That night at the theater was a disaster. Jake wasn't sure what Jen had said to Megan exactly, but her whole mood had changed. When Megan walked out of the bathroom, he could tell something was wrong. He tried to get her attention, but she wouldn't even look at him. As they filed into the theater, he made sure to walk next to her.
"Are you ok?" he asked as quietly as he could.
"I'm fine." she said curtly, not even looking at him.
Well, this was a bad sign. Usually when whoever was in charge had a drastic change like this, he ended up paying for it. But things had been going so well – maybe he'd be able to fix it if he could just talk to her.
They sat down, Jake making sure he was next to Megan. Not that it was hard – since everybody here but Jen thought they'd been dating for weeks, they all assumed he'd sit next to her anyway; her friends even made room for him. Jake leaned over to Megan, ready to ask her something – anything that would get her talking to him again. But she held up her hand, not even glancing at him. Jake hoped he didn't look as worried as he was and turned to his other side to talk to Greg.
Well, this was bad. If he couldn't figure out what Jen said to her, how was he supposed to fix this? And if he couldn't – if she decided that maybe he'd outlived his usefulness after all – he didn't even want to think about what could happen.
She ended up ignoring him the rest of the night – that is, until they got home. Her brother came to get her and Drew. Greg and Kurt left soon after, so Jake made his excuses and left the girls. He turned the corner, and as soon as he was alone, he vanished back to Megan's room.
He tried to ask her for a third time what was wrong. He knew that was pushing it – really, once should have been enough. But he just couldn't believe that things had really changed so fast. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew it was a mistake; she stared at him hard for a minute, like maybe she didn't recognize him.
And the conversation just went downhill from there. He wasn't quite sure how it happened – normally he was so careful. But somehow, just playing it safe never seemed to work with her. By the time they were done, she'd told him not to talk to her for the rest of the week, effectively ending the conversation. He still really wanted to know what Jen had said to make her stop liking him so fast, but he'd ruined his chance to find out. Instead, she dismissed him and he went back to his bottle, hoping that somehow all of this would blow over.
He would never have believed it, but the next day was even worse. Jake wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but he decided to pretend that everything was normal. Of course, he was still in every one of Megan's classes, so that didn't really help matters. Why had he thought that was a good idea again?
Since Megan had specifically told him not to talk to her, Jake decided to basically ignore her. He still wanted to talk to her of course, but that was out of the question. And any attempts would probably just make her even more mad at him.
He thought school had gone surprisingly well. He caught Megan looking over at him a few times, but she didn't have that glare any more. Still, he decided to go over Greg's after school. He didn't want to sit there and watch her practice, and he didn't think it'd be a good idea to wait in her room. And there was no way he was waiting in that bottle for an angry master to finally come home.
As soon as they made it to Greg's house, Jake spoke up.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure." Greg told him, dropping his backpack in the middle of the living room.
"I think Megan's really mad at me."
"What'd you do?" Greg grinned in that way that always made him look a little wild.
"I'm not exactly sure." Jake admitted.
He'd never actually asked for advice before, especially about how to deal with someone in charge of him. He just hoped he could get some help without actually telling Greg what was going on.
"How can you not know?" Greg asked.
"Well, she's not exactly talking to me at the moment." Jake told him. Or, other way around. But close enough.
"Well...anything she might have recently found out about?" Greg asked.
Jake thought about it. The last big thing he'd done was make himself her fake boyfriend, but she already knew about that. Then there was the time he made the bus break down on the way to school before their history test. Jake grinned to himself at the memory; she'd missed almost half the class, but she'd been allowed to make it up at lunch of course. And then there was the time he made her homework disappear out of her backpack – she'd told him he couldn't hang out with his friends because she had to study. But he was pretty sure she never found out about those things. And they weren't exactly things Jake could tell Greg about anyway.
"Nothing major." Jake said finally.
"Then you're fine – stop worrying."
"How can I make it up to her?" Jake asked. It was the first time he ever realized just how little experience he had with girls.
"You can't – not if you don't even know what it was." Greg told him. "You're probably just overreacting anyway."
"I hope so." Jake said, but he knew he wasn't. "I really want this to work out."
Jake hadn't actually meant to say that last part out loud; it was mostly nerves that made him do it. But that didn't make it any less true. And not just because Megan could literally ruin his life for an incredibly long time if she wanted. All she'd have to do would be to bury that bottle somewhere remote with him inside it, and who knew when he'd ever be found?
But as horrible a thought as that was, that wasn't even his main concern. What he was really worried about was her. He actually kind of liked her; he wanted her to be happy. He'd never been concerned with anyone in charge's feelings before. Strangely, actually making someone happy on purpose was new territory for him.
Jake was at Greg's house almost two hours before he got that familiar knot in the pit of his stomach – he was being summoned. But why? He thought Megan didn't want to talk to him until this weekend.
"I have to get going." he told Greg, trying to sound casual. He didn't want to let Greg know that he had about a minute before he'd disappear.
"You sure?" Greg asked.
"Yeah, I need to be home before my parents." Jake told him.
"I know how that is." Greg nodded. "So I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Unless something goes wrong." Jake grinned.
He'd tried to say it like a joke, but he was really hoping to plant an idea in Greg's mind. If something did go wrong, Jake really hoped Greg would know to look for him. Actually, he'd been trying to hint about it all afternoon, just in case he didn't get to hang out with Greg again this week. And once the weekend came, who knew what would happen?
"You'll be fine – you worry too much." Greg told him.
"That's probably true." Jake admitted before heading out the door. He'd barely shut it behind him when he was summoned.
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