"Jordan? Jordan!"

I just didn't want to be bothered. Couldn't I sleep forever? I sure wished that I could. That was all that I wanted...

"Jordan!"

I didn't want to open my eyes, but I knew that I didn't have a choice in the matter. As much as I just wanted to stay wherever I was and just sleep, I knew that I couldn't.

As I slowly rose from my lying position, I studied my surroundings carefully. Why was I outside on the dock? Shouldn't I have been in my bed or something with the rest of the girls in the cabin?

Before realization struck me, I was being ambushed by tight hugs that almost stopped my breathing. When I looked up at my attackers, I wasn't very surprised to see Lexi, Chelsea, and AJ standing over me.

"What are you doing out here?" AJ almost cried, a worry look evident on her face. Why would she be worried about me? I just fell asleep on the dock, didn't I? What was so bad about that? It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong... I was just sleeping.

"Um, I couldn't sleep last night so I came out here," I excused with a wave of my hand, as if it was absolutely nothing to make a fuss over, which it kind of was. "I guess I just fell asleep out here. Hah, I'm glad I didn't get caught by any of the counselors..."

"But thank God you're okay!" Lexi cried, her eyes watering even more as she stared down at me. "We thought you were hurt! No, we thought you were dead!"

"Why would you think that?" I asked, rubbing at one of my eyes in confusion as I continued to look up at her.

"We were watching the news," Chelsea began solemnly as she looked down at her fiddling fingers. She was frowning, and she wasn't acting normal. Chelsea rarely ever frowned... What was going on? "And something came up..."

"What?" I asked, blinking now. "What happened?"

"Jesse's dead," Lexi whispered, staring down at her feet.

At first, the news hit me like a bullet. I thought I was going to die as well right after she had informed me of this. I wanted to just flop over and start sobbing, but I then remembered why I was outside, why I was asleep on the dock. Jesse had taken me out there the night before to say goodbye, and I had fallen asleep out here on the dock after he had finally left...

"He's... dead?" I asked, not really knowing how I was supposed to react. I mean, I knew that he wasn't really dead. I knew that he had just ran away and faked his death to protect me. But the girls still thought I hated him, so how was I supposed to react?

"We thought you were with him," AJ informed me, tears in her eyes as well. "When you weren't in bed when we all woke up this morning, at first we thought you just woke up early and left. But then we remembered that you've never been a morning person and you always wake up after us. And then Yolanda turned on the news and it talked about how Jesse's car flipped into a lake..."

I bit the inside of my cheek, not wanting to hear anymore. Even though I knew that this wasn't really what happened to him, I hated imagining that it had actually happened. Jesse was safe, but he was gone. He wasn't dead, but it sure seemed like he was.

I let tears roll down my face, but I didn't let out any sobs. Even though I wanted to scream and throw a tantrum, I still had to act like his enemy in front of my friends. I thought back to when I had hated Jesse, and I tried to think about how I would have felt if he had died back then. I definitely would have cried, no matter what...

"We're just glad you're okay," Lexi hiccupped, kneeling over and placing a hand on my shoulder. "It's sad that he's dead, even though he'd always act like a total ass to us. But we thought that you went with him for some reason. We thought that you were dead, too."

"I'm right here," I breathed, still trying to keep my tears under control. "I'm perfectly fine."

Chelsea then blinked down at me, now noticing what I was wearing. "Is that Jesse's jacket? The one he always wears?"

I gulped, looking down at the big jacket I was wearing. How was I supposed to explain this? Jesse was supposedly dead, and here I was wearing his jacket... They were either going to think that I was with him before he left or that I had killed him!

"Why are you wearing Jesse's jacket?" AJ asked, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Anyway, he never takes that thing off."

This would have been the perfect time to tell them everything. It would have been the perfect time to tell them that I was really in love with Jesse, the perfect time to tell them that Hunter's name wasn't really Eric and that I hadn't ever gone out with him. I could have told them all the truth right then... but I didn't.

"Um, I don't know," I lied, looking down at it as I tried to think of an excuse to tell them. "It wasn't on me when I went to sleep."

Lexi's mouth gaped open into an 'o' shape as she stared at me. She was staring at me for a full minute and it started to scare me before she said, "He must have put it on you before he left! I can't believe he would do something so nice like that!"

She was half right, I guess. Jesse had put the jacket on me, but I quickly shrugged it off as I tried to stop him from leaving. But I was the one that put it on me before I fell asleep, right after Jesse had left.

I shrugged, as if it meant nothing to me. But it did. This jacket was the last thing I had of Jesse's, and I was going to cherish it forever. It still smelled like him, and I hoped that it would smell like him forever.

But I knew that that wasn't possible.

"Are you sure you're okay, Jordan?" Lexi asked, still kneeling down beside me with her hand on my shoulder. "You seem kind of... out of it. I know that you and Jesse were enemies and everything, but it's okay to be upset about it. We all hated him just as much as you did and we're upset by it, too."

I didn't know what I was supposed to do anymore. I didn't even know how I was supposed to act. I wanted to just fall into bed and sob for the rest of my life, but I knew I couldn't do that since my friends couldn't think that I was that upset.

"I think everyone will be upset," Chelsea murmured, plopping down next to me on the dock as she stared out at the water. "Though Jesse could be annoying and rude, he's been with us since freshman year. And that's got to make everyone at least a little bit upset."

Whoever wouldn't be upset about this was just coldhearted. I was sure Hunter wouldn't be upset about it, but then again he might have been because he wasn't the one that was able to cause Jesse's "death" and it meant he had to leave me alone for good.

Even though Hunter was going to be out of my life forever, I still wasn't happy, because it meant that I had to lose Jesse. I'd rather deal with Hunter for the rest of my life than lose Jesse...

"We should go back into the cabin and tell the other girls that you're alright," AJ sniffed, and I knew that she didn't want us to know that she was crying. She hated Jesse for taking Aimee's attention from her, but she wasn't coldhearted enough to be upset about a death.

I'd be upset over anyone's death, unless the person that had died was someone like Hunter. If he died, I wouldn't care at all. I'd be happy if Hunter died.

"You guys go ahead, I'm going to sit out here for a little while longer," I told them, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I'm still kind of half asleep."

Lexi nodded, as if understanding that I just didn't want to be bothered right then. I wouldn't be surprised if she knew what I was really thinking, since she was my best friend and everything. I wouldn't have been surprised if she could actually read my mind, or if I found out she knew exactly what was going on the entire time.

After they left me alone, I just stared out into the water and snuggled into Jesse's jacket some more. If I could have, I never would have taken it off. But I knew I was going to have to sometime, even though I didn't know exactly when at that moment.

"Hey, Jordy," a new voice said, almost causing me to jump off the dock and into the water. There were only two people who called me that, and one of them was a psychopathic killer that caused my boyfriend to run away to save me. "I heard about Jesse..."

When I looked to my right, I let out a small breath of relief when I saw that this person wasn't Hunter, but it was Dallas instead. I hadn't even spoken to him since I had broken up with him, and I thought that he hated me for sure... But now he looked upset, just like everyone else probably was right then.

"Yeah," I sniffed, wiping at my eyes so he didn't think I was upset over my enemy's death. "I heard about it, too."

"You're a lot more upset than I thought you would be," Dallas observed, moving in a little closer to examine my face. "I actually thought that you'd be jumping in joy or something, but then I remembered that you're way too nice to do anything like that."

"Jesse wasn't as bad as I thought he was," I whispered, shaking my head as I continued to wipe my tears. "I was just being an inconsiderate bitch most of the time."

"Don't go beating yourself up just because he passed away," Dallas told me, his eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly. "You know, it was obvious that he was in love with you from the start."

No freaking duh, I wanted to say to him, but I knew that I couldn't as I bit the inside of my cheek. No one else even noticed that Jesse was in love with me, so I guess Dallas was smart for noticing something no one but Alex could figure out.

"In love with me?" I repeated, trying to sound repulsed and disgusted. "There's no way Jesse Jacobsen was in love with me."

Dallas rolled his eyes at me. "I was there when you first met him, Jordan. It was the first time I ever met him, too. He was looking at you the same way Hunter Drax did when he first saw you when you were like five-years-old."

My eyes widened at the mention of Hunter, but I made sure that my hands didn't clench into fists. I had to pretend that I didn't even know who he was talking about...

But wait. He had seen me dancing with Hunter at the prom. I even said his name was Hunter! Why hadn't he figured out that it was the same Hunter that he had been friends with? I guess I was just going to have to ask him that later then...

"Who's Hunter Drax?" I asked, badly faking ignorance as I waited for his response. Wow... I never knew I was this bad of an actress. "I've never heard of him before."

"You don't remember?" Dallas asked, his eyebrows rising on his forehead as he stared at me in surprise. "He'd play with us all the time when we were little. The first time he saw you, you were five, he was seven, and I was nine. I remember the look he gave you when he saw you, and even though we were so young, it was obvious that he was smitten with you. And I'll admit, I was really jealous."

"Do you still love me?" I blurted before I could even stop myself. I wanted to slap myself for saying this, but kept quiet while Dallas looked away from me.

"I'll always love you, Jordan," he admitted quietly, and I felt guilty for making him admit it. I didn't love him that way, and yet I had lead him on for so long... "And speaking of Hunter, was he the one that you were dancing with at prom? It looked like him, and you said his name was Hunter..."

Great, what was I going to do now? He couldn't know that I really did know Hunter... and he definitely couldn't know the reason behind it!

"No," I responded, shaking my head a little harder than necessary. "I don't remember who Hunter Drax is. The Hunter I was dancing with was... Hunter Eric."

What the hell was with my thing with calling Hunter by the name Eric? Sure, he looked like an Eric and all, but that wasn't even a proper last name. Was Dallas even going to believe me?

"Oh," he said, but that was all he was able to say about the subject before we both heard someone shouting his name.

"You're being paged," I couldn't help but mutter, wanting to smile when I saw Dallas smirk, but my body just wouldn't let me.

Letting out a sigh, he hopped up to his feet. He looked back at me, smiled, and walked off toward the direction of whoever was calling him without even saying a word to me. But I was glad that he didn't, because he must have known that I didn't really want to talk.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but I didn't even care. I wanted to stay on the dock for the rest of my life, or at least how long it took for Jesse to come back. I hated reminding myself that he was never coming back, and the night before was the last time I'd ever see him again.

When I heard whispering girls from behind me, I didn't even turn around. I just continued to stare at the water and wish that Jesse was sitting next to me.

"That's Jordan Emery," I heard one of the girls whisper, but I still didn't turn around to glare at them. There was no point in doing so anyway. If I had glared at them, they would have just ran off and would have eventually talked about me somewhere else. I wanted to hear what they said, so I wasn't about to shoo them away with my cold stares. "She's Jesse Jacobsen's enemy."

I could tell that the other girl's eyes grew wide just by the way she said, "The guy that died?"

I knew the other girl nodded. "Yeah, him. She looks pretty upset, doesn't she? What if she liked him or something? Wouldn't that be horrible? She always went around telling everyone how much she hated him, but what if she was just lying?"

When the girls walked away whispering to each other, I still didn't dare turn around. I still just stared at the water, much like I had when I found out my grandmother had died, except this time Jesse wasn't there to comfort me. No one was here to comfort me this time.

But I guess the secret was out, huh? People thought I liked Jesse because I was upset that he had supposedly died. I didn't even care anymore. People could know that I didn't hate Jesse as much as I said I did. As long as they didn't know about Hunter, I was perfectly fine.

"Hey," a soft voice said from beside me, and I almost jumped at the sound of it. I looked over to see Alex smiling sadly at me as he sat next to me, and I couldn't hold my sobs in any longer. I let them all out while Alex rubbed my shoulder, obviously noticing that I didn't want to be touched by anyone but Jesse.

"Everyone's just sneaking up on me today, aren't they?" I asked, chuckling without humor as I pulled my knees to my chest. "Usually it's only Hunter that does that."

"I've been hiding behind those trees over there ever since you woke up," Alex informed me, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder and behind him. "I've just been waiting for a time when you'd finally be alone. I'm glad Ryan called Dallas over to the cabin, because I thought he'd never leave."

I let out a quiet grunt as a response, not knowing what else I was supposed to do. I never wanted to leave that dock...

This wasn't fair. Sure, I had spent four years with him, but for most of those four years I hated his guts and couldn't even stand him. Now that I finally could be with him, Hunter had to screw it all up by making him run away and fake his death just to protect me.

"So I guess you heard," Alex sighed when my sobbing had died down, but all I could do was nod as my face continued to stay in my hands. "I'm so sorry, Jordan."

"It isn't your fault," I gulped, finally removing my hands from over my face before wiping my eyes. "It was no one's fault..."

But Hunter's, I wanted to add bitterly, but I didn't dare to.

"I heard him go out last night," Alex admitted, staring down at the water unhappily. "I was half asleep. I didn't think anything of it... I just assumed he couldn't sleep or something and he went for a walk. If I only knew he was going to go out for a drive. If I only knew that his car was going to--"

"Please," I begged, covering my ears so I wouldn't have to hear anymore. "Please don't talk about it anymore. I just can't take it."

I had an advantage over everyone. I knew that Jesse wasn't dead. I knew that he was still out there somewhere, walking on this planet as a different person. We both stared at the same moon at night, we both looked up at the same sky, and we were both still connected in a way that no one would understand, even though we were separated for the rest of our lives.

"I'm sorry, Jordan," Alex whispered, his eyes filled with as much sorrow as mine held. "I know there's no way I feel as bad as you do, but Jesse was my best friend, other than Dalton. But Dalton's my brother, so it's different... But you were in love with him."

"Yeah," was all I could say, now staring down into the murky water. I hated that I was lying to everyone, but I didn't know what else I was supposed to do. I should have at least told Alex, right? I mean, he knew all of my secrets. He knew I was in love with Jesse, and he knew about Hunter and the gang and this whole situation... So why couldn't he know about Jesse really being alive?

Because then I knew he would go after him, even if it meant him faking his own death as well. And that would hurt Lexi, which I couldn't allow. I wasn't going to let my best friend go through everything I had to go through... It was bad enough I had to go through it.

So telling Alex was completely out of the question.

Since he was such a good friend, I knew he'd go out and try to find Jesse even if he had no idea where he'd be. I was grateful to have him, but I just couldn't tell him the truth about how Jesse was really alive and not dead like everyone thought he was.

I felt like a horrible friend, but I didn't really care very much at that point. As long as my friends were safe, I didn't care.

I had no one to confide in anymore. Now that Jesse was gone, I felt completely alone, even though I wasn't. Jesse was the only one that knew everything about me, and now that he was gone, there was no one that could know all my secrets. There was no one I could rely on, even though I had the best friends in the world.

I now felt completely alone.

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I get to go to Disneyland in October. :D If you read Hey There, Delilah or When the Prince Falls in Love with the Pauper, you might know that I just went in January... I guess I'm just spoiled. xD

This story should be done by the time I go, which is October 21st, so you all won't have to wait for an upload. ;D

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :D