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One of the first reactions to a horrible situation might be anger, or denial, or sadness. Luckily, she’s experienced all of that.
Hailey Austin’s used to the scorned looks she’d get in the hallways, the name calling that spilled out of people’s mouths when she approaches, the subtle eyes that would bore on the side of her head, just whispering something, anything about her.
But she wasn’t used to Jake.
She’d always thought of Jake as one of Drew’s snotty sidekicks that would back him up when Drew, ever the lasting dickhead, just swiped on over and made everyone’s day terrible. But that was Freshman Year.
In Junior Year, she had forced Zander to print out applications for the club.
“I still don’t get why you’re so insistent about this,” He would stubbornly say, scoffing with a grumpy attitude, glancing at the paper like it offended him.
And she’d roll her eyes and say: “You don’t know who might be a great asset for us in the competition, Zander, quit complaining!”
When she said something like that, or a variation of it, she thought some person, maybe shy or carefree, would come into the club and demonstrate their talent for an instrument or maybe even singing. That was it.
Well , that was it before Jake Sterling waltz on in into the doors looking smug and too casual for her liking.
“Uh, is this the music club? It just seems I’ve stumbled across the debate club instead,” He jokingly says, hand on his chin, looking like he just knew the details of an inside joke.
She was having a terrible day; “What the heck do you want? Are you lost or something?” Hailey immediately forced out, the thought of him in their music club gave her a surreal feeling.
“Actually, I came to audition,” Jake responds. Jake, who teases and messes with them constantly, is going to join their music club. Yeah right, and that was her breaking point.
Hailey opens her mouth, “Is that supposed to be a joke? Are you and your friends just trying to waste our time because you have nothing better to do with your lives?” She accuses, a lot more words on the tip of her tongue after.
Sean and Milly either do not share a class with him, or never acknowledged he was someone a lot more annoying than meets the eye. Luke might have heard of him once upon a time though.
Then, because Zander’s compulsive angerness just jumps out of nowhere, he challenges Jake to sing for them. Actually.
“Sure thing!” Sean brightly agrees after being asked to put a tune on, Zander’s hands land on the piano meticulously, like one change of a note could mess Jake up.
And then, well, she’d never say it, but he’s good, really good, a little too good for someone who's been harassing them for ages about it.
Afterwards, Milly claps so much that her hands might fall off, Sean makes an impressed comment, and Luke, for the love of god, encourages this.
“Hailey, don’t tell me you’re considering this!” Zander’s voice croaks with uncertainty as a last resort. At that moment, she too, is uncertain about whether or not to let him in the club. The fact that she’s even thinking about this is freaky.
B ut he would make a good asset to the team , the back of her mind echos, an asset, to be used for something, not for friendship, and most definitely not to be nice with.
She sighs and walks up to the mic where Jake is standing. “Look, I don’t know what your intentions are, but I can’t deny that you are good,” Hailey says carefully, eyeing every inch of Jake’s expression like it could tell her something.
“I’m not so talentless after all, am I?” Jake taunts annoyingly, referring to this morning when she had lashed out at the monkeys.
Hailey, at that particular moment, gives all of her strength to not take it back. Jake’s annoying, inconsiderate, and a pain in the ass. Until he isn’t.
*
After proving that he actually cared about music, Jake spreads the word around, or rather, Lia and Zoey’s popular account of two thousand followers spreads the word along.
“I’ll give you a chance, but just one,” Zander says out in the hallway in the middle of their private conversation after having bursted out another scene in front of the club earlier about Jake.
Jake then thanks him, and Zander frustratingly (humorously?) runs inside the doors of the music club to prevent someone from touching his piano.
“Thanks Jake… for… y’know. Helping out.” Hailey compliments, it’s weird talking to him, it's even weirder complimenting him.
They actually chat normally for the first time a little, and of course, in the middle of the conversation, Jake’s ego catches up.
“Yeah, I mean, can you blame them? You only have the most charming and attractive guy in school as your lead singer.” Jake flaunts, his left hand pushing up his head as if he was posing for a model shot.
Hailey accepts it this time, from annoying to just a little funny, “Charming? You? I think you need a reality check,” She responds teasingly, it feels… good.
Jake then smirks a little more, “Well, you didn’t deny that I’m handsome,” He says as an afterthought, more smug than genuinely observant.
She flushes red, clearly having caught off-guard, “Y-You are delusional!” Hailey stutters out, as she imagines Jake’s stupid face being so much more smug, and walks in the music club again to avoid defeat.
A few minutes later, she feels oddly happy. Jake’s presence didn’t bother her anymore like it used to, and, maybe, he wasn’t all too bad. Maybe. But it became more somehow.
*
Jake gets along with every member, even Zander. For all the ego he has, he’s just a little… charismatic. Sometimes.
He helps with Milly; After her fight with Zoey, the risk of her getting suspended from the competition was a big problem all of a sudden, but Jake helped the situation by getting Milly’s diary back somehow.
He helps with Luke, which, in return, helps with Zander, since those two are two peas in a pod that finally got together after more than five years of blissful pining, with the help of Jake. Huh.
And now they’re all in the mall, trying to find Sean’s laptop.
“Poor Sean, that laptop is really precious to him.. It sucks that this happened.” Hailey sympathetically comments when waiting in front of R&J’s, imagining what it would feel like to lose a precious item to her.
Jake grimaces, “Yeah, I feel really bad… maybe if we don't find it — ” He gets cut off by a dirty look from Hailey, “...not that we wouldn’t find it! But, I’d let him have a spare laptop of mine from back home, if the impossible situation really happened,” He says as if he was talking about the weather.
Hailey blinks confusedly, but then decides that it’s oddly… considerate of Jake to let Sean have a free laptop, which is actually really generous. Woah.
But then, after a few seconds of contemplating, she gets dragged.
“Oh, shoot! Quick, let’s hide!” Jake says impatiently, grabbing on her left arm and forcibly drags her to one of the small pillars nearby.
She’s more surprised than annoyed, “What are you —” Hailey says, before Jake shushes her and says a small “Shh, stay quiet!” getting a little too close to her.
Oh. Their lips are less than inches apart, and Jake’s not getting further either.
“Um, Jake..” She starts embarrassingly, before he turns his head around, looking like he just pinned her to a pillar and is about to kiss like some cliche K-Drama, well, probably wasn’t going to, but Milly does interrupt it a second later.
Zander gives Jake a death stare, making him look like he’s about to pee his pants. It’s just a little funny.
Afterwards, tomorrow, Sean tells her that Jake actually offered to give him a spare computer if he didn’t find it within Bethany’s reach, which makes her laugh with fondness.
Of course Jake would offer one, looking back at it, he’s actually kind of nice, and sometimes a little cute, and… oh.
Nope, she snaps out of these weird thoughts before she thinks of them even further. But one thing was for sure, Jake was a good friend.
*
He’s acting weird.
Well, not like he wasn’t weird before, but Jake spaces out a little too much when she talks with him, and it’s getting a little concerning. Hailey decides to confront him about it.
“Jake, you’re a really bad liar,” Hailey says in her attic bedroom, noticing the wild shift in his eyes as he excuses terribly.
She sat on her comfortable bed, with her teal sheets after Jake had expressed his concerns, and said genuine compliments, “When you sang, you sang with your heart and soul, and I could tell you really did have a passion for singing. It would’ve felt wrong to not let you in.”
“Yeah but, still. I thought you hated me,” Jake says, voice, for the first time in forever, actually raw with emotions.
Hailey doesn’t miss a beat, “Hate is a strong word, but it’s true, I didn’t like you. You were a jerk,” She admits, crossing her arms, not finished, and says something she’d never say in a normal setting, “but, I believe in second chances. And, I guess I was right to.”
Jake smiles reluctantly, “Thanks, Hailey.”
Then she starts another topic, one about Jake’s apparent ‘friends.’
“They’re… all I had…” He starts, rarely vulnerable. “Back in middle school, I was the freak, who would hum to himself down the corridors alone and get called names.”
Hailey listens intensely like it couldn’t wait another second, scrunching her eyebrows slightly and clutching the cloth of her bed with an almost neutral expression.
“People didn’t like me,” Jake continues, right hand on his left shoulder as a nervous motion, “and I didn’t fit in anywhere, before Drew… they’ve been my friends for years now, I don’t want them to think badly of me.” His voice falters at the last few words.
As she listens quietly, she hears the small sigh coming out of Jake’s mouth, “Sometimes I just.. wish I was someone else.”
Then, she stands up.
Hailey tells him that he should try harder and push a lot further, that he could lean on her for anything that worries him, and advises him that he should choose a side sooner or later for his own sake, and finally, that he shouldn’t listen to anyone’s own opinion of other people other than himself.
“You’ve shown me who you really are, Jake.” Hailey says passionately, “If your friends don’t support what you’re passionate about, then are they really your friends?” She asks rhetorically.
Jake glances down, maybe contemplating the question. He looks nauseous, or a little uncomfortable.
“I… consider you a part of this family now,” She finishes her speech shyly after a few sentences.
Then, for the first time in a while, Jake smiles at her, it’s subtle, and just curls around his mouth, a contrast to the guy he usually displayed at school, but it’s… cute, surprisingly.
“Really? Thank you Hailey… I feel the same way,” He says in response genuinely.
They smile at each other a bit before Jake heads out since it’s late. Feeling light on her stomach, she walks Jake to her doorstep.
(He asks her to do a duet at the end, she forces the decision onto herself when Lia makes a very particular comment)
*
In hindsight, maybe she should’ve expected it a little more, after all, she had just met him barely about a month ago.
So, when she hears the recording, she feels numb, very dislocated from her body. It was fine. The surrealness of the situation didn’t terrify her at all, it was just some guy she met a few weeks ago that managed to befriend all of them for a girl.
“ Hell, Hailey can’t even sing without her stupid stage fright — ” Zander cuts off the recording after that, the whole club wincing in some sort of way after. Milly looks around uncomfortably, Luke lowers his gaze, and Sean just looks disappointed.
Taking a few deep breaths, she tries to calm her nerves. He did all of that for Daisy. Milly’s diary, Luke and Zander’s confession, his offer with Sean, the whole conversation at her house might’ve even been staged.
She learns one thing that day; Jake Sterling’s a chameleon, one who changes colors depending on who he’s with, but in the end, he’s not really a ‘music freak,’ after all, he’s a bully, through and through.
Something wet goes down her chin. And then it starts.
*
The competition goes smoothly, so that’s one thing that’s not too unfortunate.
Jake doesn’t try to talk to them at all, which is good. Very good. But the thought of him now just makes her angry, having cried the day before and dragged out of bed by Zander to take care of herself and to eat something.
“He wasn’t your whole life, idiot,” Zander drags an almost lifeless Hailey out of bed to drink some warm soup, she doesn’t respond, but she does drink something.
It didn’t even occur to her now that they didn’t have a main singer, so when she stands up on stage, it’s terrifying. The crowd’s all looking at her, anticipating and expecting something good.
When she hesitates with the mic, it makes her freeze up.
“Hey, take it slow, alright?” Zander squeezes her hand for comfort, and she closes her eyes and counts to ten to take it easy. She can do it without Jake, without that… selfish dickhead.
Luke mutters some encouraging words to her, Milly tells her that she’ll buy her a million pizzas from Stacy’s Mamamia Pizza after this is over, and Sean never started the music even if the duration time for them is already going. So, she closes her eyes again, and starts singing.
The crowd congratulates her, she sees a multitude of familiar faces in the crowd, but none of them is Jake, apparently, he couldn’t even show himself after this one.
And that’s fine, because it didn’t matter. It really didn’t.
*
Monday morning, after the school wins the competition, a lot of faces that were previously disdain turn into admiration, respect, whatever positive things they were saying to her, she didn’t care, because maybe it just never worked out.
She feels herself bumping into someone.
“Watch where you’re going, Austin.” A hard face turned before her, Jake’s face, as a matter of fact, who looked stone cold with eye bags under his eyes. She tries to mirror his expression, maybe looking a little less certain though. All senses of familiarity were gone, shattered as he just went back to his ‘friends’ like that.
And if Drew or Liam or Henry said some remark towards her, it didn’t matter. All it mattered to her was that Jake was still a bully.
“Ignore them,” Zander says after, and she moves on.
*