After Daniel leaves my room I am still deciding whether to go out there again or just stay here.
I know I can't really stay in my room, but I really need to gather some courage to face them.
Let's just get dressed first, I decide to wear my jogging suit, but with shorts, it's nice and warm inside so I think longer pants will be way to hot.
I put on some fluffy little socks and I put my hair up in a ponytail.
For a night in with pizza and whatever else we are going to do I just don't feel like dressing up. They'll just have to take me as I am right now. I check myself in the mirror and decide this is perfectly fine. I mean they saw me dressed in nothing more than a towel. So this is an improvement for sure.
I take a deep breath and without thinking about it anymore I just walk out of my room to meet everybody.
As I walk in I see some delicious looking pizzas on the table. Daniel is sitting in his love seat and the other guys or on the couch or on the floor.
"Hi again you guys, I'm sorry about what just happened. I didn't hear anybody come in, so I thought I was still by myself. I hope nobody has damaged their hearing." I apologize.
Max gets up,"don't worry about it, I think all of us rather listen to your singing then Daniels."
They all start laughing and Daniel pretends to look mad at Max. "Thanks a lot mate, I thought you loved my singing."
"Yeah sure, when I don't have to listen to it." Max replies. "Anyway, I'm Max and you are Skylar? Daniel has told us a bit about you, but we want to know a lot more."
"Hi Max, yeah well you can ask me anything and maybe I'll answer." I tease him a bit.
"Maar voor we aan vragen gaan beginnen, zullen we eerst wat eten? (But before we start with the questions, shall we eat something first?) " I start talking Dutch.
As I look at Max I see eyes widen. He did not see that coming. "What the .. spreek je Nederlands?" (You speak Dutch?)." He asks.
"Ja klopt. Ik ben geboren in Nederland en op mijn 11e zijn we naar Engeland vertrokken. (I was born in the Netherlands and we moved to England when I was 11)". I explain," but let's continue in English. Lando might understand, but the rest not so much I think."
Max smiles and says:"So this means we can gossip about them and they won't understand. I like you already."
I start to laugh,"we could. But I don't know if we should. At least not tonight, but some other time... absolutely."
I turn to the other guys that are in the room,"Hi George, Pierre, Charles, I'm Skylar, nice to meet you. Lando it's nice to see you again."
Lando gets up and gives me a hug, a lot more gentle this time which is really cute. He is really afraid he might hurt me again. Even though he didn't know so I don't blame him for it.
"So where do you want me?" I ask Daniel.
"Oooh that's the wrong question, we all know where he wants you." I hear Charles say and everybody starts laughing.
Daniel pats his hand on the seat of the loveseat next to him.
I grab a slice of pizza and as I sit down I decide to turn a bit and put my legs over his lap.
"Is it ok if I sit like this?" I ask him.
"More then ok, are you comfortable?" He asks.
"Yeah I am thanks." I take a bite of the pizza and realize how hungry I am. There is so much cheese on it and nice spicy pepperoni. It tastes amazing and when I finish the slice I want to get up for a second one.
Daniel holds me and bends forward to get one for me. "That's sweet thanks, these are amazing by the way, where did you get them?" I ask him.
"Well actually just across the street, I will show you tomorrow." I can see there is some cheese in his stubbly beard, with my finger I wipe it away. I want to wipe my finger on a tissue, but Daniel grabs my hand and licks the cheese of my finger.
It feels like lighting moves from my finger to my core and I look at him while biting my lip.
"Guys for real, we are still here." I hear Pierre calling us out. But when I look at him I see he is smiling so he's just teasing.
"Ok what about a game to get to know Skylar a bit more?" Lando asks.
"What did you have in mind?" I ask him.
"How about truth or dare?" He suggests.
"Ok fine I'm in, bring it on!" I sit up a bit, because I know now I might get some awkward questions.
Pierre starts,"ok so truth or dare?"
"Well I'll start with truth." I answer.
He thinks for a little bit,"so how did you really meet?"
I look at Daniel, I'm sure he must have told them already.
"He told us, but I'm curious to your side of the story." Pierre explains.
"Ok. Well my friends signed my up for a contest McLaren had come up with. I got a call from Daniel saying I won. Not that I believed him at first. The next day he picked me up and we spent the entire day together. So actually we just met like 36 hours ago." I quickly summarize the events.
"But how did you end up here?" George asks.
"Daniel and I had an amazing day yesterday, we went and got dinner afterwards. And we both felt we didn't want to say goodbye yet. So he invited me to come with him. I thought about it for a second and then decided I really wanted to spend more time with him. I just want to get to know him." I explain to George.
The guys ask me some more questions about myself and my life back home.
We have a lot of laughs and it's very easy to talk to them. At first they were a bit careful, but as the night progressed I could tell they were opening up to me and accepting me.
Suddenly Lando asks me a question that I did not see coming,"So what is the scariest thing you have ever experienced?"
Oh crap, should I just tell them? I haven't even told Daniel yet. But what's the worst thing that could happen. Him sending me home? Ok that would suck, but I guess it doesn't matter if I tell him now or wait longer.
"Ok well Ehm.. I eh ... Daniel sorry I haven't told you this yet." I see him looking at me with raised eyebrows and a questioning look on his face.
"The scariest thing I have ever experienced was when my ex tried to kill me." I just blurt it out and as I look at Daniel I can see his face turn from questioning to shocked.
"Wait what?!" Lando shouts. "Are you serious right now?"
Daniel puts his hands around my face and turns my head towards him. "What the hell happened. Please tell me, when was this, how, why?"
I can tell he's so confused and shocked. As I look around the room all I see is shocked faces with question marks all over them.
I sigh and get up from the seat.
"Ok so I'll show you something and then I'll explain everything."
I pull up my top to expose my side and the wound that is still healing.
"Oh my god." I hear Daniel whisper.
I'm almost to afraid to look at him, I really don't know what I will see on his face. Will he be mad that I didn't tell him yesterday? I really don't know what to expect.
"Jesus Christ that's not even healed yet, when did this happen?" George has his mouth open and looks at me in utter disbelief.
"About 2,5 weeks ago. I was in the hospital for a week and a few days after I got l home Daniel called me. So yeah it's still healing. But it's getting there." I finally turn my head to face Daniel as I pull down my top again. His face is white as a sheet. I feel really bad, I can tell he is so shocked.
"Danny? Please talk to me? Are you mad at me?" I ask him.
He suddenly snaps out of his shock and stands up.
I look into his eyes to see if I can tell if he is mad at me, but all I see is him smiling at me even though his eyes look sad.
"I'm not mad at you, why would I be? It's up to you to decide when you are ready to talk about it. But I would like to know what exactly happened." He wraps his arms around me and I can feel tears burning in my eyes. I really don't want to cry, but this is the first time I will tell my story to somebody besides my family and Jenna and Brianna.
It's really scary, but I feel safe with him and also with the other guys. So I decide to explain everything.
"Ok if you don't mind I'm going to sit down for this."
Daniel immediately sits down and I sit down beside him. He pulls my legs on his lap again and begin telling my story.
At first I talk about how Shane and I met and that it felt like a good relationship at first. And how his behavior changed over time which in the end made me decide to break up with him.
The entire time I'm talking I feel Daniel gently caress my legs.
"So he didn't take the break up very well and started to stalk me. He was just there every time I went outside. He never approached me or anything but it was really scary. I even took self defense classes with a trainer. And the things he taught me saved my life in the end."
As I get to the part of the attack I notice I get a bit anxious and I start to pick on the strings of my sweater.
Daniel notices this and he grabs my hands. He has no idea what this means to me. I can tell he is supporting me and he helps me gather the strength to keep talking.
"So finally I was fed up and on that day I came home and saw him standing on the corner of the street looking at my house again. I decided it was enough so I went to him and told him he had to move on and leave me alone.
He then said if he couldn't have me nobody could. I turned around and called the police, because that really scared me."
You could hear a pin drop in the room. Lando was listening to me with his mouth open. I smiled at him and continued.
"When I was walking back to my front door I heard him come after me, so I turned around to tell him again to leave me alone and I suddenly saw he was holding something. I hardly had any time to realize it was a knife before he attacked me and stabbed me." I can hear Pierre gasp and I feel Daniel tighten his grip on my hands. I feel I'm shaking a bit and him holding me does give me so much strength.
"I didn't feel anything at that point. I just went in survival mode and started to fight him off me. I don't remember everything, but we ended up on the street and he was trying to stab me again. I didn't even recognize him anymore, he had such an insane look in his eyes." I didn't realize I was crying, but I suddenly feel tears running down my face.
"The cops arrived and I was still fighting for my life I remember them telling him to drop the knife, but he just lost it.
I was finally able to push him off me, don't know how I did it. And I rolled away. I saw him come up and he wanted to attack me again. But I heard a loud noise and he collapsed."
I couldn't stop crying at this point and Daniel pulled me against him. He kissed me on my forehead and stroked my hair to comfort me.
After a short time I continued.
"All I remember from that point was that there was a female cop who came rushing towards me, I was trying to get up but she wouldn't let me. She put pressure on my side and I remember the pain that suddenly came over me. I looked and saw so much blood. They called for the ambulance and I know I lost consciousness. I woke up almost a day later in the hospital."
I took a deep shaky breath and Daniel gave me a sip of his wine. It helped me calm down a bit, but I felt I was still shaking.
"Holy shit Skylar. I don't know what to say." George said, "you are so brave, you actually fought him long enough for the police to come rescue you." He sounded impressed.
The other guys nodded their heads, but I could tell they were still processing what they just heard.
"Babe" Daniel starts, "where is this guy now, because if he is still a danger to you I want to know. I want to keep you safe so I need to know, where is he?"
My heart just overflows with the love I feel for this man. The way he wants to protect me after only knowing me for 2 days.
"You don't have to worry about that. The cops shot him and he didn't make it." I answer him and he wipes the tears from my eyes. I hardly noticed they were flowing again.
"Good, otherwise I would have taken care of him."
"I think we would all help you with that Danny." Lando says bravely. The rest nod their heads.
"That won't be necessary. But thanks for offering. I would never let you guys get in trouble over me though."
I look at Daniel and he smiles at me.
"I'm glad you felt secure enough to tell us about this. There are some things that make sense now.
When you flinched when you got in the car or when Lando hugged you."
Lando shouts."oh my god I must have hurt you so bad yesterday. I'm so sorry."
I quickly try to reassure him, "Please don't say sorry. You didn't know so it's not your fault. It's all good. So please don't feel guilty."
He still looks sad, so I get up and walk over to him, I grab his hand to pull him up so he stands in front of me.
Then I wrap my arms around him and hug him tightly. He wraps his arms around me as well, but this time a lot higher then yesterday.
Suddenly they all get up and Charles shouts,"group hug!"
Before I know it I'm surrounded by all of them and I end up in the center of this group hug.
I've never felt more safe and secure in my entire life.