- Friday, May 26th -

I lost Finnley somewhere in the crowd and it's freaking me out. The last time I lost sight of him during a night out, things did not end well at all. This time it wasn't even because I was busy trying to get a girl I liked to go on a date with me, but simply because I went to the bathroom.

Jason simply shrugged when I asked him where Finnley was, telling me to look outside because he expected Finnley to be there.

So, that's what I did. I went to look for him outside and I found him, in an alley, some stranger touching him in a sexual way. Finnley leans his head backwards, his eyes closed, his face contorted with pain. Not physical, but mental pain. He seems lost, not at all enjoying what is happening to him right now.

And I don't get it. Because if he went outside with some guy he sure must have agreed on going here? And if he doesn't like what is happening, he could say no, right? But he isn't. He's letting this guy touch him in ways that piss me off to no end. His hand is in Finnley's jeans and Finnley gasps, but doesn't move to either stop him, or to touch him himself.

"Finn." I make my way towards the couple. "What the hell?"

"Cris!" His eyes widen and now he's pushing the guy away from him. The guy looks at me in annoyance, a little pissed because I interrupted.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing..." Finnley lowers his head in shame. "I don't know..." He sounds a bit drunk, but not nearly drunk enough to not know what he's doing.

"Hey, fuck off, will ya?" The guy snapped at me. "This ain't no threesome."

"Fuck of yourself, will you? Didn't you notice he wasn't enjoying it?"

"Does he have to?" The guy smirks. "He certainly wasn't stopping me."

"Get out of here, before I'm gonna break every bone in your sorry little body." I snap, pulling Finnley away from the guy. "You're done."

"Hey! I paid for him. Who the hell are you to tell me to fuck off?"

"You paid?" I shortly look at Finnley, who's standing partially behind me, his head still hanging low in shame, his face flushed. "how much did you pay?"

"I paid 40 quid for a..."

"I don't care what it's for." I groan, grabbing my money, throwing him back his money. "Now get the fuck out of here."

"Whatever, dude. Didn't know he worked for someone..." The guy grumbles while picking up the money, before he leaves.

"Cris..." Finnley whispers.

"What the hell Finnley!?" I call out. "You still rent yourself!?"

"It's easy money..."

"It's wrong! Finn!" I cry out in desperation. "Please tell me that those times you called me, crying, telling me you got used again, you didn't do it yourself. Please tell me you didn't rent your body all those times."

"I'm sorry, Cris." He cries out loudly. "I don't know what I'm doing, okay? I'm lost, I hate myself, my parents hate me. Everybody hates me and at least some people are willing to pay for me..."

"You're a fucking prostitute! Willingly!" I shake my head in disbelieve. "You know what? I'm done. Don't call me again. Don't ask me to comfort you ever again. This is all on you." I wave my hands around dramatically, before I start to walk away from him.

"Cris, stop, listen to me!"

"No, Finn!" I call out, keeping up the quick pace towards the train station. I'm not going to stay here for another second.

If he's going to continue his path to self-destruction, I'm not gonna stand around and watch him. He doesn't want to talk, fine. He doesn't want to listen, fine. He wants to keep lying to me, fine. But I'm done.

"Cris, please!" He calls out with a voice full of desperation.

"Fuck off, Finn!" I yell, throwing my hands in the air. "Do whatever the fuck you want. I don't care anymore. I'm done." I just rounded the corner, the train station in sight, searching my pockets for my Public Transportation Card.

"Cris, you gotta let me explain!" His voice is betraying the fact he started crying, but I'm done with comforting him because of the mistakes he chooses to make over and over again.

"Finnley, leave me alone. I'm going home. You and me? We're done."

"You can't do this, Cris." He's sobs, his footsteps picking up speed. Right before I walk inside of the building, he pulls me to a stop. "You have to let me explain."

"What is there to explain, Finnley?" He pulls a face at the name but I ignore it, and the fact that tears are streaming down his face. "The fact you keep telling me and everyone who listens that you love me so goddamn much, but yet you never ever let me come near you! You keep pushing me away, you keep lying to me. And here I was, thinking you just needed time to recover from everything that happened before you were willing to try and really be with me. But that was never your intention, was it?"

"That's not true, I do..."

"Because you know what Finnley? Apparently, you love me so much that you feel the need to keep fucking around with strangers."

"I can explain..."

'...You're nothing but a cheap whore. You're a cheap attention seeking slut and I hate you." Finnley is visible breaking down in front of me, his eyes begging me to stop my ranting, but I can't. I felt my heart breaking when I found out he's still renting his body to strangers. "I hate your lies, I hate the way you keep playing with my heart. I'm done, Finnley. I'm done with you, I'm done with all of this. Don't ever call me again." I turned around and run inside the building, opening the gates with my card, fighting back the tears that threaten to come rolling down.

I really don't ever want to see him again.

- Monday, September 18th -

Nathan ignored me all weekend, Stan refused to answer my calls and Finnley kept his phone off. Sam and Felix both begged me to come and watch the match on Saturday, but forgive me for not wanting to be near Oliver right now. So, I stayed inside, focused on homework even though I couldn't concentrate at all and generally felt miserable for fucking up everything all in one night.

I should've never kissed Jaimie in the first place. If I wouldn't have done that, at least Nathan and Stan would still talk to me.

Since I have no idea what exactly caused Finnley to cry, I have no idea what it is that I should've never done. But I did send him a text, answering the question he asked me two weeks ago via text.

I answered that I should've never called him a cheap whore on any of the other hurtful things I said that day that I left him on the train station. The text was pretty long, but it was a sincere apology for everything I did to hurt him that day and afterwards. I just hope he'll agree to talk to me and listen, like I asked him to at the end of the text. I never got a response from him.

I constantly check my phone for the time and to see if I got a response from either Finnley or Stan, but it's really just distracting me from the class I'm in. I still don't like most of the people in here, which is fitting, because ever since I fucked up on Friday, I don't like myself that much either.

"What's on your mind today?" Sam nudges me as soon as the teacher ends the class and dismisses us. We've got fifteen minutes until next class and Sam likes to spend it outside because according to him, school is suffocating and apparently smoking a cigarette isn't.

I follow him and Paul out of the classroom.

"Is your head still bothering you? What's actually the reason you get such a massive headache from a simple knock to the head? I fell before and..."

"I had trauma before and I was really lucky not to have permanent damage, really." I impatiently tap my foot as long as we're waiting for the elevator to come up.

"Aah, so that's why." Sam keeps his head a little sideways, staring at me with curiosity.

"What?"

"Saw you leave Friday..." He grins, wiggling his eyebrow. "The blonde guy..."

"Shut up, Sam, I'm really not in the mood right now."

"Figured." He turns to Paul. "Told you he got ditched, he wouldn't be this cranky if he got some action."

"O my god." I hiss, pushing him in the elevator, closing the doors behind us, keeping Paul out of the elevator. "You told Paul about it?"

"Cris, everybody probably knows." He shrugs. "You're not that good in hiding, you know. Vera and Josie saw you kissing a guy, before your crush dragged you outside. It's like watching a gay drama series, cringe worthy, yet entertaining."

"Sam, tell me, honestly. No straight guy has ever been that interested in a gay drama in the history of humanity. Are yougay?"

"Why, fancy me, do ya?" He winks with a sly smirk.

"Seriously, are you?"

"No, dude. Ladies do the trick for me. But I was raised open-minded. Besides, my best buddy in highschool was gay so I am kinda used to listening to a gay guy ranting about the drama."

"How nice of you," I grumble in annoyance. "Just don't go around and talk about it with people."

"Cris, people really don't care. There's more openly gay people in this school and Blondie is one of them."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Eli is friends with some of them, including Oliver. I hung out with some of them in the past." Sam shrugs. "Like I said, I'm open-minded. I like people, or I don't. I don't care whether they're gay or straight, blue or red, male or female." He shrugs. "I'm friends with a lot of people."

"Still, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't discuss my personal life with anyone."

"Fine." He shrugs. "Paul and I were just joking when we heard about what happened."

I shrug, following him outside while an annoyed Paul comes running down the stairs to join us, catching his breath and sending me an annoyed look.

I linger around while they smoke, still constantly checking my phone for a message or an indication Finnley read my message.

I wish he would just send me anythingto let me know he's doing okay. The frustrating part is the fact I walked past his class before and I didn't see him in class.

I also wish Nathan would start seeing things my way, but for some reason he only gets really mad at me whenever I hurt Stan's feelings.

The only fights I had with Nathan have been about Stan, which is hypocrite because without me they wouldn't even been friends in the first place. Like, right after Stan and I broke up, slept together again and Stan got a little upset because I came on to him when I was drunk.

Or the time I got in a fight with Stan because I kissed a girl while going out and I had to remind him that we were nothing more than friends with benefits.

Nathan never even gets mad at me whenever I upset Finnley, even though Finnley used to be the guy he had a crush on.

One would nearly say that Nathan has a weak spot for Stan.

I smirk at the thought, before I take a seat in the classroom, grabbing my laptop and notes, telling myself that, for the next hour and a half I will not look at my phone for anything. There's a clock on the wall, so I know the time.

I take notes, answer the teacher's questions whenever he's asking me any and I overall think I really understand what he's talking about, feeling at least a little good about myself because I am focussing in school.

That is until the door opens and our student counsellor Suzanne walks in with two police officers in tow.

"Cristian Evans, these men are here to talk to you."

I frown in response while the rest of my classmates turns their heads to stare at me, wondering why the hell the cops are here to talk to me.

Well, that makes all of us. Why are they here?

I slowly get my stuff, stuffing them in my backpack before I walk out behind the three of them, eyes burning holes in my back.

"What is this about?"

"Let's sit down so we can talk calmly." One of the officers suggests with a friendly voice. Excuse me for not trusting cops that appear on my doorstep without a warning, or in this case; in my class.

"Can you show me some ID's?" I ask while sending them a look lacking any trust in them. "You know, prove me you're really cops?"

One of them smiles and both show me their badges, which I take in with as much detail as possible.

After getting fooled once, I studied the things that prove it's a real badge and not a replica. I'm not getting fooled again.

"Cristian..." Suzanne smiles awkwardly. "Are you done?"

I'm still checking one of the badges but I can't find any flaws.

"It's okay "mam." One of them speaks up with a smile. "He has a right to ask for ID's."

"Okay." I straighten myself out, staring at them. "What's this about?"

"How about taking a seat?" Suzanne gestures towards her office down the hall. "You can use my office."

We nod, before I follow them through the hallway and into the office. Suzanne leaves us in the privacy of her office, although the ceiling high windows on the side of the hallway don't offer that much privacy anyway. I repeat my question once we're seated. "What's this about?"

"As you know, the police are still looking for certain suspects that have been involved in your abduction..." One of them starts, making me frown. "We recently received some intel that gives us reasons to believe both Jeffrey Donaughy and Ahmed Abdu are back in the country."

"They're here?"

They both nods, looking serious and worried. Seriously worried. "We're currently trying to locate the both of them, but for the meantime we want you to be careful and keep your eyes open. We have no idea if they're planning any retaliations towards any of you four."

"Wait." I shoot upwards right after I slumped down a minute ago. "What about Finnley? Did you warn Finnley? I haven't seen him in school..."

"Calm down, Cristian." The female officer holds up her hand to silence me. "We've talked to Finnley this morning and he decided to temporarily move back to his aunt's house. We're keeping an eye on him, just as much as we will keep an eye on you too."

"What does that mean? Keep an eye on us?"

"Cristian..." The male officer, Jackson, leans forward. "We all know that what you knew, what you went through, was just a small part of a bigger organization. So far, we had no reasons to believe anyone was going to come after you, but these two have personal reasons to want revenge for what you guys did. It was very brave, but you are at risk right now."

"So, I'm gonna get bodyguards?"

They both chuckle. "Something like that. We're just going to have someone nearby so that we can help you whenever needed. You're also getting a panic button."

"A panic button?"

"It's a small device with a button that is directly connected to the station. As soon as you push the button, they will despatch a car to check on you, because it also gives us a location."

"And Liam, Jason and Finnley all get the same?"

"Yes." They both nod after answering in unison. "Now, we're asking all of you to come to the station today, to give you the panic button and explain how it works. Seeing your history, we're inviting you to come over yourself. We'd offer you a ride, but we understand that you aren't excited about going with us."

"Nah, I'll go there myself." I nod, thankful because at least they still seem to understand why I don't like to go with them.

If I ever end up getting arrested again, I might go into a full-on panic attack.

"Be there at four." They start to get up and I follow their example. I'm definitely not going back to class now. I'm too much on edge.

Jeff and Ahmed are back in the country and we've all been dreading this day ever since the rest got arrested.