“Do you think she's dead?”
“Seriously, why would she be dead? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.”
“Well, if she smelled those pancakes you made, she would surely be dead.”
“Oh my heck, man, those were not even bad. They tasted delicious.”
“Only to you, man, only to you.”
My eyes blink open to see a bit of a blurred view of Jace and Kasen staring at me. I stretch and yawn, rubbing my eyes viciously.
“Ugh, what do you guys want?” I yawn, sitting up. This is not how I imagined waking up on a Saturday morning.
“It's not normal for people to sleep for twelve straight hours, especially after I had to pick them up after they fell asleep at their friend's house,” Jace says factually. “Are you awake now? Or should I go get a bucket of cold water?”
“I. Will. Kill. You,” I say through my teeth. Kasen busts up and slaps Jace in the arm.
“You really think angering her is going to help us?”
“Help you with what?”
“We are going on a field trip!” Jace announces happily. “And you are coming with us.”
“No, no I'm not,” I shake my head, remembering what Hadley and I are going to do tonight.
“Um, yes you are,” Jace says stubbornly.
“Um, no I'm not,” I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“I have plans with Hadley,” I say.
“You can hang out with her another time,” Kasen says. “We are going to a basketball game in San Francisco.”
“Ugh, I don't want to go,” I say.
“Too bad,” Jace says. “Get up, eat something, and let's get going. I want to spend all day there.”
“Why do I have to go if I don't want to?” I groan.
“Because I don't want you here by yourself,” Jace states.
“How about I go to Hadley's again?”
“Nope.”
“Jace, please? I really do not care for basketball and you know that. Please just let me spend my Saturday doing something that I actually want.”
“Well, I mean, if she's at her friend's house, it couldn't hurt, man,” Kasen says to Jace. “We could have a little brother day. Not to sound gay or anything,” he smirks. Jace gives him a disgusted look and turns back to me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, please, I would love that more than anything.”
“Fine, I guess it wouldn't hurt,” he pouts. “Go get your crap and get ready to go because I am going to drop you off at her house in about thirty minutes.”
“Deal,” I nod, running to get my stuff. I gather everything in my purse and I throw on my best shoes. I also dress in my favorite outfit. It's sad that I feel like I must dress to impress. I hope Jace doesn't notice.
I am ready to go right when Jace calls time and I run down the stairs to jump in the car with him and Kasen. I really hope that Hadley is okay with this. I have prepared myself to see Jake and I am so ready.
“Is your phone charged in case you need to contact me?” Jace wonders.
“Yes.”
“Do you have your pepper spray with you in your purse?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to-”
“Jace, I'm fine,” I sigh. “You don't have to worry about me anymore.”
“Alright, I'm just going kind of far so I want you to be okay.”
“I'm fine. Go have fun,” I say as he pulls into the driveway. It feels like we were just doing this, which we kind of were; last night wasn't that long ago.
“Alright,” he sighs. “Bye, Sammy. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I smile.
“Bye, Sam,” Kasen smirks. “I love you.”
“I will kill you,” Jace growls.
“Hate your guts,” I stick my tongue out at Kasen and I slam the door in his face. He is such a dweeb.
Jace waits this time until someone opens the door. It takes a minute for anyone to respond, but Hadley eventually comes to the door. She is a little surprised to see me so early, about four hours early, but she lets me in regardless and Jace drives away.
“Why are you here so early?” she wonders without a single greeting.
“Hello, Hadley. And Jace was going to make me go to a basketball game with him if I didn't come sooner. I was not about to ditch our plans.”
“Good because my family is going out at five, so we'll be alone then anyway. Until then, I have some cleaning to do. If you help me, we can get done a little faster.”
“Sure, I can help you,” I smile, throwing my purse by her couch and kicking off my vans. She guides me to her laundry room where they keep all of their cleaning products and we get to work.
We clean all of their bathrooms and her whole entire kitchen before three and her mom is very shocked.
“You girls are great,” she compliments us. “Thank you so much for your help.”
“Anytime, Mom,” Hadley smiles. I smile too, but only for a bit before I think of how amazing it would be to have my mom at home like this. Not only home, but to a point where I could see her every day and where she would actually care about Jace and me like she used to. I am honestly very jealous of Hadley's situation. She has the perfect family while mine is so broken and useless.
“What would you like to do now, Sam?” she wonders, putting the cleaning stuff away. “I think we've done our share of cleaning for the week. My brothers can do the rest.”
“I don't know, what is there?” I wonder, trying to smile. Time is going to slow and I'm about to go crazy.
“Well, I honestly have no idea. We could do anything really. We could play a game, we could mess around with my pictures. We could go stalk cute boys on Facebook. What would you like?”
“You pick,” I say.
“Want to play Mario Kart Wii?” she wonders, smiling a little. “I love some good competition.”
“Sure,” I say. It seems like video games pass the time pretty quickly. My nerves will be twitching like crazy with worry if I don't get doing something quickly. We get right to it and honestly we truly have a blast.
After our little Wii session, it was finally time to go perform the deed and let me just say, I was so confused. I didn't know whether to be super excited or super nervous, but either way I wanted to hear his voice and I was going to do whatever was possible to hear it.
"Are you ready?" Hadley asks, grabbing her car keys. They make a loud noise in the empty house as her parents and siblings are already gone.
"I am so nervous," I say, biting my lip. "What if he freaks out on me or what if he just shuts the door in my face?"
"I don't know, Sam, but don't you think it's worth a try?" Hadley points out.
"Yes, I guess you're right," I say. "Let's just go get it over with."
"Alright," Hadley says, opening the garage door for me. I step out and down the steps and she follows behind me, making sure everything gets locked up. I climb into the passenger seat of her car and feel my heart rate soar. I hope I don't pass out before we get there. I wasn't scared before, but I am now.
"Alright, sweets," Hadley says, climbing into the car. "Let's get going. How long do you think this is going to take?"
"Hopefully not more than an hour," I say. "Why?"
"My stomach is growling," she chuckles, lightening the mood. I can't help but laugh at her; I swear she is always hungry.
"Had, your stomach is just an endless black hole," I tell her.
"Hey, it's just needy," she laughs, starting the car and opening the garage.
"I think that saying it's 'needy' is a little bit of an understatement," I point out. "I think the word would be something like 'greedy.'"
"What can we say?" she pats her stomach and starts to back out of the garage. "We just enjoy the better things in life."
"Right," I chuckle. She smirks and drives off. I hand her the directions to Jake's house and she looks at them briefly while she stops at the stop sign just after her house.
"So are you saying he lives in some foreign place?"
"No, but it is kind of far away from any other houses," I say. "It is also fenced off."
"Yeah, that makes sense," she nods, pulling out and turning left. . "I have never even been to that part of town."
"It's not too bad and it really only takes like five or so minutes to get there," I say. "We'll be fine."
"Yep," she says. She turns up the radio and we enjoy some Zendaya while we drive to Jake's house. We both kind of sing to ourselves at first, but by the time we arrive at the front gates of Jake's house, we are both belting out the words. The song, however, had changed and now we were listening to Chris Wallace's Keep Me Crazy.
When the song ends, she turns off the car and looks at me, telling me that it was time for me to go talk to him. I nod and look at the house. It looks so much bigger than it did last time I was here.
"Wish me luck," I say, opening the door of the car.
"Good luck."
"Thanks," I sigh, closing the door behind me. I walk in a very sulky attitude and I open the gate, walking in. I look at Hadley one last time before I turn around and start walking up the walk way. Each step I take feels like a day has passed by and my heart rate accelerates at an unhealthy rate. You'd think I was an elderly lady taking the stairs from the rate I was breathing.
I finally reach the door and I cautiously put my hand out, knocking on the door. It is a very measly knock, so I try again with a bit more force. I gulp while I wait for Jake or Lexie to answer the door, but it still doesn't happen. There is complete silence and I sigh, biting my lip. My plan certainly did not work to my benefit this round.
I take out my phone and call Hadley to see what I should do after knocking about five times. They had no doorbell, so I didn't know what other way I could possibly get anyone's attention in there.
"What's up," Hadley answers.
"Hello to you, too," I say sarcastically. "And nobody is answering."
"We could try another time. Maybe later tonight."
"I feel like someone is here, though," I say. "They just can't hear."
"Well, how bad do you want to talk to him?" she asks, sounding a bit bored.
"Super bad," I say. "I've been waiting all week for this."
"Then go search around the house. Maybe they're out back or in the basement," she suggests.
"Hadley, that's major trespassing," I say.
"And who would report you?" she asks. "This place is super far from other houses. Not only that, but why would he report you? He still cares about you. You said that he told you that."
"What if he doesn't now?" I worry.
"Sam, he's a boy," she says. "Boys take months to get over their true feelings for a girl."
"Ugh, I hope you're right," I say. "I'm keeping you on the phone while I do this, okay? I am a nervous wreck."
"Just think, it's for the greater good," she points out.
"Yeah, sure. But really, stay on with me. I am going to go around the house."
"Deal," she says. I keep the phone held up to my ear while I cautiously step off the porch and I start looking around the windows. The side windows all have the blinds closed and are shady from the trees. I sigh and round the house, feeling a little tinge of hope when the window is open.
"Any luck?"
"Shhhh."
"Ugh," Hadley whines while I investigate the back of the house. The windows are all open, no blinds covering them, and I get down on my hands and knees to see what's in there.
"Hadley, it's Jake!" I exclaim. "He's in there!"
"Knock on the window," she says.
“Dude, heck no,” I gasp. “I don't want him to think that his house is getting attacked.
“Okay, then you come up with something,” she sighs. I get lower and see what he's doing.
My blood freezes cold and my muscles nearly give way. My head starts spinning and I almost start crying right on the spot. I was not ready for this to happen and frankly I had never experienced so much shock in my life.
Cody.
“Sam? Are you there? Why did the phone just go silent?” Hadley blurts into my phone but I can't find the nerves or the muscles in my fingers. “SAM.”
“Shh,” I manage to choke into the phone, watching Cody as he violent slaps Jake on the side of the face. Something is seriously not right here. My ex brother is abusing my ex boyfriend and that doesn't set well with me. I can't even believe it until notice what else is in the room.
The drugs, I think to myself. Oh my gosh.
“Hadley, start the car,” I say into the phone, getting up. “We need to get out of here and we need to do it now.”
“What's wrong?” she asks. I hear the car roar to life and I very sneakily get up. I cannot let them know I'm here. I ca-
“Hey! You! What do you think you are doing?” a voice hisses behind me. I whirl around and see Calvin standing on their back porch and when we meet eye contact, he looks nearly as shocked as I feel. It doesn't last long; next thing I know, he's running at me.
I end the call with Hadley as quick as my fingers can scramble and I throw it in my purse as I run as fast as I can. It's too bad that I'm not in any sports right now; I could really use some athletic strength at the moment.
“Get back here, Samantha!” Calvin screeches as he sprints after me. If it weren't for the stairs he'd had to run down, I surely would have been dead by now, but I was ahead of him by a few seconds.
“Never!” I scream back as I keep sprinting toward the car. My legs are burning, my lungs are churning for oxygen, and my head is spinning. This was not even close to what I had planned for.
As soon as I get to Hadley's car, she speeds away even when the door is half open. I scramble to get it closed, but I do just as Calvin stops at the fence, looking quite angry that he hadn't gotten me. Nonetheless, he still knew it was me and he would be sure to inform Cody. I need to get home and tell Jace or something bad is going to happen very fast.
“What did you do?” Hadley gasps, finally breaking the awkward traumatic silence. “Why was that creeper running after you like that?”
“Hadley, that creeper just so happens to be the one that molested me a week ago,” I huff, trying to catch my breath again. “He knows I was there and he's going to tell them. I need to get to Jace immediately. We are literally doomed.”
“Call him right now,” she suggests, trying to focus on her driving. “He can meet us at home.”
“He is going to be so mad,” I say nervously.
“So?”
“Just call me Rapunzel,” I sigh. “He's never going to let me out of the house.”
“Just call him,” Hadley orders. I groan and pull out my phone, pressing the speed dial button.
He is going to flip.