decent. but forewarning y'all again: it's a mess. lots of things happening. you'll see what i mean. enjoy if you can. love u all tons! -mags)

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THE SECOND SEMESTER of Marley's junior year progressed just as quickly as the first, but unfortunately, it wasn't as smooth. It was clunky, stressful, and tension-filled and the overwhelming amount of discomfort it caused her made her question everything that had happened thus far.

Marley and Jess had slipped into a sort of awkward limbo and had stayed there for the last couple of months. It wasn't necessarily weird between them, especially not when other people were around, but things weren't as free as they used to be. They didn't talk or share things with each other in the same way, and they certainly didn't act in the way that they had before.

Marley knew they needed to sit down and talk about whatever it was that was going on, but this overwhelming sense of doubt had made a home in the back of her mind and it refused to go away. She knew Jess well enough to know that he wouldn't be open to being honest about what was going through his head unless she was. And frankly, Marley wasn't sure what was going through her head.

The night of her birthday was strange. That had been established early on. It was something that they both knew had happened, but Marley figured they'd both chalked it up to the amount of alcohol in their systems, simply because that's what she'd done. She tended to get way more touchy-feely than she usually was when she had liquor in her system and Jess tended to be less reserved. But that situation they became wrapped in was less than normal for them.

She would have been lying if she said he hadn't considered the thought that the 'weird feeling in her chest' was... feelings for Jess (just the idea of it made her pause), but she quickly shut that down as she realized she didn't get that feeling with Ryan or Will. Those two had been her boyfriends, two boys she had feelings for. It wasn't the same.

But then there was the jealousy. After she'd sent the text to Logan asking for numbers of his friends (to which she received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response), Marley quickly realized the jealous feeling that was flowing through her body. It was something that she shut down immediately, refusing to let herself feel intimidated at the idea of another girl entering her best friend's life. Jealousy was stupid and for fifth graders who felt threatened by their crush swinging next to another girl on the playground. Marley was twenty-one years old. She needed to grow up.

And that's exactly what she did. From the second Jess started actively seeing Anna at the end of January, she grew up in every possible that way she knew. She threw herself into her work for both Harperch and school, she ignored every feeling in her body that felt abnormal, and she avoided things that made her uncomfortable or she thought would cause conflict. She managed to keep a smile on her face throughout it all, as to assure that nobody would worry about her.