"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" He repeated, sounding extremely pissed off.

The tone of his voice didn't appeal to me."Trying to find you, what do you think?" I snapped back, spinning around to glare at him.

When my eyes fell on him, the force of my glare reduced until it was nothing. He didn't have his usual expression of irritation or anger on his face, instead, he looked desperate and...maybe even scared.

"You okay?" I asked him.

He snorted."I have a stupid blonde kid running after me and forcing me to talk about myself everyday, do you think I'm okay?"

Before I could react to his extremely offensive and stereotypical comment, he reached forward and grabbed my hand.

"Get out of here."

He started walking, doing his best to drag me along with him.

I didn't budge, my eyes were fixed on his colorful arm and how rough his palm felt against my elbow. Rough and warm, very warm.

Letting go of my arm, he walked around me and began pushing me forward. I realized how much stronger he was than I thought he was when he managed to propel my body forwards slightly.

I wasn't lightweight.

"Why're you pushing me?" I demanded, folding my sleeves and readying myself for a wrestling match if that's what it took to stay in the park and find out why Ethan was so scared.

He grunted."Because I want you out of here."

"But why?"

I heard him groan."How heavy are you? Do you spend all your time eating? You're so fucking heavy for a fucking kid!" He pushed me harder, speeding us up.

Although he had every right to complain because I wasn't exactly feather-light, I decided to react like a proper lady to his accusation."I don't spend all my time eating!"

"Do you spend all your time stuffing heavy rocks into your stomach then?"

"I don't. That's really gross, and I'm only as heavy as the next teenager." I yelled.

Unfortunately for me that very moment, a girl, probably not much older than me, walked past me with her stomach sticking out, she was looking as pregnant as a pregnant human can.

She gave me the evil eye.

"Does it matter? Can you please walk yourself out of the park so I don't have to escort you?" He yelled back.

"No."

Another groan."Why not? And can you stop weighing like a sack of potatoes?"

I dug my heels into the ground and stilled my body. Ethan tried to push me harder before giving up and walking around to glare at me.

"Will you get out?"

"Why?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in a classical action-movie-star way.

Admittedly, he looked kinda hot doing that, in a scary-gangster way.

"Can you wait in the cafe? I have something to take care of, I'll be there in a few minutes." The frustration on his face increased by the moment.

"What's your definition of few minutes?" I asked him, infuriating him further.

"Five minutes, just go. I'll be there, don't test my patience kid." He looked ready to punch me. His fists were clenched so tightly that his nerves were showing.

Deciding to push him further down the edge, just to see if he would snap, I said."What if you don't come in five minutes? I already wasted fifteen minutes waiting for you."

And snap he did. His voice became unbelievably low, his expression darkened and his eyes flashed."Emmaline Wilson." He growled. "Either you go right now, or- there's no or, get into the fucking cafe now!"

I stared at him with my mouth open, I didn't think anyone was capable of looking intimidating, hot and concerned all at once.

I was truly fascinated.

"Go!" He snapped again.

The fascinated kid inside me disappeared into smoke, burned by his anger and I finally began moving again.

Trying not to appear scared, I practically flew across the road and into the cafe.

Not because I was scared, but because I felt bad for him.

You keep telling yourself that. My conscience taunted.

He made me wait for another half an hour before finally coming into the cafe, with his lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed.

Since I was having to wait anyway, I'd taken out my textbook and started mugging up a couple of math formulae.

"What took you so long?" I questioned, looking at him from above my textbook and pushing a cup of slightly cold coffee towards him.

If I knew he was going to make me wait so long, I would have joined Shirley for pizza today before coming here.

"You're late." He said finally, not making any move to sit down or take his coffee.

"Excuse me? You're the one who made me wait for forty five minutes before coming here, you're the one who's late." I said, heatedly."Stop accusing me of something you did and sit down!"

"You came at 4 yesterday. Today, you came at 6, you're late." He reasoned.

Well, he wasn't wrong, but I only came early yesterday because I'd skipped practice.

"Yes, but it's 6:45 now and I've been waiting for forty five minutes, can we get down to work now? And why were you in such a hurry to get me out of the park?"

He studied me carefully, his grey eyes cold, making me feel like a math problem he was being forced to solve.

"Is that your question for today?" He slowly pulled his chair and sat down on it. Glancing down at the coffee in my hand, he shook his head."I don't want it, kid."

Before I could start a rant about all the natural resources that went into making coffee and how wasting it would be a crime and calling me a kid was really mean, I noticed the fogginess in his eyes.

Due to my one month of research on all habits of Ethan, I knew that slight dullness was common, but the expression on his face along with how sleepy he looked suddenly was the first sign of something being wrong.

"Why did you want me out of the park today?"

He didn't reply.

"You're high." I observed.

He snorted, his face becoming sheepish."I'm always high."

"No, you're...you're looking sick, what did you do?"

"Just got a new supply of drugs from Matt."

I assumed that Matt was the guy he had been speaking to for the past half an hour in the park.

Yes, I watched him even though my eyes should have been on my textbook. He'd spent the past half an hour talking to a short, blonde guy before the blonde guy gave him some packets, which he put in his jeans pocket immediately. And then, he'd taken out a roll of something and smoked it before coming here.

"And, I'm guessing you're high?"

He shrugged and nodded. "Not so high that I can't process what's happening here, but my mind is kinda mushy." Ofcourse his mind was mushy, or else, why the hell would he use the word 'mushy'? Mushy wasn't a word he was supposed to use, when someone uses the word 'mushy', the first thing that comes to a normal mind is a cuddly teddy bear, cuddly bears and Ethans didn't belong in the same sentence.

"Why did you want me out of the park?" I asked again, if his mind was mushy, he probably won't make a fuss about answering that question.

He studied me carefully, his ice-cold grey eyes resembling storm clouds, freezing me in my place as my feet started tapping on the floor restlessly at the stillness in the conversation.

"You really wanna know kid?" His tone held reluctance, like he was hesitant to tell me why he wanted me out of the park.

Was he so high that he couldn't see I was not a freaking kid?

" 'Course I do, it didn't make sense for you to literally drag me out of the park for no reason at all,I've been coming here for more than a month to watch you, and I'm going keep coming here if I want." I took in a deep breath after this, silently cursing myself for letting the last part about watching him 'for more than a month' part slip." Also, stop calling me a kid, I'm turning eighteen soon, I'm an adult in a couple of days."

He ignored my last sentence and focused on my slip-up.

"I dragged- wait a second, watching me for more than a month? What the hell! Were you stalking me?" His cool facade slipped and melted to the ground before disappearing into a crack in the floor, leaving me to look at a scared-looking Mr. Grumpy who looked like he could bolt any time soon.

"I told you, I've been wanting to write this article for some time." I defended my creepiness, forcing down the giggle that badly wanted to escape my mouth, Ethan looked funny when he was flustered, it would be like watching Vin Diesel blush, freaking hilarious.

Flattening his palms against the tiny coffee table, he breathed in deeply, apparently calming himself.

Without my permission, a giggle burst from my mouth and he threw me a dirty look.

"Shut up!"

I promptly put a finger on my lips and gave him a mocking look.

He huffed out something that sounded suspiciously like 'fucking blonde kids and their fucking bubbliness', but I couldn't be too sure about it.

"Give me a good reason I shouldn't take you into a dark alley and murder you right now? I hate stalkers, especially if they're annoying kids." The threat in his voice was clear.

The 'dark alley' and 'murder you' part would've scared the gummy bears out of any other blonde (or brunette or black haired girl or boy), but I spent most of my time visualizing other blonde's and brunette's (specifically Victor's and Hannah's) death in a bloody dark alley practically everyday, so instead of getting scared and all flustered up, I gave him another mocking look, wriggling the finger on my lips to show that my lips were shut.

He glowered at me and a scowl crossed his features, his dark hair falling over his forehead only emphasizing the look and making him look like an evil harpy.

I had to resist the urge to giggle again.

You weren't this brave when you first met him, were you?

No, I wasn't, in fact, I'd been so scared of him when I'd first met him that I was convinced he was going to murder me in broad daylight and get away with it.

I'd always been a good judge of character and although I'd only spent like, a couple of hours with Ethan, I was pretty sure he wasn't capable of murder. Reading people was very easy, at least for me, and I knew that there was no way he would go around harming innocent (or not so innocent in my case) girls just for annoying him.

Ethan sighed loudly and slumped his shoulders in resignation. "You're not scared of me, are you kid?"

I shook my head, still refusing to speak.

He sighed again. "You're an idiot."

I shook my head again, denying what he said and frowning at him for doubting my intelligence.

"You're an idiot." He repeated, completely ignoring my frown. "Only an idiot would act like you do, any smart person would've stayed miles away from me and tried not to piss me off as much as you are, and stop shaking your head, you know it's true."

My head continued whipping back and forth wildly as he disregarded me completely and said. "You know why you're stupid? Because you know how dangerous drug addicts can be and you know I'm one, you also know the shit I do is illegal but you're not backing off. Someone would think after knowing all this, you'd stop still trying to make me spill my sob story! You're one stupid blonde kid."

The last (or the second last) comment got to me and my finger dropped from my lips."So you think, I should stop meeting you and writing my article just because you can be dangerous?"

"There's no 'can be dangerous' about it, I am dangerous, and you're a fucking stupid kid."

"So, if I know that something is dangerous, you think I should stop doing it, even if I love doing it so much that I'm ready to face the consequences?"

The annoyance on his face changed to confusion as he processed my words. "Yes? So what?"

"Just confirming your opinion on this subject before making assumptions and calling you a hypocrite."

"What do-" He cut himself as realization crossed his face and his mouth and eyes popped open wide simultaneously.

"You're a hypocrite."

He narrowed his eyes until they were just slits. "Don't preach me kid, there's a huge difference between being addicted to drugs and what you're doing."

"I don't see a lot of difference, you're doing drugs even though you know how dangerous drugs are and I'm running after you even though I know that you can be dangerous. If you can't stop yourself, then neither can I."

There was silence as he considered all that I said, a thoughtful expression replaced the irritation on his face and he sighed softly. "Are you planning to be a lawyer?"

I blinked rapidly in surprise, trying my best to make a connection between becoming a lawyer, my future plans and calling him a hypocrite- finally, I said the first thing that came into my mind. "No, I told you, I want to be a writer if I can, but there was a time when I actually thought I could be a lawyer, but then I figured it would be too much of work."

"Trust me kid, you'll make one hell of a lawyer if you keep this up."

"Was that a compliment?" I was extremely confused. "And keep what up?"

"Keep up this attitude of yours where you argue about every damn thing, because that's what lawyers do."

"I don't argue about every damn thing!"

He raised a dark brow at me, smirking as I realized that he wasn't far from the truth, I did argue about everything, heck, I even argued about not arguing about everything - if that made any sense.

"Why did you want me out of the park." Since I'd lost the last argument, I didn't want to continue that particular conversation and decided to change the subject.

Thankfully, he didn't question the change of subject and went along with what I said. "Is that your question for today? Because I'm not answering more than one."

I resisted the urge to groan and hit my head against the table repeatedly. The burden of choice was one of my biggest enemies, making a choice between two things had always been ridiculously hard for me, decision making was one quality which was completely non-existent in me, and right now, there were two choices, A) I could ask him why he wanted me out of the park and satisfy my curiosity, B) I could have him continue his story and finish the article sooner.

The battle between curiosity and common sense raged in my mind, giving me a headache, until curiosity won with a big margin because the latter wasn't exactly present in my mind.

"Yeah, that's my question for today." I sounded both, resigned and weak.

"You sure?" Suddenly, he sounded reluctant, like he wasn't expecting me to ask him that question.

I just nodded, forcing myself not to show my curiosity which was raising up by the minute.

"I was buying new stuff from Matt, the guy who normally sells me my monthly supply of drugs and I didn't want you to be around him."

"That doesn't answer the question completely, why didn't you want me around him?"

"Matt's a drug dealer, it's his job to persuade kids into drugs, if he would've seen you with me, he would've taken that as an initiative to introduce you and probably convince into doing drugs, he's very good at that, especially with gullible kids like you."

My brain, stomach, legs, arms and kidneys took some time to digest that - he was looking out for me, he wanted me out of the park for my sake, not because he was being an ass as I'd automatically assumed he was - no, was actually looking out for me.

When was the last time a complete stranger tried to look out for me? Oh, right, never.

Although I wanted to thank him and hug him for being such a good person, his last sentence kind of irked me.

"I'm not gullible and I'm definitely not a kid, how many times do I have to tell you that? How stupid do you think I am to let some guy I never met in my almost eighteen years of life to convince me into doing something I loathe?"

I only mentioned the last part because he seemed hell bent on calling me a kid. I hated being underestimated and this wasn't the first time someone did it.

Instead of getting pissed off at my extremely rude speech, he simply shook his head, softening his expression to that of an adult talking to a five-year old kid and explaining why he couldn't eat ice-cream before dinner.

"You don't get it kid, Matt's very very persuasive - he can charm anyone into doing shit."

"Is that what he did to you? Was he the one who pulled you into this life where you spend more time screwing up your life than doing anything productive?" I bit my tongue immediately after I said this, cursing myself for stupidity and wishing I could take it back and say anything in the world instead. I wasn't the sweetest girl in the world but I wasn't the meanest either, I hated hurting people, especially weak ones who couldn't defend themselves, because I knew how it felt.

Ethan's eyes showed how much what I'd said affected him. He showed me the weakness and the vulnerability he had in him, now that I'd ripped away all the walls he built around himself to hide who he was, only to expose what he really was.

A poor teenager who went through enough shit in his life until he gave up and fell into a trap that kept puling him in and made him what he was now.

"I'm sorry, I tend to talk out of line sometimes."

Hurting people unintentionally and apologizing for it was a habit for me by now.

He looked down in shame and shook his head slowly like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times, his posture emitted sadness."You know it's true. I was... I was in a bad place when I met Matt - there was nothing to it, I was in such a bad state that I just took the chance when it came, to escape the reality, even if for a few hours." He sounded like he was choking on his words, there was a weakness and frailty in his voice that hadn't been there before. Like he was sick and tired of this world and wished it would just end, take him somewhere else so that he could start again and do better.

"I'll see you tomorrow if I can." He croaked out as he slowly stood up.

"No, stay." There was an urgency in my voice, I wanted to undo the damage I had caused.

He didn't sit back down, but neither did he walk away, he waited for me to say what I had to say before he ran away from me and my tendency to hurt people.

"I know I probably sound like a 'bubbly blonde kid' or whatever, but just want to say that - I'm sorry, I'm not very tactical and I tend to hurt people a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to not hurt people." Although it might sound like a plain apology to a stranger, Ethan and I both knew that there was more to it. It was my way of telling him not to give up without actually saying it and highlighting my faults instead.

There was a pause as he considered it, then he pursed his lips and looked up (or down because he was ridiculously tall) at me, his grey eyes flashing with his usual anger. "The only thing you lack is tact, but there are people out there who have have been through so much that they can't just 'try again' like you say, it's not fucking easy, and you wonder why I call you a stupid blonde kid, there's no one else in the world who deserves the title more." Turning away, and kicking his chair in his anger and stalked out of the room, his rage showing in his gait.

My shoulders slumped and I cursed myself for the hundredth time today for saying what I did, being a judgmental bitch hadn't been in my list of things to do today, but I achieved it anyway.

Stuffing my still-open textbook back in my bag, I walked out of the cafe, still kicking myself for speaking without thinking.

I really screwed up.

What is wrong with you Em? The poor guy clearly went through enough shit and judgemental assholes in his life, you're supposed be open-minded, you're supposed to accept everyone the way they are, not hurt them for calling you the kid that you are.

He was looking out for you, no one does that these days, and instead of thanking him, you went ahead and slapped him on his face,actually what you did is much worse than that, you might as well have cut off his balls instead, did you see how vulnerable he looked? Why do you think he looked like that? It's because he has something you don't have, and it's called shame. S-h-a-m-e, the thing you feel when you do something wrong.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid, you just proved yourself to be a stereotypical, insensitive blonde. You're not supposed to hurt people like that. And why the hell is there a tickle in your palm? Em-

My line (or paragraph) of thought was cut off as I looked down at my tickly palm and realized that it was being caused by my vibrating phone.

You're such a bitch that you don't deserve anyone to call you.

Ignoring my crazy side, I glanced at the phone screen to check who it was. My eyes widened and a small smile came on my face when I saw the the message, in spite of being in a bad, self-depreciating mood.

Tyler Lakes, the only friend I had apart from Shirley. The message he sent was short.

'Hey! I'm finally free from a bunch of college bullshit. I'll call you now if you're free.'

I smiled, my disappointment in myself disappearing for the moment. How long gad it been since I last talked to him?

Actually, just a week.

'It's been five years, and now you finally decide to text me, uh?'

I messaged back, informing him, in my own way, that I was free.

He was one of the few people in the world who could take anything coming out of my head.

Tyler and I had met a couple of years ago, a year before I still had friends in school and wasn't a loner who sat alone at lunch. He was a the son of one of my mom's brother's friends who also helped mom through college when she was being bullied.

It was about two years ago when I became an utter loner, lost all my friends, withdrew into my room, spent the whole day reading books and on the verge of depression, eating junk food continuously and pissing coach Horry off by putting on weight when Tyler happened to visit us with his parents for Christmas. My parents weren't the most religious people, they were so unreligious that they used to give me my Christmas presents one week before Christmas, calling it a compensation for having to watch but not have any fun while all my friends enjoyed their presents when Christmas came.

Get this- they gave me Christmas presents one week before Christmas not because of the festival itself but because they didn't want me to feel left out .

So when my parents suddenly decided to celebrate Christmas, not many people came, most of them even thought that mom was pranking them and wanted to prank her back by not turning up. Yeah that's my family.

Tyler and his mom were the only ones who turned up, and they were going to stay the night because they had come here all the way from Miami.

They didn't come here only for the Christmas party Ofcourse, but for something else altogether and they just decided to drop by and stay the night and spend the Christmas eve with us.

The Christmassy mood, the huge ornamental evergreen taking up half the already-small drawing room, the thought of two extra people invading my home and the Christmas dinner were enough to scare me shitless- in a way, it scared mom too, the thought of a Christmas dinner brought back too many memories of her controlled childhood. But she was hoping the celebratory mood could get me out of my depressed shell.

It didn't.

The moment our only guests appeared at the front door, I ran up into my room and called sick, pretending to have period cramps. Mom and dad both believed me because even back then, I was a good liar.

My absence at dinner was surprisingly well noticed by our guests, surprising because I'd never met them before, and I didn't see why it mattered to them whether I attended dinner or not.

It was pretty late at night, maybe around 11 pm, I was busy reading The Lord Of The Rings for the sixth time in the month, trying to get over how beautiful the descriptions were and contemplating whether going down and getting more of the dessert mom had sent up for me would be worth the risk of running into one of our guest when there was a knock on the door.

I immediately assumed that it was my mom and told her to come in.

The door opened slowly and a person, who could not, in any circumstance be a female, much less my mom, stepped in.

I sat up like there was a spring under my butt and watched the guy walk in slowly.

Earlier, when I'd seen Tyler and his mom walk through our drive way, the only thing I took note of was the silhouette of two figures walking casually through our huge garden before running upstairs, now that he was standing inside my messy room, I got the full effect of Tyler Lakes.

He was more on the shorter side, with broad shoulders and an even broader stomach, his brown hair was a wild mess, the clothes he wore would make a homeless man feel over-dressed.

He held two huge plastic bags of god-knows-what in his hands, the infectious smile on his face as his brown eyes twinkled made me feel warm and fuzzy.

"Hey!" He said, his smile getting so wide, I was afraid his cheeks would stretch and tear his skin.

"Mmm." Was my reply, as my brain tried to process why there was a huge, cuddly teddy bear standing in front of me and looking at me like I was a pot of honey.

"You're Emmaline, aren't you?" He didn't look least bothered by the lack of enthusiasm on my part, his was enough for both of us.

"Yeah."

"I'm Tyler, can I call you Em?" He reached for the open door.

Although I absolutely hated it when people thought they could just shorten my name and change it to suite their convenience, I was too focused on Tyler's movements as he stepped closer to the bed I was laying on and shut the door, to focus on correcting his mistake.

What was so hard about pronouncing my name anyway? Just because my name was a little weird didn't mean they could just change it.

"I brought you food."

I continued staring at him as he made his way through the bundle of clothes laying on the floor, holding his precious plastic bags up.

I glanced at the door, my only salvation, the only way I could escape this really crazy guy who claimed to bring me food and probably wanted to rape me.

He seemed to sense my apprehension and stopped mid-stride over one of my bras on the floor and looked at me.

"You're scared of me."

"Oh no, why would I be scared of you? I have strangers visiting me every other midnight. Please come on in and make yourself comfortable."

He raised his eyebrows skeptically, then held up one finger, telling me to give him a moment to explain himself.

Once he made it to one of the chairs safely, he dumped his bags on them and spoke to me.

"I'm not stupid you know? Trying anything with you would be fatal to my life."

"Not to your life but your reputation, you can't just eat dinner with someone and then rape their daughter the same day."

Shock flickered through his soft eyes and his jaw dropped, but his words were unnervingly calm for a would-be rapist. "I'm going to have to disagree with that - before my reputation, it is my life which is danger if I try anything with you."

"And how's that?" Here I was, with a random stranger who just walked into my room, discussing the prospects of being raped by the very stranger. I didn't know I was this far gone into craziness.

"Well you're a boxer aren't you? You should be able to defend yourself."

"How do you know that?" Now, I was more curious that creeped-out.

"Your mom told me. I think it's really cool." There was so much of sincerity in his voice that I couldn't help but believe him. Not many people used the word 'cool' to describe my favorite sport, and even the ones who did, weren't very truthful.

"Thanks."

He grinned as if my simple thanks had made his day, I still couldn't get over how weird this conversation was.

"I got you food." He said for the second time, looking at the plastic bags on the chair.

"That's nice but it still doesn't explain your presence here."

"Mrs. Wilson said that you had a stomach ache and couldn't be there for dinner, I thought I could bring you food."

"I didn't know the cure for stomach ache was junk food."

He just smiled even wider, making me wonder if I would have to rush to a store and buy superglue to stick his torn cheeks together when they tore apart.

"Yes, but it is for period cramps. Girls love junk food when they're on their rag."

"Excuse me?" I said, much louder than I had planned to, I couldn't even force any more words out of my mouth, my mind was too boggled up.

"Shh, I don't want Mrs. Wilson to come murder me for bringing junk food into the house, she told me she hates it."

I tried not to point out how my mom would have to murder him for other reasons as well, one of them - for being in my room at this time of the day and talking about my periods. Then there was my dad, he wouldn't be happy to find a guy in my room either.

"Let me get this straight, you sneaked junk food into a host's daughter's room because you assumed that the daughter was on her periods and wanted junk food - am I missing anything?" It sounded even more absurd than it did in my brain. What the hell was this guy thinking?

He blushed furiously at my words and gave me one more skin-stretching, awkward smile."Well, it's Christmas."

"What?"

"You asked me if you missed anything, it's Christmas, you missed that." He explained, regaining some of his composure.

Now, it was my mouth which dropped open. "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I'm just trying to be nice."

And he was, he was not only trying but also succeeding very well in getting into my good books.

Most guys find the whole monthly ordeal girls face something to be afraid of or joke about, this one brought me junk food.

"Thanks but, this is still weird."

He laughed, picking up one of the bags and tossing it to me before pulling a chair to sit by mu bed.

"I know, but I'm leaving tomorrow morning and I thought I could make a friend here before leaving."

It took me a lot more time to process that than it did for me to comb out the tangles in my wild, curly hair.

"You're here for my friendship." My brain was still confused, but the smarter part of me was already warning me against making any more friends, they just weren't worth it.

He shrugged again. "Yeah, why don't you start eating while we try and get to know each other."

"What if I don't want to?"

"Don't want to what?"

"What if I don't want be your friend?"

That brought a serious expression into his happy-go-lucky face, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility of someone not wanting friends and he frowned, the frown looked unnatural on him.

"Why not?"

"I just don't."

It grew quiet. Slowly he reached for the other bag on the chair and pulled out a square box.

My eyes widened when I saw what it was and I gasped. "Is that pizza?" The excitement in my voice was a little too obvious, making me sound like a kid who got his first Christmas present.

"Maybe, maybe it's even pepperoni." There was a mischievous smile on his face.

"You're kidding me."

He put the box on my bed and opened the lid slowly, revealing a huge, clearly pepperoni pizza. The smell coming from the pizza had me drooling.

I unconsciously reached for it, only to be stopped by Tyler when he said. "You can have the whole thing, I brought a few more just in case."

"But why?" I whimpered, my hand inches away from the delicious piece of heaven.

"I also brought a little ice-cream, it's in the fridge.

I couldn't control myself anymore, my hand snatched away a piece of heaven and I started chewing it in an as unladylike way as possible, making Tyler snort with laughter. I chewed on my pizza and glared at him, daring him to stop me from enjoying what was rightfully mine.

After laughing for a few moments, he stopped and watched me patiently until I finished the pizza. Then he pulled out another box from his plastic packet.

I almost chocked. "How many do you have?"

"Two more. Don't tell me you're full. I thought you loved pizza."

"What do you mean you 'thought' I loved pizza? Pizza's my life."

"Prove it." He pushed the second box on to the bed.

I shook my head. "I'm full."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, but I think you need to go."

"Why?"

"Because you're nice."

"You don't like nice people?"

"I just don't like people in general right now."

"Some stupid incident in school hurt you or something?"

"It wasn't a stupid incident."

"Oh? The what was it?"

"A revelation."

"And what's that?"

"That people are assholes."

He smiled again, so wide that it hurt my own cheeks when he did, the way his eyes sparkled was an indication of how he was simultaneously amused and happy that I called him an asshole indirectly.

"I know." He said.

And just like that, we clicked. It was hard not to. We spent the entire night together (not in a dirty way!), we talked and talked and talked about any thing that came into our minds. I told him what 'stupid' thing happened and how I came to my revelation and he told me how he had been bullied by everyone in junior school and why he hated highschool.

In one night (again, not in a dirty way) we got to know each other, we ate like pigs and ditched all kinds of manners, just took pleasure in going to the basics and cursing everyone we hated and telling each other why we hated them.

I didn't understand why Tyler was such a people-pleasing person even after being bullied so much in school that he had scars all over his body, but then I realized that that's what people-pleasing people did, they tried to make everyone around them happy, even if they lost theirs. They pleased and loved and helped until they couldn't do it anymore, but did it anyway.

And, in a way, I was a people-pleasing person too, I wanted to be appreciated and loved by everyone around me, so I treated everyone well, I smiled and took any subtle insults thrown at me, I lied to them and to myself and changed myself for the snobby people I wanted to please.

He didn't have many friends in school, but that didn't stop him from trying to make friends outside, I didn't want any friends at all because I wasn't sure if those friends could be be trusted.

I'd always been an easy person to influence, and that night, Tyler rubbed off on me, I realized that, although people out there didn't give a shit about you, there were others who did.

My parents. I loved my parents, but Tyler taught me how important parents were, how much they cared about me and how I wasn't appreciating it.

I came away from our long conversation feeling warm and fuzzy and happy for the first time in the month.

It was around four when we stopped talking and just stared at each other, still unable to comprehend what had come to pass. "I'm still confused about something."

"What's that"

"Do you make it a habit of visiting every girl in her bedroom once you find out they're on their period?" When mom had made my excuses at dinner, he had just assumed that I was on my period and brought me the food.

"No."

"Then why did you do it this time? What if I didn't want the pizza? What if I kicked you out? Do you know how weird it is for a guy to talk to a girl about her periods?"

He grinned. "I made an educated guess."

"Now I'm scared to ask how you educated yourself."

He laughed, a clear, deep sound that bounced off the walls that I was already loving. "Relax Em, I go to a co-education boarding school, I'm used to dealing with cranky girls on their periods."

"Except, I'm not cranky, or on my period and my name is definitely not Em, it's Emmaline." I was still uncomfortable with a short name.

"But nicknames are cool."

"I don't want one."

"You promised to change and stop caring so much, remember? Changing your name and not caring about it is the first step."

I frowned thoughtfully. "You think so?"

"I know so."

"Em." I said softly, rolling the name on my tongue.

"I like it."

He smiled.

He left after about an hour to catch an early flight back home, neither of our parents knew what happened and why we suddenly became such good friends, but my parents were too happy about me making new friends to question it.

Tyler wasn't the factor that changed me, he just helped my transaction from the girl who cared too much, to a girl who only cared about her family and her closest friends- the rest of the world could hang.

Keeping my family as constants, I let the people around me become variables, I stopped caring about them, I stopped trying to make them happy. My wardrobe went for a one-eighty degree shift as I started wearing extra-large clothes, my hair style resembled a forest and I had as much charm as a gorilla, but I was okay with it, I was happy.

Tyler and I kept in touch, he was my only friend until after Christmas holidays ended. Shirley joined the boxing team after Christmas, giving me one more friend. And that was all I needed.

For the past few years, Tyler and I talked to each other almost every day, but now that he was in college and my finals were close, we stopped calling each other that frequently, and since our conversations normally lasted hours, he messaged me before calling, in case I was busy.

I probably looked like a creep when I looked down and smiled at the vibrating phone, readying myself for an hour of blabbing with Tyler.

Author's note - Hey, that is the next part, it took me forever because I wrote about 6500 words so please comment and let me know what you think, I really need feedback :]

Thanks for reading :]

Cyan

[Unedited, so it might not make sense in some parts, please bear with it]