***Last Free Chapter, Wattpad Paid Stories book***

"So, Spongebob marathon or scary movie marathon?"

"Huh?" I asked Jake, still zoned out with my previous distracting thoughts from earlier in the day.

"I asked you what you wanted to watch, are you okay?" he asked me, the concern evident in his tone.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair and plopped down on my bed up against the wall, wanting to shake the bad thoughts of doubt from my mind.  I used to want Jake more than I had ever wanted anyone else before, my crush on him was monumental.  So why was I acting so distracted in his presence?

"I think I'm just worried about my mom.  She's getting weaker and weaker every day and I really don't want her to have to go through radiation if the chemo doesn't work," I told him truthfully, realizing that that was my problem.  It was all because of my fear of losing my mom.

"Hey, hey, don't you worry about that.  She not only has the best doctors looking out for her, which I'm sure you wouldn't let her have bad doctors, but she has the best daughter anyone could ever ask for looking out for her as well.  You have no reason to worry for her, she'll pull through."

"Thanks," I told him, sniffing a little after I realized that I had started crying.  I averted my eyes from his and focused on the plush grey carpeting in my room that went well with my light lavender walls that hadn't changed since the last time we had been here.

My mom's friend Janie had stayed in the house while we were gone while paying rent and it worked out that she was moving in with her boyfriend at the same time that we were coming back so the house was kept immaculate and in the same state that it was in as we left it.

I stared at the pile of boxes full of my newer clothes on the ground and groaned as I got up to start unpacking some more.  I really didn't want to have to go to school with wrinkled clothes.

"Here, let me help," he all but demanded so I obliged, feeling tingles where his skin brushed against mine as he got on his knees to help me tear the tape off of the ruddy brown boxes.

"What's in here?" he asked, pulling out a pair of slinky black underwear.  I could feel my cheeks heating up a shade hotter than the sun and quickly snatched them out of his hands, the laughter escaping him making me want to kiss him and hit him at the same time.

"Don't even," I warned him.

"Don't what?" he teased, coming closer and closer to my face.  I held my breath as he leaned in and felt a whisper of his lips against my own but he pulled back suddenly, back to helping me unpack.

"What was that for?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean," he teased, acting as if he wasn't just about to kiss me again.

"Oh, you stink," I laughed, going back to the task at hand.

We got into a good rhythm, he got out all of the room decorations and went to get a hammer and nails from my dad to help put them up while I got all of the clothing and more personal items out and put them away as discreetly as I could.

My phone buzzing in my back pocket brought me out of my syncopated rhythm and my face went pale as I checked it.

It was a Facebook notification, with his face on the picture.  A friend request.  Funny how something as simple as that could turn my heart into a fast beating mess and my head into terrified mush.

His muddy colored eyes stared back at me through his profile picture, the too pale skin of his face haunting me with the ghosts of what had happened.

That one shock of lighter colored hair drizzled in with the rest of his darker brown shade stood out to me in the picture, remembering how it looked dangled in front of my face as he leaned down on top of me and I could feel the bile rising in my throat.

I thought he was attractive once upon a time, that is, until he did what he did.  It was so hard to get it out of my mind.  I ended up focusing all of my attention on my self defense classes and my music, hoping and praying that it would take the pain away.

Finally, I just had to deny, deny, deny that anything bad had ever happened to me to begin with. He wasn't real, nothing that happened while I was at that school was real, it was just my imagination getting the better of me.

I quickly logged into my facebook account and deleted the friend request.  It was just some creepy guy from my school in New York who was trying to be my friend on social media.  I shouldn't have thought too much of it.  Nothing was wrong, absolutely nothing.  I was fine, everything was fine.  Fine, fine fine.

I wanted to pull my hair out and smash my head against the side of my dresser over and over again and scream out just how damn 'FINE' everything was.

Just then, a black sleek car screeched down the driveway and I gazed out of my bedroom window, glad for a distraction, even if it was of the Kieran kind.

He swung open his front door and stalked out of his car, not even bothering to lock it behind him.  His large figure filled out the clothes he was wearing nicely and the muscle tone of his arms protruded from the black t-shirt he was currently sporting.

Almost as if he sensed my eyes on him, his eyes darted up to my house in my direction and locked with mine, and it was as if I could see the vibrant green of them from all the way up in my bedroom two stories above him.

He held my gaze for what felt like an eternity, and my heart began racing faster with each passing second.

I couldn't decipher his facial expression until he cracked a sly half grin and threw me a flirtatious wink, and that was when I knew he was messing with me.

"Hey I got the nails for this chalkboard, if you want to help with- what's wrong?"

I looked up into Jake's reverent eyes and slowly felt the color returning to my face after I was sure it had turned so pale it looked as if I had seen a ghost. Perhaps I had before I spotted Kieran, a ghost of the pain that he had put me through.  Maybe this could work, maybe Jake could help me forget.

I stole a peek back out of my window for Kieran again but he was already gone, and I finally let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"N-nothing, I just almost dropped something on my foot and it scared me, let's go ahead and put that chalkboard up, okay?  I'm really anxious to get my room all put together," I told him, hoping that he would buy my story.

He shook his head, the sandy blonde hair swinging around on his forehead and hitting just above his crystalline blue eyes.

"If you say so.  Alright, just hand me the measuring tape."

And so we went on like that for a few more minutes, me helping while he did most of the heavy lifting and putting things together like new shelves and such.

Once everything was done he had to leave, telling me that his mom and her new fiancé wanted him to go over to his soon to be stepdad's house for dinner.  He said he would have invited me but they said family only, apparently something big was going down.

He said he would call me right after it was over to tell me the big news, but if I was being honest with myself, I was more preoccupied with another thought, something much more dangerous than a family dinner.

I was panicked, not of friend requests on Facebook, but more scared of what would happen when he came looking for me, and when he would eventually find me.

I was scared for my life.