[Jasper's POV - Continuation of the previous chapter]

"That's mine," a voice says, seemingly from right next to me, but when I look around, I can't see anyone. A shiver runs down my spine.

"Is someone there?" I call, half hoping that no one will reply.

"Yes, me. Up here Jasper!" the voice says again. It's coming from the tree. I must be going crazy. Tree's don't talk. And they certainly don't claim backpacks. In response to my silence, something large starts to move within the branches. I frightfully stare into the shadow of the tree's canopy. It's terrifying, and yet this seems awfully familiar. Like that time Otto had accidentally thrown my frisbee into the tree. But before my brain can come to the right conclusion on its own, two bright blue eyes appear from the shadow of the canopy.

I scream (a little more high pitched than I would like to admit) and jump back in surprise.

But my surprise is met with a modest chuckling, which quickly turns into full-blown laughter.

"Your face!" the same voice laughs heartily. I dare to look up now.

"Alex!" I exclaim, half in relief and half in surprise. "Jeezus Christ! You scared the living daylight out of me. How long have you been up there?"

"Uhm," Alex says as his smile falters. "Honestly, I've been there much longer than you've been here."

I just stare at him flatly, to which he seems to panic.

"I swear I didn't know they would sit underneath this tree! I would've gone home if I'd known," he says hurriedly and in an apologetic tone, waving his hands nervously in front of him. "I tried not to listen in on their conversation either, but I must say, that is a difficult thing to do when Jessy decides to shouts her business all over the park."

I blink in surprise.

"So you've been up there this whole time, huh?" I conclude as I sit back down on the grass and pat the spot next to me for Alex to sit down too. It might be my imagination, but I think I saw him heave a small sigh of relief at the gesture. "Did you think I'd be angry or something?"

"Hmm, … not you. Hence why I showed myself. But I was afraid that Jessy and Otto would be angry if they knew."

"Why would you sitting in a tree make them angry?" I say as I squint my eyes at Alex. In return he looks at me with an unreadable expression.

"Let's see if you can figure it out for yourself?" he says with a small grin. "Try to imagine how you would feel if someone you don't like came strolling out of the tree you'd been sitting under for the last twenty minutes?"

I don't like his haughty tone, as if the answer is as clear as daylight, but he challenged me to figure it out myself, so now I have to. What was it he'd said? Imagine someone I don't like coming from the tree? Someone I don't like… that would have to be Thomas. Although I can't imagine that he would be good at climbing trees, so instead of letting him come out of the tree, I make him fall from it. I suppress the chuckle that the image evokes and concentrate on the problem at hand. I see him fall from the tree a few more times in my mind, until a question pops up; What was he doing up there?

"Eavesdropping!" I say as the answer hits me.

"Exactly," Alex says with a small smile as if he's proud of me for getting it right and then his expression turns serious again. "Which I wasn't. And since I didn't want to make the situation worse than it already was, I thought I'd bid my time until they left. Or watch the sunset if I had to."

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"So, has the sun set then?" I ask as I look around in search of the sun.

"No. They left," Alex chuckles. "Thanks for defending me earlier by the way. You really didn't have to. It's obvious that Otto doesn't like me one bit and I would hate to drive a wedge between the two of you."

I sneer at his insinuation.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," I say as I think about how she insisted on keeping me at arms length just a few minutes ago. "We aren't as close as you might think."

"What do you mean, you aren't? Aren't you her boyfriend?" Alex asks, complete confusion written all over his face.

"You thought I was?" I ask with a chuckle. His confusion does wonders for my mood.

"Well, yeah, of course I did. You just seem so close… I mean, you were even hugging on the first day of school."

I chuckle again. I can see how he would get the wrong idea. "Nope, just friends."

Alex stares incredulously at me for a moment, then stares of into the distance.

"Wow… That certainly puts me in a bad daylight then, doesn't it?" he suddenly says. He looks really downcast about it too.

"Why?" I ask, as I can't figure out how this changes anything.

"Just think about it. If you had been Otto's boyfriend, your place on her personal social scale, would have been somewhere on top, right below family and above friends," Alex explains while drawing a little marker on an imaginary vertical ruler.

"Which would make her behavior towards me a shy reaction towards a stranger," Alex continues to explain as he trails his finger down on the mental ruler, all the way to the bottom. "But if she is that close to somebody who isn't even her boyfriend than that must mean she really dislikes me."

Alex waves the mental ruler off dismissively. I watch as the imaginary puff of discarded scribbles drift off and considering what Alex explained.

"Minor correction," I feel the need to say. "Jessy and I are Otto's CHILDHOOD friends, which places us above normal friends. And she is VERY picky of who she lets in as normal friends. Give her some time to get used to you. She'll come around."

"Still, I don't think it changes much," Alex says, lost in thought. "I made her cry yesterday, Jasper. Me. Not Thomas. I really think I did her a disfavor by chasing him away."

I look at him carefully. Alex seems to think the worst of himself. But I'm pretty sure he came to that conclusion because of what he heard Otto say earlier.

"You don't have to be so hard on yourself," I say. "Otto used to cry all the time as a little girl. Scraped knee? Bam! Tears! Take the piece of candy she wanted? Bam! Tears! Watching a sad movie on tv? Bam! Tears!"

My recollection of Otto's crying moments has Alex smiling awkwardly.

"You don't seem to have much experience with girls," I say. Alex laughs awkwardly, as if I mentioned something that he's ashamed of.

"That's because I don't have any experience with girls. In the small village I grew up in, there was a little local school. Maximum twelve students per class, and mine was all boys."

"Damn," I mumble as I think about a life like that. "Moving here must have been quite the shock for you?"

Alex laughs. "You can say that again."

We sit there, for a moment, in amicable silence. But I already quickly get nervous. I don't do well with quiet.

"So you climb trees, huh?" I hurriedly say to break the silence. Alex raises a brow at me in surprise but nods.

[Continues in part 4]