The day he realized my crazy stalking came sooner than I thought it would. And I definitely hadn't been ready for it. It was just another day, and I found myself watching his cheeks as he puffed them out, then shrank them, puffed them out, and shrank them rhythmically. It was fascinating and hypnotizing.

I watched him without tearing my gaze from him for a long time, then realized that I'd been ogling at him for almost 20 minutes straight, and staring at a stranger for that long could get you into trouble with that particular stranger. So I tried to force myself to look down.

I couldn't.

I watched as my subject slowly, deliberately, dropped his smoking hand to the side and looked up. The distance between us made it hard for me to decipher his expression, but I knew that he knew that I'd been watching like a creep for far too long.

He stood straight, away from the wall. Slowly, he took one step

Then

And the next

Four steps later, I knew for a fact that he was walking in my general direction, the frown on his face was becoming more and more obvious on his pale face.

Was he pissed off at my incessant staring? Probably. I held his gaze for a moment longer before snapping my head down and glaring at my books instead.

I shouldn't have stared at him for that long, maybe if I told him that I hadn't been staring at him but watching the birds behind his head, he would believe me and not bite my head off. After all, he was a drug addict and people who do drugs generally don't like being watched by teenaged girls. Or so I'd heard.

I heard his footsteps coming closer and closer, they seemed to get louder the closer he got to me. I clenched my fists tightly, I felt scared and nervous all at once. Was he coming to tell me off? Have me thrown out of the park for being creepy? Or maybe he'll just murder me.

Murder is not good, I decided.

Studying, yes, studying, that's exactly what I'd been doing for the past one hour, nothing less, nothing more.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself to argue with the guy about my rights an an American citizen to stare at anything but my books even if I WAS supposed to be studying, because textbooks are much less interesting than birds flying behind a person's head. That HAD to be a good argument, right?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are some moments in my life in which I realise how stupid I am, and this moment was one of those moments.

My subject, or rather the guy who was apparently going to murder me for staring at him too long, walked right past me, stopped at the trash bin next to my bench and dropped his cigarette into it.

You're an idiot Emmaline, you really are I told myself.

Why would somebody murder me just for staring at them anyway? I was just being stupid by thinking that he would even notice me, after all, I had been coming to this park for quite a few days and he had no reason to -

"Do you have a problem with me?"

I practically jumped out of my skin before looking up to meet a pair of very scary grey eyes ready to burn holes into my head.

I'd seen him a lot of times this past month, actually, I'd seen him every day this past month, but now that I was getting a closer look at him, I finally understood the meaning of a bad boy.

He was tall, so tall that he would have to bend to look down at me even if I stood up. His jet black hair, eyes and clothes only added to his 'bad boy' look. Both his arms had tattoos, like, the entirety of the exposed arms were covered in colour. The only thing missing was multiple piercings on his nose.

For all I knew, he did have piercings, ones he chose to hide with his black shirt and dark jeans.

Although, the though of someone having to hide piercings with jeans bothered me a little. Where would you have to get pierced to hide it with you jeans?

His eyes reminded me of clouds in a storm, ready to strike me down with thunder at moment's notice.

"What?" I probably could have given a better answer to his aggressive- sounding question.

He narrowed his eyes, getting ready to shoot thunder at me.

"Half an hour, you've been staring at me for the past fucking half an hour and it's pissing me off, what do you want!?"

That was an easy question, wasn't it? I wanted him to tell me exactly why he started doing drugs so that I could write an article about it and put it on the internet.

I don't think he's going to appreciate it Em.

You gotta love your subconscious, right? Always right on point.

" Nothing really, the birds behind your head were really pretty." That sentence didn't sound as convincing as it did in my bran.

" The birds behind my head?" The way he said it, I felt like the size of my brain was the size of a bird's.

There's a reason"bird brain" is considered an insult.

I sighed. Maybe asking him directly would be better, he didn't look as as angry as he did earlier.

" Yeah, they're really pretty you know, and they come in all kinds of colours. Red, blue, yellow, green and some are even black."

Or not.

He looked confused. Yep, definitely doubting my IQ level.

My dad always said honesty is the best policy, I should probably try it out now, hopefully, he won't spit on me for it. "I'm sorry, I just want to talk to you," I said.

"You want to talk to me?" If possible, he looked even more confused than before, but it didn't last.

Slowly, his expression changed, from confusion to utter irritation.

Then he went on to say: " If you're one of those self- righteous pricks who want to talk me out of smoking, then I'm out of here."

He turned to leave, but I stopped him before he could take more than a few steps away from me.

" I don't want to talk you out of doing drugs, I just want to know why you do them" I felt a little bad for him, did he have to deal with a lot of nosy teenaged girls trying to talk him out of his only reprieve?

That thought was enough to scare me

He spun around so fast, I was surprised he didn't get whiplash.

" I don't do drugs, I smoke." He sounded so defensive, it was almost funny.

Almost

"You and I and probably the entire park knows for a fact that the stuff you smoke is illegal and I'm not going to tell the cops or anything, I just want to know why"

He didn't reply , instead, he stood stone still like he was wondering if it would be worth his time if he just burnt me to crisp right now.

" I told you I don't want any fucking therapy, didn't I?" He broke his silence, he sounded even more pissed of now, although there was a slight undertone of curiosity in his voice.

I guess, in a way, I did sound like a therapist trying to force him into being a good boy.

If he was curios, he'd want to know more, right? " I'm a journalist, an aspiring journalist, or rather an aspiring article writer and I want to write about how high college tuition fees is leading to drug intake in college students and I need someone to give their story so that I can use that person's story as an example and write my article and you're the one who's not too scary to approach"

I said all this very quickly and in a very high voice.

Hopefully, he won't understand what I'd said and I would be able to figure out another way to persuade him to tell me his story.

No such luck.

" You want to write about me and put it out there for everyone to read it!?" He seemed to be horrified by the thought, if his expression was anything to go by." What the hell made you think that I'd want people to read about me?Are you crazy? How stupid do I look?"

I decided not to answer that question honestly, sometimes honesty is not the best policy.

This time when he started walking away from me, it looked like he was fleeing from my craziness.

Dumping my 'strictly educational' books on the ground, I ran after him. Isn't that what most journalists do? Sprint after people? Or maybe that's the job of paparazzi.

I ran a little ahead of him and turned around to face him, blocking his path. Trying not to notice how his eyes were getting ready to strike me down with thunder, I spoke.

" Look. I know it sounds like I'm unnecessarily butting into your life, but trust me, it'll be worth it."

"No, I don't see how people reading about my drug intake is going to be worth anything."

"Come on, I won't even put your name on the article"

" Nope"

" Please?, just the facts, I don't even want the entire story"

" Not happening"

" Please"

" Goodbye."There was nothing to it, he moved past me with a blank expression on his face. "It was nice meeting you though, I like the work you're trying to do, I would help you if I could but telling a high- schooler my sob story isn't exactly appealing, you know?" He added that last bit as if it was supposed to make me feel better.

It didn't. This sounded like a breakup where the guy says ' it's not you, it's me, we're breaking- up because of me'.

Behind me, I heard a couple arguing about something, the girl was crying. That was what made the next sentence come out of my mouth.

" You're worse than an ex-boyfriend you know, at least they give you better excuses when they break your heart!" My yell was loud, I little too loud.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me.

"Why? Did you come out of a bad relationship recently?" His tone was full of curiosity.

I didn't see how a bad relationship was so interesting to him, but I decided to go with that story.

" Maybe, maybe not, it doesn't matter". I tried my best to make myself sound like a heart-broken girls - truth be told, I never even had a boyfriend for him to break my heart, but, if it was going to keep this a guy around, I decided not to mention it.

His pale features twisted into a frown " I'm sorry."

"Whatever."

He stood in front of me, not making any move to get away from me like he had been earlier.

"Look. I'll make a deal with you."

"Does it include you talking to me about your addiction?" I tried not to sound too happy, mostly because faking disappointment seemed to do the job of keeping him around instead of making him run away and leaving me in the dust with real disappointment.

"How about you tell me about your relationship and your ex-boyfriend, and I tell you whatever you want to know?" He held my gaze, showing me that he meant what he said and that he was being serious.

It took me a moment to realize that, somehow, yelling at him had saved me from losing a good article.

" You want to know about my sucky relationship." I needed to confirm his demands, mostly because it felt too good to be true. He wanted to know the story of a stupid teenager's highschool boyfriend (who was non-existent in my case) in return for his story which he had been refusing to tell me. As unbelievable as it sounded, there was no way I was going to let this chance go.

" Yeah." He said. " Why I want to know is not your business, but you tell me your story and I tell you yours. You give and you take."

There was no way I was going to tell him that I never even went out on a date, much less had a bad relationship.

Just make one up you idiot, it's not like you have any other choice.

Making up a boyfriend couldn't be that hard right? And I was going to go to hell anyway for being an atheist.

"Do we have a deal?" He looked particularly anxious to seal it.

" Yeah, it's not going to be easy but I'll manage somehow, my article is important." I was already slipping into the character of a broken-hearted girl. For a moment, I felt guilty then I pushed those thoughts away, this was for a good cause, wasn't it?

His expression brightened immediately. "Okay, let's get out of here then, we're looking like fools standing in middle of the park and arguing"

He started walking away again.

I couldn't agree more with him, so I started jogging after him for the second time today, trying my best to hide my smile.

Author's note: Hey! So for whoever is reading this, please let me know what you think! Thanks!

Dedicated to most_bay for reading, for having an opinion , for helping me promote my book here and there, for shaming me into doing more research (I haven't started yet, but I'm on my way to start considering putting more effort into this), for writing Melody (check it out if you haven't already. I love that book), for being incredibly sweet and supportive. 

(Do you know how many times I had to rewrite this because I don't know if you're a he|she?)

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! :)

Cyan