"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Jasper asks me as I'm getting dressed to leave for lunch.

I nod, pulling on a sweatshirt over my tank top that's a light pink color with an ice cream cone on the front. "Yeah, I think so."

"Alright," He sighs from the privacy of his room as I pull my hair into a quick pony tail. I can't see him but with only the hanging blanket between us, it's easy to hear him. "Let me know how it goes."

"I will. I'll see you later," I respond glumly as I grab my bag and head downstairs, grabbing the keys to the truck on my way out the front door.

It's been a few days since the awkward encounter with Scott and I haven't talked to him since. Except for this morning when I asked him if he wanted to go to lunch today and he said yes but that was our only conversation and it was short and awkward.

I'd been doing some thinking- a lot of thinking- ever since Noah left the other day. About what Jasper had said to me about falling for the image of Scott in my head instead of the real Scott. I wasn't 'falling' for him, but I really did like him as a friend. I was friend-falling for him. Maybe that was true or maybe it wasn't but I was wondering, after everything that had happened on Saturday, if the same was true for him. Was he friend-falling for the real me or for the image of me that he has built up in his head after so many years?

I think that's what really got me upset on Saturday when he walked into the apartment and saw my walk of shame outfit. I felt like I had ruined his perfect image of me. Everything that he had expected that I would be, I wasn't that. He might be my perfect Scott but I'm definitely not his perfect Jo.

And to make my mood even crappier, the weather today isn't very summery. It doesn't look like it's going to rain, but it's cloudy and windy, which is why I'm wearing a sweatshirt, but when I'm outside, my bare legs have goose bumps. That's what I get for wearing jean shorts instead of having faith in the weather forecast.

When I pull up in front of the ice cream shop that I'm meeting Scott at, the weather hasn't improved at all but that doesn't deter my appetite for ice cream so I get out of the truck and make my way into the familiar building that we used to have ice cream in all of the time.

Whenever I got really upset about my house or my dad was really violent, Jenny would bring me, Scott, and sometimes Nick up here to the ice cream shop and it'd be really fun.

I see Scott already sitting in one of the booths so I quickly order a chocolate shake and a side of fries (the ice cream shop also sells food), and then I take my food and shake and approach Scott, sitting on the other side of the booth.

"Hey," I offer him a small, forced smile.

He's chewing on a fry of his own and offers me one of his easy-going smiles and it comes so easy to him and it's such a beautiful, charming smile that I just want to stare at it forever. "Hey, what's up?"

"Oh, uh, nothing really," I mumble and it's obviously a lie so I awkwardly clear my throat and my fingers start fidgeting with the bag containing my fries. "But we need to talk."

"Really? That doesn't sound good," He says, his easy-going smile starts to falter.

"It isn't," I admit as my throat constricts, making it harder for me to speak. I can barely focus on the words that I have rehearsed on the whole drive over here but I focus enough to say them.

"Are you okay?" Scott wonders, his smile gone completely now and in its place is a concerned frown.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I guess," I assure him, forcing a grimacing smile as I remember the speech that I had planned and I remind myself that this is the right thing to do, before anybody gets hurt. "Um, it's just that the thing is that I think that I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have come found you like I did. I think that what we had back then, our friendship, it was really special, and I think that by reuniting like this, it's just ruining that sort of."

"I don't understand..." He trails off with a confused frown, cocking his head to the side as he eats another fry and my heart starts beating even faster in my chest. The clouds outside are still gloomy, as if to tell me that this is a bad idea, that I'm reading too far into things.

"I don't think that we should be friends," I blurt out before I can talk myself out of it and I feel like I'm going to cry but I try to push it off for as long as possible. "I think that we've both had eleven years to romanticize each other and we both probably have extremely high expectations for each other and it just isn't healthy. I'm not the Jo that you have in your head and you're not the Scott that I have in mine."

"Did I do something wrong?" He asks me with a worried look on his face. "Is it Macy or something?"

"No, it's just that..." I trail off, not knowing how to explain it but also knowing that if I'm going to show up in his life just to disappear again, I better have a really good explanation. He deserves that much.

"Just what, Jo? I don't want to lose you again, just tell me what's wrong," He says as I'm thinking, obviously taken back by my proclamation. I feel so bad about all of this, about needing to cut things off between us like this, but I know that it's the only way that I'll maintain any sort of sanity.

"I don't want to disappoint you," I say under my breath.

"What?" He wonders, not able to hear me with how quietly I said that.

"I said," I take in a sharp breath and then muster up enough courage to look up at him just as one single tear starts to fall out of my eye and it rests on my cheek. "That I don't want to disappoint you."

"You're not disappointing me, Joey," Scott insists quickly. "Why do you even think that?"

I open my mouth to speak but before I can get anything out, he seems to figure it out.

"Oh, it's that guy, what happened on Saturday?" He wonders rhetorically. "Look, I know that I was acting weird and I'm sorry about that, but it wasn't because you were with that guy. I was just sort of freaked out because I thought that you were dating Jasper and everything."

"I know that but I just feel like I'm not..." I trail off again, at a loss for words yet again and then another tear floods my vision. "I'm not the girl that left here when I was seven."

"I don't expect you to be," He tells me, getting up from his side of the booth and then he walks over to my side and sits beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist to comfort me and it works. It works more than I'm willing to admit. "Of course you're not the same person that you were when you were seven. I'm sure that nobody is. That's okay."

"But you can't say that you never imagined who I'd turn out to be," I say to him. "Like you don't have this image of a girl in your head of who I am."

"Sure I do but that doesn't matter," He shrugs. "You're better than anything that I ever imagined."

My chin crumples and I start to cry harder.

"Look, if you're embarrassed because you had sex with that guy, you really shouldn't be. It's not a big deal. It's not like I ever thought that you'd become the Virgin Mary while you were away or anything. It's fine. I have sex too, it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

I don't know how, but that statement makes me laugh through the tears and I'm amazed that even after a decade, Scott knows just how to cheer me up when I've been crying. He knows how to make me smile through the tears and I have no idea how he does that.

He pulls me closer to him with his hand still around my waist and I lean into his side. "You changed my life, Joey, and I don't want to let you go again. I'm not going to let you go so easily this time."

"Sure, I changed your life," I agree with a sniffle. "But that's not a good thing."

"Not a good thing?" Scott wonders incredulously. "You were the best thing that ever happened to me. Before Macy, obviously."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

I wipe my eyes free from the sticky tears with the back of my hand and then sniffle one last time. "Okay. You're right, I just overreacted."

"I didn't say that you overreacted," Scott counters as I sit up by myself again but he doesn't move his hand from around my waist and I don't want him to. "I just think that we owe it to ourselves to get to know each other. The real each other and not the imaginative ones. I highly doubt that anything about you is going to disappoint me."

"You say that now," I say, my voice scratchy from crying so I take a drink of my milkshake. "But just wait until you hear my tone deaf singing."

He laughs and then says, "Joey, you were tone deaf back then too and I still loved you."

"I think it's gotten worse," I assure him with a small laugh. "Really."

"I think that I can handle it," Scott assures me teasingly. "So we're okay?"

I pause for a minute and I try to think about why I wanted to call things off in the first place. Because I was ashamed? I didn't want to ruin our past memories? How did I not see it before though, that those memories are always going to be memories, no matter what happens now, I will always remember them how they were. "Yeah, we're okay."

"Good," He grins, removing his arm from my waist and then he moves back over to his side of the booth and continues eating his fries. "So when were you going to tell me that your boyfriend is gay?"

"I don't think that it's something that you have to mention. It's irrelevant to who he is as a person," I say with a shrug. "I mean, I know that people always assume that Jasper and I are a couple but I just don't really care. With you though, I didn't even think about it. And it didn't really matter at all either, until you thought that I was a slut."

"I didn't think that you were a slut," Scott says.

"You did," I said with a small laugh. "It's fine, I don't mind. I mean, I do mind. I don't know. Most of the time, I don't care that people think that I'm a slut or whatever. There were rumors about me in high school- how people thought that I was dating Jasper but I was sleeping around. Even people who knew that Jasper was gay, they still thought that I was a slut because I slept around. Which I didn't. I mean, I did, but not frequently. I was mostly a boyfriend kinda girl. Anyway, my point is that I usually don't care about that kinda thing but with you, I care, I guess. I don't want you to think that I'm like that. Even though I kind of am."

"I'm not going to like you less just because of who you associate with," He tells me as I take another sip from my chocolate shake. "It's really none of my business. I actually admire your confidence with it all."

"Yeah," I agreed with a half-hearted laugh. "I decided a while back that nobody can tell me that I don't respect myself. It's called self-respect, as in I decide how much I respect myself, not other people. And I respect myself just fine. I think I'm a hoot. Who I hook up with has nothing to do with my self-respect. And I don't do it for equality, to make a statement about the double standard. I don't do it to piss off my parents or to get noticed. I don't do it because it's mind-numbing and helps me get over some traumatic thing that's happened. I do it because I like to do it. It's fun. If other people don't like my personal choices, I don't really care. They're personal. Nobody else's business."

"That's a very admirable way to handle things," Scott says with a small smile. "I'm sure that your mom isn't too happy with your 'fuck what they think' attitude though."

"My mom," I echo, surprised at the mention of her name. "Oh, yeah she still thinks that I've never even had a boyfriend. I mean, I'm sure that she can figure that I've had one but she just likes to tell herself that I'm just the perfect little angel and who am I to deny her delusions?"

"Well, you are her baby."

"She was this way with my sister too," I say with a roll of my eyes, realizing how thankful I am that Scott had talked me off of the ledge. It's so easy to talk to him about pretty much everything. Whatever I want to say, it just kind of rolls off of my tongue with ease. I mean, I talk to Jasper with as much ease too but there's just something about Scott that feels familiar. Safe. "Sienna has two kids now and my mom probably still thinks she's a virgin."

"Two kids. Wow. How old is she now?"

"She's twenty-eight. She's got a three year old daughter and a newborn son," I tell him. "They're just the cutest little things ever. Really adorable. All of her friends have babies too and I got to see them a lot too. Mostly Mason, who still lives in Los Angeles and she has like, three kids which is kind of insane."

"That is a lot of children," He agrees.

"Yeah. My sister's an old lady now," I say with a sad sigh. "Being a mom and having mom friends and doing mom things."

"Everybody grows up eventually, you know," Scott reminds me of one of the basic laws of life.

"Right, I know," I roll my eyes at him. "I just wish that it could go slower, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it," He agrees with me.

"Well, anyway, to change the subject to something much lighter and completely unrelated," I say with a bright grin. "What were you saying about a charity fair when you came over? Because to be honest, I wasn't paying much attention."

"You signed up for the dunk tank," Scott assures me with a small smile. "You and Jasper."

"He's going to be pissed," I say with a small laugh. "Don't worry though, we'll still do it. For the humane society you said, right? That's nice, that your mom is volunteering for them and everything."

"Yeah, she really likes helping out down there which means that she really likes guilting me into helping her out with it. So I told her that I'd gather up people for the dunk tank but Macy wouldn't go for it so I have you and Jasper and then some guys from the soccer team, which should be enough."

"Will there be puppies there?"

"Sure, there's going to be a huge area set up for people to come see all of the adoptive animals that they can take home," He tells me. "Why, are you thinking about getting one?"

"I wish," I say with a sad sigh. "But I don't think so."

"Well, the official date is next Saturday," He tells me. "And I'll let you know by this weekend when your time slot is. My mom is going to organize the times but I'll see if she can give you and Jasper the same time slot."

"Yeah, that'd be great. I can't wait to see him squirm up there," I say with a mischievous grin. "He's going to be so mad but when I tell him that it's for the puppies I know that he won't say no." He gives me a strange look and I just shrug. "It's for the puppies, I don't care if I have to manipulate him. And, you know, he has this new friend who isn't his boyfriend but they're talking. Like talking talking, and so maybe he might want to do it too."

"Okay. If you can get him to agree to it, let me know," He says. "I feel like the more people that volunteer for this thing, the more leverage I'll have on my mom for next year when she tries to get me to agree to help out again, which I really don't want to do."

"Don't you love the puppies?"

"Sure, but it's just a lot of work," He shrugs. "And it's not like if I don't do it, it won't get done. The animals will still get adopted, I just won't be the one cleaning up their poop."

"Okay, you have a point there," I concede. "Anyway, are you going to try to adopt an animal?"

"Me? No. My mom? Yes. She's always been an animal lover but my dad had convinced her not to get another pet after Brutus but he's finally cracked so she's going to find a dog there at the fair," Scott explains. "A big dog."

"I hope it's a husky," I tell him. "I absolutely adore huskies."

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, the ringtone of my phone erupts in my purse, interrupting his sentence. I look at him apologetically before pulling my phone out of the purse and seeing on the caller ID that it's Jasper.

"Yeah?" I answer.

"Hey, how's everything going?" He wonders.

"Fine. Everything's fine now, we figured things out," I tell him. "I'm still at the ice cream shop if you want me to grab you something on the way back."

"That's good to hear. I kind of suspected that you wouldn't actually break up with him," Jasper tells me and I don't even waste my breath to tell him that I couldn't have broken up with him when we weren't together in the first place. He wouldn't hear it at all. "But, I was actually wondering how long you planned on being out."

"I'm not sure. Do you need the apartment?"

"Yeah, if you wouldn't mind," He says.

With a grin that's hungry for gossip, I say, "Are you having some alone time with Conner?"

"I might be," He answers vaguely.

"Alright then, I'll find something to do. Text me when it's safe," I relent without getting any details, which is very uncharacteristic of me. "I expect details later."

"Of course. You're the best," Jasper says and then I hear somebody in the background say something rather inappropriate for my third party ears and then Jasper's immediately hanging up the phone so that I don't hear anymore, which I'm grateful for. I want details but I don't need that many details.

"Jasper has Conner over so I'm not allowed to go back home," I explain to Scott, putting my phone back in my bag. "I'm super happy for him and everything, but if they get serious, that's going to be really awkward considering Conner's brother is Noah, the guy that you met on Saturday."

"That does sound awkward," He agrees.

"Yeah. I can't tell Jasper that though because I don't want him to think that I'm turning his relationship into something about me. It's just going to be weird but I'll deal," I shrug. "Do you know how to kill a few hours?"

"I have a few ideas," Scott nods with a look of concentration on his face.

"What's with that face?" I wonder curiously.

"Nothing, it's also weird that we're here like this. I mean, look at us, sitting here talking about sex and we're going to the ice cream shop by ourselves and paying by ourselves like grownups. It's just that we aren't seven years old anymore."

"No," I agree with him as I shove a fry in my face and lean back in the booth. "We most definitely aren't seven years old anymore."

-------------------------

Song: A Little Too Much by Shawn Mendes
Picture: Jo's outfit

And a happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans (: