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    Lex growled exasperatedly. “This is perfect. Just so perfect. Make my day a little bit worse, why dontcha?”

    “I’m sure Jeff had no idea you’re having a bad day,” Fred said, trying to help out in his usual annoying way. “I mean, it’s not like he planned it all along to ruin your day.”

    “No?!” she muttered. “It feels that way. The one thing that could’ve saved this awful day was going to the rehearsal and seeing my friends, but I couldn’t even have that!”

    “It’s not his fault,” Fred continued.

    “I know that,” she sighed. “It feels better if we pretend it is, though. A little bit.”

    It did feel a little bit like the end of the world, she thought. She’d relied on the fact that the rehearsal would cheer her up immensely, and now when Jeff had called her to tell her that they had to cancel tonight’s rehearsal, she wasn’t feeling up to anything at all.

    Fred watched her while she paced back and forth in the room, growling quietly under her breath to release her disappointment some way. “How long do we have to pretend for?” Fred finally asked.

    “Oh, don’t tell me; you’re hungry and bored again,” she muttered. “Doesn’t this tick you off?”

    “Your rehearsal isn’t really something I get too worked up about,” he said simply, moving around her pillows and stuffed animal on the bed. “I’m sorry this ruined your day, Lex.”

    She growled again. It was impossible to be annoyed with him when he always had to be so disgustingly nice and understanding. “Your day isn’t ruined?”

    Fred tilted his head to the side, his attention mostly directed to the stuffed animal he was playing with. “Yes, that’s going at the top of my journal entry today: ‘Am slightly miffed, suspect Lex’s outfit prettier than mine – convinced it is no co-incidence, must immediately break up with her’,” he replied with a monotone voice that made her giggle involuntarily. He looked back up at her, amused. “Made you smile.”

    “You did,” Lex nodded, sitting down next to him on the bed. “Thank you.”

    “It’s what I do,” he explained, leaning closer. “You smiling is all that really matters.” He seemed thoughtful for a second. “I read that in a Winnie the Pooh chronicle.”

    Lex laughed. “You did not.”

    “Well, it’s true no matter what. Life according to children’s books is always true.”

    “I love you,” she mumbled, wrapping her arm around his neck. “If everybody was like you, there’d be no bad in the world.”

    “Yes, but no one would understand anything either, you know,” he joked, resting his head against hers.

    “Don’t say that. Give yourself some credit.”

    “Lex, you don’t have to pretend like it’s not true,” he said, still smiling. “Hello, big GPA 1.3 here. We can’t all be beautiful, smart and talented, like you, Lex.”

    She snorted loudly. “Let’s not kid ourselves there, Fred.”

    “I mean it. You really are. To me,” he replied seriously, tilting her head up so he could look at her. “There’s a reason why people like you succeed, and people like me flunk out of eleventh grade.”

    “There’s also a reason to why people like me happen to love people like you, and it has nothing to do with bad self-esteem.”

    Fred merely smiled at her again, without making another comment. Lex decided to let it go, even though she hated when he beat himself down like he did. There was much credit to give him for many different reasons, but he’d never had the best confidence in himself and that made her really sad, that he couldn’t see how much potential he actually had.

    Fred wasn’t scared of anything in particular – apart from bugs, which Lex mostly wrote of as a ridiculous fear fixation – but the one thing he dreaded most of all had nothing to do with phobias; it was plain and simple fear of failing, of being a failure. He was scared to death of not being able to achieve his high school diploma and there was nothing he was more anxious about than standardized tests. Lex didn’t believe that was ridiculous because she knew how hard he worked in school, just so he could graduate at the same time as her.

    It was true; they’d had some trouble regarding it, a few months ago, over the summer holiday. Lex had known from the previous winter that she and the band were up for a tour that summer, which they’d rehearsed and planned for for months. Lex had also told Fred that he could come along, knowing he didn’t have much of a choice on where to go, since he always stayed with her over holidays and breaks. She’d planned all along to have him there with her. Unfortunately, that was one planning that didn’t go through. Fred flunked out of too many of his compulsory classes and was either forced to retake the entire semester the following year or go off to summer school, which completely changed all of his – and Lex’s plans.

    They’d had a big fight over it, when Fred had gotten too frustrated and upset about the whole thing, and Lex had simply tried to make him think of it in a less negative way, which had resulted in him blaming her for not understanding his side of it. Lex tried not to think of it too much; it had been a stupid fight altogether. However, it had put their relationship in its first real crisis and Lex was still not sure how exactly they’d managed to work it all out without a nasty break-up as result.

    There hadn’t been much to choose from. Lex had convinced him that summer school would be the best solution, even if it meant that they had to spend the entire summer apart. It had been difficult, both to convince him not to give up on his studies – and himself – and be able to leave him when she really didn’t want them to stay apart at all. She had been afraid that it would ultimately cause too much damage, forcing them to break up because of disagreements and resentment, or that the time apart would result in them not speaking and eventually just losing touch with each other.

    Lex had realized, though, that one of the good things about Fred was that he could never stay angry very long or hold grudges against anyone or anything – not including his parents. Even though he’d made it clear that he hated the thought of going off to summer school all by himself while she was on tour, he’d still showed up before she was leaving, helping her pack, telling her goodbye and promising to call her as often as he could.

    The summer had been alright after all. Lex had loved the tour, as she always did, and knowing that Fred wasn’t as miserable in school as she’d feared, helped her enjoy it even more. As soon as she came back from the tour, he’d apologized to her, saying how it was all thanks to her stubbornness that he’d gone back to school and that she’d been right all along.

    Sometimes Lex was convinced that the previous summer had only helped them realize how strong their relationship really was; that they could survive anything, even if they had to be apart. Fred had saved his grades and managed to move up a class, and was currently working harder than ever to improve his GPA so he’d have a chance to graduate in June.

    They were strong together. They always had been. Only now, she was more aware of it. “Ya know, bad grade point average or not, I think you’re smarter than you think,” she told him after a while.

    “Why’s that?” he mumbled, once again more captivated by her stuffed animal than the conversation itself.

    “Not all people are intellectual, Fred. People like you are the kind that survives out there in the real world, based on street smartness and practical knowledge. Okay, so you may not know what the capital of Brazil is, but you’d have no problem at all surviving there if someone dropped you off on the side of the road in that city.”

    Fred stared at her with a blank expression in his eyes. “Alright.”

    “You’ll understand one day,” she promised, giving him a quick kiss before climbing down from the bed. “Let’s go eat something. Your constant hunger is rubbing off on me.”

    Fred followed her down the stairs to the kitchen. “Hey, Brazil’s a country, right?” he asked thoughtfully.

    “You see? Not so stupid after all,” she smiled.