Dear Sister, Here's Some Advice

My classes had been going so much better ever since that hike. Somehow talking about my own personal life and relationship with Jack had helped everything. I still couldn’t believe that they had actually stood up for me when I decided enough was enough when Ben wouldn’t stop pestering me. Just one day had changed everything. Before, they were still ignoring me as much as they could, huffing and groaning when they had to do something, but now things were progressing. Warm-ups only took ten minutes instead of the usual 45, and it wasn’t just me dancing. They were actually trying to learn the steps and memorize them. They even came with their own input. Who knew this would have happened?

It was only a few days until the camp ended, and we were still quite far behind all the other groups, however. But with this new found enthusiasm, there was actually a chance that we would catch up. Still, it meant working our asses off. Fewer breaks, more drilling. These kids wanted to win, but with their previous attitude that never would have worked. Luckily, they realized that and were happy to sweat their asses off with me as we danced and danced.

It really was a hard workout. Breaks didn’t even enter my mind until the music was interrupted by my ringtone sounding. I told everybody to ‘take five’ as I walked up to my phone. Not only was I surprised that somebody was calling me, but that I actually had a connection.

My first thought was that I had to call Jack with this availability, but of course he was already the one calling me.

I hit the answer button before the FaceTime request would disappear and quickly told him, “wait, don’t speak, you’re still on Bluetooth speaker.”

“No! Don't shut me down! Nooooo!” He yelled, just in time before I could quickly go to the shortcut to just turn the Bluetooth off completely on my phone. “I’m too good for this!”

I frowned after I had managed to turn it off, already feeling all eyes on me. “Why do you always do that?”

“It’s just who I am. It’s my lifestyle,” he replied in a sassy accent, snapping his fingers along with it.

One of the girls with long blonde hair jumped up and shrieked, “oh my god, oh my god!”

She proceeded to come right up to me, nearly standing against my back so she could look over my shoulder and see Jack in real time. Everybody in this room was by now following Jack on twitter. He was like some amazing celebrity in here. He was the thing in here. It was super strange. And he didn’t even know anything about it.

“Oh my god, it’s a person!” Jack gasped with just as much enthusiasm. He always knew how to match up to the excitement fans felt when meeting him, so just some random person doing it wasn’t much more difficult… except for the fact that he had no clue why he was doing it.

“Hey, guys, it’s Jack!” The girl shouted at the others, beckoning for them to come over.

“It’s me!” Jack grinned back, only this time there was a little confusion hinted in his voice.

None of the kids actually stood up to see what was going on. There were too focused on taking their break and eating snacks I had allowed them to take into the studio. All they did was look in my direction. I turned around so that they were in the background and Jack could see them all. They all waved and greeted him before turning back to their food.

“There’re more people!” Jack continued to act all happy.

“You’re like an a-list celebrity here,” I chuckled as I moved back to my original position. “They’ve all followed you on twitter by now. I’m pretty sure you’re the only reason that they like me.”

“Oh no, that’s not true.” He shook his head. “You’re very likeable. You’re the one person nobody can dislike.”

“Hmm…” I disagreed with him. Although the hate I had been getting from his fans had dropped significantly, things were starting to pop up more frequently. Now with me being in a band, more personal things also became more well known. I was dealing with it all really well, but I was waiting for the moment that something would be brought up that I couldn’t deal with.

Before Jack could try to prove me otherwise, I heard Alex speaking. “Did she actually pick up? Woah!”

He quickly came into frame and waved. “How’s everything going?”

“Working hard, or hardly working…” I breathed out, looking back at how busy everything had been. “I’m technically taking a break from work by working. When I get back, though, the demos should be ready. If they’re not, I will lock up those lazy asses and not feed them anything but saltines until they’re done.”

“Aggressive much,” Jack shook his head at me, probably scolding me for absorbing myself in my work again. He couldn’t complain though. I had nothing else to do if he wasn’t around. I was constantly trying to do something to keep myself busy.

“Just don’t make sure you stress yourself too much, okay?” Alex added. It sounded like something Jack was supposed to say since he was my boyfriend and all, but Jack knew by now that words weren’t just going to help like that.

Before I could say anything back, the girl from before joined me again and looked back at my screen. Her eyes fell on Alex as she smirked, “you’re hot.”

“Oh, umm… thanks?” He chuckled back awkwardly, somehow knowing that the comment was directed towards him and not Jack.

I turned to her and gave her a look that showed her to get anything she was thinking about out of her head. “He’s married and way too old for you.”

She huffed and trudged away, back to her friends that were still sharing food.

“Why would you do that?” Alex asked as if I had just committed a crime. “She was just giving me a compliment. A weird one, but still one. We’ve met people that just blurt out the first thing that comes to their mind, this isn’t much different.”

“Oh, but it’s very different,” I pointed out. “These kids here have no shame concerning that. She knew what she was saying and meant that and way more. Trust me, I’ve had to fend off some of these seventeen-year-olds myself.”

“What kind of crowd are you surrounded by? Jeeze.”

I shrugged, knowing that most people at the camp actually weren’t like that at all. “I just got stuck with the rowdy group. I finally managed to make it work, though.”

“Ok, ok,” Jack interrupted, “but the important thing here is is why she didn’t call me hot!”

“Cause they have some weird respect for us dating… It’s really strange… Something about how many twitter followers you have and then it just blew up into this whole thing. I just decided to roll with it,” I explained, knowing that what I was saying didn’t make any sense but I didn’t know how to word it differently either.

“But I’m hot too right?” He continued to press, getting Alex to laugh at his persistence.

“I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you’re the only person I think is hot.”

“Bullshit!” Alex blurted out, not believing me.

“Shut up,” Jack hit him and started pushing him away, “you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You don’t need the ego boost!” Alex’s voice came from further away as he left the room.

Jack smiled back at me, going back to being ‘serious’ and trying to catch up with me. “So, how’s the whole Ben situation going?”

“I mean, I’m still trying to keep him as far away as possible, but now I have some minions helping me out with that,” I told him. Although I could have kept that whole thing a secret, I didn’t feel the need to. Just telling Jack the truth as soon as it started happening was the best choice to make. Nothing could be taken wrong that way.

“Because of their weird respect for me?”

“Exactly,” I giggled with a nod. I was still trying to wrap my head around it all.

In the background on my end, you could hear the kids talking loudly about Twizzlers as one of the guys asked everybody who wanted one. That this was the last pack and that it was the last chance for anybody to take one.

“Ooh, Isle! Get me one!” Jack exclaimed, his eyes going wide. “I want one!”

“You want me to take one for you?”

He nodded enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together in anticipation

“How the hell am I supposed to give it to you through the screen?” I asked.

“Just get me a motherfucking Twizzler, babe!” He yelled loudly.

I rolled my eyes as I walked over to the group just to entertain him.

Notes