Frozen Three Times Over

regret: [ri-gret]; noun; a feeling of sorrow or remorse for a fault, act, loss, disappointment, etc.

    "Felix. Hi."

    The words hit his ears but he couldn't distinguish the tone. Was she happy to see him? Surprised? Annoyed? Angry? He couldn't tell at all.

    She looked gorgeous, as always; Jessica Anastos never looked anything else. It was probably scientifically impossible. Any girl would kill to look like Jessica Anastos. Any girl would kill to be Jessica Anastos.

    So why did Felix think he even had a chance?

    He stared at her as he stood on her doorstep, thoughts flooding through his head. He was crazy. Absolutely, positively, clinically crazy. He was supposed to be intelligent, talented when it came to logic and numbers. Logic would tell him that someone like him--a glasses-clad, curly-haired nerd who had never been invited to a party, let alone on a date--could never land someone like Jessica Anastos in a million years.

    She was drop-dead gorgeous. She was talented and athletic. She was great at everything she tried. She was smart, to a degree that was different than Felix. She was loved and popular. She ruled whatever school she attended.

    She was also one of the most insufferable, downright rude people Felix had ever met.

    But everyone had to have one fatal flaw.

    He just stood there, staring. Wondering why in the world he had heard her voicemail and immediately thought that he should see her. She called him. She didn't want to see him. She wanted to talk on the phone. It was like calling someone after they texted you, "Hello". You didn't do it. It wasn't socially acceptable.

    And neither was proclaiming your feelings for someone who would never have looked twice at you without your cousin being the buffer.

    "Felix?" Jessica spoke again. "Do you want to come in?"

    He couldn't even muster up the courage or energy to shake his head yes or no. He couldn't speak. He couldn't think of anything except his own stupidity.

    He was standing on her doorstep.

    He was standing on Jessica Anastos' doorstep at 8:30 at night, knowing full well that he should have been either in bed or studying. There was something about the message she left that made him want to see her immediately, and he had just hopped in his car and left for her house. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't think of what it could have possibly been that possessed him to do such a thing.

"Felix?" Jessica repeated for the third time.

He couldn't speak. He couldn't think.

So he did the only thing he could think to do.

He ran.

Felix turned around and bolted from the front stoop, down the winding stairs to the long path that lead to the driveway littered with shiny cars and meticulously-trimmed hedges, into his own beat-up car. He started it and drove away, looking back one last time at Jessica Anastos, still standing in the open doorway, sweatpants on and hair in a bun, looking out after him as if she wasn't sure who had just been on her doorstep in the first place.

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    Jessica watched as Felix's car drove off into the night, without so much as a pause in its pace, like its driver couldn't possibly be considering turning around and explaining what exactly he had been doing at her house, on a school night, without saying a word.

    Jessica stayed by the open door, stuck there, watching the night that had long ago swallowed up Felix and his car, until a voice from next to her startled her out of her daze.

    "Miss Anastos? You called for someone to answer the door?"

    "Forget it." She whispered, passing by the maid and leaving the door wide open in her wake. "It's not important anymore."

    Jessica walked up to her bedroom slowly, not understanding what had just happened.

    She sat down on her bed, her head filled with the image of Felix's face staring blindly at her. Unspeaking, unmoving. Until he turned and ran away, down her driveway, away from her and away from everything she could have possibly said in that moment.

    Because just as Felix was thinking of everything wrong with what he had implied by showing up unannounced at Jessica's doorstep, Jessica had had the same book playing in her head, but with a different author and a different villain.

    How had she just stood there when she had so much to say? Seeing him had set off something inside of her that just made her stand completely still, only uttering his name and a few words that she could remember being in her vocabulary. There was nothing else there. Nothing else for her to say, nothing else for her to do. She was completely at a loss.

    What had he wanted? Why had he come? Why didn't she just say everything she was feeling?

    Sasha. Sasha would know what to do.

    Jessica picked up her phone and selected Sasha's number from where it was saved in her "Favorites". She let it ring and heard it pick up after the third time.

    "Hello?"

    When she heard Sasha's voice and remembered what she wanted to say, Jessica froze for the second time that night.

    She couldn't tell Sasha what she was feeling, about Felix, about everything going on in her life. She could only tell her that she was in love with football players and lacrosse boys, and that there was nothing in her heart for the nerd in the corner who they had spent most of high school making fun of.

    Sasha couldn't know. No one could know. No one from her circle of friends, or even her circle of peers, could know.

    She would be done for.

    Jessica Anastos had spent her entire high school career trying to get to where she was. And she couldn't tarnish that over a guy.

    "Hello?" Sasha spoke again. "Jess, what's going on?"

    Jessica tore the phone away from her ear and hung up. She couldn't face everything she was thinking, and she certainly couldn't face Sasha. She would know immediately if something was up. She would call Jessica out and it would all be over.

    Everything would be gone.

    Her phone dinged from beside her and Jessica picked it up.

    Jessica took a deep breath before typing out her response, putting herself in the mindset of her school self; the Queen Bee who was always either peppy or angry. But never sad. Never depressed.

    Never in love.

    It took barely a minute for Sasha to respond, and to help Jessica realize that everything was fine and that she wasn't suspected of anything.

    Because, to be perfectly frank, Jessica Anastos was never anything but fine.

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!

-Katherine