by Mercy Amare
Yeah, Ty is pretty much the best guy ever. He was always romantic, but I didn’t appreciate it before. After dating Gabe, who doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body, this is extremely nice.
I put the note back down on the desk and pick up my coffee.
“I remember when you used to smile at me like that.”
I jump and nearly spill my coffee.
“Brian...”
“I guess you really have moved on,” he says.
“It’s been six months. I thought you were dead,” I say. “What did you expect?”
“You believe it so easily.”
“Believed what? That you were dead? What else was I supposed to believe?”
“That I stalked you,” he clarifies.
“Brian, I had proof.”
He cuts me off. “A video that was obviously tampered with isn’t proof, Kihanna. Yet you believed it so easily.”
“I was so tired. I was willing to believe anything to have the nightmare over with,” I say.
“Were you ever in love with me?”
“Yes. I mean, I think I was,” I say. “Our whole relationship was a lie, so it’s hard to tell what was real. No matter what though, my feelings for you were genuine. It crushed me to see your face on that video. To know that you were the one causing me so much pain...”
“It wasn’t me,” he says.
“How do you expect me to believe you now?” I ask. “You went through a lot of trouble to make yourself look guilty. You even confessed to the police. Now you’re insisting you’re innocent. I don’t know what to think, but I don’t trust you.”
“You’re right,” Brian says. “You have no reason to trust me. But I will prove it to you, somehow.”
“Do you know I’m being stalked again?”
“Yeah,” he answers. “That’s why I’m back.”
“You know who is doing it?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“Who is it?”
He grins. “You’re smart. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Though, it did take me three months of us dating for me to figure out who it was.”
“Brian, I have no clue,” I say. “Who would be worth throwing away your future, our relationship, and everything for? Is that it? Were you covering for somebody else?”
“I knew you were smart.”
“I thought I meant more to you than that,” I say, feeling a sharp pain in my chest. “I can’t believe you just threw us away to cover for a murderer.”
“I had to, Kihanna,” he says. “You don’t understand.”
“Who was worth throwing away us?”
“It turns out that they weren’t really worth it,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“When I figured out who was stalking you, who Mike Newman was paying, I made a deal with them,” he says. “I told them I would confess that it was me if they left you alone.”
“But why not just turn them in?” I ask. “Why not tell me? Do you even realize how badly you hurt me?”
“I didn’t hurt you,” he says. “God, you didn’t even wait two weeks before getting back with your ex. I was coming back, if you had just waited a little bit longer.”
“Don’t even try to put this on me,” I say. “Not a day has gone by since April that I haven’t thought of you. At one point, I really thought we would be together forever.”
“I couldn’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand,” he says.
“Gabe was there. You weren’t.”
“I’m glad you’re not with him now,” Brian says.
“How do you know so much about my life?” I ask.
“I’ve been watching you. Mostly just checking in to see if you were being stalked again. I had to make sure they kept their promise,” he answers. “That’s why I’m back now—to stop them.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who is doing this?”
“I can’t tell you. I mean, I want to, but I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Look, I went through a lot of crap to make sure their name stays clear. I still don’t want them to be in trouble,” he says. “They need help.”
“Obviously they need help. This person is making my life a living hell.”
“You’re safe,” he says.
“Safe? That sick fuck left poisonous snakes in my dorm,” I say. “That, to me, doesn’t seem safe.”
“That was somebody else,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out who did that. You have a lot of enemies.”
“Wait, you’re telling me that there is not just one person who wants me dead, but two?” I ask, then shake my head. “Why am I even listening to you right now? You can’t be trusted.”
Brian sighs. “Fine. I’ll be around when you need me. I know you’ll figure it out.”
He starts to walk towards my door, so I stop him.
“You need to call Olivia,” I say. “She misses you a lot, and she deserves to hear from you and know that you’re alive.”
He turns around, smirks at me, then walks out without another word.
He’s such a bastard.
3 p.m.
Straight to your thighs.
I passed my math test. I got an email from Mrs. Rice letting me know that I got an A. And even though my tutor was a complete prick, I still forwarded the email to him. He didn’t reply.
When I get home that afternoon, Amber is not there—thank God. I don’t know why, but I don’t like that girl. If Gabe continues to see her, I hope he does it at her place.
I walk inside the apartment, and Gabe is sitting on the couch with his laptop. He shuts it when he sees me.
“Brian was here this morning,” he says.
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “How do you know?”
“The apartment building has security cameras up in the hallways,” he says. “I just hacked into them. Every time somebody is on our floor, it emails me the recorded footage.”
“Sometimes you scare me.”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t hard. Besides, I’m good with computers.”
“Obviously,” I say. “I hope you do something awesome after we graduate. Maybe you can be a spy or work for the CIA.”
“I’ll probably just work for my dad and eventually take over his company,” he says. “But enough avoiding. Tell me what Brian wanted.”
“Basically he just wanted to let me know that he wasn’t the one stalking me. He said he made a deal with the person behind it all—he took the blame and they agreed to leave me alone,” I tell him.
“That doesn’t make sense. If he knew who was stalking you, then why didn’t he turn them in?”
“Because he was protecting whoever it was. He said he’s back because they’re back. He also said they won’t hurt me and that it was somebody else who left the snakes,” I say. “At that point I told him that I didn’t believe him.”
“Who would he give up his life to cover for?” Gabe asks. “He faked his death. It’s not like he can ever have a real life. Even if he manages to get a fake social security card, birth certificate, and ID, there is a chance he’d get caught.”
“I know. I don’t get it.”
“Unless...” Gabe’s voice trails off. “Oh my God, how did I not see this before? It makes total sense.”
“What does?”
“Who had access to Lily’s journal?” he asks. “Who is the one person you’d never suspect and the one person Brian would cover for?”
“No,” I say, rejecting it before he can say her name.
“That has to be it,” he insists. “She is the one who gave you Lily’s journal—a fake one.”
“Look, it can’t be Olivia,” I say. “She was distraught after Brian’s death. So distraught that she couldn’t even handle seeing me again. It isn’t her. I think I would know if my best friend was stalking me.”
“Just like you knew your boyfriend was stalking you?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “That was a low blow, Gabe.”
“But I’m right about
Olivia, and you know I am.”
“It can’t be her. There is no way she would’ve killed her own boyfriend,” I say, defending her.
“Wasn’t he cheating on her? Sounds like motive to me.”
“What about Kasbian?” I ask. “She was standing beside me, gun free, when he got shot.”
“He was about to tell you the truth. Mike Newman probably sent somebody to kill him,” he answers.
I hate that he has a logical answer for everything. I don’t want him to be right about this. Having Olivia as my stalker is almost as bad as having Brian as my stalker. At one point in my life, they were the only people I could depend on. And maybe, just maybe, Olivia was stalking me the whole time, and Brian covered it up. Sister or not, he shouldn’t have tried to cover up something like that. He should’ve told me the truth the second he suspected something.
“You know I’m right,” Gabe says.
“It still doesn’t make it any easier to hear,” I say. “Olivia Asher was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Losing her was the hardest part of all of this. I missed her more than I did Brian.”
“Do you think we broke up because we started dating so soon after everything happened with Brian?”
“No,” I answer. “We broke up because you were a terrible boyfriend and I’m not in love with you. And that was a really abrupt subject change.”
“Wow. Don’t sugar coat it to spare my feelings,” he says.
“I’m trying this new thing called honesty,” I say. “If I had been honest with you about how I felt, maybe things would be different now. I’m hoping things with Ty work out better than they did with us.”
Gabe snorts. “Good luck with that. If he doesn’t cheat on you within a month, it’ll be a miracle.”
“Actually, he hasn’t slept with anybody, besides me, since April.”
“April?” Gabe asks. “You and I were dating then.”
“I didn’t sleep with him until after we broke up.”
“Still, my best friend was celibate because he wanted to steal my girl,” he says.
Oh, shit.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that to him.
“I don’t think it was to win me,” I say. “It had more to do with not wanting to be like his dad.”
“Ty doesn’t do anything without a motive behind it,” he says.
“Think what you want Gabe, but Ty is a good guy. And I really like him a lot.”
“I know,” he says. “I can see how much you like him. I’m just worried that you’re going to fall in love with him and I will just miss you the rest of my life. I don’t want us to be over. I want another shot.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” I say. “What about Amber?”
“She got back with her ex.”
“Wow. I thought she really liked you.”
“Oh, she did,” he says. “For some reason, she said I was obviously in love with somebody else.”
“That’s a problem,” I say. “Gabe, it makes me really uncomfortable when you say stuff like that. I’m in lo... I’m dating somebody else. Please respect that.”
“Sorry.”
“What should I do about this Olivia thing?” I ask. “She recently sent me a message telling me she misses me, but that she didn’t want to hear back from me because it’s too panful. Should I message her and tell her I know?”
“No,” Gabe says. “We need to get proof that it’s actually her. If she knows that we know, she will probably try to be sneakier. I’ll do some digging around.”
“Okay. Thanks, Gabe.”
He gets up from the couch with his laptop in hand. “I’m going to go eat a gallon of ice cream and cry while listening to Celine Dion,” he says.
“Umm, why?”
“Because my ex-girlfriend has moved on and I haven’t. Isn’t that what girls do?” he asks.
“I’m more of a Taylor Swift fan,” I say. “And I might eat a pint of ice cream, then feel guilty. That shit will go right to your thighs. Why couldn’t it go to my ass instead? I could use more junk in my trunk.”
“You do have a small ass,” he says.
“Hey!”
“What? We’re broke up. I don’t have to be nice anymore,” he says.
I flip him off and he laughs.
Maybe we can be friends after all.
10 p.m.
Instagram stalk.
Andrea decides she wants coffee. So, we meet at the coffee shop on campus, which is surprisingly busy for ten at night. I guess college students really love their caffeine, me included.
We invited Carter to meet us, but he’s busy Instagram stalking his ex and her new guy.
Andrea and I order a coffee and sit at a table in the back corner. As soon as we sit, Andrea pulls out her phone and starts taking selfies with her coffee.
“I can’t believe I’m out in public with you right now,” I say.
“What?” she asks, not putting down her phone. “I’m only young and hot for a little while. When I get older, these will be the pictures that I show my kids so they know how hot I used to be.”
I laugh. “Yes, I’m sure your children will want to see hundreds of selfies of you making a duck face from a slightly different angle each time.”
Finally, she puts her phone down. “Laugh all you want, but the lighting in here is great. The right lighting on an Instagram pic can mean the difference between me snagging a husband or spending the rest of my life alone.”
“I don’t think it means all that.”
“Shut up,” she says. “You have a boyfriend.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I thought you and Ty were a thing.”
“We are dating,” I say. “But my relationship status still says single.”
Andrea shakes her head at me. “You condemn me for trying to snag a husband on Instagram, yet you let social media define your relationship. You are such a hypocrite, Kihanna Evers.”
“Fine. I’m a hypocrite. But at least I don’t take duck faced selfies with a paper coffee cup,” I say.
“Just for that, I’m going to unfollow you,” she says, picking up her phone.
“Losing an Instagram follower won’t kill me.”
She gasps. “How do you have 1.7 million Instagram followers?”
“Rich dad,” I say, shrugging. “Apparently that makes me interesting.”
Andrea held out her phone. On the screen, there is a picture of me. I’m taking a selfie in my car holding a coffee cup.
“In my defense, I’m not making a duck face and I was in the privacy of my own car,” I say.
“We need to take a selfie together. I have, like, two hundred followers. Send me some of your 1.7 million followers,” she says. “Come to think of it, why haven’t we taken a selfie on your Instagram? We have, like, five on mine.”
“You put way too much emphasis on online relationships...” my voice trails off. “Oh my God. I really am a hypocrite.”
“Yep,” she agrees.
“Fine. Let’s take a selfie.”
She grins, obviously satisfied.
We take a selfie together and I upload it, making sure to tag her. Almost immediately, her phone starts vibrating with notifications.
“If you even reach for your phone, I will delete that picture,” I threaten, knowing if I didn’t, she would be on her phone the whole time we’re here.
She pouts. “You’re bossy.”
“You still love me.”
“Yes, I do,” she says.
Her phone won’t stop vibrating, so I force her to turn it off. I turned off my Instagram notifications a long time ago.
“So, how is living with your ex-boyfriends?” Andrea asks.
“Other than seeing Gabe a lot more, it’s not so different than before.”
“How are things between you two?”
“Good,” I answer. “We are actually becoming friends.”
“Only you would become friends with your ex-boyfriend,” she says.
“
We are better as friends,” I say. “I like hanging out with him, but we don’t have chemistry. Not like Ty and I do.”
“Translation, you don’t want to fuck him,” she says.
I look around to make sure nobody heard her. Thankfully, everybody seems off in their own world.
“Andrea!”
“What?” she asks. “It’s true.”
“Still, you don’t have to announce it to the world.”
“Whatever,” she says. “Have you and Ty been all over each other? I feel sorry for Gabe having to live there with you.”
“No, we haven’t been all over each other,” I say. “We are waiting until we’ve dated a month to have sex.”
“The two of you have basically been dating since the beginning of school.”
“No. We had sex. We just recently started dating. There is a difference between the two,” I say.
“Trust me, I know the difference. Sex is a one night stand. Two, if he’s good,” she says. “What you and Ty had going on was an I’m having sex with you because I’m in love with you but don’t want to admit it, kind of thing. Why make the guy wait?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Because I want it to mean something. I don’t want our relationship to be all physical. I want to have a meaningful relationship.”
“Aw, you really like him,” she says.
I groan. “Is it that obvious? Everybody keeps saying that. I want to be a little bit mysterious, you know?”
“It’s okay because he really likes you, too,” she says. “It’s only pathetic if one person is way more interested than the other person is.”
“How do you come up with this stuff?” I ask.
“Everybody knows this stuff,” she says. “Besides you, I guess.”
“Good thing I have you around to teach me,” I say sarcastically.
“Cheers to that,” she says, holding out her coffee cup.
I started to tap my cup against hers, but she stops me.
“You have to look into my eyes when you cheer, or else you will have seven years of bad sex,” she says.
I laugh, but do as she says.
This is why I love Andrea.
12 a.m.
The beginning.
That night, when I get home from hanging out with Andrea, there is a single black rose on top of my pillow with a note underneath it.
