As I walked into the school the next day, my head was held high and there was a slight smile on my lips. Why? I have no idea. I just felt good today. Maybe because I had finally convinced myself not to dwell on Sean’s cheating ass and just try to make him go away.
As I walked to my locker, I saw Sean leaning against his locker, Jessica hanging on him. I didn’t even give him a passing glance as I felt his eyes on me. I knew he wanted to talk to me but, pffft, what was there to listen to?

As I shoved my books into my locker, felt a foot hit my butt, causing me to nearly bang my head on my locker.
“Hey, Lissa!” I heard a voice behind me chirp.
“Hey, Jackie.” I bent backwards slightly and looked up at my friend and stuck my tongue out.
She smiled. “You seem in a good mood today. Your sister not hog all that cake again?”
“No, she did,” I mumbled. “I went down to the kitchen to see, like, one tiny corner of it left as if not finishing the whole damn thing made up for the fact that she nearly ate the whole damn thing!”
She let out a laugh, but after a moment it faded as she stared past me. “…Hey… The jerkass is staring at you…”
“He tried to call me yesterday.”
She raised an eyebrow. “H-He did? What did you say?”
“I didn’t. I ignored the call.”
She gave me a small smile; I could tell she was proud of me, at least a little.
“Oh, and…um…” I slowly stood, placing my books on the counter above the lockers. “I… I’m sorry… about the whole, um…” I waved my hand in a circle for emphasis. “Ya know… thing… with-”
She sighed, smiling a little at me, but I could see the happiness in her eyes fade slightly. “It’s okay. I-It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything; you don’t need to apologize.”
“B-But-”
“Hush.” She snapped her fingers loudly in front of my face and pointed at me. “I like him. Yeah, okay, we’ve established that. But getting mad at you because he likes you and probably liked you first, what good would that do? Why should I get pissed off and waste my time being angry, when, wh-what are you supposed to do? ‘Oh, sorry, Jackie, that a guy you happened to like likes me. Lemme go shoot myself to make this better.’ No!” she let out a laugh.
I smiled a little at her. “S-So y-you’re not mad…?”
“At the situation, yeah, at you, no.”
I closed my locker and smiled softly. “Mkay…”
“Hey. You finish your history homework?”
I slipped the paper from my binder and held it out to her. “Mooched it off Marcus.”
“Gimme.”

As we walked down the hall to the stairs (her class was on the way to mine,) we picked up Taylor on the way. “Hey, Alyssa, wanna come over and play Rockband after school?”
My eyes widened. “Y-You got it?!”
“Mmmmhm!” she smiled proudly at me. “I went on a shopping spree yesterday!”
“…And why is that different from any other day?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, even though she knew it was true. “So, you wanna come over or not?”
“Oh, my God, I wanna, but I can’t.”
She made a confused face at me. “Why not?”
“I got work.”
“Work?” My friends questioned in unison.
“Y-Yeah…” I switched my gaze between them. “I got my holiday job at Bath and Body, remember?”
And, again in unison, I received an ‘Oh, yeaaah…’
“It’s not winter break yet…” Jackie raised an eyebrow at me.
“So?” I laughed. “I’m not doing anything with my time!”
“What time do you get off?” Taylor pouted.
“Er… I think six or seven?”
She sighed loudly. “What the hell, Lissa.”
“Dude. I’m getting you and like everyone else awesome perfume for Christmas. Shut your yap.”
Her face suddenly lit up. “Fine, fine.”

The three of us started up the stairs, leaving Jackie to her classroom as we did. Taylor and I hadn’t talked much about the whole Sean thing because she knew I didn’t want to talk about it that much, and I knew she didn’t really want to hear it. When it came to drama, she tried to ignore it like the Plague.

You know how sometimes there’s that creepy hallway at school and for some reason, half the lights are out like someone forgot to turn them on, making the hallway dark and scary looking?
This is what the hallway to my classroom looked like today.

Taylor and I exchanged glances before starting down the hallway, making it seem much more dramatic than it really was.
“Erica!!” Taylor suddenly called down the hallway to a girl who was about to enter a classroom. She took a step back and looked at Taylor for a minute before waving to her. Taylor went running over to her friend, leaving me on my own. I didn’t really like Erica. To me, she just seemed too goody-goody, so I tried to ignore her to the best of my abilities. But she was Taylor’s friend, so I had to tolerate her.

But once my friend took off, I rolled my eyes and slowed my pace slightly. Most of the classrooms were dark, the teacher not there yet or the room not being used first block. It just gave me a generally creepy feeling about being in the hallway. Add the fact that it was fairly quiet and the hallway was nearly empty, most people in their rooms already, and there was still over five minutes before class started.

But when I felt a painfully strong grip grab onto my upper arm and drag me into an open, dark classroom, I felt my heart skip a few beats. I tripped and my stomach dug into the edge of one of the tables, (I was in a biology lab,) causing me to spill my books onto the tabletop.
As I turned to see what the force was, I felt my wrists get pressed roughly to the table at my sides, keeping me from moving. My breath was caught in my throat as stared at the perpetrator before me.
And the pair of cold dark eyes staring into mine.

I felt like I should be scared, but I wasn’t. For some reason, I was fairly calm.
Well, as clam as you could be as your cheating ex-boyfriend held you to a table in a dark room.

“Hey, Lissa…” His voice sounded like it was desperately trying to hold back anger.
“Sean.” I said simply as I stared up at him.
It was quiet for a moment, as if he was expecting a different answer, or at least for me to stutter.
“I called you three times yesterday.”
“…And I ignored you three times yesterday.”
He tried to hold back a growl through his gritted teeth. “I noticed,” he said coolly, but I could tell that my calmness was starting to piss him off. “I never got to explain myself.”
“Oh? Was there something I missed?” I said sarcastically, blinking up innocently at him.
He glared at me right back. “Lissa-“
“Because I think I covered everything. The lying, the cheating, the-“
“Will you just fucking let me talk!?”
His sudden outburst halted my words for a moment and I could feel his grip on my wrists tighten.
“I-“
“Tell me.” I interrupted him again. Damn, I was on a roll today. “Did you think about me when you fucked her?”
He looked like he was about to slap me, his face contorting into a look of disgust. But softened slightly as he let out a light scoff. “I did, actually.” He pressed himself a little closer to me. “I was trying so hard to imagine she was you-“
“What? Imagine me slutty and easy and loud? Panting under you and screaming your name?”
He was trying not to grind his teeth. “I didn’t mean-“
“What did you mean then, huh? You screw some other bitch while you have a girlfriend and your excuse is that ‘I was imagining she was you’?”
“Alyssa. I know I did something bad, but-“
“Oh, ya think!?”
He pressed himself up against me again and I could almost feel the bruises forming on my wrists under his strong hands. “Will you let me get a fucking sentence out?” he growled quietly into my ear.
I didn’t say anything. But I didn’t really like the fact that he was standing between my legs, pressing the small of my back into the table edge. “Yes. I fucked up. I know that. And I’m still crazy about you, babe, and you know that.”
“…I don’t, actually.”
He glared down at my blank expression and I could see, even in the dark light, his face starting to turn red with anger.
“Because, ya know,” I started, “all the lying and cheating and raping and fucking… that could kinda throw a person off.”
He was silent for a moment, trying to think. “…Lissa, I know I messed up, but I never wanted any of that to happen.”
“Oh?”
“She was my friend… I didn’t want to be an ass-“
“So instead of saying ‘can you lay off, I have a girlfriend?’ you lied to cover your ass while you fucked her brains out. Last time I checked, you were the horny bastard, she was just the easy one. And that’s exactly what you want in a girl isn’t it? Easy to fool, easy to manipulate, and certainly easy to fuck.”
I could see a wave of panic and anger in his eyes as he was desperately running out of things to say. “…Instead I have you, which in my opinion is better.”
I was about to correct him and say ‘Had, not has’ but before I got the chance, his lips crashed into mine.

I felt a terrible wave of nausea and anger come over me. This felt like a curse that wouldn’t go away. Gray’s words came back into my mind, ‘Scars can heal with the right mending.’
And this defiantly wasn’t the right mending.

I tried to push him off, but he held me tight like he wasn’t planning on letting me go until I kissed him back.
So I did the next best thing.
I sunk my teeth into his bottom lip, and at first he thought I was doing something else. But I dug my canines into his lip and gave a sharp tug, smirking in quiet satisfaction as I tasted a warm, metallic-like liquid.

He suddenly yelped in pain as a stream of blood started down his chin. “You fucking little-”
I used the split second of ease on my wrists to my advantage and gave him a rough shove off of me, sending him into a desk, I quickly grabbed my things and hurried to the door “’I’m done with you’ means ‘I am fucking done with you’”
He glared at me. “Do you know how many girls would kill to be in your position?”
“Well, now they won’t have to; you’re single now. And I don’t see why they would. Be with you or kill someone; it’s prison either way.”

I shoved the door open, not waiting for a reply. I stomped down the hallway, having only a few minutes before the bell would ring. Good thing my class was right there.
“Alyssa!”
I rolled my eyes and walked a little faster.
“…Lissa!”
I gritted my teeth and turned on my heel. “What the fuck do you…” My voice trailed off as I stared at… not the person I thought I was screaming at. “…M-M-Marcus…! Hey…!”
He simply raised an eyebrow at me. “What was that about?”
“I-It’s nothing…” I tried to laugh it off, but he wasn’t buying it. He instead was staring intently at my face. “…What?”
He gently took my chin in his hand and tilted it up towards him. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me again, but…
“…Why is there blood on your lips…?”

My eyes widened slightly as my hand shot up to my mouth, gently fingering my lips. I pulled it away and, sure enough, there was blood on my fingertips. I slowly looked up at him. “Um…”
“’Um…’” he mocked, is eyebrow still raised. He ran his thumb under my lower lip and pulled his hand away, examining it. He showed me the red liquid incase I had missed it. “Lissa. What happened?”
“It’s nothing.” I tried to shrug it off and start towards my class. “I just bit my lip or something.”
“Riiight…” he said skeptically and I knew he was still watching me.
I turned on my heal, but kept walking, now backwards. “Don’t you have like forty seconds to get to class?”
He held up a yellow piece of paper. “Teacher told me to get some things for her from the Sophomore history teacher. Don’t you have like twenty five seconds to get to class?”
“Yeah,” I laughed slightly. “See you at lunch!” I flashed him a smile before hurrying to my classroom.
He didn’t believe an ounce of what I just said.
And knowing him, he would find out.

Lunch came fast. Too fast.
Because I knew Marcus would still be wondering what had happened, and I decided that if he brought it up, I would say I cut my lip on my necklace or something when I was chewing on it. Stupid thing I would totally do. …Well, actually that’s something that Jackie has done, more than once, so I just snagged the idea from her.
But as Jackie and I walked to lunch together, we both slowed our pace and made a face at each other, both thinking ‘Do you hear that, too?’ The noise seemed distant, but as we neared the lunch room, it seemed to get louder
“What is that, a bread riot or something?” Jackie mumbled to herself. As we got closer, we could make out yelling and shouting, and a lot of it.

When we finally entered the lunch room, the first thing we saw was a giant crowd of people in the middle of it. It was mostly guys and there was a lot of yelling. Me and Jackie exchanged looks before putting our things down at out lunch table. We slowly started over to the crowd, curiosity getting the best of us.
There was a lot of people, probably more than were in our lunch period. And of course, most were guys and taller than us, almost completely blocking out our view. We could hear shouting from the middle of the circle of people, the occasional table being shoved, or someone being shoved against a table, and a hell of a lot of… punching sounds?
We tried to stand on our tiptoes or shove people out of the way so we could see, but it was no use. Be could see flashes of two people at the center of it all, and constant ’ooooh!!’s and ’ouch…’s and gasps from the mob.
After a moment of glancing around, I spotted Evan a few people over from me. I shoved people out of the way to get over to him, now in the mob myself. “E-Evan, what’s going on?” I tried to get a look from where I was now, but I still couldn’t.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said smoothly. God damn, did I hate when he said that. It was like his catchphrase that he knew would get him punched in the face. I glared at him. “Hey. Calm down. It‘s nothing.”
Then all at once the crowd went ‘ohhh!!’ and I made a face at Evan.
“That’s nothing?”
I saw a look of nervousness cross his face and I furrowed my eyebrows. I stared back at the center of the crowd and saw a flash of color. “W-wait…” I squinted. “W-Was that-”
“Alyssa. D-Don’t-”
I shoved past him and back towards the open area with all the empty lunch tables. I got to the nearest one and jumped up on one of the seats. I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see over everyone’s head, and for a split second, I saw the two people that everyone was watching so intently and my blood went cold and body numb.

Why the hell were my ex and my best friend beating the living shit out of each other?

I think it took me a whole five seconds to process what I saw, waves of panic sweeping over me. I rushed down from the seat and started into the heart of the crowd, but a pair of strong arms suddenly grabbed mine from behind, pulling me back. I tried to turn, but the arms held firm. But I didn’t need to look at who it was; I already knew.
“Evan… L-Let go…!!”

“Alyssa. You try to break them up and you’ll get killed. They’ve been at this for like five minutes already.”
“B-But-”
“And besides, this has been building up for a long-ass time. Sean’s pissed because Marcus was trying to win over his best friend‘s heart, and Marcus is pissed because Sean broke his best friend’s heart.”
My eyes widened. “Wh-what?” I said quietly.
“Yeah. Surprise. I knew.”
I didn’t say anything, but tried to wriggle from his grip.
“Lissa, you won’t be able to do anything and you know it. Don’t try; you’ll end up going to the hospital with ‘em.”
After a moment, I stopped struggling and he let me go. I let out a sigh and pressed my hand to the side of my face, peering through my fingers as my eyes began to fill with that salty water once more. I few people moved and now I had a perfect view of the two guys I knew the best as the duked it out.

After a few moments, I felt a face press into the side of my shoulder and a pair of arms wrap around mine.
“Hey, Jackie…” I said distantly and I could feel her shaking slightly.
“…I-If he lives through this, I-I’m gonna kill him.”
I smiled sadly at her. “Me too, Jackie…I‘ll help.”

It was like a car crash:  you can’t really stop watching, but know full well you should turn away from what you shouldn’t see.
After what seemed like far too long, teachers came to break them up. Needed about 4 teachers for each of them, but eventually they were dragged away from each other. I didn’t get a good look at either of them, but from what I could, there was blood. A lot of blood. The principal ordered us to go back into the hallway and out of the lunchroom and the mob whined in protest. I mean, God forbid you end an all-out deathmatch to the gruesome end. The three of us were almost the last to leave.
Well, I didn’t really leave. Evan and Jackie stared away and assumed I would follow, but I just stood there in a daze, feeling a few tears run down my cheeks.
“Alyssa…C-Come on…” Jackie said softly. I didn’t reply.
After a moment, I felt a grip on my upper arm, leading me out of the room.
I hated that Evan was in wrestling.

We sat right outside the doors to the lunchroom, our backs to the wall and my friends on either side of me, Jackie leaning her head on my shoulder and Evan staring blankly at the floor. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my arms on them. “Evan…?”
“Hn?”
“…What happened?”
There was silence for a moment. “I don’t even know. We had like, just got there. We sat down, he looked across the lunch table and started glaring, then suddenly got up and starting walking across the lunchroom the same time Sean was. They started yelling and shoving each other, then just, like, exploded.”

When I heard the ambulance, I hid my eyes in my knees and hugged myself. Jackie tried to comfortingly rub my shoulder, but I knew she wasn’t okay herself. Evan let out a long sigh. “I wonder when we can go back to lunch…”
“How are you being so calm about this?!” I suddenly barked. “They were both your friends! Why are-”
“Because I saw it coming,” he said growled softly. “I can’t be the only one that knew they were going to get in a bad fight soon.”
I glared down at the floor.
“And now it’s over. You told Sean off and Marcus God to punch him in the face a couple dozen times.”
“…How’d you know I told him off?”
“Marcus said he heard you guys arguing.”
I sighed sadly. ‘So, he knew what happened the whole time…’


School crawled by agonizingly slow. The entire day felt like the clock was going in reverse, just trying to keep me in the building longer. In the last ten minutes of my last block class, I had a stare down with the clock, and I think it stopped moving for a few minutes just to mock me.
But the moment the bell rang, I shot up from my seat and hurried to the door. Jesus Christ, was this the longest school day ever or what?

I pushed past people to get to my locker, punching it open, but as soon as I started to pack up my things, the thought hit me. ‘How the hell am I supposed to get home?!’
“Lissa!!”
I turned to see Jackie starting up to me, her bag already over her shoulder. “Hey… How are we-”
“Yeah, I just thought of that,” I mumbled. I grabbed my bag and shoved my locker shut. “And my parents are at work now… Plus Marcus was supposed to drive me to work instead of my house; my mom would pick me up from there.”
She let out a sigh. “Well, I could try calling my dad… Can’t say he’d be too happy about it though…”
“Or we could try to mooch a ride off someone,” I said as I started towards the door with Jackie following.
“Like who?”
“Hey!”
We both turned to see Evan, with Devyn glued to his hip of course, holding up a pair of car keys. “You guys need a ride?”

Jackie blinked at him. “Home, or-?”
“Or to the hospital. Wherever.”
“Isn’t the hospital kinda far though?” Jackie was never really comfortable when other people gave her rides to places. With Marcus, that was okay. Anyone else, we wasn’t really too thrilled.
“Well, I’m going and Devyn’s coming with. You guys could come, too, or I could just drop you off at home-”
“We’ll come with,” I answered for the both of us.

We all crammed our bodies and book bags into Evan’s car as dark clouds loomed overhead once again. Evan had bought a parking spot near the entrance; one of the farthest away from the building, but leaving didn’t take five minutes.
But as soon as we started down the road, a thought hit me that made me let out a groan. “Shiiiit. I’m supposed to be at work now!”
Devyn turned in her seat. “Well, isn’t Maria still the manager? I was just there the other day and saw her…”
Maria had been my babysitter when I was younger and she was also my neighbor and conveniently my boss, also.
“Well, yeah, but-”
“Well, she would probably give you a break, I mean, it’s your first day back, your ride is in the hospital, and your ride is also your best friend who got in a fight with your ex! I mean, it should be okay…”
I sighed. “I hope so…”

As silence set over the car again, I tried to keep my mind on other things. Staring out the window, messing with my shoes, playing with my phone; nothing was working.
But the phrase on my mind eventually escaped my lips. “…This is all my fault…” I said quietly.
“How is this your fault?” Jackie retaliated. “Did you make them get in a fight? No.”
“But Sean was talking to me and Marcus overheard and-”
“Still waiting to see what you did,”
“…Huh?”
“Sean talked to you. Marcus talked to you. You didn’t do anything. And they were bound to get in a fight eventually, so…”
“Alyssa.” Evan glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “They got in a fight ‘cause Sean was jealous and Marcus was angry. Just because you were the point of it, it doesn’t mean it was your fault.”
I sighed loudly. They were right, but I still felt a small pang of guilt; probably just because of the whole situation. But still…


When we got to the hospital, a nurse walked us to Marcus’s room. (I knew we were all thinking, ‘screw Sean.’) We walked in silence, but when the nurse opened the door, I felt my stomach plummet.

From what I could tell, he was sleeping. Looking bruised, bloody, stitched, and… satisfied.
I slowly walked into the room, my friends behind me. “M-Marcus…?” I said softly.
After a moment, his purpled eyes slowly opened. I stared down at him and felt tears welling up in my eyes.
“H-Hey, Lissa…” he said weakly.
I smiled sadly at him. “Hey, Marcus…”

We all talked quietly, asking how he was, if he was okay, what the nurses had to do, everything.
Turns out he fractured his arm, almost broke his nose, got five stitches in his forehead, (hidden by his blonde hair,) bruised a few ribs, got a pair of black eyes, and was generally beaten and bruised everywhere.
I gently poked the colored band-aid on his cheek and couldn’t help but smile a little. “Pink. Again.” And I could see him chuckle lightly.
I sat down on the edge of the bed next to him as twenty minutes rolled by. He got an OSS for one day, but hell, he wasn’t going to school tomorrow anyway.

After a while, the nurse asked us to leave because he was still groggy and needed some sleep. Jackie and I hugged him and Evan pounded fists with him. Devyn just smiled politely; they weren’t really as close of friends as the rest of us.

My friends stared out the door, but I stayed for a moment, staring down at my best friend. “Why, Marcus?” I chocked out quietly. “Why did you do that?”
He looked up at me and didn’t reply.
“I…I know you know what happened before first block, and-”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I let that fucker break my best friend’s heart and didn’t get something broken in return for it.” He gave me a small, half-conscious smile and I felt tears spill from my eyes all over again.
“M-Marcus…”
“Well, that, and I really wanted to beat the shit out of him.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “W-…What exactly happened, though? At lunch?”
He paused for a second, as if trying to remember. “I’m not really sure. We just started glaring at each other from across the room, and I guess we both thought ‘I wanna beat the shit out of you for what you did’ and… we did.” He smiled slightly. “God damn, did it feel good to punch him in the face.”
“You’re stupid…” I laughed softly. “You guys had a friggen mob around you, cheering and stuff… I couldn’t even see anything, but when I found out it was you guys, Evan held me back from-”
“Well, good. I didn’t want you to get in the middle of that.” He looked up at me as if I had said the stupidest thing ever. “We weren’t gonna stop until we were either broken up or unconscious.”
“Hm…” I stared down at the bed and he let out a sigh.
“But still… He deserved it for everything he did to you… Jessica or not, he wasn’t good enough for you…”

“Alyssa! C’mon!” I heard Jackie call from in the hallway.
I slowly got off the bed and looked down at my friend, giving him another hug. “I-I got work right now…”
“Okay… I’ll probably be out of here by tomorrow…”
“Bye…” I placed a quick, gentle kiss on his lips and hurried out of the room, a slight blush on my cheeks.

Whoa. I just really did that, didn’t I?



I quickly closed the door behind me and walked over to my waiting friends, who gave me curious looks, probably because of the color of my face. Jackie blinked at me and was about to say something, when I spoke first. “What?”
“…What?”
“What what?”
“…I dunno.” She laughed awkwardly and started down the hallway.
Hizzah for dodging a bullet with a conversation that didn’t make sense.


As we all piled into the car again, I tried to just keep myself and stare out the window after telling Evan to drop m off at Bath and Body Works.

‘Why the hell did I do that?!’ The blush still wouldn’t leave my cheeks. I didn’t know what to think. ‘M-My body just moved on its own…! Why did I do that?’’
But after a few minutes, a different thought came into my head. ‘…A lot gentler than Sean’s…’
The rain started to fall from the sky, hitting against the windshield loudly. Evan mumbled something like ‘fucking rain…’ and turned the wipers on. The sun hadn’t been out for nearly four days, the dark, heavy clouds making everything seem depressing.  


Evan stopped the car in front of the strip mall and looked at me in the mirror. “You need a ride home, too?” Well, it wasn’t really a strip mall, more like an outlet mall. But Bath and Body wasn’t part of the main building; more like one of those islands of about stores.
“No, my mom’s coming to pick me up on her way home from work.” I grabbed my backpack and flipped up the hood of my sweatshirt. I opened the door and stepped out and ran over to the door, giving a wave to my friends before stepping inside.
‘Maybe… It’s the one mistake I really didn’t mind…’

“Alyssa!! You’re first day back at work and you’re an hour late?”
I winced and slowly turned around, seeing a tall woman behind the counter with dark hair, her hands on her hips, and giving me an aggravated expression. “H-Hey…Maria…”
I could hear her foot start tapping. Even though she was in her early twenties now, she acted like such a mom sometimes. Probably why she got the job as my babysitter.
“Th-…There’s a reason…!” I laughed nervously and started over to the counter. “Remember Marcus?”
“That little blonde you have a crush on?”
I felt my face heat up. “I do not,” I growled through my barred teeth and she smiled at me in a knowing way.
“Well…Remember Sean?” I continued.
“That dick you were going out with? You broke up with him a while ago, didn’t you?”
“…About five days?”
Her expression sank. “A-Are you serious? You put up with his shit for that long?”
“W-Well-”
“Or is this just one of those little arguments you two have and kiss and sex up- I-I mean, make up, in a few days?”
I shot her an embarrassed glare. “No. We’re over. He cheated on me.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“It was some whore at out school and he kept coming up with these elaborate lies and shit to hide it and-”
“Okay, I get it,” she laughed and pointed to the back room. “Go get changed, then we’ll talk.”
I rolled my eyes and did what she said. I swear, my mother picked up tips from her when she was babysitting me.

When I walked back to the counter, she put her hands on her hips again. “Yeah, okay, so why were you so late?”
I frowned slightly. “Well… Marcus and Sean got in a fight-”
“Over you?”
“Maria!” I fumed. She just let out a laugh. “No. They’ve just had this… thing. They always fight and stuff but today it was really bad… It was like a fight to the death. They both got taken to the hospital, and Marcus was my ride here. Plus he’s my best friend, so when I tried to mooch a ride off of Evan, he said he were going to the hospital to see him, so I had to come with…” I laughed nervously.
She stared at me and let out a chuckle. “Whatever. Today’s been slow anyway with all this rain.”
She walked into the back while I walked behind the counter, trying to get used to everything again. It had been nearly four months and stuff had been moved around. But, hey, no one was in the store now to see me looking like an idiot.

The storm didn’t look like it was going to give up any time soon. Thunder started to crash outside and I let out a sigh, hopping up on a stool behind the register and resting my elbows on the counter with my chin in my hands.
The counter was in the back of the store, but from where I was sitting, I could see out the giant windows on either side of the door, seeing the random passerby hurry by or an intelligent person that remembered an umbrella stroll by.

It was pretty quiet. The occasional customer would come in, but other than that, the only audible thing to me was the radio, playing the only station we could find that wasn’t completely static or completely oldies. It was still pretty fuzzy (probably because of the rain), but I could barely make out the lyrics.


The minutes ever so slowly dragged by, the rain outside slowly becoming more and more intense. I could actually hear the clock above the counter as it ticked by, and every what felt like ten minutes I would turn to see the minute hand had barely moved two spaces.
It turned out I got off work at seven; I had forgotten. And I got to work at four, and it was only five-thirty. All I could hear was the thunder outside, the occasional, loud-yelling person outside (more people were starting to pass by because on either side of Bath and Body was a restaurant and it was getting close to dinner time,) and the static-y radio above me.
But through the white noise, my ears picked up a certain song that made me immediately start singing along with it.
“Cause nobody wants to be the last one there, Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares, Someone to love with my life in their hands, There's gotta be somebody for me like that.”
I didn’t care how my voice sounded. I knew I wasn’t the best singer, but no one was in the store, and Maria was either too distracted or didn’t care.
But this version seemed to be a remix or something, because the replayed half of the first verse before the chorus before the end of the song. I hadn’t heard it like that before, and it sounded kind of weird, but I sang along with it softly, staring out the windows with my chin resting in my palms.
“This time, I wonder what it feels like…”

It was then I noticed someone standing in front of the window, seemingly looking inside, a dark sweatshirt with a hood covering his head and a pair of ripped jeans on. “To find the one in this life…” It seemed like the person was staring at me, not in like, a creepy, pedophile sort of way, but in a waiting sort of way. It was hard to explain and pretty awkward, so I tried to ignore it.
But I couldn’t help but try to get a good look at him, the dark sky not really helping, but I could vaguely make out the color.
Bright blue.
I felt my heart skip a beat as I continued to sing. “The one we all dream of, But dreams just aren't enough…”

I slowly pushed myself off the stool and walked to the beat of the music towards the front of the store, looking like I was trying to fix up one of the shelves, when I was really trying to get a better look at this seemingly familiar stranger. “So I'll be waiting for the real thing, I'll know it by the feeling, The moment when we're meeting, will play out like a scene, Straight off the silver screen…”

I walked right up next to the windows and watched him for a moment. Even with the hood shielding most of his face, I could see the slightest turn in the corner of his lips, turning his expression into a sly smirk.
Something about it gave me a shiver, but I tried to ignore it and turn to the shelves, but as I did I caught a glimpse of a certain shade of blonde hair framing his face. “S-So I'll be holding my breath, right up 'til the end…”
I wanted to turn and try to see him better, but I didn’t want to seem… rude, I guess. But it was starting to tantalize every corner of my brain as I felt his eyes still on me.

Well, not so much a stranger looking at me, but how much this stranger looked like a certain someone I knew he couldn’t be.


“I'll understand if you close your eyes and pretend I don't exist…”
My eyes widened when I heard that oh, too familiar, honey-like voice. But it sounded somewhat distant and echoing, as if it was in my head. I tried to shake it off and start back towards the counter, trying to get rid of my sudden tenseness. But I wasn’t even halfway to the register when the radio suddenly cut to nearly complete static. “U-Until that moment when, I find the one that I'll spend forever with…” I finished the song, my voice shaking.

But then, the soul-liquefying chuckle was heard and the voice accompanying it, defiantly not drowned out my the static as it rang clearly in my head. “Heh… But what if your dream, wasn’t really a dream?”
I froze in place, staring wide-eyed before me.
“What if you thought you were dreaming… when you weren’t?”

I slowly turned on my heel to face the windows once more, the hooded man tilting his head back slightly as if to show off is broadening smirk. He slowly turned, his hands in his pockets, and started away. “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.”

My feet seemed to move on their own and carried me to the door. Well, it wasn’t really on their own, my deathly curiosity getting the best of me. Who was this guy staring at me and why was I suddenly hearing things?

…Could it be Gray?

Because if it was, there was no chance in hell I was going to let him leave now.


You know how you have that gut feeling sometimes? Something in your stomach screaming at you to do something, but something in your head scolding you, saying it’s wrong, or cautioning that it’s something bad?
Like, peer pressure, but without the peers.
This feeling covered my entirety as I numbly pushed the door open, watching the person walk away, a certain quickness in their pace.
My head was screaming, you’re insane. It’s a stranger.
My brain was screaming, you’ll catch a cold over someone who’s not there.
My mind was screaming, stop now so you don’t look like a fool.
My common sense was screaming, you’re an idiot.

Did I listen to these signals in my head?
Well, obviously not, because the next thing I knew I was being pelted with freezing rain as the black-hooded, familiar stranger kept his course away from me.


As I started through the rain, my beat-up, old gym shoes splashed tiny rings of water in their wake. I could hear conversations around me, but it was just noise. I didn’t hear words, just the sounds around me. My pace started to gradually increase, my shoes starting to kick up water and come down with strong, loud splashes. The hooded man seemed to be walking fast as well, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going as fast as he could have been, like he wanted me to catch him.
I sped up, trying to dodge my way through people and to not slip and fall myself. My hair was starting to stick to my face and I could feel goosebumps form on my skin.

My heart was starting to beat faster. Why was I running so fast? What if it just was some stranger? What if I was wrong and ended up looking like a total idiot?
But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, it was answered with ‘But what if I’m right?’
I watch TV. I know a lot of things are possible. People can sense things before they happen, people can dream things before they happen…
Couldn’t someone dream of someone before they meet them?

I didn’t want the next day to come and only have to say ‘I thought I was dreaming, but I wasn’t.’


I nearly had tunnel vision, everything else a grey blur as I ran.
Everything but the black hooded figure, that is.
But the more I ran, the more I thought.
What if I had never met Gray? Sure, he had already brought this up, but what if? I would still be with Sean, probably never know that Marcus had a crush on me or just how much he cared about me in general, and my life would be a lot less happy. Sure, it wasn’t springtime and sunshine now, but it was better than before.

Which got me to thinking…
What if this person somehow was Gray?
‘Hey, you’re that guy from my dreams!’
‘Hey, you’re right!’
I honestly had no idea what to expect. But my legs kept dragging me along, that ‘what if I’m not dreaming ?’ thought still screaming in my head.


I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept running. Trying to block out all the voices in my head and just leap before I think.
“St-... Stop!” I said numbly as I chased after him, but he didn’t seem to hear. I could feel people giving me weird looks but I didn’t pay attention.
After what seemed like the longest run of my life, I got close to the man. He smelled… good. Not like Sean, overpowering with TAG, but… You cant even describe it. It was a scent you would want to be embraced in, that’s for sure.

I bit my lip and said I silent prayer before grabbing onto the sleeve of the sweatshirt, abruptly stopping both of us. I was shaking slightly as he stared down at me, and I could see the slight smirk still on his lips.

I stared at him, my lips trembling. Every so slowly, I brought my shivering hands up to the hood hiding his face.
The moment of truth.
It’s either Gray, or my forever embarrassment.
But that smirk never left his lips as I slowly, shakily, gently pushed the hood off of his head.
My breath was caught in my throat.
“So, this is your happy ending…” he said softly.




“A….A-And then what happened…?”
“Then? And… And then I woke up.”
“Aw, HELL NO!!!”

My eyes widened as I saw my blonde friend’s dark silhouette stand and stomp around the room angrily. “No! No, no, no!!”
“You can’t just leave it like that!”
“Lissa, no fair!”
My friends, positioned all around my bedroom, barked out at me, but Jackie got up in my face. “Alyssa whatever-the-hell-your-middle-name-is Scott!! I swear to God you will not wake up tomorrow morning if you don’t finish that story!!”
“J-Jackie… I-It’s already 4:30 in the morning…”
“I don’t care about what time it is!! Fucking finish the story!! You can’t leave us all hanging like this!!” She gestured to all my friends sitting around the room, their pillows, sleeping bags and blankets very long forgotten.
“J-Jac… That was it… Th-Then I woke up…”
She stared at me angrily. “Well, was it Gray or not!?”

“What if it was Marcus?” Jackie turned to look at Evan who was looking thoughtfully at her.
“…How?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, he said he was getting out of the hospital soon, and-”
“Yeah, the next day!!”
“Well, still. And he knew about Gray in the first place…”
“…And he would be like a creepy pedophile standing outside the window?”
“…Well, she did kiss him…”

“More of a reason for him not to be a pedo!!” Brittne giggled. “If it was Marcus, then why didn’t he just go inside and be like ‘Hey, Lissa!!’”
“Because he was nervous!” Evan said back. “He never told her about the things he was doing to protect her and stuff, and was all blushy when he kissed her and was panicking and-”
“Well,” Taylor said from the floor beneath me. “Ya think he would grow a pair and just talk to her after he just got his ass beat by her ex-”
“But Marcus won!” Devyn chimed in. “Sean probably got beat up more because Marcus was trying to fight for Alyssa!”
“Well, yeah, but,” Jackie continued. “Marcus still needs to grow a pair. He’s a junior and still-”

“Hey!” A voice called from next to me. “I have a pair, thank you very much!!”
Jackie put her hands on her hips. “Then who do you think it was, huh, Marcus?”
He smiled smugly at her as he leaned back against my pillows, his fingers laced behind his head. “I think it was Gray.”
“…Gray was a dream.”
“He could have been a vision or something.”
“…So Alyssa’s a psychic now?”
“Well, no, but-”
“You still think it was Gray?”
“Yeah. Cause he said ‘This is your happy ending…’ or whatever and he had been saying ‘it’s not the epilogue yet,’ meaning it was the end.”
“Ugh, whatever.” Jackie flopped down on her pillow angrily. “Sean was a douche bag though.”
Everyone gave sounds of agreement, save for a growl from the floor next to me. “Thanks guys…”

Taylor threw a slipper at him. “Sean, you’re just pissed because you were the bad guy of the story and you ended up with the whore and not the cool girl.”
“You didn’t end up with anyone!”
“Yeah, but at least I didn’t end up with a whore!!”

My friends continued to argue and complain at me, trying to defend their own theories about what happened and what was possible and what wasn’t as Marcus’s warm arm slowly snaked around my waist.
I couldn’t even remember how we ended up on this subject.

Everyone was sleeping over for one final party before school started again (we were going to be Seniors. Jesus…) in a few days and I had gotten up to open the window. I guess I mentioned something about how I had had a dream a while ago and my windows were always open or something and someone asked about the dream.
That was at about seven o’clock.
And there wasn’t a word from my friends for about nine hours.
There was ‘oh, my God!’s and ‘that bitch!!’s and the occasional awkward throat clearing from people, mostly Sean, Marcus, or Jackie, but other than that everyone just stared at me as I talked. I would get up and pace around the room, stare at the ceiling, anything, but I would just keep talking as if I knew this dream by heart.
Because I did.
I memorized every detail of it. Even though it was a year ago, it had turned out so accurate. I had been going out with Sean, and ended up with Marcus.
Not exactly the way it happened in the dream… but I wasn’t complaining.

But as people continued to murmur amongst themselves and Marcus snuggled into my hair as I laid down, tried from talking for nine hours straight, I couldn’t help but think…
‘Is it possible to miss someone you have never met…?’






                                                   [The End]