Free So Much to Learn by Jessie L. Star

melancholy,
thoughts, I allowed myself to say something I'd been working up to
since the beginning of the year. "I missed you."
    He seemed to
focus more fully upon me and his brows creased in confusion.
"When?" He asked. "We live together, when would you possibly have
had time to miss me?"
    "Not now, you
idiot," I laughed. "When you went away to uni without me. I missed
you like crazy for two years. You and Matt both."
    Which, all
things considered, was a bit of an understatement. I had thought I
was going to go mad without Matt and Jack around back then. It had
been like a rug had been pulled out from underneath me. Everything
changed. When I woke up in the morning and went to sleep at night
the house was quiet, no thunderings up and down the stairs or doors
slamming. There was no racing to school with Jack and I hauling
Matt along. No recess or lunch meetings where we would swap our
food around because, as a basic rule, mum had decided the lunches
we had packed weren't acceptable and replaced our packets of chips
with soy burgers or, once, a can of whipped cream. And, although
not particularly fond memories, no more afternoons when the three
of us would hide underneath the house when Jack's dad came round
demanding his son return home.
    Going from
living in a chaotic, bustling, bursting at the seams house to one
in which you could hear the clocks ticking was a very disconcerting
experience. I got used to it, of course, I'm not saying I drew
myself into a ball of misery for two years, but it wasn’t the same.
Mostly I spent less time at home, finding solace in the continued
anarchy present at Simone's house and, when the hole the boys left
felt too gaping, I would catch the bus up to their flat.
    I should have
known better than to think that Jack wouldn't have noticed how
despondent I felt at being left behind. He shifted slightly in his
seat and then sent me one long look which told me, without doubt,
that he knew I had missed them. That look made me feel as if he had
taken up residence inside my head and had therefore known what I
was going to say before I'd even said it. It was disconcerting,
but, I realised with a start, I had done the same to him only
seconds before. Hadn't I known what was going on inside his head
and wanted to pull him away from it?
    "Missed us?" He
said quietly. "And yet weren't you the girl who cheered as we drove
away saying, if I remember correctly, 'hooray for the banishment of
the terrible twosome'?"
    I rolled my
eyes, as much as I should have known that he knew I missed them I
should also have known that he wouldn't let me get away with too
much sentimentality. "A blind monkey would’ve been able to tell
that that was just me masking my feelings. You knew I was just
putting up a front," I accused him.
    He shrugged. “Maybe, but I suppose a blind monkey wouldn't
have missed that we, that I , missed you too." There was
something in his voice that told me that, despite having ‘blind
monkey’ in the sentence, he was being very serious and I felt my
cheeks beginning to heat up.
    I couldn't
believe I was getting embarrassed again, seriously, it was
ridiculous! I didn't need to be awkward around Jack. He was Jack!
To cover my embarrassment I laughed lightly and shook my head.
    "Sorry buddy,
but that doesn't count," I told him sternly. "You can't say that
you missed me too practically right after I say it. It makes it
seem insincere. There has to be a time delay otherwise it doesn't
count."
    "Who says?"
Jack asked.
    "Everyone, it's
a well known rule."
    He nodded
gravely. "I'll wait a while then."
    Well, that
hadn't been quite what I’d had in mind, still, I had definitely
brought him out of his shell for a while there. Silence descended
once more, but I felt that I still had Jack's attention and the cab
felt smaller for it.
    After another
ten minutes or so, Jack straightened up and turned the keys in the
ignition. "We should get back," He said simply and I nodded in
agreement.
    We drove