Once again, after my conversation with Courtney, I found myself wishing for some sort of sign from the universe that could help me out with all of this. I knew that Drake had a good point, though. I had to decide whether the hurt was worth any of this. My heart wanted to love with all that it had, so when people responded negatively to that I got hurt. It led me to sitting on the floor of my room eating ice cream at ten in the evening, when I should have been sleeping, just thinking. I thought about a lot of different matters. I thought about whether it would be worth texting Courtney or whether I should give it a break. I needed to let my heart have a rest. It had already dealt with the pain of rejection before. You would think that I would be getting stronger by now and better at dealing with it. Unfortunately, that was simply not the case.

In fact, it almost felt as though each time it grew more difficult to deal with. I had only ever wanted to spread kindness to other people, so when I realised that I wasn't receiving that, everything felt so much more complicated and hurtful.

For someone who allegedly loved women, Courtney certainly had a funny way of showing it. Maybe she had a lot of bad experiences in the past, maybe she was scared of getting close to someone again. All I knew was that she was seriously temperamental.

While I thought on all of these thoughts, my phone began to buzz with a call. My heart began to pound when I read the caller identification.

"Hey loser," she greeted me.

"Hey Courtney. Did you get home?" I asked her.

I heard a movement then and decided that she had flopped down on her bed. At least, that was where she was currently sat in my mental image of her.

"No. I'm still at the school grounds and I am entirely convinced that I'm either going to be stuck here forever, or a wolf is about to come out and eat me, leaving my bones as remains. Either way, I don't know who would be into me, then. Maybe someone with an old person-" she cut out then and I was partially relieved that I didn't have to listen to any more of that sentence.

"That's unfortunate. I should go to sleep now. Goodbye-"

"Wait, you idiot," she muttered.

I didn't know whether she was saying that to me or herself. Either way, I listened. I waited. I listened to Courtney's slow breaths on the other side of the line for a moment until she spoke again.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For?" I asked her.

"For dismissing you when I know that you only wanted to help. You were so...insistent and I shoved that away because I can be rude and blunt and tactless at times and I am sorry, Phoebe," she told me.

I smiled after hearing her say all of that, out of some strange type of satisfaction.

"Thank you," I replied.

"We're not friends though," she said.

"I didn't ever say that we were," I said, "You're rude and obnoxious," I replied. Saying those words hurt me, so I had no idea how Courtney could manage to say everything that she did.

"I'm tired. Don't call me up at this time," Courtney said.

"But I-"

She released a soft laugh before whispering, "Bye, loser," and then ending the call.

I threw my phone down on my bed after she had ended the call and met eyes with my reflection, as I moved some of my brown hair over my shoulder and sighed aloud.

"Hey, I'm not a loser," I said to myself.

I supposed that something had come out of that phone call, though. I could now at least consider Courtney an acquaintance. It wasn't much but it was a step in the right direction. Almost. I wished that she would talk to me like that more often and not just on the phone late at night. Her whole deal was weird but I had to admit it had sort of captivated me.

I outwardly groaned. This was going to take a long time to work out.

I walked over to my bed and just mushed my face into the pillow, breathing in the lavender scent of our laundry detergent as I did so.

As I did so, I realised something.

Courtney smelt like lavenders, too.

It was sort of weird that I would remember something like that. However, I supposed that she had annoyed me so much that it had led to this whole thing. Stupid Courtney, stupid lavenders, and stupid Courtney's car that had decided to break down right outside the school which led to all of the confusing feelings that I had now.

I couldn't even make sense of most of them but if I knew one thing for sure, then it was that I was extraordinarily confused about all of this. I wished that I knew what to say or what to do or how to act around people. For someone who tried to be so kind to other people, maybe Oliver was right. Maybe I wasn't kind enough to myself.

After I had pondered for quite some time, I decided that it was about time for me to go to sleep. The universe might just answer some more of my questions the following day. As much as I may have doubted it, it was certainly nice to dream.

At the very least, I had made some new friends today either way.

Lois and Drake seemed like sweet and optimistic souls. It did sort of worry me how easily Lois had read me earlier, though. She had already known that I had a lot on my mind, before I had even said anything. Drake, on the other hand had helped instill in me some optimism for the future. Sure, Courtney and I weren't friends just yet but that didn't erase all possibilities of us ever being friends. I simply had to stay positive and keep working on it. With that thought in mind, I drifted to sleep.