It's the last time I will wake up in this room. That's the first thing I realize when I open my eyes the next day. The second thing is that the spot next to me is already cold. Dan's dirty clothes are still scattered through the room and I quickly grab a shirt that's lying on one of the boxes. A quick glance at my alarm clock tells me that it is two in the afternoon. It was late last night. The last guests left around four in the morning.

The scent of bacon lures me to the kitchen. Dan stands behind the stove.

I'm not sure if he noticed me, so I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. I kiss him on his cheek.

"Morning, sleepyhead." He's turning one of the eggs he's baking. "I couldn't find the coffee."

I let my fingers linger on his skin for a moment before I walk to one of the cupboards. I stand on my toes and stretch myself to grab the container we store our coffee.

That's when I feel his hands on my bare stomach. As I lower myself his hands glide under my shirt. His lips are close to my ear as he whispers: "You're so friggin' beautiful."

The stubble on his chin grates the skin of my shoulder, as he kisses my neck.

"The eggs," I whisper.

"You don't have to worry about that fire." His lips continue to kiss my neck, my cheek. He turns me around and lifts me up the countertop. Our mouths find each other again. I never knew I missed him this much the last days and now he's here I can't get enough of him. My right-hand rakes through his hair and with my left hand I try to pull him closer, although I know that's technically not possible.

A cough interrupts us.

We both turn our heads to the source of the sound.

"Guys, please, I still have to prepare my food on that countertop." Megan doesn't even flinch and embarrassed I let myself glide to the floor.

I start making coffee and Dan serves the eggs, as if nothing happened. The kitchen is still a mess from last night. Empty bottles are spread through the room and I pick up some empty bags of candy. I pour us three mugs of coffee. There's a pile of letters on the table, hidden behind half-full glasses of beer and some empty bottles of wine. I pick them up to throw them away.

"What are you trying to hide, Eli? Did you get more of those letters?" Megan catches me hiding them under a newspaper.

"Letters? What kind of letters are you talking about?" Dan looks curious at me. I never told him about them and I feel my cheeks grow warm.

"She received some letters with threats," Megan says.

I try to sign her with my eyes to shut up.

"Eli? Is that true? Why didn't you tell me anything?" His smile is gone. His eyes stare intently at me.

"I thought it wasn't that important," I say. I don't know where to look. I feel like a small child that's caught on a lie.

"Can you show them to me?" Dan says.

"I threw them away and the police took some of them," I say. "I haven't opened these yet and I wasn't going to."

Dan sticks out his hand, waving his fingers to indicate that he wants to see the letters. I sigh and stare a couple of seconds at the envelopes before I hand them to him. He tears the first one open. Before I see the message, I already know what it says. It tells me to die a horrible death and has a picture of pigs that just get their throats slit.

Then he opens the next, which contains a message similar to the first one. There are eight of them and he opens them all. They all contain more or less the same message, some with pictures of animals getting killed or the violated bodies of people, others are just words.

"Eli..." His gaze goes over the collection of gory pictures.

I never really looked at the letters, I just put them away as soon as I got them.

"This is bad, isn't it?" I can barely look him in the eyes. I don't know why I kept this from him. It was never my intention to keep it a secret and to be honest, I never saw them as something that could be potentially dangerous. Now that I see them all spread out on our table, spitting their hateful messages in my face, I'm not so sure if they are as innocent as I thought.

"How long has this been going on?" He says.

"I got the first ones after those pictures were published," I say. "I gave them to the police when they came here for the heart."

"Good." There's something in his voice that makes me all tense in a bad way. "You don't know how weird people can act, Eli. Please be careful."

'What do you mean?" I think his concerns for me are sweet, but there's definitely something more behind his words.

"A couple of years ago I had a stalker." Dan rubs his head as if he has a headache. "It was a woman who was completely obsessed with me. She thought we were in a relationship and showed up everywhere I went. She sent my girlfriend at the time almost the same messages."

"How did it end?" I take a sip from my coffee. My hands are shaking and I almost spill the contents on the shirt I'm wearing.

"I had to call the police when she had forced her way into my apartment, declaring her eternal love for me and threatening to kill herself and me if I would reject her. She was taken into custody and I pressed charges. I heard she's doing fine now after she spent several months in a psychiatric ward. She still has a restraining order."

A lump starts to form in my throat. There's so much I don't know about him. Megan looks at me as if she wants to say 'I told you so', but I'm glad she keeps quiet.

"I'm sorry," I say, but I'm not sure what I'm sorry about.

"Don't be. It made me a bit more suspicious about people and-"

Whatever he wants to say is interrupted by the noise of his cellphone. He throws one quick glance on the screen. "I've got to take this." And he walks out of the room.

Megan and I are sitting alone in the kitchen now.

"It's weird that this is our last breakfast here." She says. "You're so lucky, Elise."

"I'm not sure if you can call this luck," I say as I keep staring at the letters, but Megan doesn't seem to notice it.

"You should have seen him last night. His eyes were following you everywhere. His face lit up the room every time you entered." Megan sighs.

I know what she's thinking about and I want to tell her not to be silly, that she will meet someone someday. I know she tried to visit a psychologist after Greg's death, but it didn't work out. Sometimes I think she never wants to forget him, that it feels like she's betraying him if she works on giving his death a place. The endless stream of guys is all proof that there's no one like him and no one will be ever able to fix her heart. And it makes me sad.

I take her hand in mine as if that's going to make everything alright again and with the other, I fumble my new necklace.

"What's that?" Megan eyes the little golden pendant.

I smile. "Dan gave it last night to me. It's a little golden heart."

Megan takes the little pendant in her hand. "Isn't this a bit weird?"

I frown at her. "What do you mean?"

"Buy something like this after someone sent you a heart in a box? I don't like it, Eli."

Before she can say anything else, Dan returns to the kitchen.

"I've got to go." He's wearing dirty clothes that make him look like a homeless man again.

"What? Why?" This is not what I had in mind. I had it all worked out. Friends were coming over later today to help me get my stuff in the trailer I rented and then we would go together to my new house.

"There's something wrong with my younger brother. My mother was freaking out. I've got to see them." His face looks worried.

I feel selfish for wanting him near me and I wish I could call my plans for today off. "What's wrong with him, Dan?"

"I don't know yet, but I will call you as soon as I know more." He kisses me quickly on my cheek and then he's gone.

It's Megan and me now and we're all quiet. I'm not sure why, but I don't feel the urge to break the silence. We're sipping our coffee, chewing on the eggs. We just sit there, until my friends arrive that are going to help me move my stuff.

It's not much, my room wasn't big enough to collect a lot of furniture yet. There are a couple of boxes, filled with books, clothes and random stuff, my bed, a cupboard, and of course my computer.

Megan is coming with me, Cher and Danny, two other friends, are already on their way to my new place. It's not that I need more help, I think when I look into the trailer. I could have done easily with a smaller one. This one is barely half full. At least it's not going to be hard to get everything in my apartment.

Megan and I are singing our favorite songs on the top of our lungs on our way to my new home. Of course, she's making a show out of it, attracting the attention of other drivers. And before I know it we arrive at my place.

The trailer is empty in less than an hour and I take them all out for pizza. It feels strange. Of course, we talk about the good times we had with each other, refreshing memories about our first days in college, about parties, boyfriends.

Of course, we promise each other to keep contact, but we already know it's an empty one. It's not intentional and we don't mean to harm anybody. But we all know that life and other disasters happen, that keep you from picking up that phone, sending that email. You will add each other on Facebook and that's it, getting glimpses of the lives of people that used to be an open book to you.

But this evening we eat, talk and laugh until it's late and Megan, Cher, and Danny have to go home. We make one giant group hug, promising we will call each other soon, and then it's time for them to leave.

Before they drive away, Megan takes me apart. "I've got something for you."

She hands me a box. It's pretty heavy.

"Go on. Open it," she says.

Slowly I lift the lid. As soon as I see what it contains I want to drop it, throw it away as far as I can. I try to keep my face straight and I close the box quickly.

"No, thanks." I shove it in her direction, but she's not accepting it.

"Take it, Eli," she says as she pushes the box back in my hands. "If one of Dan's weird fans comes after you, you need something to protect yourself."

"I don't shoot people, I stitch them up," I say. The box with the gun feels even heavier than before.

"It's my gift to you." Megan folds her arms. Her lips are slightly pinched. She knows I don't like guns, but she's not taking it back. "Take it so I don't have to worry about you."

I look at the box. "I think you should be more worried when I carry this thing around. I don't know how to shoot it."

"Please." She looks genuinely worried and I can't help but think of the collection of letters Dan unfolded for me this afternoon.

"Okay, but I blame it all on you if something goes terribly wrong," I say.

"Don't you always?" Megan spreads her arms and we share a weird hug. I'm going to miss my weird-ass friend so much.

She steps in the car, where the others are already waiting for her. We wave at each other, yelling our goodbyes. My gaze follows the vehicle that drives them back to the place that I called 'home' until this morning.

I stand there long after the car disappeared from my view. The silence that hangs in the air crushes me.

And I realize that I'm alone.

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AN: Thanks for reading! If you liked the chapter, please vote for it by pressing the little star :)