INTO THE FLAMES

Chapter 4

I slid my shorts up my legs and snapped the button closed. Frowning at myself in the mirror, I pulled on my tank top. Just then, a breeze came through the window and I pulled on my flannel, just in case it got cold. I bent down to tie the converse that I'd bought with Landon before I left at a discount sale at our favorite shoe store. Everything was set.

I was still pissed.

I don't need anyone following me around, especially not someone who has no business here. I didn't make a fake idea then let some guy get me drunk and get in my pants a few times, and now he's stalking me. He wants Aria. If he really pays attention, he knows that I don't even talk to her. He knows that I barely have a connection with him.

I picture my sister, in bed, clothes off, begging for some guy she just met to push himself harder into her. Was she lonely? Was she desperate? What could have made her do something so stupid, something that changed all of our lives? What was going through her mind as she snuck out, night after night, to meet him?

Was it all for sex?

Even worse, does she love him? (Does love him, not did love him, because you never stop loving someone.)

It may seem incredulous to anyone that a girl could fall in love with her stalker. But maybe that's not how it started. Maybe he swept her off her feet, and when he touched her, she exploded inside. Maybe that feeling stayed on her skin all night, that tingling feeling in her body never diminishing. Maybe she kept going to him because it felt so right. Then, once she realized who she was falling for, she tried to pull out, or he did. But she probably did. Maybe, after that, he couldn't let her go.

He wouldn't let her go.

I snapped myself out of my thoughts and watched my reflection. Did she still love him, if she ever did? Does he still think about her? Does all he want is her back?

Turning what was actually happening into a love story wasn't going to get me anywhere. Aria's choices buried us all and, love or not, there was no going back. This is the way we leave now, with someone up our asses all day and night. There'd never be any peace.

A knock at the door had me turning my head, and there was Matt, in shorts and a tee shirt, freshly showered from his hour and a half work out. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed, watching me.

"When you said you'd be ready in five minutes," he began, then scratched his head. "Well, that was fifteen minutes ago. I figured I should come check on you."

Had I wasted all that time thinking about Timothy and Aria. Back when Timothy was just Ryan Whittemore? Back to how life had been before she met him?

"Oh, um, s-sorry," I stuttered. I turned away from him, hoping that he hadn't seen the tear roll down my cheek. "I'll be down in a few minutes."

I didn't know if he left, just assumed that he did, and turned towards my window. I remembered the countless summer nights that I sat here with my window open, the night breeze floating in, and I tried to take pictures of whatever I could find. I took my first winning photo out of this window.

It was love then. It was what I knew I had to do, and I left my family behind for it. Would things've been different? Did I miss a chance to be closer to them, a chance to be good for my sister? I'll never know, because her virginity is already gone, and to some guy that she threw away all because of age.

I saw Matt step out onto the porch. I exhaled. Here goes nothing.

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