HIDDEN [SAMPLE] [BOYXBOY]

FOUR

JAKE CRAWFORD

I'd never been good at dealing with stressful situations, and sitting at Starbucks with a boy and a warm cup of coffee right in front of me happened to be the kind of predicaments that I sucked at handling.

 Being normal, for once, bothered me.

After all this time, my hope had been reignited; someone could see me, and hear the clumsy words falling from my lips, and feel me crashing into them. I had never been so elated, or dumbstruck, in my entire life.

Speaking to someone who could hear me, see me, feel me...it was intense, and oddly joyful.

 I had never been this overjoyed before, which is the precise reason why I left. I'd been so close to spilling it all out, telling Eric exactly what was wrong with me, and why I'd fled to the bathroom, and why I'd been so surprised to hear the voice of another human being speaking to me.

I would've told him everything, and I couldn't let myself do that; he would run as far away as those cute legs would carry him, simply because he'd think that I was insane, and I would have lost my shot at a normal life as hastily as I found it. He is my saviour, I just don't know how he intends to pull me out of this infinite ocean of invisibility.

"You ditched him," Dina's voice called out, her fierce strawberry blond hair had been straightened impeccably, resting on her shoulders in a lovely heap, and ending at her chest.

 "What exactly was I supposed to do?" I muttered, stuffing my hands in my pockets as I continued walking, Dina following persistently.

"Acting like a normal human being would've worked out just fine," she cooed, rolling her eyes.

 Ever since she'd put this curse on me, she vowed to never leave my side as long as I kept myself alive. Suicide had always been the easiest way out of this, but if I did that, I wouldn't have learned my lesson, apparently.

 "The best is yet to come," she'd always say, and every time I woke up in the mornings, sweating from my own demons that so incessantly haunted me, I would believe her. And every time I shut my eyes, I'd stop.

"In case you haven't noticed," I snapped, "the only person I've spoken to in years is you, so excuse me if I haven't grasped the concept of keeping up a conversation with someone who isn't insane."

Dina sighed, staring at her ankle boots as we walked.

"You didn't have to leave, though," she moaned quietly. "He's funny, and he's cute, and he's not at all rude; he wouldn't have shut you down if you were your usual, introverted self."

 "Emphasis on he." I retorted, ambling across the street. Dina matched my pace effortlessly, her dark coat flapping slightly in the breeze. "I don't know what he has to do with anything, or why you chose him —"

"You know for a fact that I didn't choose him," she snapped quickly. "I don't pick who gets to save your soul, Jake, but I do get to help both of you deal with it, and I can't do that if you won't even give him a chance."

 Groaning loudly, I halted, gazing into her evergreen, emerald eyes, trees swaying behind her irises. A frown settled on her beautiful face, and I sighed, my shoulders dropping.

"Fine," I muttered, "but if he runs —"

 "He won't," she reassured me, grinning. "Besides, if anyone will be running away, it'll be you."

With that, she walked away, the sound of her heeled boots tapping against the pavement rapidly fading into nothingness as the busy streets of New York City swallowed her up.

XXX

I don't know how to feel. So...yeah.

- jay.