My Worst Nightmare

“Hello? Haylee are you listening to me?” Caleb laughed waving a hang in front of my face.
“What? Oh, uh, no I’m sorry,” I said embarrassed. I looked back at Jonathan with a smile and gave him a small way.

“Who are you waving at?” Caleb asked looking in the direction that I was, but he couldn’t figure out who I was looking at. He turned back around and waited for me to give an answer. I paused because I noticed Jonathan making his way over to our table.

“Someone that I met at Vinny’s yesterday after you left.” I replied just as Jonathan appeared at the table.

“Just someone?” Jonathan laughed, “Do you remember even a letter from my name?”

“Of course I remember your name, Jonathan” I said, “Kinda hard not to.”

“And why’s that?” Jonathan smirked.

“Well I don’t know another Jonathan and you just wouldn’t leave me alone.” I joked. While I said this I glanced at Caleb and he had this certain look on his face. It wasn’t a happy one. It seemed almost as if he was glaring at Jonathan, but trying not to make it obvious.

“Ah, Caleb this is Jonathan-” Caleb cut me off.
“Yeah the guy in the other band.” he said.

“What you still didn’t get over that we turned out better you?” Jonathan laughed, but Caleb was still serious, “I’m joking with you man.”

“Whatever,” Caleb mumbled.

“Well I guess asking to hang with you guys is out of the question,” he shrugged letting out a chuckle.

Next thing we knew they were calling our number for our food order. Caleb said he’d get it and I thanked him. Jonathan took that as the liberty to sit in Caleb’s seat.

“So what are you doing out of school, huh?” Jonathan questioned leaning his head in the palm of his hand and his elbow on the table.

“I should be asking you the same thing.” I answered with a smile copying the way he looked.

“It’s a Friday and school is almost over what do you expect a guy like me to do? Sit in a hot ass school? I don’t think so.” Jonathan said leaning back in his seat.

“Well me and Caleb over there are skipping too. It was either be late and get detention again or just not go at all and not get detention.” I explained myself.

“Smart choice.” he approved with the nod of his head and a smile. He looked over to the counter and so did I. Caleb was still waiting for them to get the order it seemed even though they called our number they still didn’t have our sandwiches ready.

“So it seems your friend over there doesn’t like me very much.” Jonathan stated, “Are you seeing each other?”

“No, we’re just friends.” I sighed.

“But you want to be more?”
“I don’t know and I don’t have to tell you!”
“Ok, ok, cool it. I was just saying.”

After a few minutes Caleb finally returned. Jonathan quickly got out of Caleb’s seat so he could sit back down and then they called Jonathan’s number.

“Well I gotta get my food and get out of here, but it was nice seeing you again Haylee. I’m going to be expecting you to use that number I gave to call me some time now just to let you know.” Jonathan warned.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I nodded.

“Oh and Caleb I know you see to kinda hate me, but I thought that your band did really good. You and your guitarist should come jam with my band some day.” Jonathan offered.

“Yeah I’ll talk to Austin about it.” he said looking down at his food. With all that said Jonathan went to get his food and left the café. Caleb and I looked at each other and he instantly knew I was annoyed. I mean, he barely knew the guy and was just writing him off like that? Ok, I barely knew Jonathan, but at least I was giving him a chance right? Just because he was in the rival band doesn’t mean I have to hate him. Maybe in Caleb’s case it was, but some how I knew I was going to have get those two to be friends.

We ate with little conversation, but still talked to each other. After I was starting to finish off my chips I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 1pm. Caleb noticed I was done so he took my empty Styrofoam plate, empty bag of chips, and his own garbage and threw it all away. I thanked him as I took my soda, drained it, and threw it away. As we existed conversation came more easily then it had just moments before.

The rest of the day was spent just goofing around and trying things on and laughing. It was such a great time and it stayed that way because we just didn’t speak about Jonathan. It was tugging at the back of my head about him though, but I never said anything about him to Caleb. I was having too much fun to spoil that even though I had a feeling he was thinking about him too. Caleb just seemed to have this thing about Jonathan like he didn’t trust him or he was jealous or something.

At around 2:00, school we about ready to let everyone out, we spotted Caleb’s mom. My eyes couldn’t have gotten any bigger then they were. Caleb noticed my face and looked and when he saw his mom his eyes did the same thing. I had been trying on this black dress Caleb insisted I tried on since he wanted to see me in more girly dressy things like at the concert. So I had said yes and here I was showing him the dress on me and there was his mom.

We still had a few minutes to be in school and if his mom saw us now we would be busted. So all of a sudden Caleb started shoving me back into the dressing room I had chosen. He came in with me and closed the door shut locking it.

“I’m not going down like this!” Caleb stated, “I’m actually getting away with everything today and now my mom is here?! No way! This isn’t fair!”

“We’ll just wait it out in here until your mom leaves.” I reassured.
“But my mom takes ages in stores she’ll be here for a long time!” he whined, “Quick! Get dressed so we can sneak out of here!”

“What?!” I almost shouted.
“I won’t look! I swear! Plus we’ve done this before its no biggie.” Caleb said.

“Uh, yeah when I was like, what, five?” I laughed, “Get out of here and I’ll change.”

“Ok, fine, but you hurry it up and if my mom makes her way over to here I’m coming in fast.” he informed. I nodded and he rushed out the door. I tried to get dressed as fast I could, but I was having a hard time getting the stupid black dress off and I was starting to panic. So I opened the door and stuck my head out and locked eyes with Caleb.

“Caleb I can’t get the dress off!” I whispered.

“What? You’ve got to be kidding me!” He whined.

“I’m not! Just go without me and I’ll meet you at the café we had lunch at!” I said.

“No! I can’t just leave you here!” he protested.

“Too bad you have to.”
“I’ll help you!”
“No!”
“Too bad I have to!”

He looked back where his mom was looking at shirts and then stormed in the changing room I was in. He closed the door and then said, “Ok what can’t you do?”

“I can’t get the dress off over my head is what I can’t do! I knew I should have gotten a bigger size! God I’m so fat!” I said frustrated.

“Shut up no your not.” Caleb said as he quickly unzipped the back of the dress. I slipped the first sleeve off and started trying to pull the dress up over my head since I couldn’t pull it down. Caleb tried to help and eventually I had both my arms up and him pulling it off me. When I didn’t have it on I slapped my hand in front of his eyes.

“It’s ok Haylee I had my eyes closed anyway I didn’t see anything.” he laughed.

“It better stay that way Turman while I finish dressing or I will kill you in your sleep. I know where you live!” I threatened. Caleb just laughed while I took my hand away from his face. He did have his eyes closed but I took his hands and made him cover his own eyes anyway. I grabbed my pants and pulled them on and then slipped on my tank top. I was zipping and buttoning my pants while I took a deep breath. Wow. Of course this had to happen with Caleb. The guy I felt I was crushing on so hard now a days. It was so typical. I straightened my hair and then told Caleb he could open his eyes.

“Ok, so we ready to go?” Caleb asked his hand on the door knob to leave.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I replied with a smile.

He opened the door and looked out. His mom’s back was to us so we slipped out the room and practically ran for the front door. However, before we could make it to the front door his mom started walking our way. We started to back track our steps and turned our backs to her making it seem like we were looking at a rack of clothes. After a few minutes his moms back was to us and the door again and she was heading toward the dressing room. That’s when we made our get away.

Walking quickly still, down the street, Caleb and I started to laugh. What a great day this was turning out to be. I was actually glad I wasn’t stuck in school taking a science test and being bored out of my mind. When we were just passing Vinny’s is when our conversation went somewhere we didn‘t want it.

“So, uh, Haylee, you and Jonathan were talking last night?” Caleb hesitantly asked.

“Yeah for a little while, why?” I replied.
“Oh, I was just wonder I mean you seemed on really good terms with each other so quickly,” he said.
“Well just because he’s in The Flip Side doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with him Caleb.”
“Hey, I’m just saying it seemed like he wanted to be much more then friends.”
“And so what if he does?”
“How can you trust him?”
“Well who says I completely trust him? I mean I don’t know a lot about Jonathan, but he seems like a really nice guy. Your just passing judgment so fast that you hate him because of it.”
“I just don’t get why your standing up for him so much. I thought I was your best friend.”
“Caleb you are my best friend. I love you man!” I said playfully punching his arm, “I mean I’m just giving this guy a shot.”

“A shot at what?” he suspiciously asked.
“A shot at friendship,” I smiled, “But I know I won’t be as good as friends with him then you.”

“Just watch out when you hang out with him Haylee. Your like my little sister and he’s the guy that wants to take you away.” he laughed putting his arm around my shoulder and squeezing me tight. He saw me as a little sister though we were the same age. He saw me as a sister. A sister? I knew we were best friends, but a sister? That’s something that just made my heart get that feeling of tightness when its sad or heard something it didn’t want to hear. It was one of those feelings because right there and then I knew that me and Caleb would never be a thing.

It was something that I didn’t like, but I knew I was going to have to accept. I mean, what if Caleb all of a sudden got a girlfriend? Its not like I would be able to be around him with who ever it was going to be. I was actually surprised he was single for so long. Ever since I had started to like him he only had one other girlfriend but even then it was only for a few months. Other then that there was no one else just my feelings growing more and more as he came over more and more often.

Anyway, I smiled while taking a big sigh. I looked at Caleb and I knew that I could get over him after liking him for about a year. It was going to be really hard, but I knew I could do it if I really tried. I knew that I’d find someone that would spark my interest other then Caleb, hopefully.