“O-Oh.” Mary hiccups when she sees me staring back at her with wide eyes. This situation is already so awkward. “Sorry.” She says quickly, making me furrow my brows; why is she apologizing?

She hurries to wash her face and meanwhile, I remain standing there, not knowing what to say or do as she dries her hands. I felt like I had to say something.

We both came to the bathroom as an escape but hers is definitely more worrying. I mean she's here sobbing for God’s sake! “Mary, are you okay?” I find myself asking. For some reason, I don’t have it in me to just leave her like this, she's obviously hurting.

I think it’s because finding her here, crying in the stalls, reminds me of how I used to do exactly that in high school. Avoid everyone at lunch and just be alone while Alex sat with his other friends.

“Why do you care?” She snaps, shocking me a bit and then I remember this is Mary - she isn’t nice at all. When I sigh, she speaks again. “So you can tell everyone right, so you can make fun of me and spread things?”

The irony; she did exactly that to me while I was at my weakest point before.

Making a face, I turn back to look at her. “I would never do that!” I say. Dammit. Why did I have to care enough to even ask? Why do I feel this sense of responsibility?

Mary scoffs. “There we go with the sweet and innocent act.” She shakes her head as I give her a skeptical look, adding a little annoyance to it. "I know girls like you, with their pretty faces and thin bodies and fake-"

“Just drop it.” I cut her off, tired of this, tired of just about everything at this point.

“You know what, I’m sorry I even asked,” I say almost angrily. “You can walk back out of there, pretend you’re okay and continue to ruin my life if that makes you feel any better. If that gives you some sort of justice for whatever you went through. But maybe if you tried being nice, you wouldn’t be here crying in the stalls with no one to even help you.”

“I haven’t done anything. It’s not Alex’s fault Daniel lost interest in you, now you’re alone without anyone who even looks at you. How does it feel?” Mary says with her upper lip curling in disgust.

I honestly feel bad for her. I guess people handle their emotions differently and she just seems to lash out.

She’s trying to hurt me, but it’s so funny how she suddenly fails to do that now. “Do you honestly think I care about the attention? My problems are more relevant than that.” I say eventually, leaving Mary stunned.

“And for your information, I’m not alone. I have friends who actually care about me. But can you honestly say the same for yourself? You’re out here worried about things that shouldn’t even matter, hurting people just to feel better about yourself.”

Mary opens and closes her mouth, trying to find the words to throw at me, but she knows I’m right. She’s knows everything I’m saying is true.

“We might not be friends and you might not care about what I have to say, but when I first met you, I thought you were actually nice and I thought we could've been friends. If you continue to hate people out of spite or lose focus on what actually matters, in the end, you’ll end up even more miserable.”

I turn away from Mary and head out of the bathroom, not sparing her a second glance.

What infuriates me most is that I actually want to know why she's acting the way she is. Why she is who she is? Why she has so much hate against me? And why she was crying in the stalls all alone? But clearly she doesn’t want help; clearly, she thinks I asked for all the wrong reasons.

So I'm not even going to bother.

Maybe Alexander, her friend, could be there for her by teaming up to ruin my life once again. That'll make her feel better, I bet.

After I walk back into the cafeteria, a look of annoyance on my face, I see Alex looking at me weirdly before I cover it up. I don’t want him knowing I was in there with Mary or even thinking about why I looked so upset. I just want everyone to leave me alone. The others look up at me when I approach the table soon after.

“There you are, you haven’t eaten a thing.” Hayden is the first to say.

“Yeah, we’re leaving so eat up, celebrating the end of my exams at that new skating rink that opened. I heard there are so many hot guys who work there,” Clark whispers the last part but I’m sure everyone hears. She's not that good of a whisperer. I smile when her and Jack wiggle their eyes suggestively.

Even though Clark basically swears to hates all men, as she's said before, she has needs as a woman. 'A girls gotta eat when a girls gotta eat,' are her exact words if I remember correctly.

“I’m not really hungry, I’m going to go back to my dorm and finish up some studying for the semester,” I say and they all groan.

“Oh come on, is that really necessary, we basically just started the semester,” Hunter says, he looks seriously confused on why the hell I would ever want to stay at home and study. I get that look a lot, but that’s just the type of person I am, I actually like studying.

I also can't admit I don’t want to go because both of my exes will be there, but I'm mostly worried about Alex. And it'll be uncomfortable since Hayden will be there as well. I want to keep my secret boyfriend a secret. I know if Hayden shows me the slightest bit of attention, which he will, Alex will try to sabotage our relationship.

I don't understand why he doesn't understand that I will never ever love him the way I used to before. If that was ever love in the first place.

“I want to keep my scholarships,” I shrug, before waving and spinning on my heel. As I exit the cafeteria hall and head toward my dorm, I run into Professor McAdams.

“Miss. Davidson,” he hums, looking at me in a way that slightly makes me uncomfortable. Or maybe it's just because he's too freaking hot for his own good?

Professor McAdams is reaching over through the open window of his car, into the filing cabinet to grab something.

“Do we have a class?” I ask, my eyes focusing on the shiny object he has in his hands. I never knew he had classes today.

“Just came to finish my morning session and go over a couple of tests.” He says somewhat anxiously, as he stuffs the object into his pocket. But I already saw it; I was simply confused as to why he would stuff his ring in his pocket?

I've never seen it before.

Does he not want his students thinking he's married?

“Oh well, I guess I’ll see you at our next lecture.” I smile and he smiles back stiffly before I walk off towards my dorm building. That was weird.

….

I had just gotten my books out when I hear a knock at the door. Before I can get up to open it, Hayden walks in, stuffing his keys back into his pocket as he smiles my way. That was the first time he’s ever knocked before entering…

“What are you doing here?” I ask, shutting my book and getting up to sit at the end of my bed.
He walks across the short distance of the room to sit across from me on his bed.

“I want to know the real reason why you didn’t want to go with us to the skating rink.”

“Wait, what?” I say, a little surprised that he read through me that easily. “Hayden, you didn’t have to come here just because I didn’t want to go.”

“I didn’t want to go because you weren’t going to be there. Do you honestly think I want to skate and waste my time when I could be here?” He asks seriously and I swear my heart skips a beat. “So tell me,” he starts again. “Why are you really here?”

“To study,” I say lowly, finding my own voice not very convincing. Dammit. It's so hard to lie to him. “The truth is I didn’t want to go because I’m afraid they’ll find out about us.”

“What’s so wrong about that?”

My eyes snap upwards to meet his gaze and it’s like we’re having a staring battle before I speak up again. “Everything,” I say as though it’s obvious.

“I don’t get it, why don’t you want anyone to know about us? You were fine with Daniel,” he says, holding my gaze and it’s like something clicks inside his head before he says the next words. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“What? No!” I say quickly, hurrying over to him because it saddens me that he would even think that. Hayden just looks at me as I take his hand and sit beside him, ushering for him to look at me, and when he does my heart clenches.

I can see the hurt swimming in those black eyes of his.

How could I ever be ashamed of him? If anyone would ever be asking that, I thought it would be me.

“I just…I’m afraid.” I find myself saying, my head lowering downward instinctively.

Fingers tilt my chin so that I’m facing Hayden again. Thick black slender brows and a strong nose as well as jaw along with his tall built. Soft black hair shapes most of his face as he stares at me with the most beautiful eyes. So simple yet so beautiful.

“Why are you afraid?” He asks this in his deep low husky voice and I’m transfixed by him, almost forgetting what made me afraid in the first place.

“I don’t know anything about relationships Hayden…” Is all I can muster, I’m just so frustrated and he’s not making it easy looking at me like that.

“Neither do I.” Is his fast and simple response. He offers me a smile and I weakly return it.

“I don't know why you're afraid, I'm the one who should be afraid. You're too good to be true Charlie, I wouldn't leave you for anyone.”

“Not even Alex?” I’m surprised when the words tumble out of my mouth and so is Hayden.

“Is that what this is, you’re afraid that just because Daniel found interest in Alex, I’ll do the same.” When I don’t answer, Hayden sighs. “I admit, she is pretty but I wouldn’t ask you to be with me if I wasn’t serious about it. I'm not looking for just a face.”

I'm afraid he might realize I’m not good enough, so afraid I couldn’t even tell him.  Especially after everything he said right now. I'm just me. Nothing special. And Hayden deserves better. I know it.

They always told me I was fat and I was ugly. Even my mother. So much that in a day I've told myself I wasn't worth it an unhealthy number of times. And I started to believe them. Until my thoughts became a toxic place.

But apparently, I'm not any of those things; I don't hear those words anymore. So what am I really afraid of?

“So let’s tell them about us?” Hayden asks hopefully. “What do we have to be afraid of?” I bite my lip.

"Hayden, I'll be moving in my new dorm room soon, it's only a matter of time until they finish building. They told me by the end of the first semester I'll have a new roommate, a new room. I don't know what's the holdup. We were never supposed to live together in the beginning. Maybe - " I cut myself off, I know I'm not thinking properly.

"Maybe what, Charlie?" He asks, tilting his head and theirs a hard look on his face. But his eyes, they just kill me. "I don't know why you're so afraid. You're always asking me to open up to you, but you're hiding something. Why are you so afraid, Charlie? I know there's something wrong. Talk to me." He bumps my shoulder.

Hayden doesn’t understand. I can’t just tell him Alex is my ex-boyfriend who still wants me back and would do anything to get me back. I would sound insane. And I can’t just tell him that he has an album of photos of me and him back in high school.

Of memories I want to forget. Of a past I want to take to the grave. One that reminds me of my lowest times I struggled to get out of for a long time. That haunted me for a long time.

I don’t want Alex to find out at all, but I also don’t want to hurt Hayden by keeping it a secret forever. But I think it's impossible to keep anything about your love life a secret forever nowadays, everyone's so nosey. I have to postpone it, I have to figure this out and talk to Alex soon before I can take this further with Hayden.

“After dinner with your parents?”

_________________________

I'll be posting day after day for a while just to give you guys enough chapters for all the days I've missed ;)

I'm really sorry it's been so long, this book was supposed to end ages ago. And I hope my disappearance hasn't made anyone forget about this book :(

Also, do you guys think they'll ever find out about Alex? And if they do, how do you picture it to happen?

Don't forget to vote :P