I Can't Be Without You

Well, after Christmas, it became official. I was dating 'Josh fucking Ramsay'. Honestly, 'officially' dating wasn't any different from when Josh and I weren't 'officially' dating. Except, when it was 'official' I got to change my relationship status from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship'.

I had noticed, however, that Josh had deffinatly become a little bit more protective over me. At first I was overwhelmd, then I found it kind of funny.

I walked into school the first day back and was absolutely miserable. Not because I was sad I was back in school, but because I was sick. I had been out in the snow too much over with Airin and Keith. I was also sad that Keith had left on January second. He promised he would come back when ever he could, and I was happy about that.

I sat in the little corner I usually sat in, being greeted by people. My music teacher, Mr Logan was the first to talk to me. "Morning Josline. How was your Christmas."

"Good, how about yours Mr Logan?" I asked him.

"Ah, can't complain." Mr Logan paused for a minute, like he lost his train of thought. He shrugged and said goodbye. I continued to stare at the floor in a miserable way. The first bus appeared and people started filing inside. Marque and Jazz appeared together, both wearing the Christmas presents I had given them. I gave Jazz a lime green scarf and Marque got rainbow fingerless gloves. Marque went into the direction of his locker and Jazz walked over to me.

"Oh, Jaws...you look disheveld." Jazz said, setting her back pack down on the self.

"I am!" I whined pathetically. "All I want is a hug, and no one will give me one." I said, pouting. Jazz looked at me weirdly.

"Are you sick?"

"Yes." Jazz backed up even farther. I frowned even more, becoming very distraught. "NO ONE LOVES ME!" I flopped against the back of the plastic, green chair. Jazz smiled sympatheticly.

"Go find Marque. He'd give you a hug. He's all touchy-feely." Jazz said.

"I've noticed." I said remembering Christmas and all it's festivities.

"Okay Marque, Airin...you have to get out from under the mistletoe and let people get through the doorway!" Jazz said, trying to push both our brothers out of the way.

"But Jazz! I don't want to!" Marque said, wrapping his arms around Airin. Airin also put his arms around Marque, Airin's hands diving into Marque's back pockets.

"Well, we're cold, and miserable. LET US IN!" Jazz said, pushing on them. Keith and I were laughing.

"Jazz, your brute force alone wont make us move."

"Hey, guys, dinner!" My mom called from the kitchen. Marque and Airin let go of eachother, and started fighting their way to kitchen to get food.

"Wait...Marque will give me a hug?" I asked. Jazz nodded. I jumped up from my chair and practically ran to my locker, which was only a few down from Marque's. "MARQUE!" I yelled, startling a few people. Marque jumped and looked at me.

"Whoa! What do you want?" Marque asked walking towards me. I was frowning and Marque looked concerned.

"I just want a hug..." I said pathetically. In a way, it did sound like I was about to cry, but that's how I usually talked when I sounded pitiful. "No one will give me one cause I'm sick."

"SO?!" Marque flung his arms around me and locked me in a hug. He then held me at arms length.

"Okay, that makes me feel a little bit better." I said. Marque hugged me once again.

"Hey, hold up there Marque. That's my girl your getting all close with." Josh said, coming up behind us.

"Protective much..." Marque said backing away from me. I frowned at Josh.

"Hey, I was kidding!" Josh said defensively.

"The only reason Marque was hugging me was because NO ONE will give me a hug." I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"I would hug you, but I dont want to get sick!" Josh said. I made slight whimpering noises and Marque hugged me once again, patting the top of my head.

"You mean, mean person!" Marque said jokingly. Josh cocked one eyebrow at Marque.

"Marque, let her go." Josh said. Marque let me go, "Josline, come here." I inched my way over to Josh who put his arms around my waist. "Is that better?" He asked when I had stood up on my toes to put my arms around his neck, thus proving just how short I really was.

"Yes. Much better." I said, smiling at Josh. his lips lightly brushed against mine. "Hey! I thought you didn't want to get sick?" I said, standing flat on my feet again.

"If my getting sick will get you better, then I don't care." Josh said. I rolled my eyes at him. I opened my mouth to say something but Airin had snuck up behind Josh and had locked the both of us in a massive hug.

"GROUP HUG!" Airin said.

"NO!" Both me and Josh said at the same time. Airin let us go and pouted.

"But you said you wanted a hug Jaws!" Airin said.

"I do, but I don't want to be nearly knocked over!" I said, my voice cracking on the last few words.

"Oh...hug?" Airin held out his arms like a 5 year old trying to reach for something two feet away from him. I gave my brother a hug, and he seemed rather happy that I hadn't said 'no' after he nearly killed me.

"See, nice hugs are good too!" I said when Airin had let go of me.

"But they're not as fun..." Airin frowned, folding his arms over his chest. He looked utterly unpleased with my comment. Airin prefered to 'glomp' people. I was often the victim of the glomps, but now that Airin was spending more time with Marque, I didn't have to worry much.

The rest of the school day went by fast. I had gone home early because I felt too sick to be at school. My mom had gone to Nelson, a city about an hour away to get more soy products for Airin, because we couldnt get them locally, and Nelson was 'hippie central' apparantly.

I was in my room watching a movie at about 4:00, and I was drifting in and out of conciousness. A knock at my bedroom door startled me awake. "Yeah?" I rubbed my eyes, looking at my door. Airin pushed open my door, and there were just tears streaming down his face. I looked at him for a long moment before realizing what was happening. "Airin, what's wrong?"

"Jaws...I fucked up."