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  “NO,” he shouts laughing at me as he continues to run. I sigh and begin to run towards him, although I cannot see and I trip face planting into the mud of the field. I know that he was watching me because I feel hands on me as the first drop slides down from the sky. “Are you okay?” he asks, holding back a smile.

  “What is so funny?” I ask,

  “You are covered in mud,” he tells me and I instantly start trying to wipe it off, “Stop, it’s adorable and you’re not doing anything to help it. Come on let’s find a place to sleep and get refreshed.”

  We found a Ho ]o’s only a few minutes later and pulled into the parking lot as the rain is now descending onto us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us. By the time we have the keys and get the bags from the car we are both drenched as we fall into the dingy motel and start laughing.

  “Well the dirt is off your face.” he smiles to me and I grin “I’m going to go get some ice; you go get changed and dry off.” I smile and nod my head as I walk into the bathroom and I turn on the shower. Taking off my pants I realize that I have forgotten all of my shower supplies on the other side of the door, and I try to listen for the door shut, when I hear it I swing the door open and I am shocked as I see Chase standing in front of me. His eyes bulge out of his head when he looks to me standing in front of him in nothing but my T-shirt and panties, and I can’t stop myself when he takes a quick step forward I do too; telling him that it is alright.

  His lips crush mine before I can think about what is happening, and he picks me up placing his hands on my ass and moving us into the bathroom, he sits me down on the sink as we continue to kiss and I feel his need for me I pull at his shirt and he instantly pulls back.

  “What did I do?” I ask him confused.

  “Nothing,” he murmurs looking back up to me and smoothing out my hair, “Not like this.” He tells me.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “You are too special for it to be anything less than the most memorable.”

  “Chase, I’m not a virgin.” I admit to him.

  “I know, but it still has to be perfect. You deserve for it to be perfect.” He tells me placing a kiss back on my lips and then turning around and walking out of the room, “Take a shower. I’m going to go stand in the freezing rain for a little bit.” I can’t help it but laugh as he leaves the room.

  I see his car pulling out of the garage and I cannot force myself to look away. I have to know if it’s him, I have to see his face. The nose of the old GTO comes into view and my breathing stops as the window slides out from behind the large cement walls. I think that I am going to fall over when his perfectly sculpted face comes into view but the rain is pounding so hard that I have to squint to be able to see him. As soon as our eyes meet I feel my legs pulling me in the direction farthest away from him, and I don’t stop to look back and see if he’s following me, but I think I hear his low husky voice call after me. When I open the door to the bar I am drenched and I fall into the door landing hard on the floor as everyone in the back turns to look at me.

  Chase

  “Ariana,” I shout, jumping out of my car and running towards the alley that she just took off down.

  I know it was her. How could it not have been her? Granted the pink hair was no longer there it has faded or has been discarded of, but it was her. The moment our eyes met she turned and began to run away. I jumped from the car leaving it halfway hanging out of the garage and tried to run after her, the rain was pounding onto the ground so much by then that I can’t see down the alley that she had ran. Everything significant with us happened around the rain; our first kiss, the first time we had sex, the last time I ever saw her again. Rain just seemed to be a part of who we were.

  I head back over to the car and slide into the driver’s side, I can hear the car horns behind me begin to honk to tell me to get out of the way, I send them a friendly hand gesture and continue on with my drive. I make the left out of the parking lot and turn down the alley that she had ran, driving slowly. I huff when I can’t find her, but I continue to scour the streets for an hour before heading back to the hotel.

  I walk through the door into the room that I am staying at and toss my keys to the slide pulling out my phone and punching in Will’s number.

  “Hey man, thought I would have heard from you by now, you find him?” I’ve been meaning to call him.

  “Yeah,”

  “And did he know where she was?” He asks.

  “Nope, they haven’t spoken in years apparently, but I think I just saw her” I admit to him.

  “Where are you at?”

  “Savannah,”

  “What are you doing there?” He sounds shocked.

  “It was on my way home, and I’ve never been here. I remember you guys nice it was, so I came here, but I saw her Will.”

  “Are you sure it was her?” I can hear it in his voice that he thinks I’m losing it.

  “Well when I looked up she was staring at me as if I was a ghost and then started running.” I say it trying to hide the sadness in my voice.

  “She ran?” he asked confused.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s just as long as I have known her she was never a runner.” He laughs and I become slightly pissed. How could he makes a joke right now?

  “Yeah, maybe it wasn’t her.” I pause knowing deep down that it was her, I know that she saw me and it terrified her, I know that she probably hates me, but I have to find her. I have to tell her that it’s my fault and that I came here to find her. “Can you do me a favor Will and just look her up in Savannah.”

  “Alright,” Here was Will as my Private Detective. It was his job though, and I was paying him. I let myself sink into the mattress and then I quickly fall into sleep. I will look for her tomorrow. I will find her tomorrow.

  Chapter ten

  Ariana

  I let myself think a dozen different scenarios at work that night all included telling Chase about Avery, but not one of them turned out well.

  When he came in from the rain I was already dressed and dried sitting in front of the TV trying not to watch him as he comes in even more soaked than when he went outside.

  I try not to think about him naked as he is in the shower and when he comes back out in only a pair of basketball shorts I can’t help but stare. He scoots into the bed next to me finally turning and looking to me.

  “I’m sorry about earlier.” He looks down, embarrassed.

  “Don’t be.” I tell him, trying to explain to him that I wanted it as well.

  “Ariana, I should have never come onto you like that.”

  “Chase, shut up.” His mouth begins to protest as I stop him, “I want you too.” I say looking over to him and pressing my mouth back to his. I felt the smile curve up to his lips as he pulled back.

  “Alright then, but I meant what I said.” I nod to him telling him that I understand as he slides down into the sheets. I had only known this man for three weeks but yet it seemed as if we had known one another for our entire lives. As we lay in the bed, in the dark, I stare to him watching him watch me through the light coming from the parking lot.

  “Tell me something that I don’t know.” I say to him.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know how many girlfriends have you had?”

  “One.” He tells me and I cock my head looking up to him.

  “One?” I sound shocked, mostly because he’s so attractive.

  “Yeah, Leigh-Ann, we were dating when Matt died. She tried to be supportive, but I just shoved her away from me. Eventually after she found out that I cheated on her she left me for good.” You think that I would be shocked that he cheated on her, but I’m not.

  “Did you love her?”

  “At one time maybe, but after Matt died I was too broken to love anyone. That’s why I cheated on her, I just wanted to feel something, and I couldn’t.” I wonder if he means that he is still too broken.

 
“So you haven’t dated anyone since you were sixteen?” I ask, and for a second he looks shocked that I remembered how old he was when his brother died.

  “No,” he sighs, “Ariana, I’m not going to lie to you, I haven’t been celibate either, in fact farther from the truth.”

  “And you look at me thinking that I’m the perfect child? Please, after my mother was killed I lost my way. I tried to date I really did, it made me feel better about it if I was dating them at least, the longest relationship I’ve ever had was a month.” I confess to him.

  “There wasn’t anyone before.” He asks.

  “I was fifteen when she was killed and I was dating someone, it was just a young relationship we thought that making out in the woods behind his house was sneaking around. Well, after that night I completely shut down, he started to pull away, and I thought that if I gave into sex and let him that we could stay together even if I was emotionally broken. That wasn’t the case. He dumped me the next day which is probably part of the real reason I became the person I did. Then when Hannah moved away after graduation I had to get out of there. I knew that if I didn’t that I would get even worse, she hated how I was acting, but I think my mother being killed affected her almost as much as it did me. We got pretty bad there for a little bit, especially when my dad had to go out of town for weeks at times. Throwing house parties, getting high off of whatever we could, drinking, and it usually ended up in hooking up with random guys. I hate to think about what would have happened to Hannah if she would have heard the things that he said.”

  “Who said?” He asked me and I realized that I had said too much.

  “Erg, Nothing, no one” I stuttered over my sentence.

  “Don’t do that Ariana, look nothing that you can say will scare me off.” I don’t know how but I already knew that. I sighed deeply and looked back at him.

  “The night my mother died. I wasn’t at the neighbor’s house, I was at mine. I had come home early because I knew that my mother was sad that afternoon about my dad being gone. I was woken up that night,” I pause, sitting up, and I can see that night just as clearly as when it happened; I’m staring off remembering everything as if I am reliving it, “by her screams. He told her that I was next, that he was going to do what he was doing to her with me, only she would have to watch it,” I watch his mouth drop open and he scoots closer to me in the bed, “She screamed that I wasn’t home and I knew that it was the only chance; that I had to get away. I jumped out of my bed and opened the window silently, sliding out of it and I ran. I collapsed on Hannah’s front door and when I rang the bell I told them that I had gone home and found her that way. No one questioned me, and I never told them that I heard everything. I never told them that I could have saved her.” I let myself cry lying in the bed facing Chase and he wraps his strong arms around my body pulling me into him, soothing me and patting my hair. He held me like that crying, feeling his strong chest against my cheek. Finally, after I let myself calm a bit he pulls me back looking into my eyes and he says.

  “Ariana, you couldn’t have stopped him. You were just a kid.” He tells me and deep down I know that he is right, but for whatever reason I cannot make myself believe that it is the real truth. He holds me for the rest of the night until I am asleep in his arms

  I wake earlier the next morning and roll over to stare at the wall. Why had I told him that last night? I have never told anyone the truth about that night that I was there, that it could have been me, that I hated myself every day of my life for not trying to save her. I pull myself out of the bed and I walk over to my bag that sits in the corner of the room, glancing over at the bed towards Chase I can see the slight light of the rising sun coming through the curtains. I pull out my bathroom essentials and I walk into the bathroom, feeling the cold tiles on my feet. I silently shut the door and open the bag. I sit on the toilet thumbing the zipper that opens up to the razor blade that’s packed securely in place.

  I’m not sure how long I sit on the toilet staring at the compartment that I know holds the blade. The blade that has managed to set all of my pain free in the past years. My thoughts are broken apart when I hear the television begin to sound through the connecting room followed by a knock at the door.

  “Ariana, are you alright?” his voice is full of concern.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie knowing that if he had known me for any longer he would know, but I shut the bag anyways and start to run the water.

  I can’t get my mind off of Chase the whole night when Sandra comes up to me smiling, “Too bad you went home last night; this hot guy came in last night.” She smirks to me.

  “Oh, what did he look like?” I don’t really have to ask, I know that she’s talking about Chase.

  “He was tall, taller than anyone else in here, with the deepest brown eyes I have ever seen. His hair was messy; all I wanted to run my hands through this hair and he screwed my brains out. I even tried to come on to him.” I gulp; yup she’s talking about Chase. I don’t even want to imagine that.

  “Tried?” I ask her, hoarsely.

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t interested, can you believe that?” I can actually, I think to myself, because although Chase isn’t opposed to dumb girls, he likes for them to have some sort of depth. “I wonder why?” I say to make her feel better. “He started going on about this girl he dated that got away.” This instantly grabs my attention. “He told me he’s looking for her.”

  “What do you mean looking for her?” I snap my head back to look at her.

  “He said that he made a huge mistake six years ago, can you believe that looking for someone for six years. That takes some sort of dedication.”

  “Yeah,” I say to her. Now obviously my coworkers and I are not very close. I smile to her and walk away towards the back.

  “R, are you alright?” Sandra asks hours later.

  “Yeah, I’m fine why?” I lie

  “Because you got pale all of a sudden, are you still not feeling well?” she looks concerned.

  “I’m fine; really, it’s just been a long week, with school and all.”

  “Go ahead and go home. I’ve got this from here.” she offers.

  “ Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah, it’s not a problem, we are really dead anyways.”

  “Alright, thanks.” I try and smile at her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chase

  I see her face round the corner as I am walking to the same bar that I went to last night. She doesn’t notice me, why would she, she is walking away from me and I am standing two streets over, but I know that it’s her. I freeze. I cannot say anything. I just let my mouth hang as I watch her ass sway back and forth with the force of her strut,

  I wonder what she is thinking about. I run across the street before the traffic has stopped and before the little man lights up telling me that it’s alright to cross. I just don’t have time for you right now little man.

  I see her walk across the street and through one of the squares and I briskly walk behind her. She doesn’t even know that she is being followed. She crosses the next street and I run my eyes over her body. She looks almost the same. She seems to have put on a little weight, but in all the right places. Her ass plumps out more than I remember, and all I can think about is pulling her into me by her hips. I pick up my pace as I make my way towards her, and she turns to the right beginning to walk down a row of townhouses.

  I stop at the corner.

  “Ariana,” I shout out to her and I watch as her entire body comes to a halt, and she stands still for a second. It feels like a century before l can force myself to speak again, “It was you I saw today,” I close in the distance between us, but she doesn’t turn around to look at me. I watch her head nod and it’s the only reaction I manage to receive from her. “You ran off?” I ask her placing my hand on her arm and she twitches her head slightly to look at it.

  “Chase,” she says to me barely over a whisper and begins to turn her body to me, “W
hat do you want?”

  “I came here to-,” she cuts me off holding up her hand.

  “Don’t,” she pauses, “Sandra told me what you told her last night.”

  “Then you know. Ariana, you are all I have been able to think about for a long time.”

  “I can’t right now Chase.” She says holding up her hand and then I realize that there’s someone else. That she has already moved on with her life.

  “Oh,” I turn back around nearly humiliated, on the verge on anger, and I start to walk away,

  “It’s not what you think.” She calls after me.

  “Then what is it?” I accidentally snap at her.

  “You’re serious right now? You’re pissed at me for not jumping all over you the second I see you. Fucking, asshole, you somehow managed to forget, that you left me in California. You drove us out there and then left me not caring if I could find a way home.” I watch her turn around and storm off. She stops right before the corner turning around to look at me, “You’ll never change will you?” She shouts and then I watch her walk down the street and turn the corner leaving my view. . . I wonder if that was the last time that she will enter my life.

  I find myself back at the bar only minutes later and I order a shot of tequila.

  “Bad night already, sweetheart?” I hear Sandra say to me.

  “Yeah,”

  “What happened?” she says leaning down over the counter again.

  “I found her.” I whisper, still in a state of shock.

  “'That’s fantastic. Did you talk to her?” She squeals.

  “Yeah she said that-,” Then I feel like a moron for not seeing it sooner. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me that she works with you?”

  “What are you talking about?” she seems confused.

  “Ariana, she works here.” I reiterate.

  “No, we don’t have an Ariana.” She tells me

  “She always went by just R only I refused to call her by her name.”