Join the Band

~Jai’s POV~

No, none of it's true cuz I never knew you
And now the truth of it is, is I wanna be like you
So hello, good friend, I wanna be next to you
For my head for my heart for what’s true

I sat on the bit of roof that hung under my window, music blaring, headache forming, what was I going to do? I started at the sky as if it was going to give me the answers I needed. Why couldn’t I talk to her? Why couldn’t I just tell her how I feel? I talk to her about everything else! But that was the problem. We’d been friends too long. I picked up my iPod and turned the music off. Usually it helped with my thinking, but today it was just making my headache worse. My eyes wondered around my backyard and up the side of the house next door finally settling on Haylee’s window directly opposite where I was sitting. Haylee was sitting on her window sill staring out into space – not an uncommon past time for her – and she hadn’t seemed to notice me yet. I watched her sitting there, noticing the things I always do in her presence: the way she nibbles at her lip when she’s thinking, how she’s always touching her hair, how her hair has three different shades of brown in it, how long her eyelashes are, how pretty the colour of her eyes are… Suddenly she looked through her window, straight at me.
“Hey Jai.” She said warily after oping her window, scared I was going to ignore her again I presumed. I considered it – ignoring her – but she was pleading silently with her eyes for me to talk…
“Hey.” I replied caving.
“How are you?” She asked relaxing.
“Fine.” I lied looking away. She raised her eyebrows at me.
“You know you’ve never been good at lying.” She stated smirking a little. The sides of my lips twitched.
“Only to you, you know me too well.” I replied. She grinned.
“Yeah I do a bit aye?” She laughed and I couldn’t help laughing with her. “I’m sorry for going off at you before.” She said her smile fading and her eyes dropping to the ground.
“It’s ok. I’m sorry for pushing you like that. It’s just that I can’t believe someone with your talent could be so scared of the stage.” She shrugged her smile coming back.
“I can’t help it. It’s just the way it turned out.” I nodded. “But I’m going to try. I’m going to try and get over my stage fright before Battle of the Bands so I can sing with you guys.” Her eyebrows furrowed into a look of determination and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” She demanded looking angry. I paused.
“It’s just that you look so cute when you’re determined.” I muttered looking at my hands and blushing. I sneaked a look at her and saw that she was blushing too. Then suddenly we were laughing. An uncontrollable laugh that lasted several minutes of hysteria and ended with us both in tears grinning stupidly at each other.
“What are we even laughing at?” Haylee asked once we settled down a bit.
“I think it’s just strange for me to say something that’d cause us both to blush.” I replied. She nodded lapsing into thought. “What’re ya thinkin’ bout?” I asked.
“Just that, after all the years I’ve been your friend, I didn’t see this coming.” I frowned, slightly confused. She just shot me a small smile waved goodbye and closed her window. I sat there, staring at the empty space she left at her window frame. For the first time in my life I was completely unsure of myself.

~Haylee’s POV~

It was 6am. Mother was at work, brother was sound asleep. I was sitting at my drum kit trying to improve my mediocre drumming skills after waking up at 5:00 and not being able to get back to sleep. Jai wouldn’t leave my head. I kept thinking about the conversation we’d had the day before. How he’d called me cute, made me blush…But the thing was I wasn’t sure how I felt about it all. I sighed and threw one of my sticks in the direction of the door. Instead of the bang I was expecting to hear there was a loud “OUCH” in a voice I knew very well. “If you’re gonna better your drumming it’s not a good idea to hit people with your sticks.” Jai said entering my room.
“What are you doing here?” I asked surprised as he threw me my stick back.
“Well I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep. And when I heard your drumming from next door I figured you couldn’t either. So I decided to come keep you company.” He replied with a smile.
“Thanks.” I replied smiling back at him, but I wasn’t able to look him in the eye. I began to play again, concentrating on what I was doing. Suddenly I felt a pair of arms around me.
“Here let me show you a new pattern.” He grabbed my wrists and began guiding me as to which drums to hit. My heart was pounding and the closeness, tho it wasn’t unusual for us to be this close. I suddenly jumped up and away from him.
“What’s wrong Haylz?” He asked.
“I just can’t take this any more! I don’t know what to think! I mean we’re best friends and have been practically our entire lives. We tell each other everything and everything and completely trust each other. But now you’ve fallen for me and I don’t know what to think because I might, possibly, be falling for you.” Tears had started to fall by this stage and I wasn’t even sure why. Without warning Jai’s arms were wrapped around me and I embraced him, pulling him as close to my body as possible. And then, out of nowhere, Jai kissed me.