Hardly Ever Go by Antique Dilettante
Summary: Josh was Jake's best friend. She was Jake's little sister. She loved him ever since she was little, but now that Josh has realized he feels the same way, is he too late?
Rating: PG
Categories: Long Stories
Characters: JC Chasez
Genres: Drama, Romance, Alternate Universe
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 12/05/05
Updated: 12/30/05
Hardly Ever Go by Antique Dilettante
Chapter 1: Prologue
Author's Notes: It wasn't easy, of course, at first. My brother's best friend, I'm the little sister? So cliched, so of course I never imagined it would happen. My brother had gone to school with him, so he was always around. I was always around, too. But my brother is a little over three years older than me, his friend four years older than me. Something that hinders most crushes from developing, at least from his end.
I'd been tagging along ever since my brother got his license. I was thirteen, he was sixteen, and Josh had been seventeen. Of course I had a crush on Josh, it was only natural. He was older than me, he was dreamy, and he was my friend. My brother thought it was cute, so of course he always had Josh around and always invited me to go riding around with them or to go to the mall and whatnot. I was always happy to oblige, and it seemed that neither my brother nor Josh minded.
I admit I was crushed when Josh got his first real girlfriend. He was a senior then, and I was a freshman. He was dating a varsity cheerleader, and I was branded a geek within the first week of school. My brother knew that it hurt me, so he wouldn't let Josh bring Christie around, but it didn't stop me from seeing them kissing in the hallway, and hearing about them being voted as “cutest couple”. The icing on the cake was when they got prom king and queen. Then he and my brother graduated. They went to college in California, we lived in North Carolina.
I continued on in high school. I grew up. My brother visited on Holidays, so did Josh, but I always made myself scarce. I graduated the year before they were due to graduate college. I decided to stay home and go to community college a couple of years before heading off to state school. I didn't have a grand dream like they did... I just wanted to be a teacher, they were chasing fame and fortune, wanting to be actors, and as their fall back they planned on being big business men. Let's just say the performances in school plays were triple the talent of what my brother and Josh had.
My brother promised he would be home for my graduation, and I trusted him. My brother and I had always been very close, him being the main guardian as both of my parents were rather uninvolved in my life. I remember walking across the stage, taking the diploma I'd worked so hard to earn. I was valedictorian, I had scholarships to go to community college and then off to App State. Everything was going exactly the way I wanted it to. I was eighteen, I was going to college in the fall, and I was moving out over the summer to live with my best friend in the house that her grandmother had willed to her, that she hadn't been able to claim until she turned eighteen. We were going to be responsible adults with jobs and lives.
But things hardly ever go the way they are planned, do they?
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
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