There's a knock at my door; when I open my eyes, I have to squint a little because the sun is shining through my room. I forgot to close the curtains last night once Jessica climbed back out the window.

My grandfather enters the room, slowly looking at me, making sure I am not sleep, "Oh good, you're up," he walks farther in and takes a seat on my bed. I scout over, giving him more room. "Are you alright, Jay?"

I nod.

A smile creeps at the corner of his mouth, and he says, "Your parents may be blind to your pain, but I am not,"

I sit up and criss-cross my legs, pushing my hair back from my face. "If you did something unknowingly to another person, and this thing ruined their life, would you tell them?"

He thinks about my question and then replies, "Yes, telling the truth is a loving act. The truth may hurt for a little while, but a lie hurts forever,"

My head slowly nods as I take in what he's saying; he didn't give me a direct answer, "So are you saying you wouldn't tell them?" I ask, ambivalent.

"I'm saying that if you want the friendship or relationship to be based on fake happiness, then don't tell them. If you want to see if the relationship can withstand this lie, then tell them,"

"What if it doesn't, you know, withstand?"

He says with easy eyes, "Then it wasn't meant to be,"

...

I throw my hoodie over top of my head and then rush downstairs to the living room; everyone is sitting around watching TV.

I'm not surprised that it's some cheesy holiday movie. Yet another reason why I hate the holidays.

"Nice of you to join us," my father says once he notices me.

My mother looks over, "There's breakfast on the table,"

"I uh, actually I'm going to meet Jessica," I lie. I really have to go to work. I'll be meeting Jessica later.

"What time will you be back?" she asks.

I shrug my shoulders, "8 maybe,"

"Okay," I start to walk away, and then she adds, "Oh, I invited Caleb to the Christmas party next week,"

"What?" I thought he was flying down to California for Christmas.

"Are you okay with that?"

"You already invited him, so," Again, my parents, well this time just my mother failed to include me in the decision of inviting Caleb to the diner party. "I'll see you guys later," I say; frustrated, I look over to my grandfather and give him a warm smile, "Bye, Grandpa,"

"Have a nice day,"

I turn on my heels and walk out of the house, heading to the diner.

Once arriving, I remove my coat and hang it onto the rack. I go behind the dinner, grab the apron, and then tie it around my waist. I still can't get over the fact that I'm working.

Me Jayda King, a waitress.

A part of me would love to see the looks on my parent's faces when I tell them. This job won't stay hidden for long. Nothing with me ever does.

Caleb called me this morning, right after my grandfather left my room; I sent the call to voicemail; I really don't want to talk to him. I'm scared. My grandfather said that telling the truth is what is best because then I can see if our relationship can stand.

I should be confident in our relationship withholding the force breaking secret, but I'm not. This isn't a small matter; this is huge. I'm the reason his sister is dead. He will never forgive me.

Hamlet's uncle killed his father, and because of that, Hamlet wanted to kill him. Hamlet being related to Claudius meant nothing to him; he was the reason his father was dead, and that's all that mattered.

Hamlet could have easily forgiven his uncle... his own flesh and blood for killing his father, but he didn't.

He chose revenge over mercy.

What will Caleb choose?

The dinner doorbell jingles signaling that someone has come in; Jessica is walking over to me; when I look up, I ask, "What are you doing here? I thought I was meeting you later" I didn't tell her that I worked here.

"Everyone knows you work here," she replies, seeing my worried face, "Anyways, I finished the essay,"

She hands me two papers; I quickly skim over them. Over the years, I have practiced my speed reading, for no reason at all, now that I think about it.

"So, how is it?" she asks after I remain silent for a little too long,

"Uhh, it's okay," It's a good essay, but it feels like it's missing something.

She sighs, "It's missing something. I'm telling you we need a good story, and the AJ Crawford thing is perfect,"

Not this again, "Jessica, we can't," Her shoulders slump. "I already have so much going on; I can't add that on,"

"Jayda, just think of all the people we can help, think of what exposing this would do,"

"Exposing what?" I question, raising my voice a little, "We know nothing; for all, we know he could've changed schools last minute,"

She gives me this looking saying, I doubt it. "Well, we know where his mother is; how about we take a drive to New Jersey and ask her for ourselves," she suggests.

I stare at her and shake my head. "We can't, I can't," Rachel told me to take it easy and not overwork myself; playing high school detective will be overworking myself.

There are a million other things I have to do—a million other things that I would rather be doing than investigating this.

She blows her breath in defeat, "Fine then I guess the project is done, we'll be lucky if we get a B," she stands up from the booths, clearly upset, "I'll see you later," she says while getting up from the booth. She turns around and walks towards, then out the dinner doors.

After work, I don't bother to change my clothes; I'm not going home anytime soon, so, what's the point. I decide that I am going to go see Ryder.

I need to see him, especially after everything that happened yesterday. I have so many questions, I wasn't able to ask all that I wanted to ask because of my breakdown, but I think I have cried all I can.

Willow's death still weighs heavily on me; at this point, it's more guilt than sadness. I wonder if Claudius felt guilty after murdering his own brother?

Instead of going to the front of the Adam's house, I decided to walk around it to reach the poolhouse; I can't be bombarded with questions from Evelyn and Josiah right now. I'll let Ryder explain to them why he lied.

Without knocking, I walk right in; he's sitting on his bed, in grey sweatpants, no shirt, and that freaking black notebook in his hand. My cheeks flush for some odd reason.

My eyes flicker to the side and then go back to him, I'm tempted to look down at his muscular body, but I keep my eyes trained on him, "Hey," I say nervously.

"Hey," he replies; he closes the book and then sticks it into the drawer beside him. What the hell is writing in there? He keeps it at his side at all times, and he's always writing in it.

I read this book once where this guy did the exact same thing; the girl had no idea what and why he was always writing, but in the end, she found out, and it turned out he was writing their story, which happened to be the actual book.

Pretty creative.

I doubt that's what he's writing in there, though.

After closing the door behind me, I walk further into the room, "Thank you for yesterday, with calling Jessica and everything," If it weren't for him, I would've cut and then lost my thirty-day cutting sobriety. "Why did you call her?" I ask the first question I want to know.

He responds, "I knew you were going to do something stupid because you blame every fucking thing on yourself,"

I look away from him and then look down to the floor, a reaction to his candid statement.

"Not everything is your fault," he adds. When I look back up to him, he says, "Maybe you should do what I do,"

"Which is?"

"Blame my problems on other people; it really helps me to not think so negatively about myself," he answers, causing a lite laugh to come out of my mouth.

The smile on my face causes him to smile, I know Ive seen him smile before, but something happens every time he smiles at me.

I clear my throat, "What were you doing?" I take a seat at the far end of his bed.

He looks at me but doesn't respond; instead, he asks, "What's that?" His eyes got to my hand that's holding the two papers Jessica gave me.

"Oh, me and Jessica's essay, for our senior project,"

He nods.

The room goes silent; I let two minutes pass before asking my next question. "How come you're not mad at me?'

"Why would I be?"

"Willow was pregnant; the accident happened because of me; I basically killed your girlfriend and your unborn child. How could you not be mad?"

He looks away and runs his hands through his hair, "I'm not so sure the baby was mine,"

"What do you mean? It had to be she was only with you," At least that's what Caleb said.

He frowns and says, "And you heard that from Caleb, right?" I don't respond because he and I both know that's who I heard it from, "She wasn't just with me,"

"That's not what he--"

"Said?" he cuts me off, "Of course not because he only knows what she told him. Willow was manipulative and crazy,"

I laugh. "Well, you do have a type," I say, referring to Ashley.

He narrows his eyes and then says, "That baby wasn't mine,"

"Well, Caleb thinks it is; that's why he doesn't like you. You took his sisters virginity, possibly got her pregnant, and then denied your potential baby,"

This time he laughs, "First of all, maybe your boyfriend should make sure he knows the whole fucking story before he tells it," he says harshly.

"Second, I didn't take her virginity; she took mine. Taking a girl's virginity comes with a lot of baggage, baggage I don't ever want," he states.

And third, "I denied the baby because I was 100% sure it wasn't mine. I'm not even convinced she was pregnant. I'm almost positive she made it up because-" he pauses.

"Because what?" I hate when people stop in the middle of their thought.

He shrugs his shoulder and says, "I don't know," meaning I know, but I'm not telling you.

"So Caleb lied to me?"

"I don't think he lied. I just think he spoke on something he knows nothing about,"

The thought of Caleb, having an inaccurate picture of his sister, is sad. I know if I tried to explain to him what Ryder just explained to me, he will be mad. There's no way he would believe me if I told him I got my info from Ryder.

I don't know if I fully believe him, though. This wouldn't be the first time he has lied to me. Unlike Ryder, Caleb has never lied to me, so I should believe him over Ryder.

"Yesterday, when you said you didn't hate me, did you mean it, or did you tell me that so that I could shut up?"

He replies, "I don't hate you, Jayda; you annoy the fuck out of me, but I could never hate you."

A smile creeps at the side of my mouth; I quickly turn my head the opposite way so he won't see.

We sit in silence for about thirty minutes, just allowing the stillness in the room to speak for us. It's nice to know that he's not talking to me now because there's nothing to say, instead of thinking he's not speaking to me because he hates me.

I still wonder why, though, he wasn't trying to talk to me before if he didn't hate me. I've already asked enough questions for the day. I will ask that another time.

"What do you have on?" he asks, looking at my uniform.

"Ohh, Uhm, it's a uniform. I have a job." I proudly say.

He almost smiles. "You have a job? Why?"

"Because I want to work,"

His eyebrows scrunch. "Again, why?"

"I need the money,"

"Jayda King needs money?"

I roll my eyes and say, "I want my own money."

He then asks me why I want my own money. I hesitate but then explain to him that the events in New York at the NYU interview weren't a coincidence. He tenses up as I tell him what my father did to me and how he ruined my shot at the only school I was interested in going to.

I'm uncomfortable sitting here explaining some of my problems to him; what I'm going through is nothing compared to what he's going through. What I caused him to go through.

"What about you? Are you still going to go to UCLA?" I remember his father mentioning once that that was the school he was planning on going to. I'm sure things have changed now.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" he says slightly forcefully.

"I just thought that with everything, you might be changing your career goals,"

"I'm going to play football again!" he defensively replies.

I don't say anything; I just look at him, trying to hide the sadness. I highly doubt he will play again; he most likely will never walk the same, let alone play in a combat sport.

But if he thinks he is, who am I to say he's not.

I will never take anyones hope away. Sometimes it's the only thing that keeps us going.