She's With Me

by Jessica Cunsolo

  The first thing I pull out is a bunch of newspaper clippings about my dad’s accident, detailing the accident and showing pictures of our totaled SUV and Tony’s destroyed car. Aiden’s plan worked in the end. He wanted to tutor me to find out some of my secrets, and he did. He found out more than I ever intended anyone to know. And it really wasn’t that hard for him.

  What he doesn’t know, though, is to what extent Tony’s grief overtook him.

  I pull out another newspaper clipping, running my fingers over the bold title: 16-year-old Thea Kennedy kidnapped.

  I pull out another one: Prime suspect in Kennedy kidnapping identified as Tony Derando.

  They go on and on, and I flip through them unconsciously, stopping at one in particular: Thea Kennedy found safe; Derando nowhere to be found.

  I put it aside and grab the next thing: a note, with the simple words You Will Die written in a harsh, crazed scrawl. I pull out another similar one, and another, and another—more death threats phrased in different ways in the same menacing handwriting.

  Sifting through them, I come to an object with a picture stapled to it. This is the only picture that exists of this girl. She’s got blond hair cut into a short bob and wears thick-framed glasses that no one knew didn’t have an actual prescription. This picture was taken without her knowing, like a surveillance photo, as she was leaving school.

  It had been stapled to a doll—one that had been altered to look like the girl, except for one difference. The doll originally came with a knife shoved cruelly in its head. The note that was attached to the brick that came through the window read: You can run Isabella, but I will always find you.

  I shiver, moving the doll and picture to the side. I pull out another newspaper clipping: Teen attacked at part-time job: three people dead.

  Another: Witnesses say mall attacker’s prime purpose was to kidnap teen Hailey Johnson.

  Another: Police still looking for mall attacker who left three dead and as many injured.

  Another: Teen Hailey Johnson recovering in hospital from attack that left three others dead.

  Running my fingers over the picture taken of Hailey as she was leaving the hospital, I recall the color contacts that made her eyes blue and the straight, black hair that framed a bruised face. She was holding the left side of her ribs, recovering from the fight with the mall attacker.

  I shiver again and quickly throw the artifacts back into the shoebox.

  Aiden knows that Sabrina’s father, Tony, lost everything the day of the crash, but he doesn’t know that he’s been out to get me ever since. He doesn’t know that I’ve been running from Tony for the last year, and that’s the reason that I’ve moved so many times. He doesn’t know that Tony has found me and tried to kill me three times in the last year. He doesn’t even know that my real name isn’t Amelia.

  No one is going to find out any of this. But Aiden is smart. He’s observant. He knows how to connect the dots.

  I’ve told him more than he should know—I told him more than it’s safe to know. No more letting my guard slip.

  Stick to the script was drilled in my head by the police and federal agents trained in this stuff.

  You’re not Thea Kennedy anymore. You’re Isabella Smith, they told me.

  When that didn’t work, they told me I wasn’t Isabella Smith anymore, that I was Hailey Johnson.

  When that didn’t work, I knew what was coming. I didn’t even wait for them to give me a name—I picked Amelia Collins, and they filled out the documents.

  This only works if you keep the secret, they told me. You are Amelia Collins. No one can know otherwise. If they find out, Tony finds out.

  He’s dedicated his life to finding me. One slipup on my part and he’s at my door. One slipup and he’s here again, sending me death threats or breaking into my house, or finding me at a part-time job and trying to kidnap me at gunpoint again.

  Tony will not find out. No one will find out. I like it here. I’m not slipping up.

  14

  After parking near the back of the lot, I make my way toward school just in time to catch Aiden pulling in.

  “Aiden!” I call out to get his attention as he climbs out of his gorgeous Challenger.

  “Hey, about Friday night—”

  He leans against his car and takes the now-familiar stance: arms crossed, eyes intense. “What about it?”

  “It’s just, you know that . . . could you maybe—”

  “Do you seriously think you have to ask?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Were you not just going to ask me to keep my mouth shut about Friday?”

  “Maybe?”

  He gives a low, humorless chuckle and straightens up from where he was leaning on the car. “You really think you had to ask me to keep your secret?”

  “Well, I mean—I figured I wouldn’t, but it’s kind of important, and I wanted to make sure.”

  “You really thought I’d tell people? Jesus, Amelia, I should just get you a trampoline since you love jumping to conclusions.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with Aiden Parker?” I laugh.

  “What?” He smirks.

  “I didn’t know that you were familiar with the art of teasing,” I say.

  I can’t believe how much he’s opened up to me in such a short amount of time. If you told me a few days ago that Aiden Parker would joke around with me, I would’ve asked you which mental institution you escaped from.

  He’s guarded: he keeps his emotions locked up and only lets people see his anger, boredom, or indifference. But he opened up to me, told me about his mom and dad, and now he’s joking with me. I’m getting to know the true Aiden Parker, not the tough asshole he wants everyone to believe he is, and I like him.

  “Being an intimidating asshole all the time gets boring. I like to spice it up sometimes,” he jokes.

  I laugh again before stopping and staring at him in awestruck amazement. Aiden is giving me a real, full smile. Not a smirk. Not a sneer. But a real, full, happy smile. My heart beats faster as I realize that it’s directed at me. And it’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

  He realizes that I’m staring at him and raises an eyebrow, a ghost of his smile still on his face. “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—I’ve never seen you smile like that before,” I tell him honestly, quietly adding, “You should do it more often.”

  Any traces of his smile disappear, and he looks away from me and out into the parking lot. “I guess I don’t have much to smile about.”

  The Aiden I’m used to is back because of my big mouth: the guarded, hardened Aiden whose closest thing to a smile is a smirk or unimpressed scowl. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone about what you told me.”

  “I know. I’m—I’m sorry for even having to ask you. I know you won’t.”

  A lot is riding on my image. If people start digging into my past, they won’t really find anything. Amelia Collins didn’t exist until a few months ago.

  Aiden once asked me why there weren’t any pictures on my phone, and that’s because there can’t be any evidence of me. Not even on my personal phone—we can’t take any risks until the police find Tony. Having more people know the truth about who I am just complicates things, and the more people who know, the greater the odds that Tony can find out.

  Even if I do trust Aiden, I hope he doesn’t dig any further into my past. Realistically, all it would take is a simple internet search to find out that there was never an Amelia Collins in a life-threatening car accident that left a little girl dead.

  He doesn’t do anything to soothe my fears when he adds, “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re hiding though?”

  “What?”

  “Some things just don’t add up. There’s more to the story. You can talk to me, if you want.” />
  Trying not to look worried, I take a page from his book and change the subject. “How about you? You never told me what happened to the twins. Are they . . . ?”

  “Alive? Yeah. A pain in my ass, but alive and healthy.

  “We managed for a while without my dad. My mom gave birth to the twins, and life was okay for a while.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Jason and Jackson. They’re nine now.” A trace of his smile is back as he thinks about his little brothers. I can tell that he loves them deeply. Just remembering the anger and hatred he had when telling me that his dad was pressuring her to abort them reaffirms this.

  “You mentioned a stepfather? Your mom got remarried?”

  Any love in his eyes for his brothers is replaced by pure hatred at the mention of his stepfather. He reaches down for his bag, which is on the ground by his feet, but I’m not finished. I need to know. Not just for curiosity’s sake, but because I’m genuinely interested in Aiden and his life, and need to know more about him.

  I reach out and grab his sculpted bicep, stopping him from picking up his bag and effectively ending our conversation. “Come on, Aiden. I was honest with you.”

  “Fine, but the same thing applies. This stays between us.”

  He looks back out into the parking lot, breaking eye contact. “We were okay for a while, but the cancer came back, and it was getting harder for my mom to pay for everything and take care of three boys. When Jason and Jackson were a couple of months old, she remarried—probably more out of necessity than anything else.” He pauses, frowning. “My mom died a couple of months later. The twins were barely one and I was ten.”

  “Did you live with your stepfather?”

  He tenses when I ask that question. “And his son, for a while. Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He scoffs. “Greg’s in jail.”

  I don’t miss how he doesn’t like to refer to them as his step-father or stepbrother.

  “So you just live with your brothers now?”

  “Yup. We lived with a neighbor for a while, but now it’s just me and the kids.” Thinking of his brothers seems to put him in a slightly better mood.

  The warning bell ringing through the parking lot breaks our little bubble, reminding us of our surroundings.

  He straightens up, lifting his bag from the ground and swinging it over his shoulder. “Come on, we should go before we’re late.”

  I reluctantly walk with him to the school entrance. I still have so many questions to ask him, so much I still need to know.

  Is he taking care of his brothers all on his own? How does he get money to pay for everything? Is someone helping him out with the boys or the bills? Is he their legal guardian? How does he feel about all of this?

  The more I find out, the more I need to know about him. Everything that Aiden does fascinates me, and I find myself craving more of him. Aiden and I have more in common than we think: We both have a past that we’d rather not have anyone knowing. We both have family issues, and we definitely both have our own dark secrets.

  At lunch, I pull out my Nutella sandwich and Mason eyes it. “That looks delicious, Amelia.”

  “We remember what happened last time you stole my Nutella sandwich, right?”

  He rolls his eyes and lightens his voice a few octaves to imitate me. “‘You take my sandwich, I take your life.’”

  “I so do not sound like that!” I protest.

  “Definitely have to work on your Amelia impression,” Chase jeers at him.

  “But I do remember her saying something like that,” Charlotte adds.

  Mason chuckles. “Yeah, that’s my k-bear.” He ruffles my hair and I giggle as I whack his arm away.

  “Damn it, Mason! I’ll have to redo this French braid now!” I scold him.

  He ignores me and chuckles. “I’m going to buy lunch anyway, be right back.” He gets up from the table and walks toward the cafeteria line, but not before trying to mess up my hair again.

  I giggle at Mason as I run my hands over my hair, trying to smooth it back into place, but Aiden’s giving Mason an indecipherable look, a slight scowl on his face.

  I suddenly remember that there’s a calculus test in a week, and I could really benefit from some extra study sessions with Aiden before then.

  “Hey, Aiden. Do you think you can tutor me a couple of times before the test next week? Maybe tonight or tomorrow?”

  He pops the tab on his soda can. “Can’t until Thursday.”

  He didn’t even hesitate before offering up his time, and I’m sure there are a million other things he’d rather do than teach me calculus.

  “Thursday it is. Friday too?” I ask hopefully. Lord knows I need all the help I can get.

  “Busy Friday,” he says cryptically, not bothering to elaborate. “I’ll be there for seven.”

  Oh shit. I totally forgot that my mom is home on Thursday before her flight. I don’t want Aiden there while she’s home. I don’t want her to meet any more of my friends. I don’t need another lecture on not letting the truth out to anyone, no matter how much I like them or how hot they are. That’ll just be awkward because I already told Aiden more than I was supposed to.

  “Actually, can we go to your house?”

  “Library?” he counters.

  “Library works for me,” I say.

  “Oh, how sweet. Aiden’s doing charity by tutoring the less fortunate.” Kaitlyn comes up to the table and stops beside me. “It must get hard being that stupid all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t know, you tell me,” I snap.

  Her eyes narrow at me. “Just wait. You’ll get what’s coming.”

  She backs up and turns around, walking toward her friends sitting at another table. Mason passes her as he walks back to our table, giving her a confused look.

  “What was that about?” he asks as he sits down with two plates of mouthwatering chicken fingers and fries.

  “Oh you know. Insults and threats. The usual,” Chase clarifies.

  Mason chuckles. “I’d be concerned if it was anything different.”

  Wordlessly, Mason slides one of the plates of fingers and fries in front of me, and I simultaneously give him half of my Nutella sandwich, as if we’d choreographed this exchange.

  We laugh and dig into our meals. Charlotte catches my eye and gives me a questioning look. I just shake my head at her. Of course I’ve thought of Mason in a more romantic way, but nothing can happen between us. He always makes me laugh and I love hanging out with him, but he’s a player. Plus, my life is complicated enough without throwing in boyfriend drama. Double plus, I can’t have a boyfriend since our whole relationship would be a lie. My own boyfriend wouldn’t even know that my name is Thea, not Amelia.

  The rest of the week is pretty long and boring. Now, at almost seven o’clock on Thursday night, Aiden and I are sitting against the lockers in the school hallway. We were in the school’s library, but it closed around five thirty and I was in the middle of a breakthrough, so we just migrated to the hallway, where we’ve been ever since.

  The school is dark and deserted except for the occasional janitor wandering by, but no one seems to mind that we’re still on school property.

  We’re making a lot of progress, and I’m still surprised every time Aiden proves himself to be an amazing tutor. His endless patience with me and ability to explain the concepts without smashing his head on the wall at my incomprehension astounds me.

  “Aiden, this is amazing! One more session with you like this and I can definitely get a C on the test Monday!”

  “We’re not aiming for a C. We’re aiming for an A,” he corrects me.

  “Aiden, you’re good, but you’re not a miracle worker.”

  “You can do this, Amelia. You’re picking up the concepts really fast, and
you’re a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

  The honesty and conviction that he says that with causes me to blush and look away.

  “Yeah, well, I have a good—”

  The sound of a blaring car alarm coming from the parking lot echoes through the hallway. The only cars in the quickly darkening parking lot, other than the janitors’, are mine and Aiden’s. We look at each other, and he pulls me up with him from off the floor. In an instant, we’re outside, the school door slamming shut behind us.

  The lights of my car are flashing as the alarm goes off. Aiden takes a couple of steps closer to my car, pulling me by our intertwined fingers. Now a little closer, I can see that the two visible tires are slashed, and from the way my car is sitting, I can tell that my other tires met the same fate.

  I look at Aiden to gauge his reaction, but he isn’t even looking at me or my car.

  His burning gaze is fixed intently on the platinum-blond passenger sticking her middle finger out of the open window of the red Mustang speeding away. What the fuck? Slashing tires? Is this the 1970s?

  I pace beside my vandalized car, trying and failing to contain my anger.

  “Who the hell does Kaitlyn think she is? And Ryan Simms? Of course they make a great couple, they’re both sociopaths!”

  Aiden walks back toward me from seeing if his car was vandalized, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the dark parking lot.

  “Is your car—”

  “It’s fine,” he cuts me off, walking around my car to inspect it again.

  “They didn’t touch it?” I’m kind of surprised. Ryan hates Aiden more than Batman hates the Joker, and Kaitlyn isn’t his biggest fan either.

  “Simms knows it’d be pointless slashing my tires; I get new ones practically every few weeks.”

  “What? Why would you need to get new tires every—”

  Aiden waves me off. “Never mind. Plus, I’d kill him if he touched my car.”

  I wouldn’t doubt that.

  “Also,”—he nods at the security cameras at the top of the school—“I park in perfect view of the security cameras. Your car is parked out of reach of any of them.”