“Come on, faster! You can’t be late!” Jessi said, pulling my hand, running (well, walking quickly; Jessica never ran in her life if she could choose not to—not even for physical fitness tests in high school).

                I honestly don’t know why I let Jessi control so much of my life. I could have easily told her that I didn’t want to go, but I agreed to it anyway and now here I am, getting dragged along by her to meet my “date”.

                Also, it’s really hard to deny her level of enthusiasm.

                I could faintly see a figure patiently sitting on the fountain. “There!” she said, waving at the person. “Dawn!”

                Dawn looked over at us and stood up, waving back. “Jessi!” she replied. As we got closer, I could see her more clearly.

                She was very clearly asian; maybe Chinese. Her skin tone was neither pale nor tan; it was somewhere in between, but more on the pale side. She had big round eyes which was probably brought out more by her eyeliner; she had a relatively small nose and mouth, which was currently pulled into a smile, revealing her perfectly straight teeth (at least, that’s what it looked like); she had the type of face that you could look at and immediately tell she was skinny.

                She had black hair that gently cascaded down to her bare shoulders and a bit further. She was wearing a simple white tank top with light blue jeans; she was in general pretty skinny, but not bone-skinny.

                “Hi Alex!” Dawn said when we reached the fountain. “Nice to finally meet you! I’m Dawn,” she said, reaching out her hand.

                I shook it. “Hey Dawn, nice to meet you too,” I replied, “But what do you mean by ‘finally’?”

                She smiled. “Well, I obviously heard the stories about you two,” she said. Obviously? I guess we’re pretty famous around here then. “And on top of that, Jessi talks about you all the time in Comp Sci.”

                “Oh does she?” I asked, turning to face her. Jessi smiled innocently back at me.

                “Mhm. If I didn’t know any better, or if she wasn’t the one who set me up on this date, I would’ve assumed you two are a couple,” Dawn said.

                “Yeah we get that a lot,” I said, grinning sheepishly.

                “Yeah, I know,” Dawn replied. “Because of the you-two-are-a-couple rumor,” she said, quickly justifying herself.

                “Alright you two, get going already,” Jessi told us, pushing us in the direction Jessi and I were walking to get to the fountain. “You have a movie to catch in like half an hour.”

~The Do’s and Don’ts of a Friendly Relationship~

                After the movie—a horror movie, which Dawn claimed to not be scared in response to my challenge and proceeded to partly watch the movie and partly jump and grip my arm at the jump scare parts of the movie, only to notice what she was doing and awkwardly smiling at me apologetically before removing herself from me. It never failed to make me smile.

                It wasn’t bad—I’ll admit, there were a few moments that I jumped a little at, but most of it was predictable jump scares. But this horror movie actually had a plot, which I actually enjoyed. When I mentioned this to Dawn, she looked confused for the slightest second before smiling and nodding in agreement.

                I simply smiled back, deciding not to mention how obvious it was that she was trying to hide the fact that the movie actually scared her too much to keep her attention.

                Apparently though, she caught on. “I see that look of doubt in your eyes,” she whispered to me. “Tell me I’m seeing things,” she said, almost as a command.

                I looked at her.

                She did have really pretty, light green eyes. Even in the dark, they seemed to naturally sparkle.

                I smirked, hoping the dark would make ample cover for me, and shrugged.

                It didn’t work; she hit my shoulder in response. “I saw that,” she whispered to me in a whining tone.

                I smiled, suppressing my laughter. I motioned back to the big screen and averted my attention; Dawn, however, seemed reluctant to.

~The Do’s and Don’ts of a Friendly Relationship~

                “So that was—”

                “Not fun,” Dawn finished for me quickly. I openly laughed this time.

                “Come on, a fully grown adult can’t stand a little jump scare now and then?” I asked teasingly.

                “Hardly a fully grown adult, I’m only 19,” she said halfheartedly.

                “Yeah, that’s a fair point; I guess it is pretty easy to scare children,” I mused.

                “Hey!” she said, hitting me again. I laughed again.

                “I’m only kidding,” I told her. “Come on, let’s get back to campus.”

                Right as we got back, Jessi ushered us back out, telling us she already made a reservation for two at Apple Beach (which was one of those more fancy restaurants and a popular dating site, although it wasn’t a five star restaurant or anything).

                I tried to complain, but she had pushed us back onto the bus already—she had a surprising amount of arm strength for an 18 year old girl. Well, woman I guess—I still had trouble classifying Jessi as an adult.

                So after about 30 minutes or so, we arrived at our bus stop, which of course was the very last one. At that point, only Dawn and I were left on the bus. Well, us and one other person who looked somewhat shady, but whom I disregarded. The person didn’t seem to follow us as we walked to Apple Beach, which was only a five minutes’ walk, so I wasn’t too worried.

                “We have a reservation for two under Alex Kim.” I told the waiter.

                He tapped the screen in front of him a few times before nodding and stepping aside. “This way please,” he told us. We followed him to a comfortable two-person booth.

                “Would you like to start off with anything to drink?”

                “Strawberry smoothie for me, please,” Dawn said. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “What? I’ve been here before and they’re soo good!” she said, defending herself.

                I shrugged, but couldn’t contain my smile. “I’ll just have a Pepsi please, thank you,” I told him. Our waiter nodded and walked off.

                I absently minded looked around and noticed something—or rather, someone. That person looked like one of the few who were left on the bus Dawn and I took to get here. But it seemed like the second I looked over at his—or her—direction, the person looked back at the menu he or she was holding.

                “Hey, Dawn,” I said.

                “Hm?” she replied, looking at me.

                “See that person over there?” I said, motioning towards the conspicuously dressed person.

                She looked over to the person not far from our table. “Hey, I saw that person on the bus here. He got off the last stop with us, right?”

                I nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking,” I told her. “Do you think he’s stalking us?”

                “Or she, I guess,” she commented.

                I shrugged. “True,” I said. “Let’s not worry too much about it,” I told her, and started to look into the menu.

                She followed my lead. “Wow, look at this,” she said, tilting her menu so I could see it. “They actually have a whole section of meals with apples in them.”

                I chuckled. “That’s pretty cool. I don’t think I’ve ever had apples for dinner,” I noted.

                She laughed as well. “Yeah, me neither,” she said. “Not even apple sauce or anything.”

                “What page?” I asked.

                “Uh...” she started, flipping back to count. “Three,” she responded.

                I flipped to that page and looked it over. Although there were some interesting applications of apples into meals, none of them really interested me, so I flipped to the next page.

                Just then, our waiter arrived at our table. “Here’s your smoothie, miss,” he said, placing the drink in front of Dawn, “and here’s your Pepsi, sir,” he said, placing the Pepsi in front of me.

                “Thank you,” Dawn and I said, Dawn smiling at the waiter.

                He was holding a third drink though, the same as Dawn, who curiously brought it over to the person we saw on the bus.

                I grew suspicious. Jess liked that drink.

                “What’s up?” Dawn asked.

                I blinked once. “Sorry, I was spacing out,” I told her.

                She giggled. “You’re cute when you do that,” she told me.

                I froze for a brief second. I didn’t really know how to respond to that—even though I've been on dates before, I could never get used to it ... what was it called, flirting?

                “I—Uh, thanks,” I said, stammering a bit. I couldn’t help but notice just now how attractive she actually was. Maybe I shouldn’t be too mad at Jess for setting this up for me.

                I heard a faint squeal—almost nonexistent, but still there.

                And strangely enough, I knew that particular voice.

                “Dawn, would you like to come with me?” I said.

                She seemed taken aback. “What? Why?” she said inquisitively, and also slightly panicked.

                I didn’t think much of it and motioned for her to follow me. “Come on,” I said simply, and got up. She stood up and followed me.

                I walked over to Jessica’s table. “Heey Jess, fancy seeing you here,” I said, reaching her table.

                “Hm? What? I don’t—”

                 “Jess, might you enlighten me of why you followed me here?” I said, cutting her off.

                “Jess? Who is this ‘Jess’ you speak of?” she continued to ask.

                I smiled and sat down opposite of her and just stared at her. At first, she avoided eye contact, but sure enough, after a minute, she began to giggle. “Come on, that’s not fair,” she said, still giggling.

                “So mind answering my question?” I said.

                “Well Tiffany and I wanted to make sure your date was going to go OK,” she replied, taking off the heavy clothing. “I told myself that I wouldn’t stalk you guys at first, but after I told Tiffany that it was your first date, she was worried about you too so I went for the both of us.”

                Dawn laughed. “Aw, that’s cute,” she said. “You guys must be really close friends if she willingly followed you to be an invisible third wheel just to make sure our dinner would turn out fine.”

                “Oh, so it’s not … like, too much?” Jessica asked.

                Dawn looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

                She shrugged. “Like, it doesn’t make us look like a couple?”

                Dawn hesitated for a second. “Uh, not really. Friends worry about each other,” she said slowly, as if she thought she was missing something.

                Jessica nodded. “Ok, well I better be off now that I got caught,” she said, smiling. “Have fun you two!”

                Dawn and I nodded, Dawn gripping my arm. “We will,” she said, batting her eyes at me.

                Jess laughed while I sorta froze, unsure if she was teasing me or not. She most likely was, right? I mean, friends do tease each other.

                “Take care Jess,” I said, waving to her with my free hand as she left the restaurant.

                A few moments later, after we sat back down, the waiter arrived at Jessica’s table only to find it empty.

                “Waiter?” I said, raising my hand a little.

                He saw me and walked over. “Do you know what happened to the lady sitting here?”

                “Yeah—she’s my friend, I can pay for it,” I told him. He thanked me and handed me the drink.

                “We have matching drinks now!” Dawn exclaimed.

                I smiled. Her excitement over these little things, I found really cute.

                When I got back to my apartment, I found that Jess was one step ahead of me: the fifth entry was already added: “DO—Worry About Each Other”.

Wow two updates in two days :oo I'm on a roll

And now that I look at the chapter view thing, it sorta bugs me how the chapter number never lines up with the actual chapter number :// oh well, that's life

Anyways, hope you enjoyed!