A day. A month. Two months. Five months. Seven months. Seven months free. Free from the psychological torture that nearly drove me insane. Free from the very deranged psycho himself that nearly destroyed my life and everything I had to live for. And yet, without him, I felt...empty.

I know, it was a strange feeling. A man, as he was now, who had tried on several occasions to rape me and strip me of everything that I am, was now out of my life forever. But I secretly longed for him.

"Ava?"

I looked up and pulled myself out of my thoughts. "Hm?"

"What are you thinking right now?"

I sighed and reclined on the sofa. "Nothing."

My therapist raised her brow and tapped her pencil on her clipboard. "You and I both know that that is not true."

I let out a defeated croak and looked away from her. I was hesitant to say what I desperately wanted to tell her. I didn't want to seem like a freak or anything.

"I..." I choked on my words. "I sort of...miss him."

She furrowed her brows and straightened her spine. "Oh...really? Why do you feel that way?"

I sighed again. "I don't know," I breathed. "I don't know what I feel for him."

"Ava, he tried to kill you, don't you remember any of that?"

I sharply looked up and flared my nostrils. I slammed my hand down on the coffee table in front of us. She flinched.

"He did not try to kill me."

"Alright..." she reclined back into her chair. "Well, Ava, you have to accept that Luther has killed dozens and dozens of people. He could've easily murdered you as well."

"But he wouldn't. He told me that he loved me."

"He could have been lying, Ava. Luther was an autistic manipulator with severe mental disabilities. He is 18 years old. He doesn't know what love even is."

"Look, Dr. Harper, I appreciate that you're trying to get me to understand that I'm never going to see him again and that that's a good thing, and I get that. But...I just have a very bad feeling."

"About what?"

"I keep having this feeling in my gut that he's going to show up and take me at any time. That at any given moment, he's going to take me away and the events of last year are going to happen all over agin. I have this feeling that he'll forget everything I have told him and taught him and that he'll go back to his old ways of torturing me. And when he is done with that, he'll kill me."

"Ava, he is not coming back. Ever. He is forbidden to even visit you in the the psychiatric hospital. Besides, you have a lot of people protecting you."

"Yeah..." I thought thinking of Nate. The thought of him made me grin. "There are."

"Well, I think that's all the time we have for our session today." Dr. Harper stood up, so I got up as well. I walked out of the room. "If you have any more concerns or anxieties, please feel free to call me."

I nodded. "I will. Thanks again."

I left the therapist building and drove to my house. It was the middle of a weekday, and mom was at the floral shop, as usual.

Shortly after Luther had killed Samantha earlier that school year in October, students, especially girls, became very afraid to be my friend. Even after Luther was arrested, people still seemed to be afraid of me. I lost friends that I already had, and if I hadn't had Nate by my side, I don't think I could've made it at all. After the whole Luther frenzy settled down, Nate and I decided to make it official and put a label on our relationship. Coming up was going to be five months we were officially together. And, for the first time in a while, I was happy, and ready to move on.

But this feeling that was coming to me, the feeling of an unexplained dread that Luther would soon return, it put me in an unexcused, foul mood. I was quite snippy with my mother and uncle those recent days. I tried using PMS as an excuse, but I couldn't use that for an excuse forever, of course. Sooner or later I would have to explain to them everything that I was feeling. And I certainly wasn't looking forward to that day.

I walked into my house and set my keys and purse down on the kitchen table. Looking outside, I noticed that dark clouds had accumulated and rain was lightly beginning to fall. It was the first time that there had been rain since Autumn. Since Luther. I closed my eyes, the sound of the rain, bringing back memorabilia, causing an odd sense of serenity to wash over me.

The mysterious feeling of peace that had covered me suddenly disappeared when my phone started to emit the generic marimba jingle that every new iPhone user set their ringtone to. I sighed and opened my eyes, silently cursing to myself about not changing the ringtone earlier to something more my speed, and reached into my pocket to answer it. Nate's name along with the heart and kissy face emojis I had surrounded it with appeared on the screen. I smiled a little to myself as I slid the answer button to the right and held it to my ear.

"Hello darling," I spoke in a mock politeness. Nate chuckled on the other end of the line, his laugh croaking up his throat like two pieces of cardboard scraping up against each other.

"Good afternoon, my dear," he responded in the same sarcastic manner. "And what is a lovely woman like you doing on this grey day?"

I shrugged my shoulders, even though he couldn't see it, my sweater falling slightly off my shoulders as I did so. "Nothing much," I replied, coming back to reality. "I just finished my therapist appointment and I don't have any plans for today."

"Do you want to go out?" he asked me as I heard him take a drink of something. "We could go to a cafe or something for a few hours then maybe catch a movie tonight if you want to."

I bit my lip and looked up back out the window and into the field in the back of my house. The yellow swing sets swayed in the wind as water dripped onto them. The memory of Luther swinging with me on them in the rain creeped it's way into my mind all of a sudden. That was the day he had admitted to loving me for the first time. The day he assaulted and kidnapped me. The thought of it caused me to shudder and look away from the window.

"Ava?" Nate asked. "Are you there?"

"Yeah, sorry," I apologized. "I'm here. I was just having...a flash back."

I could hear the way he was breathing that his mood suddenly changed and he became very concerned. "A flash back?" he asked me. "About what exactly?"

I closed my eyes and shook my head, still while he couldn't see me once again. "I'd rather not talk about it over the phone. I'll just talk to you in person."

"So, that's a yes on the date?" he said in a voice of pretend excitement.

I sighed and smiled. "Yes, honey. I will go on a date with you."

"Yay!" he exclaimed like a child. "I'll swing by to pick you up in a little bit. Say, 4:30?"

I scrunched my chin and lifted my brows. "Sounds legit," I answered. "I'll see you then." I pressed the red button on the screen of my phone and clicked the top button to turn it off. Letting out a sigh, I turned on my heel and walked into the kitchen to check one of the clocks in there. It was already four o'clock in the afternoon and I was completely pooped, even though I had done virtually nothing at all that day.

It was near the end of June. The summer storms were soon to become more frequent, or at least that's what Nate told me. I had barely lived there for six months, I still wasn't familiar with the weather changes yet. All the same, the rain reminded me of the trauma of Luther all those months ago, and somehow, I didn't feel alone when I thought about it. It still felt as though he was right there with me, watching my every move, monitoring my thoughts. It was as though he never even left. Of course, that feeling frightened me. But in the back of my mind, I was somewhat comforted.

I drearily trudged up the steps to my room, slowly removing my sweaty clothes as I did so. I took a quick, two minute shower, dried off and applied some light makeup. I put on a light sweater, beanie hat, and some skinny jeans to wear out. I slipped my leather boots back on and waited by the front door for Nate to come along.

After a few minutes, he arrived right on time, as he normally did, for he was quite a punctual, well put together young man then. He walked up to my porch, carrying an umbrella above his head. He rang my doorbell, not like he needed to. I could see him right through the crystal glass on our door. He had done it just to annoy me, for I abhorred the sound of our doorbell, since it wouldn't stop playing that juvenile tune for at least 30 seconds. Nate simply smirked at me through the glass as I cast him a deadly glare. I opened up the door and locked it behind me.

"Hi there, Miss Shortcake," he mocked, pulling one of my orange curls.

"Oh shut up, Goldie Locks." I playfully shoved him away from me as he chuckled. I could feel it rumble in his chest as my hand rested upon it. The two of us began walking out to his new, red truck. He opened up the passenger door for me and closed it just as I sat in. I smiled to myself as I buckled up.

The evening began so well. However, after that very night, nothing would ever be the same.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Yes the first chapter of Outlier is out! I know that this chapter was pretty boring and low-key, but once the action gets started, the book is going to be reeeeaaally good. Maybe even better than the first one...but we'll see.

Vote, comment, tell me what you think! Make sure to follow my main account ModernJoMarch for other stories, you won't want to miss! Have a good day my lovelies!