“This equation is fucking impossible!” Jay yelled as she threw her pen
to the table and let her book drop to the floor. The seven heads of her calculus
study group turned in her direction, not surprised by her outburst. Six hours
had passed since they had gathered in the
“Calm down, Jay,” Max Hollis, her favorite among the group members, replied
as he raised his hand, showing her she had to lower her voice. “Go take a coffee
break, soothe your nerves, then get back here so we can finish this problem,”
he added as he watched her take a couple of calming breaths and got her head
back in order.
“Goodbye,” she sang as she picked up her long black suede jacket and
matching purse. Jay didn’t bother looking back. She already know they were watching
her go, wishing they, too, could leave this godforsaken place and take a break
from studying.
But leave it to Jay to get the hell out of there whenever she pleased.
Her entire persona had changed since she returned to
In the first three months since she returned to
As for the other six months, it was all about forgetting Darren, even
though she still wasn’t sure if he’d ever leave her mind permanently. They had
been so deeply in love, and now that he was gone, everything was just so cold
and empty, especially her heart. Jay didn’t want to let anyone else in fearing
that falling in love again would only mean getting hurt. Even though it had
been her choice to leave the chaos of his pop star world, she was still finding
it hard to accept it.
Jay continued walking out of the library and down the street towards
the nearest Starbucks. It was only a block or two away, the perfect spot to
chill for a while before heading back into the dark confines of the library.
All this studying was really getting to her. She really needed a break now even
though her mind simply couldn’t let go of the complicated problem she and her
study group had decided to tackle.
‘If pi doesn’t equal the radius of the circle, then what does?’ Jay thought
as she mindlessly walked down the street towards the coffee shop, not bothering
to look where she was going until she accidentally bumped into someone. She
looked up to spot the bleached blonde hair of the last person she ever wanted
to see again. “Seth Fisher,” she hissed, standing back away from him.
“Well, if it isn’t the famous Jack Jones,” Seth’s deep voice mocked as
he stared back at her with ice-cold blue eyes. “I though you went back to your
mommy.”
“Fuck off, Seth,” she snapped back, pushing him away from her to get
into the shop.
“Wait a minute, can’t we talk like civilized people?” he asked, placing
his oversized hand across the doorframe.
“What do you want?” Jay growled, her hands assuming their position on
her waist.
“I just wanna talk to you, that’s all,” Seth replied, innocently enough.
“Then talk.”
“I heard about what happened to you in
“Excuse me? Did I even WANNA fuck around with you? No!” Jay seethed before
she got a hold of herself and realized fighting never solved anything. She was
better than that now. She could keep her fists at her sides and turn the other
cheek knowing in the long run, Seth would get what was coming to him. Instead,
she added, “You know what? I’m not gonna stand here and listen to your bull
shit. It’s been over between us for over two years now. Why can’t you just leave
me alone?”
“Because I get a kick out of bugging you, that’s why. You’re an easy
target,” Seth laughed in her face. “Even when we were dating, you were an easy
target. But I’d have to say the best way to get to you was on the track. That
was fun.”
Jay tried to keep her cool, but that was crossing the line. Her anger
and hatred levels skyrocketed to their highest points. She pushed Seth against
the wall and yelled, “You self centered, mindless fuck! You’ve got some nerve
bringing up our past, you know that? If I was really in the mood, I’d go ahead
and have you arrested for rape.”
“Go ahead and do it!” Seth laughed harder at her comment. “You weren’t
a good fuck anyway,” he replied, starting to walk down the quiet street.
Jay couldn’t have been more pissed off by his remark. She was past enraged
now. She tapped his shoulder, and as soon as he turned around, her fist smashed
into his face with such intensity that it knocked him to the pavement. Seth
shook his head feeling disoriented for a few moments before touching his lip
to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.
“Bitch!” he spat.
“Dumb fuck!” Jay hollered back. “Want more or have you had enough?”
Seth gave her the finger as he stood up and glared at her. Instead of
fighting back, he walked away. He’d get her back again someday. ‘I’ve done it
before, I can do it again,’ he thought to himself.
Jay watched him go, a wide smile creeping onto her face. She spun around
and entered Starbucks to finally get that soothing cup of coffee she had been
waiting over six hours for. “Hey Sam!” she called to the tall, dark haired,
brown eyed guy behind the counter. He waved to her as she added, “The usual.”
Jay sat down in one of the spacious black velour couches and let her whole body
sink into it as she relaxed for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
Beside her on one of the end tables sat a stack of magazines. She picked up
the first one, the newest copy of “Popular Science,” and began skimming it.
‘I’m such a geek,’ she thought, finding an article about alternative energy
sources and beginning to read it until her coffee was ready. She heard the little
ding of Sam’s bell and quickly stood up to get it.
The first sip was always the best; hot, with just the right jolt of caffeine
to knock her back into her senses. She sat back down on the couch and picked
up her magazine again, letting her mind rest for the moment until it was time
to head back to school.
Two blocks away… “I hate you!” Darren yelled as he desperately held onto
the least of the Great Dane that dragged him down the street towards Starbucks.
“Tiger! Heel!” The dog never took heed of his calls; he just kept pulling him
along further, sniffing fire hydrants as he passed them.
“I need a break,” Darren groaned as the dog kept yanking him along. He
spotted the coffee shop a few meters away and instantly thought, ‘Relief!’ All
he would have to do now was get Tiger to sit still long enough so Darren could
tie him to a lamppost outside the café. This was always a challenge, but with
everything planned in advance, he knew exactly how to subdue the dog.
Jay was finishing her cup of coffee and magazine article when she looked
down at her watch and realized that she should have been back in the library
20 minutes ago. ‘Shit!’ she thought to herself as she grabbed her purse and
slipped on her jacket then headed for the door in a rush, not watching where
she was going.
Darren was not within a few feet of the coffee shop door as he reached
into his pocket to pull out a couple of dog treats so he could get Tiger to
calm down as he tied him up. Just as he was about to pull out the biscuits,
he could feel his body collide with that of another pedestrian, a woman. He
could tell by her high-pitched shriek. As he looked up to see who she was, her
knees were already on the ground, her hands picking up a mess of items that
fell from her purse.
“Didn’t you mother ever teach you to watch where you were going?” the
woman asked, her slight Australian accent poking through her near perfect English.
That voice sounded so familiar, yet Darren couldn’t put his finger on who it
could possibly belong to.
“I’m so sorry,” he replied, kneeling down to help her as Tiger took a
seat beside him.
The girl looked up at him sharply, her deep green eyes locking onto the
deep blue of his. Her intense gaze caught him off guard, as did her face. ‘No,’
Darren thought to himself, unable to break away from her eyes. ‘It can’t be.
I’m seeing things.’
Her eyes narrowed into slits as she coldly growled, “Darren.”
He shuddered at the frigidness of her voice as it echoed in his mind.
Darren blinked, that hatred in her tone slicing through him like a knife. “Jack,”
he mumbled. She stared at him, her eyes saying everything that went through
her mind: fury, fear, surprise, and the slightest glimmer of what he remembered
as being love, or was it?
“What are you doing here?” Jay asked, looking back at the ground where
her things were still scattered. She knew Darren had figured out that she really
wasn’t angry to see him. She couldn’t let down her guard, though, or it would
mean instant problems.
She continued picked up the items and putting them in her purse as he
replied, “I… I live here.”
“What?” she retorted, sharply raising her head and looked him straight
in the eye.
“Actually, I’m recording my solo album out here, then its back to
“Your dog?” she questioned, pointing to Tiger, glad that he’d be leaving
her beloved city as soon as he finished whatever it was he was doing here.
“Hell no, thank God. I walk him for my neighbor. She’s too old and weak
to walk him anymore, so she asked me to do it for her. I had no idea that I’d
be dealing with Lucifer from that point on,” Darren explained as he stood up
and brushed himself off. He extended his hand for Jay.
She took it and pulled herself up, smoothing out the wrinkles in her
knee high black skirt as she finally got to her feet. “So, how’s Dan?” she asked,
making it seem as if she hadn’t heard from him in a while.
“He’s doing well. His band, Aneiki, is pretty far up on the Aussie charts
is what he tells me. I’ve heard some of their music, and it’s really good, to
tell you the truth,” Darren answered as she started walking down the street
towards the college. Tugging Tiger’s leash, he followed. “How are you?”
“I’m good, really good. I’ve gone back to college. It’s my last few months.
I have to get back to the library to help my group finish studying for a test
tomorrow,” Jay said, walking a little faster. She wanted this little encounter
to be over with, and soon! She couldn’t just stand there beside him and not
remember all the things they had gone through less than a year ago. It pulled
at her heart strings just being so close and unable to mention anything about
it. Was he scared to revisit the past as well?
Darren knew his chance was slipping away as she dashed out ahead of him,
making a beeline for the quickest exit. He wanted to talk to her about the past,
but he was afraid that bringing back old memories would only set them both back
after all the effort they had put forth to forget what had happened. “Wait!”
Darren called to her. “Do you want to get together some time and talk?” he asked.
Jay stopped and turned to face him. “No, Darren, I don’t,” she firmly
replied. “Look, I’m still trying to get over what happened in
Darren felt his heart sink into his shoes. Everything that he hoped would
happen didn’t, and now he was left a broken man yet again. He watched her go,
unable to move, unable to speak. Finally as she reached the end of the street,
he yelled, “Jack!”
“It’s not Jack anymore. It’s Jay,” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Whatever your name is, I’m sorry for ruining your life!” he angrily
retorted. “It’s not like I was expecting to bump into you either!”
Jay turned the corner and began to run towards the library, her anger
needing to be released in one way or another, and the last thing she wanted
to do was start another fight. “I hate him!” she began screaming. “I hate him
so much!” She slowed to a stop at an intersection just before the library panting
heavily as her eyes began to fill with tears. “I still love him,” Jay began
to cry. “It’s not fair.” She crossed the street and walked into the empty halls
of the library. Her footsteps echoed off the walls as she walked through the
open door of the room her study group was in.
The seven members looked up at the sound of her heels clicking on the
marble floor. “You’re late,” Max said, staring at her angrily.
“No shit, Sherlock!” she sarcastically retorted.
Max knew he was treading on very unstable ground. One wrong slip of the
tongue and Jay would lash out at him. “Why the sarcasm?” he asked, trying to
seem like less of a prick than he started out to be when she first walked in.
“What went wrong?”
“None of your business,” Jay shot back as she sat down beside one of
the three other girls in the group.
“Okay, this isn’t good,” Max sobered up to her anger. “What happened
at the coffee shop?”
“It’s just been a really horrible day, that’s all. Everything bad that
could happen, did,” she grumbled.
“What could be so bad?”
“I ran into my asshole ex boyfriend, that’s what could be so bad,” she
retorted, reaching down and grabbing the book she had thrown to the floor earlier.
“We had a short fight, and I punched him for being such a dick to me.”
When she continued to look away, Max knew there was more. “That’s not
all, is it?” he questioned softly.
“No,” Jay mumbled. “I ran into someone from my past.”
“An old acquaintance, huh?”
“Nothing good came from seeing him again.”
“A guy? An ex maybe?”
“Yes, and that’s all I’m telling you. There is no way in hell I wanna
discuss my past. I’m not ready to…”
“Talk about it yet,” the seven of them said in unison as they rolled
their eyes. They had heard that line so many times ever since she rejoined the
group. “We know.”
“Good, then why don’t we get going with this problem again?” Jay replied
as she opened her book and began looking for ways to solve the complicated calculus.
Engrossing herself in math was the only way she could get Darren off her mind.