{81}✔️

A/N: The date is a little fucked up because of my previous mistake, but the only one it's really noticeable to is me because I insist on obsessing over it. 🙄 It's fine.

**Two weeks later**

**Tuesday, February 6th**

Dahlia's POV

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"In exactly one week from today, your projects are due. I hope you've got most of it done by now. If you're falling behind, you need to let me know right now so I can try to help you. I'm not taking any crappy excuses next week when it's time to turn it in, and I've decided I won't be taking them more than a day late. Get it in on time or at least the day after it's due, or get a zero!"

I sighed as I watched Mrs. East walk back to her desk and take a seat. I was so damn excited for this project when we first got it, and now I feel stupid for ever being happy about it. We're not even halfway done with it. I haven't had the energy to work on it and every time I ask Billie if she got anything done, she just says 'Sure' which means absolutely not.

I was totally ready to just accept my fate and stay after school doing extra credit for god knows how long after getting a shit grade on this shit project, but Billie—As always—shocked me.

"Can I come over to your house and work on this after school?" She whispered. It took me a couple of moments to respond. Part of me thought she wasn't even talking to me. I mean, we hadn't said more than a few sentences to each other in the last two weeks, and when we did talk we certainly weren't asking to come over to each other's houses.

I looked over at her and she bit her lip, trying to hide a small smile. Probably because of the dumb look on my face. "Yeah. Yeah!" I nodded, biting my own lip to keep myself from saying anything stupid.

"Yeah?" She raised her brows.

"Yeah." I nodded again, clearing my throat as I turned to look at my blank laptop screen instead of at her. I pretended to be busy working, but I'm pretty sure she'd seen me turn my laptop off five minutes ago.

The bell rang fifteen minutes later. The longest fifteen fucking minutes of my life. I flew out of the room once again, as I'd been doing every day for the past few weeks.

Taco Tuesday. I'm supposed to be dieting, but...It's Taco Tuesday. I fixed myself a plate almost as big as Caden's.

While I was going through the lunch line, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and furrowed my brows as I saw Julia standing there. We literally never talk at school, especially not since what happened between her and Denver.

"Um, hi!" I sent her a small smile before stepping to the side to get out of everyone's way.

"Hey. I deleted Denver's number and I'm pretty sure he blocked me on Instagram, so, I was wondering if you could tell him I need to talk to him. I wanna come over today after school—"

"Ugh, Julia, is that really a good idea? I mean, I'm sorry, but I don't think he wants to get back together with you. You know, with him being gay and all..." I mumbled.

"I don't wanna get back together with him," She shook her head quickly. "But I do need to talk to him...Please?"

"Yeah, I'll tell him." I nodded. She thank'd me before walking away and I did the same, heading to my table.

"Were you just talking to—"

"Yep."

"Wasn't that a little—"

"Yep."

I cut Cadence off, already knowing what she was gonna say. I shrugged my shoulders, silently telling her I didn't have any answers to any questions. "Billie's coming over today." I updated her. She gasped and I cut her off again. "We have to get that project done. Nothings changed between us."

"Yes, something has changed between you!" Caden piped up, throwing his taco down in excitement. "A week ago you two couldn't stand to look at each other and now she's coming over to your house to work on the project!"

"Yeah, but—"

"You two will be back together in no time." Cadence grinned. I just sighed and continued to eat my taco.

Lunch was pretty quiet. Caden and Cadence went back and forth between bickering and silently eating their tacos, and I was too busy thinking to really pay attention to anything.

I started off thinking about Billie, but I eventually started thinking more and more about Julia. I feel bad for her. Denver really strung her along, and I'm sure she's not over him. It was just a little over a month ago that he broke it off with her, and he only did that then because he and Hudson got caught hooking up.

I feel bad for Denver too. He had to deal with having a whole fake girlfriend for months just because he was afraid to come out. The whole situation sucks.

I just hope Julia isn't coming over to beg for him to get back with her. That'll be awkward as shit and Denver is working really hard to move on from everything that's happened in the past. I don't want her to get in the way of that. It's none of my business, though.

***

I stared at myself in the mirror, pushing my hair behind my ears before combing through it with my fingers and then taking it out from behind my ears again. I repeated this process who knows how many times before sighing and deciding to just put my long hair into a ponytail. I wonder what I'd look like with hair that wasn't jet black. I wonder what my whole family would look like without black hair. What if we were blondes?

Ew.

I mean, blondes are cool, obviously. The twins are blonde! I just don't think my family would look good with anything besides black hair.

I mean, maybe red hair would work. We've all got pasty ass skin and blue eyes, except Cora with her dark eyes. So, I guess red would look alright. It'd bring out our freckles, but—

"Are you gonna stare at yourself in the mirror all day or are you gonna go downstairs and say hey to Billie?"

I jumped away from the mirror and looked toward my door, where Cora was standing, smirking. I rolled my eyes at her and pushed past her, trying to pretend I wasn't nervous to see Billie.

I'd literally just seen her earlier today, why am I acting like this? Why am I trying to look cute for her?

"—I think sweetener was better than thank you, next. Don't get me wrong, thank you, next was amazing! But...I just think everyone judged sweetener too harshly. The songs were fun, that didn't make them bad! And I don't understand why everyone hated 'blazed' I could hear that song being played in an Adidas commercial or something!"

"Mr. Doe, thank you next had 'In my head' and 'Ghostin'. Enough said." Billie shook her head. Dad pouted and let out a long sigh. "Okay, but both albums go well together! Like, I like to listen to better off, every time, breathin and then ghostin. It's a nice experience when you mix the songs—"

"Hi."

I blushed as Billie finally noticed me standing there and greeted me. Dad sprung up from the living room couch and smiled at me. "Oh, I'm sorry. Billie, we'll finish this conversation up later! I know you guys have to get to work, and I need to go do some work in the yard."

I furrowed my brows. "Work in the—You never do yard work. You hate it!"

"Yeah, but I've gotta cut the grass and clear out a little area for the garden I'm starting...Josephine likes gardens." He mumbled, blushing. I smirked and gave him a knowing look and he just waved a hand at me. "I also thought that, you know, maybe one day...We could work on it together? Just if you want! I just figured it could give us something to do together." He shrugged.

"I'd love that!" I smiled.

Dad excused himself after a few moments and Billie and I headed up to my room. I tried not to act so awkward, but I don't think I was doing a good job. I just couldn't figure out what to say to her, so I stayed completely silent.

When we got into my room, I gestured for her to sit on my bed and then pulled my laptop and all the stuff we needed to work on the project out. She played with Prince Styles while I got everything sat up, and I tried to sneak peeks at her from the corner of my eye.

"Okay, so..." I didn't know what to say after that. I sighed a little as I sat down next to her, scooting over so that there was a large gap between us. "Um...I can't lie, I honestly haven't done that much."

"Yeah, me neither." She sighed.

I nodded and made myself busy with my laptop.

"How much do you want to get done today?" She asked after a while. "Oh, um...However much you want." I shrugged.

"Right." She mumbled.

"Do you want to work on the guest list while I work on printing out all the sample invitations and cards?" I asked after a few moments. She nodded quickly.

"Yeah! Sounds great."

I brought up the wedding invitations, response cards, reception cards, and thank you cards and pressed print on all of them. Printing meant not being so close to Billie since I keep my printer on the desk in the hallway.

I let out a small sigh of relief after I'd exited the room. I'm still just a few steps away from her, but any distance is better than none at all.

This is way more awkward than I thought it'd be, and that's saying something.

I heard the doorbell ring and nearly jumped in excitement, happy to have an excuse to get away from Billie for even longer.

"Be back, I'm gonna go get that!" I poked my head into the room and saw her nod before I ran down the stairs quickly.

Once I swung the door open, my excitement died down a little. "Hey, Julia." I smiled politely. "I told Denver you'd be over and he told me to tell you that he's gonna be here soon. He had something to do after school."

"That's fine." She smiled softly. I invited her in and walked into the kitchen with her, offering her a drink. "I'm working on a project with a...Friend. But I can totally stay down here with you if you want?!" I offered eagerly.

"No, that's okay!" She laughed. "Really, it's fine."

Damn it.

I nodded before walking out of the kitchen, back up the stairs, and then back into my room. Billie was sitting in the same spot she was in before, only this time she was typing away on the laptop. She looked really cute, all focused and shit.

Damn it, Dahlia, get it the fuck together.

"Who was it?" She asked curiously, not looking up. I kinda thought she hadn't even noticed I was there for a moment, and I blushed as I realized she knew I was just standing there staring at her for a few moments too long. "Julia."

"Yikes."

"Yeah."

I went back into the hallway to grab the stuff I'd printed and then shuffled back into my room, picking up the wedding binder and putting all the stuff into it neatly. That wasted only about five minutes, and when I finished, Billie was still typing and I was still awkward and fucking hell, I just wish it was time for her to go.

I checked off what I'd done on the list of wedding planning shit before looking for something else to do. There's just so much.

After just sitting there for a while, I decided that I should probably start looking for a wedding dress and all the accessories that come with it so that I can print out some pictures, but before I got the chance, Billie started talking.

"Dahlia? Can we talk?"

"Sure." I muttered. I put the laptop to the side and tried my best to look Billie in the eyes, but my eyes kept roaming around the room instead of staying focused on hers.

"I don't like this. I don't like being awkward with you. I don't like us not being able to hang around each other without it being weird." She sighed, playing with her rings. "I'm really sorry for everything I said. I was just being defensive and stupid and I didn't mean any of it. I try to protect you because I want to. Not because you need me to. I know you can defend yourself and handle your own shit, but I really like taking care of you. I like being there for you. I just..." She turned to look at me, finally, before continuing.

"I know I handled the situation in a pretty shitty way and honestly, you probably would've been better off doing what you wanted to do in the first place; just going to the police like a normal person. I just didn't want you to have to go through that because I knew if you did you'd have to deal with all your family knowing about what happened. Denver would've probably been mad at you, your dad probably would've grounded you...I didn't want you to have to deal with it. I just figured if I could scare Kai's uncle into not telling anyone, it'd be fine. I probably shouldn't have gotten the police involved at all myself. If I'd just kept my mouth closed, Valerie probably still wouldn't have said anything and Kai's family wouldn't be in jail right now, but I..." She bit her nails for a few moments before talking again.

"I couldn't just not say anything. All the bad shit her family has done and gotten away with...Her uncle is a piece of shit and I couldn't not tell the police about what he did because he has a kid. A small little child. I didn't want to leave that kid there in that house with them, surrounded by drugs, probably getting the same treatment from your mom as you got, and who knows what else. I really didn't think about what would happen to Kai if all her family ended up in jail. I just wanted to help you."

"It's okay, Billie." I sighed. "I'm sorry too. I mean, I'm lucky to have someone like you who's willing to do all the shit for me that you've done. I'm glad I have someone who cares enough about me to risk getting into trouble for me. You've done so much for me, and I really do appreciate it. I don't think the last few months of my life would've been bearable if you weren't involved. I'm really sorry for everything I said to you. You do think. All the time. You're always thinking about how to help people out, and you do whatever you can for them. You're the kindest, most generous person I've ever met in my life. I know I'm not great at dealing with my shit. I know sometimes I just...Don't step up. But I've gotten a lot tougher than what I used to be, and that's because of you." I smiled.

"Thanks," She chuckled, looking down again. "So...I don't know where we go from here, you know? I don't know. But...Maybe now we don't have to be so awkward around each other?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "We can definitely cut that shit out."

***

We got a lot accomplished. We worked on the project for like five hours and now we're almost done. It was tiring, but I'm happy we got caught up.

When it was time for Billie to leave, I actually hated to see her go. I was quiet as we both walked down the stairs and then she walked out of the door and turned to face me, sending me a toothy grin.

"Is it okay if I text you later?" She asked shyly.

"Duh," I rolled my eyes. "Text me when you get home so I know you're good...I didn't really have fun, cause we spent the whole time working on a shitty project, but this was nice." I giggled.

She laughed. "Yeah, we'll have to hang out some other time, when we're not rushing to catch up on a project."

"Guess so," I smirked. "Night, Billie."

"Night, Doe eyes."

I watched her get into her Jeep and back out of the driveway before I closed the door and let out a small sigh. Fuck, I'm happy we made up.

When we broke up, I thought that I'd not only lost my girlfriend, but also one of my best friends. That was the worst thing about it.

But I guess I was wrong, thankfully.

I walked back up the stairs slowly and decided to go into Denver's room. Julia left a few hours ago, I think, and I'm dying to know what went on between them.

I knocked on his door and didn't wait for an answer before I walked in. He was on the bed playing some video game.

"Hey, dude...What'd Julia want?" I asked curiously, cutting right to the chase.

"Oh," He laughed, shrugging his shoulders a bit. "She just wanted to stop by and tell me that she's pregnant."

************

A/N: Oops.