The moment of truth

Watching James talk to his mother, made Jenny completely forget her initial plan. It wasn't until his mother asked about his PJ's that she remembered she was still wearing hers. She was glad she had put on the beautiful cherry blossom patterned silk robe that Jason had bought her, but it wasn't enough to make her feel like she wasn't wearing sleepwear. So, after a short while she cleared her throat and greeted Mrs. Smith and apologized that they hadn't gotten James ready on time for the agreed upon pick-up time and for the fact that she was still in her pyjama's. She asked if she could excuse her so that she could get ready and offered to get James ready as well. To which Mrs. Smith replied "Oh, yes of course! I got absorbed in seeing him again. This was my first night apart from him. So, I was too excited to see him again after worrying about him all night. I didn't stand still by the thought that you guys might want to get changed. Where have I left my manners." She said with a soft laugh. "And yes, please do. I will leave James to you. I will take this time to chat with Mr. and Mrs. Westwood. You take your time dear."

With that Jenny took James from her arms and headed upstairs and Jason gave a polite nod of the head after which he followed after her. He took James from her arms and they went back to their room where they got dressed. They returned to the living room shortly after and Mrs. Smith was ready to leave once more. After handing the boy back to his mother, they walked the mother and son duo to the door as a family. "Thank you for your hospitality. I hope James wasn't too much trouble to you all." Mrs. Smith said before turning to James. "What do you say dear?" James followed his mother's example and thanked them for their hospitality and for taking care of him yesterday. Jenny replied on behalf of them all as she said, "It was no trouble at all. We loved having him here." with a bright smile. She turned to James and tickled his belly as she said "Till next time my dear James." with a wink.

After a grateful smile from Mrs. Smith and a happy smile from James, they took their leave and the door was closed with a sigh. Only to be opened shortly after to allow Susan and Stephen to take their leave as well. They had been spending this morning too leisurely and had to get going as they had a busy day in front of them. After a full house just moments ago, Jenny and Jason were suddenly left all alone, with the exception of the people that worked at the Westwood residence and the surrounding grounds of course.

They were just about to return to the living room when they both received a notification on their phone. With only a few days to go before school would start again, aside from the group chats they were both in, the other likely candidate was a message from the school app revealing the class listing and the timetables. With their recent conversation about this exact subject and mainly the possibility of them not being in the same class, they both hurriedly grabbed their phone and saw a flashing MHS logo on their screen. With an anxious and nervous feeling, they looked at each other before looking back at their screen and opening the message. As they had predicted and slightly dreaded, it was the class listing. The presence of James had made them forget about this for a moment, but the moment he had left, the topic had been shoved back under their noses.

"It's the class listing. It is the moment of truth..." Jenny said. With some hesitation she continued, "I will just look for my name to see in which class I am and then we can look at the other names to see whether you are in that class as well or not." Jason nodded to show he agreed with Jenny's plan to find out whether they would be classmates for another year or not. Jenny slowly typed in her name in the search bar inside the document and found herself in no time. As the list was in alphabetical order, she didn't have to look at the names listed above hers. So, she could start her search for Jason's name by scrolling down the list on names. She glances over the first letters of the last names as she went down the list. T, U, V, Y. No names with a 'W' were listed, so that could only mean one thing. They had indeed been separated for their last year and Jenny slowly turned to see Jason's reaction. He stood behind her with an unreadable expression and didn't say a word as he stared at the screen of Jenny's phone. "Are you okay Jace? Say something." Without saying a word, he turned around and headed up the stairs. Before Jenny could follow him, she heard a door slam shut in the distance.

Once he closed the room door Jason took a seat in the windowsill in the reading corner and stared out of the window in silence as he gathered his thoughts. Whenever he was upset, he liked staring into the distance, especially into nature. That is why he liked the rooftop at the school so much, because it overlooked the school gardens. Now that he was at home, he had to make do with the view from this window. Normally he would storm out the door and visit the rooftop at school but doing that wouldn't be fair to Jenny. He had told her that he would accept her decision and that meant accepting the outcome as well. Whatever it may be. And he knew that one of the possible outcomes was that they would end up in different classes, but it still got to him when it became a reality. Though his response now wasn't much better than him storming out and had probably made Jenny feel guilty, he needed to get away from that reality for a moment. Even if it was only one door and a flight of steps away.