Without Love ::: Zach, Jayla

[jayla]

Jayla had no idea what happened to her, because since last night there was only one thing, she could possibly think of, even though it wasn't a thing, but a person; Zach. He was the one boy she had always been sure she would hate and now she just couldn't get him out of her head, which to her, was probably due to how nice he had been at the abandoned apartments, when she last saw him. Now, she just couldn't ignore him anymore.. Besides that, she didn't want to.

So, here she was, getting ready for the day and totally avoiding Jace, because she didn't want to talk to her, or have a reality-check on Zach being her ex. She sighed as she got out a new outfit and held in front of her, to see if it would fit her nicely enough. "No.. No.." She went through her clothes, until she was sure she had the right outfit.

Normally she would never go through her clothes like this, because she didn't care at all as to what she was wearing or how her hair was. She would just wear it loose most of the time anyway. So, when was finally satisfied, she picked out a worn-out jeans she loved wearing, she then also picked out a nice red shirt with smock flowers at the front. It had to do. With a sigh, she put on her favorite leather boots and leather bracelets, got her back and walked to her locker, where she started to get her books, as she glanced nervously down the hallways every now and then.

[zach]

Zach walked down the hall of Brimnar House. It was where all the lockers were for the college student on campus. They were mainly for people who commuted, but it seemed that more and more on campus students were using them, Zach included. It was just easier to have somewhere in the middle of campus to store some of your books instead of having to run across campus to the dorms. But as he walked down the halls, something strange caught his eye. Something that he just realized seemed to be happening everywhere on his walk to Brimnar this morning. People were just….all over each other. And he probably wouldn’t have noticed if there weren’t so many couples macking on each other. Normally Zach sort of went through the motions of a day completely oblivious to all things outside of his little head, but today, it was sort of hard to overlook everything. Especially when two very attractive women were swapping spit with each other right up against his locker.

Zach smirked. “Excuse me ladies,” he said as he waved his hand at them to move away from his locker. They heard him, but didn’t even look his way. In fact, the pulled away from each other and quickly bolted into an empty lecture hall. Zach could only imagine what naughty things they were about to do. Zach looked away from them and glanced down at the lock on his locker. It only took him a few seconds to crack the combination. He opened his locker and grabbed his English composition book along with the notebook that he was supposed to fill with lecture notes but rarely ever did and shut the locker. Surprisingly he had all the time in the world today. It had been a good day so far. He had gotten up early, showered, put on his favorite outfit which consisted of a pair of American Eagle jeans faded jeans and an black Evil Dead t-shirt, and headed off leaving himself a half an hour to just take his time. Class for him didn’t start for another twenty minutes, so what the heck was he going to do.

When he turned away from his locker, he caught a glimpse of Jayla at her locker a little ways down the hall. He smiled. Maybe the incident at the abandoned house changed her mind about him. He hoped so. It would be nice to have a friend around here that actually already knew him. He headed towards her. Hopefully she wasn’t in a hurry. “Hey you! Did you miss me?” He said jokingly when he reached her. He knew she wouldn’t go that far as to miss him. He wasn’t even for sure if they had broken that barrier that kept them from being friends that had for so long been blocking any type of communication between the two.

[jayla]

Jayla was completely and utterly nervous. So nervous that she didn't even stop to notice how everyone was all over each other. Why was she even feeling like this? He would never see her, right? He always loved little miss Jace and she was so jealous of it, that she just.. Yes, what did she just? She wanted to kiss him, take her chances and let him know what she felt. Even though she was positive he wouldn't even see her like that.. But that was rational thinking, thinking she had pushed back to her mind as far as possible, to focus on the here and now.

When she saw Zach, she silently gulped and opened the door of her locker a little bit wider to hide her blush. Why was she blushing? She bit her lip, put on a smile and closed the door of the locker. "Hey." She greeted him, as she looked at him, with one thought in mind.. She wanted to kiss him. When he asked her if she had missed her, she chuckled. "Is that a bad thing?" She teased him, as she turned to face him.

Come on, act normal.. don't be nervous.. He won't eat you! She scolded herself as she pulled the band of her shoulder bag over her left shoulder. "Hey, um.. Zach.." She then eventually started to say, as she looked at him, deciding to go with this.. Aw, what the heck. "Please don't freak out." She then almost begged, as she lowered her bag again, took a step closer and kissed him.

[zach]

Zach watched Jayla as she continued to fidget with things in her locker. He wasn’t big on reading people at all, but at this moment, he could tell that Jayla was a bit nervous which was a tad weird. He wondered if she was still freaking out about what had happened at the abandoned apartments. He was about to ask her about it when she asked him if missing him was a bad thing. It was quite the surprise to hear something like that even though it sounded like she was just joking around with him. He didn’t really catch the realness of that statement in her voice. All he could think about was how nice it was to have her at least joking with him. He wondered how Jace would feel about Jayla and his new found friendship. He still wasn’t even sure how Jace felt about him. He smiled. “No, not necessarily. Why? Is there some missing going on? Come on, you can say it. You are head over heels for me!” He grinned at her. All of these things were being said in fun, but it was interesting to see how she would react to it. To see where this friendship had its limits before she got irritated with him just like she used to. With all of his talking, he didn’t realize that Jayla was already turning to face him and was trying to tell him something. The last thing he heard was “....don’t freak out,” before she moved forward towards him and planted her lips right onto his. His immediate reaction in a situation like this would be to obvious kiss back, but he had to stop himself when he finally was able to grasp what was happening.

Zach quickly pulled away. He stared at her for a few seconds really not sure what to say. After what seemed like forever, he finally said, “Uh, I didn’t think you’d take the head over heels thing to heart.” His eyes scanned the hallways at everyone else kissing and flirting. He gave her a goofy grin. “Did you feel left out or something? Because that I can understand just a smidgen. But um….a full blown kiss coming from you to your arch nemesisiseees? Not even remotely on my radar for a possible occurrence.” Of course, he would crack some sort of funny remark about the event that had just taken place, but what else could he do? His ex-girlfriend’s best friend just kissed him. He had no clue why or where that came from. How was he supposed to react?

[jayla]

Part of her had stopped freaking out about what had happened at the abandoned apartments, but that was now only a small part of her, the biggest part worried about other things. ”I.. I don’t know..” She said, nervously, as she looked at him. When she heard what he said, she smiled, but didn’t say a word. She couldn’t.. And yet, she was.

At first she felt him kiss her back, before he seemed to realize what was going on and her heart dropped. She looked at him and bit her lip. ”Well, I did.” She said softly, before feeling a blush come on and grabbing her shoulder bag tighter. ”I don’t hate you, Zach.. How could I after what you did back at the apartments?” She sighed, feeling like a complete and utter idiot. ”Just forget it..” She said, not knowing what to say really. She sighed and looked at him, before walking into the direction of the class she’d have to attempt, in.. 15 minutes +

[zach]

Zach watched Jayla and all that seemed to come out of her mouth was ‘I don’t know’. He had never imagined in a million years that Jace’s best friend, someone who had always made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to ever be good enough for her best friend, would kiss him. And what was even stranger was what Jayla said after she was finally able to say something again. “Did what?” He already knew the answer to that. She was telling him that she had in fact fallen head over heels for him. How could that be true? Zach studied her. Was it a joke? No, it didn’t seem like it at all. Jayla really looked like she was really saying the honest truth about how she felt.

And then she brought up the abandoned apartments. Zach swallowed hard. Was that where all of this was coming from? Because he was compassionate with her at the apartments? He hoped that that was what anyone would do in a situation like that, but apparently she had taken it a completely different way. But before Zach could even respond to what she had just said, she told him to forget it and began to walk off. That was something he wasn’t going to allow. He didn’t want her to walk off upset, especially if he was the cause of her thinking this. He quickly grabbed her arm before she was able to walk to far away from him. “Hey, wait. No, we are not forgetting this.” He grabbed her other arm to pull her around so that she was facing him. “You are awesome, Jayla. And I’m glad I’m not your nemesis. I’m glad that we are actually forming a friendship, something I really wished we could have done back when Jace and I were dating. But you know we can’t do that to her. She is...” Zach paused. Suddenly, everything that was happening in that very moment was a blur and all he could think about was Jace. All he wanted to do at that moment was hold Jace in his arms and pretend like nothing had ever went wrong between the two of them. “…the love of my life,” Zach continued. “Where is she by the way. Do you know where she is? Is she still in her dorm room? I have to find her. I need to her to know that I still love her, Jayla, and I want her back.” Zach let go of Jayla’s arms and his own dropped to his sides.

[jayla]

Jayla didn’t immediately respond to what he said and just looked at him, feeling even more of an idiot than before. How could she have fallen for him? When did that even happen to begin with? It wasn’t possible and yet.. here she was. ”You know what.” She managed to say. Part of her knew that her feelings had been out of whack for longer then this. They had been out of control ever since the changes occurred. She had felt them and she had wished that her transformation weren’t any cause of it. But it was. Her transforming into a Banshee became uncontrollable and that Zach was there for her.. That meant a lot to her, but to fall in love with him? Was that really possible? No, it had to be, because here she was, after all.

When he suddenly grabbed her arm, she looked at him, confused. When he turned her around and she heard what she said, it took her a few minutes to look at him. She then felt tears stinging in her eyes and felt a sudden surge of jealousy. ”Probably still in her room.” She replied softly, before taking a few steps back. Why couldn’t she fall for someone available? She never fell for anyone. Not usually anyway. ”I don’t really care where she is.”
She said, before looking at him. ”Just go.”

[zach]

Zach could see the tears welling up in her eyes, and part of him felt bad for causing that. Part of him wanted to apologize and say something other than what he just asked her about Jacinta. They weren’t even talking about his love for her a few seconds ago. He had just found out that Jayla liked him, and the only thing that he wanted to talk about right now was Jace. How was that normal? He knew exactly what he was going to say to Jayla after he thought about it for a few seconds, but when he actually started talking something completely different came out. He started asking about Jace. Jace just popped into his head. In fact, right now, he felt sick not having her around him. But why had he completely disregarded this situation and just jumped into a new topic when Jayla liking him was probably something that needed immediate attention? He couldn’t explain it. He wanted to care about Jayla right now, but she was in the back of his mind trying to push her way back up. Jace basically had all of his mind.

When Jayla finally responded to his question about where Jace was, Zach nodded. And when she told him to go, he wanted to stop himself from turning away from her, but he also had the irresistible urge to go find Jace. And now that he knew where she was, all he wanted to do was go and see her. “Alright, thanks Jayla. Oh and sorry about the whole us thing. There was no way it was going to work out anyways.” What the heck was going on? He was always one to be honest about things, but that was downright mean. But his main focus right now was Jace, not Jayla. Why? He had no idea. A few seconds ago, he was still contemplating even talking to Jace again. Now he wanted to do much more than that. Zach looked away from Jace and headed towards the exit past her leaving her behind. Good thing while Zach and Axel were eating lunch together the other day, he had talked to him about Jace. He wouldn’t have known what room was hers if he hadn’t brought her up.