There and Back

Three... Two... One. The bell signaling the end of school blared loudly in the classroom.
Everyone jumped up and cheered. The entire student body was hugging friends and getting yearbooks signed, especially the Seniors. I'm not sure why the rest of the school's so bent on getting their friends to sign a stupid book- it's not like they're not going to see each other over the summer or next fall. Whatever; I was just glad that Junior year was finally over. Next step, I'll be a Senior.
I pulled my backpack on my back and walked out through the thick crowds. Almost everybody was still in the halls or leaning on cars not even attempting to escape the parking lot. Bella and the Cullens were no exception. They were all waiting around by the Volvo and truck.
"Lizzy, sign my yearbook!" Alice ordered.
"Why? I'll see you practically every day."
"Just do it."
I sighed and rolled my eyes. I opened her book and wrote my message on the fold between the cover and next page. ‘Guess what, Alice. I'm the 1st to sign your crack. Speaking of which, don’t do it. It’s not good 4 u.’
Emmett shoved his book my nose when I handed Alice back her yearbook. My message for him was very simple. ‘HAKAS’ (have a kick ass summer) Jasper's was next and I wrote a simple ‘HAGS’ (have a great summer). Why on earth are people making me sign their yearbooks? This is so frickin annoying.
"Get over it," Jasper told me as he read my boring comment.
"Me next," Rosalie demanded.
"Yes your highness," I murmured. My note to Rose was longer than the others. It actually had a little thought in it. ‘Rosalie, don't smoke pot. But if you do, don't forget to invite me. Jk. But really, I'm so glad to have met you this year. You are one of the greatest friends I've ever met. Glad to finally meet someone as bitchy as me :). Lots of love ~Liz.
"Can we go now?" I asked Bella. "I'm gonna be spending enough time here as it is."
"Ugh, Fine. We'll see you guys later."
I climbed into Bella's truck grumpily. I've been pretty moody lately trying to avoid Jacob. Things have been a little awkward between us. I'll admit that it's mostly my fault, but I don't like having this feeling of being jealous and being in a REAL relationship. What's wrong with me? Maybe I'm overanalyzing everything. Or maybe I’m just PMS-ing. Yeah, let’s go with that.
"Sorry you're stuck in summer school," Bella said.
I shrugged and started playing with the ends of my hair. "At least I'll be away from Lauren and Jessica. Did you see Lauren's face? Her nose looks like Rudolf's. It's so great."
“So what do you and Jake have planned for the summer?"
"Um, I’m not really sure at the moment. I haven't exactly had the chance to talk to him since dinner the other night."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing? I swear. I've just been busy."
Her chocolate brown eyes narrowed as she studied me skeptically. "If you insist…"
Sometimes it's a good thing Bella’s such a bad liar because then she'll believe anyone. Then again, I'm a pretty good liar anyway. But she really doesn't need to know about my crazy, confusing feelings. I'm too messed up for her to have to get in my head.
The next few minutes home were in utter silence. I mused over my thoughts on what I should do about Jacob. Bella pulled into the driveway and Jacob was there waiting on his motorcycle. Well speak of the devil.
"Hi Jake,” Bella said cheerfully. She glanced back at me still taking my sweet time getting out of the truck and frowned. “Well I'm just gonna head inside. I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah, 'bye Bells. Don't forget that there's a bonfire tomorrow night if you and Charlie are up for it."
She went into the house leaving me alone with my boyfriend. An awkward silence passed- well, awkward for me, anyway. "So what's up?" I finally said.
"Nothing. Just dropped by to say hi. We've hardly spent any time together."
"I've just been busy with school. End of the year and everything. I had a lot to do, especially after missing so much being stuck in Italy." I really hoped that he didn’t hear wow detached my voice was.
"Well now it's summer so we have two months."
I dropped my gaze. "Yeah, about that. I'm going to be kinda busy this summer."
"Doing what?" He looked so hurt that I couldn't bear to look at him. I felt so terrible.
"Summer school. I'm going to be busy with it all summer."
"Why do you have to go to summer school?"
"I need more credits if I want to graduate sometime next year. I'm pretty behind from moving and switching schools twice and missing over a month here. I've got to go or I'm getting held back next year."
"So what are we going to do?" Jacob sounded so desperate.
"I'm not sure. I'll bet we can find some time to spend together." This is insane. I've never had to work at a relationship. Usually if I had no time for a guy, we broke up fast. But with Jacob, I wasn't sure what the best thing to do was. I hated the feelings of jealousy and insecurity that I got around him. I didn’t know I was going to do and definitely didn’t think my next words through until it was too late.
"Jacob, I think we need to talk..."