Stupid Wal-Mart. If only Wal-Mart didn’t have the cheapest underwear. Stupid reason too…I know! But really… Curse that stupid Wal-Mart next to that stupidly delicious ice cream shop within walking distance of my house. Stupid Wednesday. It was that stupid Wednesday at that stupid Wal-Mart that changed my life forever.
I walked into Wal-Mart on a surprisingly sunny Wednesday in November. I was about to leave on a trip to Nicaragua to visit my mother who was there on a mission trip, but that is a whole different issue.
I went to Wal-Mart because I didn’t have enough pairs of underwear to get me through a trip on which I would need countless clean pairs of underwear due to a lack of water.
But let me start at the beginning…
While browsing through the lacey thongs and opposite gray granny panties I saw someone. At first they looked like a shy teenage girl… Trying to buy undergarments without meeting anyone they know.
She seemed to have shoulder length black hair-that gleamed under the harsh fluorescents- was wearing dark wash denim skinny jeans and black converse. I smiled at her subconsciously, thinking of my own past embarrassment over the underwear section.
Suddenly she moved to the other side of a huge rack of thongs.
I almost threw up right in the middle of that stupid Wal-Mart. She was really he! At further examination I noticed that his shirt was way too tight to have fit around a girl’s boobs, the jeans fit the butt just right to where they looked good but were cut all wrong to have been on a girl.
The black hair was shorter, more mid-neck and was angled in the front until if formed black bangs that framed the face of an angel. He had pure green eyes, greener than seaweed. Imagine the greenest thing you know of and add depth and more green.
His beautiful green eyes were bright with a love of life and were fringed with luscious black lashes. When he blinked his lashes met in a black abyss that could swallow all the light in the world but still managed to give off a luminescent glow.
His lips… Oh his lips, they were like two perfectly shaped crescents (with a slight dip in the top lip) that weren’t too full but weren’t too thick. They were the color of a fresh cut plum, with a hint of pure red apple skin but then were roughened slightly by the elements.
His eyes met mine, obviously embarrassed to be caught browsing the thong rack. He smiled embarrassingly at me. His teeth were so white I could hear the *ding* of a clean mouth and were impeccably straight.
Unsure of what else to do I walked over to a rack a bit closer to his, still trying to look focused on my rack. When I finished there I went to his rack. Out of the corner of my eye I could see he had stopped moving. I could feel his gaze sweep over me.
I was nothing compared to other girls. A bit larger with big hips but definitely not fat. I have hair that is blonder than brown and blue gray eyes. My eyes were carefully outlined with brown liquid eyeliner like they were everyday but my eyelashes were bare, devoid of my usual mascara.
“Hello” he said quietly, as though his voice would draw the attention of our non-existent on lookers. I could smell him now and I wanted to faint and curl up next to him and never stop smelling his breath and his scent for the rest of my life, all at the same time. He moved slightly and I caught a waft of his scent. He smelled of soap, cleanliness. His breath smelt like peppermint toothpaste and spearmint gum.
I looked up at him before saying, “Hey…” I glanced at the thong he held in his hand. It was black with pink polka-dots and more lace than that contained in a bridal shop.
“You should really get that one,” I laughed, breaking the awkward silence, “It looks like your style.” He too laughed and moved to stand in front of me. Again, I wanted to faint. This time I smelt something else…Musk? Definitely not, he smelt more like wood, but in a good way, and still smelt clean.
“I am here looking for a present for my girlfriend.” I was suddenly disappointed until I remembered my boyfriend. Jason…We had been together for two years and several months.
Jason was tall, he had deep gray eyes that could kill, and short but not buzzed hair. Jason was my rock, my foundation. I loved Jason so much that my heart ached…But recently I had been feeling that less. He felt more like a brother now than a boyfriend.
“Oh…Is that so?” I said, trying to sound uninterested, “Why are you buying her underwear? More exactly why are you buying her a thong?” He seemed shocked as though he hadn’t thought to get her anything besides underwear. By the look still on his face he apparently hadn’t.
He stuck his hand out. “Hey, I never formally introduced myself. I’m Shane Alexander.” I paused for a second before asking.
“You mean Teri’s boyfriend Shane? I see why you only thought to buying her a thong.” Blunt…I know but Teri was the biggest slut in the entire universe. She had reportedly slept with every boy on the varsity football and baseball teams. As well as having a new boyfriend every other day.
That is until she started turning down date offers, saying she was Shane’s girlfriend now and she was going to be with him forever. They had been together for a month. That was the longest time Teri had, had a boyfriend since first grade.
I looked back at him to see him blushing. “I was planning on buying her a thong for her and giving it to her for her birthday, but with a note.”
“What type of note?”

“One saying that she is such a slut and I never wanted to talk to her again.” He said this with such honesty that I was just dumbfounded.
“Oh…” I was at a loss for words still, “Well…I kind of agree with you. But, if you don’t mind me asking. What happened?”
Nonchalantly he said, “While we were together I found out she had been dating several swimmers from my school.” I suddenly remembered he didn’t go to school with us.
“Do you mind if I help?”
“Help?” A look of confusion crossed over his face.
“Help pick out the perfect pair…” I gestured to the rack in between us.
“Sure, if you really want to.” He said this quietly before breaking into a grin.
We browsed through their racks for a while until we found a thong that looked like pink dental floss that had little hearts on the front.
Having not found what I wanted we walked to the self-checkout line together. Laughing each time one of us looked at the tiny garment he held clutched in his hands. His beautiful hands, that were long and graceful but worn.
We traded numbers quickly before heading to our separate cars.

As of that evening we had been together for one year.
Anna was nothing compared to Megan but she was better in a different sort-of way. Anna had brown-red hair and bangs. Her eyes were brown and could stare straight into your soul.
One of my favorite parts of her was when she was embarassed blood would flow into her cheeks and turn them bright cherry red and if she was working out her arms and chest would turn red.
She was always so sweet to me. I didn’t deserve her. Just like I didn’t deserve Megan.
I wanted to make that night special. I had dinner all set up and an evening full of fun set up.
All throughout spanish class I kept fingering that box. In it there was a small diamond and pearl necklace. I hoped that she would like it, but if she didn’t I could always give it to Megan.
Spanish class was such a bore. I regretted going back to school every day that my alarm would go off, but then again my job was very important to me.
I worked at the zoo, cooking at Edy’s, next to the Kombo Family Coaster. Edy insisted that I keep my grades up if I wanted to keep working. Anna worked volunteering at bird world.
I got to see Anna every evening on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays when she came in to Edy’s for dinner after her shift at bird world.
I focused my attention back on my teacher. She was droning on about conjucating reflexive verbs such as “lavarse” and “banarse”.
Finally the bell rang and I was released from this prison. I walked out the side door and was at my car in no time.
I waved at a chorus of, “See ya later Joeseph!” but I hurried to get in and drove to Anna’s school and waited for her.
After a few minutes she still wasn’t there so I reached in my center consol and pulled out my kit. Megan had first gotten me into the habit of having a ‘kit’. In it there was a few waterless toothbrushes, cologne, and a comb.
I spiffed up and soon Anna got into the car.
“Where were you?” I asked her.
“I had to talk to a teacher. Sorry.”
I leaned over and kissed her.
“That’s alright. You ready to go?”
“Yeah, but where are we going?” She smiled in anticipation.
“I can’t tell you…It’s a surprise.”
I smiled back at her and we pulled out of the school parking lot.

When I got home I walked up to my room and swung open my door. To my surprise my frenemy, Laura, was lounging on my bed popping huge bubbles and reading the latest issue of “17” magazine.
When I came in she slightly lowered her magazine and glared at me over the top of it.
“Did you enjoy your apparently unsuccessful trip to Wal-Mart?” she asked snidely in her thick Texan drawl. She must have seen me with Shane at Wal-Mart and wasn’t too happy about it. She was a firm believer in sticking with the person you are with until you break up. She must be thinking that I was cheating on Jason. The smile slid off my face.
“Yes, I did enjoy my trip. Thanks for asking but it is none of your business.”
“But it is Jason’s business…” Did I forget to mention that Jason and Laura are fraternal twins?
Them being twins is the reason that Laura and I are now frenemies. Being Jason’s sister she strongly disapproves of me being with Jason and now regards me with dislike most of the time.
We used to be super best friends, but those days are past us now.
“There is nothing to be anyone’s business about anything…Just go away Laura!”
She glared at me, fully lowering the magazine and sitting up. “What about him breaking up with her now that he has met you…Suspicious.”
“Not suspicious at all! She is a slut who cheated on him and deserves this break up!” I practically screamed. Slowly as wide grin spread across Laura’s face. She held up her phone. My own face became twisted with confusion. This caused Laura’s grin to turn into a full-fledged Cheshire cat grin. She pressed a button on her phone and my exact words came out of the phone starting with “There is nothing to be anybody’s business,” and ending with “deserves it.”
I couldn’t believe it. Was Laura trying to blackmail me?
“Why does that matter? Nothing will or did happen between us!”
“And I am just making sure of it.” And with that Laura threw the magazine to the ground and stalked out of my room.

I met Joseph in his car after school that day. I had to ask my history teacher a question about my grade and then I snuck by the pool to see Leo.
Joseph knew nothing of Leo. He was my other boyfriend. I felt bad doing that to Joseph but I didn’t think that he would take a break up very well. I now know that cheating on Joseph was a terrible idea but Leo was special.
Leo was the assistant coach for the girls swim team; he was like no one else I had ever met. He was on the short side but still taller than me. He had auburn colored hair and eyes like the sky on a warm summer day. His skin was light and sprinkled with freckles.
I swung by the pool to say hi to Leo and sneak a few kisses while we were at it.
I got to Jason’s car as quick as I could but he still was upset that I was late. He smelled good, but his cologne was too strong, but there was no way that I was going to tell him that.
I flipped down the car visor and fixed my hair as we drove.
“What did you have to talk to your teacher about?”
“Just a grade.”
“And it took that long?”
“I wasn’t very long.”
“Yes you were…”
“But…Joeseph, I only took like,” I looked to the clock to see how long it had been.
“You took like twenty minutes.”
“There were lots of people in line to talk to her.”
I leaned over and kissed him.
“You smell delicious,” he said to me.
“Uhm, thanks.”
“Like vanilla beans” he breathed deeply and looked over at me while stopped at a stop sign.
This was such an awkward sitution, but I thought that the evening could only get better.

The evening was absolutely divine. I took Anna to the local park and we ate dinner on a red checkered blanket out of a pinic basket. Chicken sandwiches with cranberry sauce. We sat behind a big tree and drank two whole bottles of wine, white.
Anna was slightly tipsy as we laid down together to stare at the stars.
“I miss our time together,” I told her.
Anna giggled, “I miss our plotting time together.”
“Anna, honey, not in public”
“There’s no one around”
“Still”
“Do you not want to carry through with our plan?”
“Anna…Please don’t go there.”
“Joeseph” she twisted in my arms and kissed me on the cheek, then on my nose, then on my lips.
“Anna…No. You can’t get me to plot with you by seducing me with kisses.”
She frowned. “Fine then, whatever.” Anna crossed her arms, sighed and stared back up at the stars. “How do we pick who its going to be? Like picking a random star, just someone off the street?”
“I don’t know…” I thought deeply, “I guess just randomly.”
“Could we assign people to stars and then randomly pick a star to decide?”
“I guess that could work. Are you sure that the plan is fool proof?”
“Could you figure it out?” I asked teasingly.
“Of course I could…Hey! I am not a fool.”
“Just kidding.” She looked at me crossly. “You know that I was just kidding.” The stars were all out, shining beautifully. “It is fool proof, its even genius proof.”
She kissed me lightly again before getting up off of the blanket.
“I have homework to do,” Anna said lightly before loping off drunkly to my car and driving off.
I laid on the blanket for another hour or two. I can’t remember clearly. I always forget that I am in my worst state drunk. The alchohol twists my sense of time and direction. When my head felt more stable I gather the picnic stuff, placed it in the basket and began to walk off, with my own drunk limp, towards what I thought would be the direction of my apartment.
The park should have been a mere twelve minute walk from my apartment, but my drunkness led me on an hour long adventure.
I must have gone the opposite direction. That’s the only logical explantation I can think of, but I ended up at my apartment complex eventually.
I climbed the two flights of steps as quietly as I could. If I got caught by my neighbor, Mrs. Stine, I would never hear the end of her life changing rants and attempts to coax me into church.
Mrs. Stine is an older woman, maybe in her late fifties, who ran-schedualed events, hired new emploees and supervised the overall well being of-the local Presbyritirian Church for over thirty years. She wears Indian Cotton skirts with faded baggy blouses all the time. Her eyes are like that of a falcon but she needs thick bottle cap glasses to maintain her falcon status. She is not obese or even overweight but she isn’t the classic frail old grandmother type.
The first day I moved in she came over with a plate of cookies, brochure for Indianapolis Presbyritirian Church and a Bible.
When I opened the door she looked me up and down before saying in her extremely strong Brookly accent, “So, you are Mr. Joseph Livison. You are going to need all three of these. You are so skinny, eat!,”
I have done all I can do avoid her ever since.

Throughout the next week I was continually miserable. Teri never looked remotely sad and Laura was always giving me looks when she saw me with Jason.
Finally on Friday I was rewarded for my misery.
It all started when I saw Shane at school during my off period. He was carrying a bouquet of roses, three helium balloons and a small box.
When he saw me he smiled and walked over to the table where Jason and I were sitting doing homework.
“Hey Shane!” I got up and hugged him tightly.
“Hey Megan! Who is this?” still smiling he gestured to Jason.
“Shane-Jason. Jason-Shane. Jason is my boyfriend and Shane is a recent friend.”
“Do you go here?” Jason asked. He too had a Texan drawl but right now his voice was completely devoid of any and all emotion. His eyes were searching Shane’s face while hugging me tightly against his chest. Almost too tightly. As the two stared each other down I could feel the air thickening with tension.
“Jason, ouch!” I said while trying to pull away from him. HE gave Shane a last withering glare before loosening his grip slightly and grabbing my hand.
“Let’s go Megan”
“Bye Shane,” I mumbled, “Good luck…” I turned around to look at Shane. He looked slightly sad but continued to glare at Jason
-----*------

I heard about the break up during third period. This is what I heard:
During second lunch Shane was spotted by Teri. She ran up to him, hugged him around the waist and tried to kiss him, but Shane stood stone still with an emotionless face.
Teri, surprised, pulled back and looked at him. “You came!!” she squealed. Refusing, for now, to let her cheery act down.
Shane simply shrugged and said, “It’s your birthday and here I am.”
“Because you are the best boyfriend ever!” At that Shane narrowed his eyes and thrust out the little box. “For me? Yippee!” Teri unwrapped her box and slowly lifted off the lid. (All she saw inside was the little thong, not the note.) Her smile faded a bit and became more forced. “You shouldn’t have…” Before she could investigate the box further Shane held out the roses and balloons.
Teri’s smile brightened again and she pulled out the thong. The note fluttered to the ground.
“How sweet! A love letter!” one of Teri’s devout followers cooed. She picked it up and began reading aloud. “I know what you did, and you are such a slut…”
“Oh my gosh!” Teri grabbed the note away and silently read the rest of it. “You’re breaking up with me?! How could you?! I am the one who breaks up with people! Not the other way around. Besides, I am so sorry!” Teri then broke into tears and blabbered on about how sorry she was, Shane simply shook his head and walked away.

Unfortunately Jason also heard about Teri and Shane’s misfortune and when he saw me next he was full of questions.
“When did you meet him?”
“Have you spent time together after that?”
“What did you do together?”
“Why was he so friendly to you?”
“Why did you tell me about him?”
“Were you planning on telling me about him?”
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. “Jason! Stop freaking out!” I pecked him on the cheek before continuing, “I still want to be your girlfriend and Shane is just a friend that I respect because he put Teri and the place she deserved.”
“Alright,” he hugged me.
“Ouch!” A sharp pain shot through my ribs.
“Did I hurt you?”
“I think you hurt me earlier when you were staring down Shan while hugging me extremely tightly.”
“Awww, I am sorry,” he murmured while leaning down to kiss me. I ducked out the way of his lips. Suddenly I didn’t feel like kissing him. He was acting so strange, not at all like the Jason I loved.
To cover up my dodge I grabbed my ribs and fake moaned. “It really hurts now!” I began to add a fake whine when a pain erupted in my side.
I fell to the floor, grabbing my side; tears began to slide down my face. The noise around me was unbearable. I could hear people gathering around, the nurse was suggested by several people but no one moved to go get her. Jason kneeled down next to me but all I could focus on was the approach of some football team boys. They were pushing each other and tossing a football to one another; the ball was faked to one of the guys and tossed to another player who missed the ball.
The ball bounced off his hands and flew towards me. I shut my eyes and barely felt the sting of the hit before I passed out.

I awoke to a beeping noise and someone snoring. Slowly I opened my eyes. I was dressed in scratchy blue hospital gown, sitting on a metal hospital bed, lying on a floppy mattress, covered with sheets more itchy than the hospital gown.
I glanced around the room. There were no IV stands and I was attached to only a heart monitor. On the wall there were two paintings, one depicted children sitting in a circle. They were in the middle of a beautiful garden. The other was an oil pastel sketch of an ocean sunset. The sun was setting over the ocean in a brilliant splash of orange and pink. The ocean was a deep blue with a cresting whale near the horizon. The beach looked so realistic I could practically feel the sand between my toes and smell the salty air. On the left side of the beach there was a blue and white striped beach towel. On the towel there were two people sitting side-by-side. They were obviously a boy and a girl. The girl had blond-brown hair and was snuggling up to a boy with long black hair I thought of this and then immediately I thought of Shane.
“Ugh…” I groaned loudly as I remembered the show down between Jason and Shane.
“Megan? Are you awake?” I suddenly noticed the figure in the corner. He had been snoring but my groan had awoken them.
“Jason?” I asked.
“Yes Megan?”
“I…I…What happened?”
“When I hugged you earlier something happened with your bruised ribs and then you were hit on the head with a football and knocked out…”
“Really?” Just then there was a knock on the hospital door.
“Is Megan awake?!” It was my mom!
“Mom? I’m in here!” My mom had been away for three months on a mission trip to Nicaragua. She wasn’t supposed to be back home for nine more months. I moved to stand up but I found a bandage wrapped around my midsection and a sharp pain shooting through my side.
The door burst open and my mom came through. She looked the same as always but just a little bit more weathered.
“Megan!” she cried before running over to the bed. She hugged me tightly, and I winced in pain. “Oh, Megan. I am sorry…I forgot about…And…When I heard I flew right back.”
“Heard what exactly?”
“You had…hmm…How do I put this? Some type of bone deficiency and that caused your ribs to be easily injured…”
“Weak bones?”
“No, you were also missing part of one of your ribs, but they put you under surgery and fixed you.”
“All while I was passed out?”
“It didn’t take very long.”
“How long?”
“How long…What?”
“Have I been out?”
“Three, maybe four days”
“Why that long?”
“You didn’t react well to the amnesia.”
“I see…How long for the recovery?”
“It dep-“
“How long?!”
“Two or more days.” I sighed as deeply as I could. All I could think about was Shane. I wish he were here. I looked back at the picture of the beach. Ohhh…Shane… I sighed again and Jason looked over at me.
“Megan, what are you sighing about?”
“Oh…Nothing at all.”
My mom butted back into the conversation while glancing at her watch, “Honey, I have to go now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to fly back to Nicaragua.”
“But…”
“Honey, think of the poor children in Nicaragua…”
“I have thought of them…”
“These children are important to me!”
“More than your own children?”
“Megan…You know I could never choose between you guys!”
“Yes! You could if you tried!”
“It’s not that simple and it is not a matter of me choosing sides!”
“Yes it is! You had to choose between them and me”
“No! Megan let me-“
“And you chose them!” The heart monitor that I was attached to began to beep wildly.
“Megan, honey, you need to calm down.”
“How am I supposed to calm down?!”
“Deep breathi-“
“You are leaving me in a time of need! I was in surgery, you flew out to see me and now you are flying right back to them! And what about Dad? Are you guys even married anymore…At least in the sense of the word? You are never home, so how can you two be married? And what about Wilfretta?” Wilfretta is my younger sister, “Are you just going to leave a sixth grader to figure out the world by herself. Actually are you going to leave her to figure out the world with her dysfunctional sister and father?”
The heart monitor began to beep extra fast and extra loud.
“Megan, I am not going to have this conversation with you again!”
“Then don’t give cause for the conversation!”
“There is no cause…I told you my situation and you need to accept it!”
“Accept that my mother is abandoning her two daughters for some children in Nicaragua that can be cared for just as well by some other kind person?”
A nurse hurried into my hospital room.
“Megan, we need you to calm down!”
“Who is this ‘we’? I only see one nurse in this room! I don’t see a hoard of nurses who all need me to calm down!”
“Megan, for heath purposes the hospital and its entire staff and patients need you to take some deep breaths.” I began to take a few deep breaths. After a few breaths the beeping became regular and less annoying.
“Mom, you just should go…” I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see her leave. Shortly afterward while my eyes were still shut I heard Jason stand up and leave. Finally I was all alone.
What was I going to do about Shane and Jason and my mom and Teri and Wilfretta and my dad?!
Teri would be wreaking havoc on the school’s male population now that she wasn’t dating Shane anymore.
Why me? Why now? One thing was absolutely sure. I liked and possibly even loved Shane and Jason, but it was wrong to lead Jason on the way I was. I may have loved him in the past, but that was exactly that…The past. I couldn’t bring myself to cheat on him, which would be especially wrong.
I would have to break up with Jason, while breaking his heart.
Oh, and I would have to deal with Laura who could probably never forgive me for breaking his heart.

I drove in Joeseph’s car over to Leo’s house. Even though Joeseph had brought wine to our picnic I poured out my glass whenever he wasn’t looking.
Once Joeseph starts drinking he can’t stop. He finished almost all of the two bottles all by himself. I felt kind of bad just leaving him there but I had the car. There was no way that he could seriously hurt himself without his car. He would probably just take an extra long time to get home. When Joesph is drunk is the best time to do things that you wouldn’t want him to be interrupting.
When I pulled up Leo was out front sitting on the porch swing. I pulled my skirt a little bit so that it was slightly shorter and pulled off my stileto heels and hung them by my side as I walked toward him.
“Hey baby,” he murmered as I sat down in his lap.
I kissed him.
“You smell like wine, I thought you didn’t drink.” Leo never missed a thing. I think that is why he was okay with me cheating on Joeseph. Leo could tell that he was overly protective and wouldn’t take a break up well. That and he got a thrill out of hiding our relationship evidence and hiding it from Joeseph.
“I don’t drink. Joeseph just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
“Is he drunk tonight?” Leo also knew that when Joeseph was drunk you would hear nothing from him until noon tomorrow. He kissed me deeply, once, twice.
“Would I be here on a Friday night if he wasn’t?” I murmered to him in between a series of long kisses. Leo began kissing my neck, his kisses became more and more passionate. His hands lifted up my shirt and he began to try and undo my bra strap.
I pulled away from him. Leo tried to push me further and further everytime he knew that Joesph was drunk, but I don’t know where he even got that notion. I had told him many times that I was waiting until marriage to have sex. “Leo, no.”
He fixed his face into a very sad puppy dog face, jokingly. “Okay,” he said in mock hurt. He respected my boundaries, that was why I loved him.
“Can we go swimming?” I asked eagerly. Leo smiled his crooked smile that I loved so much.
“Of course”
He held my hand as we walked into his backyard.
Leo lived in a two bed two bath house that he had bought entirely with cash. The backyard had a full pool that was equipped with an underwater lightshow system and music player that emitted music through the water.
We both stripped down to our underwear. He dove off of the diving board while I turned on the lights and gently lowered myself into the water. He swam over to me. We played around in the water, having breath holding contests, going down the slide, jumping off the diving board and he gave me piggy back rides, before we resorted to kissing again.
We sat in the net together, watching the lights dance through the water. The net was a net that Leo placed on one corner of the pool that two people could sit in but still be suspended in the water.
I loved being wrapped in Leo’s arms, they were warm and muscular. I always felt safest in his arms.
We sat together in the net kissing, talking and watching the lights until the signs of dawn were apparent on the horizion. I showered and got dressed before kissing him good bye and driving home.

I was out of the hospital by that evening and was at school on Thursday. Jason was as protective as ever.
This didn’t help with my attempts to distance myself from him.
Every time he tried to lean down and kiss me I would duck away and anytime that he would tell a story I would look mildly interested.
He didn’t catch the hint and invited me to do several things with me over the weekend. I turned them all down and didn’t text him.
By Tuesday of the next week he could tell something was going on.
“Megan, are you feeling better?”
“Yeah, much…Why?”
“You’ve been acting strange.”
“Well…”
“Have you been getting enough sleep at night?”
“Yes”
“Like eight hours of sleep a night?”
“Definitely! Jason, I need-“
“Have you been eating?”
“Jason!”
“Have you been eating enough??”
“Jason! I have been eating enough”
“Have you-“
“Jason!”
“What?! Megan, are you okay?!”
“I need to talk to you!” He looked kind of shocked, “But it needs to be somewhere more…private.” He looked into my eyes.
“Anything you want Megan.” He placed his hands on my shoulders, still staring into my eyes, “I would do anything for you Megan.” Before I could shrug out of his grasp he leaned in and kissed me. His kiss surprised me though, it was rough and urgent. I pushed him away.
“Jason, somewhere private, I need to talk to you.”
“I walked ahead of him leading him to a deserted corner. He slouched in the corner and stuck his hands in his pockets before looking up at me with a big puppy-dog smile on his face. I took three deep breaths.
“Jason, this isn’t working.”
“What isn’t working?”
“Us…This relationship. I just don’t feel the connection anymore.
I was shaking now and his bright smile had turned into a look of pain and hurt. How could I be doing this to him?
“What?”
“I am,” Take deep breaths, don’t hyperventilate, “breaking up with you.” His hurt look turned into a look of pure hate.
“Why?!” his voice had lost all of its warmth.
“I don’t love you any-“he cut me off.
“Does this have anything to do with him?”
“Who?” But I knew who it was, Shane.
“Your pretty boy ‘friend’” His hands jerked up and down emotionally as he made quotation marks in the air.
“No. Jason, this has everything to do with you and me and how I feel about you…” Not really.
“He is the whole reason!” Jason was yelling and stepping closer to me. “We were made to be together! Why are you doing this to me?”
“Jason, I used to really, really like you but now I feel different about you. I have changed a lot over four years.”
“No! You just think you found someone better!” He was now right in front of me, yelling down at me.
“Please, stop.”
“Stop what? I never agreed to break up with you. So, you are still my girlfriend and I’ll tell you what I can and cannot do!”
“Jason, I am not your girlfriend anymore. And even if I was I would have the right to tell you to stop threatening you with your size and muscle mass. So back up!”
“Yeah, you aren’t my girlfriend! You are his!” His yelling was beginning to attract people’s stares and some people where whispering to each other.
“Jason, stop yelling! I’ve been faithful to you! He has nothing to do with this!” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. My head whipped back and forth with the force of his shake.
“We were made to be together!” Security personnel ran over to us.
“Hey, kid! Let her go!” The man tried to turn Jason away but he grabbed my hair, hard!
“No!” Jason’s face was red and twisted with complete furry.
This was definitely not the peaceful break up I had been envisioning in my head.
The security guard jabbed at a pressure point on Jason’s neck. Jason crumpled to the floor and let go of my hair. A female staff member quickly ushered me to the far side of the room.

“Are you okay?” the nurse had finally shown up after ten minutes of me sitting on a lunchroom table, watching Jason be dragged off to the dean’s office and having half of the school (everyone at lunch during that time) gather around me.
“I am fine”
“Can you move all of your limbs, roll your neck?”
“Yes…” I rolled my neck to prove to her that I was just fine.
“No neck pain?”
“I am fine!”
“Have you eaten yet today?”
“What is it with you people and making sure that I have eaten? I am a junior in high school with no eating problems and the capability to care for myself!”
“Well, everyone needs proteins and such to keep their bodies running.”
“I have eaten! Gosh! Can I just go home?” I felt so bad for Jason, despite of what he did. I just wanted to go home and sulk for a while.
“But you said that you were fine.”
“Please?”
The nurse looked at me and sighed.
“What happened?”
“I was trying to break up with my four year boyfriend and he did not take it well. I just feel so bad, like I broke his heart into thousands of pieces and then danced all over them.” I could tell that this harsh analogy and circumstance in general struck a sympathetic, motherly instinct in her.
Her round face softened into a gentle smile.
“Come into my office and I will write you a pass for the rest of the day.”
------*--------

When I got home I crawled into bed and cried.
I hated to hurt other people and Jason had been so close to me for so long. He knew me inside and out and I knew him inside and out. Or so I had thought.
After a while my eyes could cry no more and I went about separating all traces of him from my life.
I walked to my desk and pulled out every letter and note he ever sent me, and every picture of us. Then I pulled all the mementos and pictures off my French memo board. In my closet I pulled out the necklaces, earrings and stuffed animals he had given me.
I threw away the stuffed animals and put all but one necklace into my sister’s jewelry box.
I went and got a candle, some matches and a bucket from the basement. I set the candle wick aflame and watched it burn for a while.
Slowly I held up the most recent picture of Jason and me to the flame. The corner caught flame and the picture burnt until Jason’s face was completely devoured by flame. I dropped the picture in the bucket that I had filled with water.
I did this to all of our photos except one that I tucked underneath my mattress.
Next I picked up the mementos, including a dried corsage from homecoming freshman year. I burned everything that I could and threw everything else into the dumpster outside.
All that was left were the letters. They all talked about different things. One was asking me to travel with him and his family to their beach house in Florida.
I had such a wonderful time; we splashed around in the ocean every day the whole week. We watched the sunset every evening from the end of the pier.
Another letter was expressing his love for me and how thankful he was that I was his. He had sent me this shortly after our first kiss.
We had gone bowling, then to a movie and were getting milkshakes from a 60’s diner when he just leaned over and kissed me. It had been my first kiss, and it had been so sweet and kind; it was nothing like the kiss in the hallway.
But each letter was signed the same. “Love you always, Jason”
I read each of these aloud to myself before ripping them into shreds. After the last letter tears streamed down my face. I swept the pieces into a bowl and dropped a lit match in. The pieces burned and burned until there was only a pile of ash left.
I emptied the cup into my bucket of water.
Grabbing the bucket in my arms I walked down to my car. I drove with the bucket buckled in my passenger seat until I arrived at an empty lot.
I walked with the bucked to a corner of the lot.
“Jason…I love you, but I just couldn’t put on an act and hurt you anymore.” I cried as I slowly tipped the bucket over. The contents spilled into a little hole in the ground. Soon the water and dissolved ashes had been soaked up by the dry dirt and all that was left were remnants of pictures.

I awoke to a banging on my door and a bright light shining through my blinds. The clock on my dresser said that it was 2:00 in the evening. I groaned as the beating on the door became louder and most insistent.
“Ah…I’m coming, I’m coming” I pulled down my covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed while sitting up. My head spun and my temples were throbbing. I stumbled my way to the door. A peek through the peephole confirmed my suspicion, it was Mr. Cassell.
Mr. Cassell was my landlord. He was round and had a bald head that shone no matter the lighting. He wore tropical button-up shirts and khaki shorts with flip-flops, no matter the weather. When I first met him I thought he was a used car salesman.
“Joeseph!” he called in a loud voice, “I know you’re in there!! I saw your car outside! Open up! You owe me last month’s rent and this month!! I called your employer too! He said you got paid yesterday, he even gave you a bonus so that you could pay off your debts.”
I glanced around the apartment. My gaze landed on my desk. I thought of the papers that Anna and I had drawn plans on and plotted thoughoghly on that were stored in the drawer. The thought hit me. Mr. Cassell would be our random person. I grabbed the envalope from the basket next to the door that held my payment in it and swung open the door.
Mr. Cassell almost slammed his fist into my face, as is he was about to knock on the door again.
“Chill! Here’s the money!” I said to him.
He looked me over, “What is wrong with you?” he asked.
Suddenly Mrs. Stine opened up her door and came out. She was dressed in her usual garb and carrying a Bible in her left hand.
“Did you not do as I told you?” she said, “You look like a drunkee and smell like…Chicken.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Where where you last night boy?!” asked Mr. Cassell.
“Neither of you guys are my parents so just back off!” I threw the envelope of money at Mr. Cassell and slammed the door shut.
I showered, ate some breakfast, and began the long, long walk home to my other house, really its my parent’s house.

After two more days of mourning I felt better, and on Thursday I texted Shane. “Hey, you want to hang out?”
Within one minute he texted back “Definitely! Meet me at Java in twenty minutes?” I don’t think that I could wait that long.
“I will see you in ten minutes”
Ten minutes later I walked into Java, a quaint little coffee shop owned by to middle aged guys who staffed the entire shop with teenagers.
The shop was a very popular hang-out for teens from all over the city. Today when I walked in there were very few people for a Saturday.
The walls were chocolate brown with one bright green accent wall. There were no real tables, just over-stuffed green and deep brown arm chairs and couches interspersed with glass side tables that were adorned with various classic books, magazines and drink coasters. Along the green wall there is an industrial looking counter. The counter has an antique cash register and a display full of cupcakes, scones and muffins. There are three chalk boards set up next to the display that announce new gourmet cupcake flavors, specialty drinks and their normal repertoire of drinks.
I glanced around the shop and saw Shane sitting in a green chair. My breath caught in my throat as I looked him over again. He was wearing skinny jeans again and a long sleeve black shirt.
He was slowly sipping a coffee out of a ceramic mug and was calmly watching other coffee shop patrons while idly flipping through Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
I ordered a peppermint latte and vanilla cupcake before going over to greet him. He stood up and hugged me.
“So…What’s up?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
“No, you’ve been crying; what happened?” His voice, full of genuine concern, made me melt in my chair.
I couldn’t believe he had actually noticed that I had been crying, especially because I had carefully applied foundation and powder as well as mascara, eye liner, anti-puffy cream and eye-shadow. After I had finished getting ready I couldn’t even tell that I had been crying, but Shane noticed.
“It’s Jason. I…and he” Tears were gathering in the corners of my eyes. Irritated I wiped them away.
“Did he hurt you?!” fire burned behind Shane’s eyes at the thought of someone hurting me.
“Well he did but it was because I broke up with him.”
“That is no excuse to hurt some- You aren’t dating him anymore?”
“No…I am single right now”
“I am sorry. You guys were together for like three years. Right?”
“Four”
“Was it because of me?”
“There is no reason to be sorry. I just didn’t want to be with him as much anymore and then I met you. It was just so hard to do because he knows all about me, but in a serious way, and I know everything about him. What makes him smile, what upsets him, but I never expected him to hurt me. I guess I didn’t really know him that well.” I looked down at my hands.
“So, it was because of me?”
“Kind of…Well…”
“Yes it was.” He said this with a sorry tone but it carried a little bit of pride.
“Yes, it was because of you and me.”
“But, if you broke up with him why are you crying so much?”
“I feel absolutely terrible because I hurt him, even though I no longer love him I care for him like he is my older brother. I promised myself when I first started dating that I would never hurt someone that way!”
“I know how you feel,” he eyes were distant and I couldn’t who he was thinking of. Maybe Teri, maybe another girl. I didn’t want to know. “So what now?”
“I was hoping, maybe, well, we could get to know each other.” He smiled.
“I would really like that but first I need some more coffee.” He held up his cup, as if to prove a point. I laughed and ate my cupcake. I watched him order his coffee. He turned around and made a funny face at me. I laughed and stuck my tongue out at him. We both laughed again.
I felt happier and more carefree than I had felt in a long time.
He came over holding his coffee and sat down in a couch. He patted the spot next to him and I shook my head. He shrugged and propped his feet up on the empty spot.
“Favorite things?” I said. He smiled and we began to talk. Just talk, nothing more, nothing obligatory, just talking to talk.

We had met at 8:10 and we talked to each other for eight hours, getting to know each other.
We talked favorites, politics and views. We told each other about our childhoods and our families. I told him about how my mom flew to Nicaragua to abandon us and how my dad and little sister, Wilfretta, are never home. He told me about his four older brothers and that he had a twin and that he had three little brothers.
At four o’clock we left Java together. Not holding hands but walking close and occasionally bumping into each other.
I felt closer to him than any other person I had known, even Jason. When Jason and I started dating we talked a lot and he knew everything about my old self, but once we got into high school he got caught up in clubs and sports that I only knew him and he didn’t know the real me.
“Shane?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a ride?”
We had reached my car and he had begun to walk away.
“No…”
“Do you want me to give you a ride?”
“That would be nice” he smiled.
We had been smiling so much that his smile should have been familiar but every time he smiled it knocked me off my feet.
We drove for a few minutes until we pulled up to a huge house.
“This is where you live?”
“Yeah, with so many boys we decided to move to Colorado where we could own some more land.”
“Wow…It is a nice house.”
“Mmmhhmmm…” he nodded his head. He never looked at the house though. He was looking at me. “Megan, you are beautiful and kind and wonderful and I…” he leaned over and kissed me.
It was a kiss like none other. I could taste the coffee on his breath and could feel his lips softly pressing against mine. He pulled back and looked away.
“Shane?” He turned back around and leaned in and kissed him again and I knew that I had made the right decision.

Shane and I talked a lot. Every day after school I would drive home, go up to my room and call him.
With both of our busy days we weren’t able to get together that weekend or the weekend after that.
I saw Jason several times at school but he never tried to confront me.
About two weeks after our meeting at Java Shane and I made plans to go see a movie and then go to Java afterwards for cupcakes.
We saw a romantic comedy, I don’t remember much though because Shane kept kissing me during key plot parts. I didn’t mind though.
We held hands and walked out to my car. He feigned a chauffeur’s hat tip and motioned for me to hand him the keys.
“Where would the young miss like to go?”
“Oh, I do believe Paris would be fun.”
“Alright, whatever you wish but…” he pressed buttons on the dash board, “Where is the flying button? I can’t drive on the ocean.”
“Oh, right here.” I leaned forward and shifted the car from park to reverse. Doing this put me very close to him.
I looked up at his face, the face that made me swoon and the smile that melted me to the soul. His smile melted into a look of sweet love and he kissed me.
It was a long sweet kiss followed by another long sweet kiss and another.
We broke apart and Shane held my face in his hands.
“Oh, Megan did it hurt?”
“What?”
“When you fell from heaven?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” He kissed me on the forehead and slowly backed out of the parking spot.

We walked into Java holding hands. He ordered me a peppermint latte and himself a black coffee and two butterscotch cupcakes. We sat down on a couch together. I held his hand and balanced my coffee on a table.
“Shane”
“Yes Megan?”
“Thank you?”
“No problem, what type of person would I be if I let you pay?”
“No, thank you for saving me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think that if I had just continued to be with Jason I wouldn’t have ever been happy and have just never known. And then I met you and I saw that I was unhappy with Jason and then you are here now to help me with the break up.”
“I had no other choice but to help you. I love you too much just to leave you.”
I bit into my cupcake.
“These are delicious.”
“I can tell…You put it all over your face!” he kissed my nose which had some frosting on it.
We sat in Java enjoying each other’s company. We didn’t stay long and it was still light outside when we walked out of the coffee shop. We weren’t holding hands again but walking close to each other.
Right as we were getting into my car I was grabbed.

“What are you doing with him?!” I twisted my head around to see Jason; his face was twisted with anger.
“We are just friends…”
“I like you guys are more like friends with benefits.” I looked at Shane he looked calculating, like 'What can I do' calculating but also slightly hurt by the “just friends” comment. I decided then and there that I would no longer let Jason control me or my emotions.
“Jason, you know what? We are a couple, he is my boyfriend! He is the main reason I realized that I didn’t want to be with you anymore!” This made Jason so mad that he turned an even deeper shade of red than I had ever thought possible for a human to become.
“You betrayed me!!!” his shouts echoed through the parking lot and so did the slap that landed across my cheek.
Where his hand made contact with my cheek I could feel every cell in my face vibrating with pain and I dropped to the ground with a loud cry.
“Stand up and face me you ninny!” Jason yanked me up. “Did you cheat on me with Shane?”
“No! I didn’t!” I whined loudly.
“Liar!” another slap slammed across my other cheek.
Wildly I thought 'Where is Shane?'
“Stand up.” Again, Shane yanked me up. “I swear you will pay if you lie to me again! Did you love me?”
“Yes, Jason, I loved you.” I looked and saw that Shane had dropped down on the other side of the car and was speaking into his phone quickly and silently.
“Did you cheat on me with Shane?!”
“No,” I cowered but the hit never came. Jason was glaring at Shane who no longer was on his phone. Shane was now standing up on the other side of the car and glaring at Jason.
“Don’t you ever touch her again!” Shane’s voice was calm and firm but there was an animal tone that underplayed his calm tone. But still his voice was much firmer than I felt.
Jason just laughed at Shane.
“You are so much smaller than me, what do you think that you can do?”
“The police will stop you”
“For what? I just want answers from Megan… Who betrayed all my trust and my love for you! You are a stupid, gothic, freakish, pretty boy who enjoys snatching girls from their boyfriends!”
“Maybe if you didn’t keep landing her in the hospital she wouldn’t have left you…”
“That was one time, and she already was going to be in the hospital anyway for that!”
“But look at her now! You must have given her a huge concussion or head injury.” I suddenly realized Shane was stalling, holding off Jason until the police arrived. He looked over at me and I held my head in my hand, trying to look dizzy.
Shane glanced around nervously; you could tell Jason was getting irritated. I could only think of him lashing out again, but lashing out at Shane. But, I don’t think that I could take another blow. As a feeling of true nausea began to form in the pit of my stomach and my head began to spin. I had to sit down, but Jason was still holding onto my arm.
“Jason…” he looked at me and then back at Shane. “Jason…” I repeated, “My head hurts and I feel sick. Just let me sit down.” He let go of me, never letting his eyes stray from Shane’s. I walked as fast as I could to Shane’s side of the car. He opened the back door and I laid down across the back seat. Shane stood by the door watching Jason, but holding my hand. I tried to fall asleep but Shane kept nudging me so I would stay awake.
“Don’t fall asleep, you may have a concussion.” And so we waited there the three of us, two of us glaring at each other and one in a semi-conscious state.
After what seemed like an eternity a cop car pulled up. An officer burst out of the front door. Jason saw him and froze. He didn’t think that Shane was serious.
“What is going on here?” the police officer was short, fat man with a head full of black hair but an extremely receding hairline.
“We had a-uhm-disagreement and it got out of hand.
Shane said this with an accusing glare at Jason.
“How out of hand? Our phone manager said that the call sounded desperate.”
“He,” Shane pointed to Jason, “was slapping her. Well, more like hitting her.”
“Why?” the police officer was looking at Jason. I knew he was probably thinking Jason looked strong but not abusive. I decided I needed explain, not Shane or Jason but me. Shakily I stood up.
“I used to date Jason,” I nodded toward Jason, “We dated for a…long time. But recently I have changed and didn’t like him anymore. So I broke up with him. It didn’t go over well because he thought that the whole reason was Shane,” I nodded at Shane, “Even though it wasn’t his entire fault. Two weeks ago I really need someone to talk to so I met Shane here. We fell in love. Today we were at Java again and we came outside. On our way to my car Jason saw us together and went…Insane,” I looked over at Jason and saw him duck his head, blushing, “He began to slap me, and Shane called the police. When Shane confronted Jason he stopped and eventually Jason let me go lie down on the back seat.”
“Interesting…” that was all that the policeman said, “Are you willing to press charges against Jason?” I was surprised. Would I press charges?
“I don’t think Megan is in a stable enough condition to answer that question at that moment.” Shane is my savior! “But we would appreciate you taking Jason with you to the station while I drive Megan for a quick examination to see if she has any head trauma.” The policeman was just as speechless as me, he hadn’t expected on Shane having such a plan. The policeman shook off the surprise and took control of the situation.
“Sounds like a good plan,” the policeman escorted Jason to the backseat of the police cruiser before saying, “Feel better; we will be seeing you soon.” We watched them drive away.
“Great! Another hospital trip.” I groaned as I said this.
“You could have a concussion, a serious one.” Shane helped me into the passenger seat and off we drove.

I was in the middle of my English homework when I heard my phone buzzing and saw Joeseph’s number on the screen.
“Hey” I said picking it up
“Hey babe!” he said with his usual enthusiasm.
“What? I am kind of in the middle of my English homework right now and you don’t know Ms. Rab, or really for the matter of fact any of my other teachers because you refuse to transfer to my school, so you don’t know how they have NO late homework policy.”
“I won’t be long, but I have some fun news for you.”
“What?”
“Geez! If you are going to be that way I won’t tell you.”
It must be really important I thought because Joeseph never talks to me this way.
“I am sorry Joeseph…Really…You know how I am when I am stressed. What is it you are going to tell me?”
“I have our target”
I dropped my pen.
“Really?” This was the best news I had heard in a long time, just the thing to raise my spirits.
“Definitely, I might even have two…As long as you are fine with killing a ‘Godly woman’.” His tone was mocking.
“No problem.” I smiled an began working on my English paper with new invigoration.

The hospital was almost empty, except a woman sitting behind the check-in desk and a man watching the waiting room television.
“Hello? How may I help you?” The woman smiled at us as she said this.
“I think my friend may have a concussion and we would appreciate a doctor’s diagnosis.” Shane smiled back at her.
“It will only be a few minutes, feel free to have a seat sir. Miss, what is your name?”
Before I could finish officially checking in a doctor came and took me to a room. He shined a little light in my eyes while asking me to follow his finger. After a throughout examination he said that I had no concussion but that I shouldn’t do anything over stimulating for the next few days.
Shane insisted on driving and soon we were at the police station.
“I don’t want to press charges,” I turned to Shane, “Please. I don’t want to put him in jail, maybe just some medication and therapy.” Before I could hear what Shane though the policeman from before came up to me.
“Jason’s parents are here. Do you want to come-?”
“I don’t want to press charges.”
“What? Why not?”
“I don’t want to press charges but I would like to go back and see them.” I looked at Shane. He looked angrily upset. I had never seen him angry.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. He looked at our hands, then at me and I smiled at him.
We walked back into a conference room where Jason was sitting with his parents and a man- I assumed he was their lawyer.
Shane and I weren’t holding hands anymore but I could tell that us being close together bugged him because Jason tensed up.
“Megan! Honey, how are you? I am so sorry! And so is Jason, aren’t you? Tell her Jason.” This was Jason’s mom; she was always so sweet to me.
“Sorry,” Jason mumbled.
“I feel fine, just a headache.”
“Megan, we truly are sorry,” Jason’s dad had rarely talked to me but smiled whenever I came over.
“I’m not going to press charges against Jason.”
“Really?” the lawyer looked relieved.
“Jason, I may not love you anymore but I do not want you to go to jail.”
“Megan, thank-” I cut Jason off.
“But, I think Jason is bi-polar so I would really appreciate it if you would try and get him help, or medication. Whatever you want to do as long as it helps him.”
“We can do that. Definitely. Anything for you.” Jason’s mom practically ran over to my side of the table and hugged me, then Jason’s dad and then Jason. While Jason was hugging me I felt a piece of paper slip into my hand.

Shane drove me back to my house but didn’t walk in with me.
“I just need some alone time.”
I went straight up to my room. As always my dad and my sister weren’t home. I laid down on my bed, I was going to read the note but when I laid down I was overwhelmed by a feeling of sleep lack.
I closed my eyes and was asleep in seconds.
When I woke up it was bright outside and my alarm read eleven o’clock in the morning; I had slept for fifteen hours.
I didn’t even think that that was possible.
On my nightstand my phone beeped. I got out of bed and looked at the screen.
There was a text from Shane. “Hey baby! Do you want to hang out today?”
Hanging out with Shane was exactly what I needed.
“Can we meet for lunch?”
“Of course! Where do you want to meet?”
“Do you know of that little Italian place by Target?
“Yeah, I will see you in twenty minutes.”
“Make that thirty.”
I couldn’t wait to see Shane. After everything that happened last night I needed some time to blow off steam.
Thirty minutes later I drove into the parking lot; Shane who had been standing on the curb next to the restaurant came over and opened the door for me.
“Hey” I said while wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Hi…” he kissed me on the forehead and held my hand as we walked into the restaurant.
We ordered and sat down. Suddenly I heard a bout of whispers rise from behind me.
“Oh no…Not them.” Shane dropped his head into his hands. I turned around and saw Teri and a gaggle of girls. They were looking at us and whispering to each other.
“Just ignore them. You are the only girl I care about now.”
“But Shane, I have to go school with them!”
“Who cares?” Shane leaned across the table just as the waitress brought our food and drinks and kissed me. He was still kissing me and I heard the whispers stop. The waitress awkwardly stood there with our food as Shane kissed me long and hard.
When we pulled apart I smiled at him.
He turned to the waitress and while kindly smiling said, “I have the penne rustica and she has the buttered noodles.” She looked confused then smiled as she saw the group of girls not gossiping anymore.
We ate our food and ordered gelato to go and walked out the door holding hands and eating our ice cream. Shane opened my car door for me and helped me into my car before kissing my nose and saying in a hushed tone.
“Megan, you are an amazing woman that I think I love with all my heart.”
“Shane, I think I love you too. Thank you for reminding me that I can do anything with just a little bit of help from you.”
I closed the door, started my car and drove away. Shane waved at me and began walking to his ride.
When I got home I went up to my room to make my bed. In my bed I found the note from Jason.
Dearest Megan,

I love you. I will never stop loving you. It hurts so badly every time I see you together with him. Him…Can you tell that I absolutely hate him? He is slime! He went out with Teri. Did you know that? I just don’t want you to get hurt.

I wanted to tell you all this he would never let you get near enough to me. I guess you must think I am unstable too though… I wish you would never see him again.

We were happy together; we were made to be together.

The day you broke up with me you crushed my heart into a thousand little pieces and the only way I will ever be okay again is if you glue it back together with your love.

If you want to talk, just come to the tree house…I will always be there, waiting for you
Love you always,
Jason

I couldn’t believe what I just read. I read it again and again. After reading it through two more times I was absolutely sure that Jason was insane, and he needed to know this.
I really needed to go meet him, but why did he want to meet me in The Tree House?
The Tree House is a little hangout that we made at the top of his family’s great pine tree. It is right next to the trunk and hidden by needles all year long. We created an easy climbing path along the backside.
Jason and I had often met in The Tree House for romantic study dates.
Not only was the space small but I took a lot longer than him to get down the tree trunk.
With all this churning in my head I decided to call Shane and see what he thought I should do. When I called his cell phone there was one ring and then it went straight to voicemail. I hung up and texted him.
“Hey! Call me a.s.a.p.…Need to ask you something really important!”
Even though my call didn’t get picked up Shane immediately texted me back.
“I will call you l8er; I am going over to Jason’s house.”
What?!?!? My mind screamed in confusion.
“WHY ARE YOU GOING OVER THERE?!?!”
Had Jason done something to Shane? Called him? Maybe Shane just wants to make-up with Jason. Yeah, that’s it!
“He did some things and he needs to confess that he did them so that I can take legal action.”
“What did he do? Nothing dealing with me…I do not want to go to court. Besides, I wanted to go over there too and talk to him about a note that he gave me. Let me come with you. He is in our tree house and it would be better for the both of us to face him together.”
“NO!” I couldn’t believe it, he was going in there alone and he didn’t want me to come, I even told him where to find Jason.
“Don’t go alone…Please” I knew that it was no use but Shane knew what he wanted and I couldn’t sway him from what he was set on.
I waited all day before calling him again. He didn’t pick up.
I decided to text him. “Hey! Are you okay?” I was continually checking my phone. I even called Jason but he didn’t pick up either.
Tonight Dad and Wilfretta were home and we all ate dinner together. Usually after eating dinner I went up to my room and my sister disappeared into the computer room but, today Dad invited us to watch the news with him. Not wanting to be alone with my phone I agreed.
I tried to sound happy as I chatted with my dad in the thirty minutes before the news broadcast aired.
Soon the topic of Jason came up; I hadn’t told him about all of the drama. I decided to fill him in on only the essential details of the break up. He had liked Jason and was sad to hear about what happened; part of me felt that it would have been too cruel to shatter the image he had of Jason.
Eventually the news came on. They told about a missing girl, the weather tomorrow, a gang shooting and a pregnancy pact gone too far in a local high school. They closed with a short video about town council.
When the next show came on I kissed my dad goodnight. I hadn’t kissed him goodnight in a long time. While I brushed my teeth I decided that I would watch the news with Dad every night that he was home.

And that is what I did.
Every night that week I sat in our dusty den and watched the evening news with my dad. It helped pass the time since I didn’t hear from Shane or Jason all week and Jason wasn’t even at school.
Friday night my dad and I were sitting on the couch waiting for the news when casually he cleared his throat and asked, “So, are you going to date anyone else?”
“What?” I must not have told him about Shane.
“Boys?”
“Oh, well I didn’t tell you but I broke up with Jason to go out with this super kind guy name Shane…” Just then the news started.
“Good evening. This is Mona Kim and I am coming to you with important news this evening. After five day of family silence two families have reported missing teenage boys. Their names are Shane Alexander and Jason Linvion.” Two pictures flashed on the screen.
The one of Jason was from Winter Formal this year; I had artfully been cut out.
The picture of Shane did him no justice. But the picture still portrayed some of his gorgeousness. He looked like an Abercrombie and Finch model.
I was shocked by their mention and all of my attention was focused on the television. Faintly I heard Dad ask, “Megan? Is that…” but he stopped because a picture of me was now on the screen.
“It is believed that the boys were last seen together with Megan Hansen at the local police station. Jason assaulted Megan over a recent break up. It is believed Shane was with Megan and Jason at the attack and drove Megan to the hospital to check for any major head trauma. There were no major injuries so Megan and Shane met Jason, his lawyer, and his family at the station. While at the station Megan declared that she didn’t want to press charges but that she would rather him get physiatrist help. Anyone with information is encouraged to call this hotline…”
“Oh my good graciousness! Oh my gosh! Oh my good heaven above!”
“Megan! What happened?!”
“I don’t know.” But I did. Jason and Shane had gotten into something together and were missing.
I went from not calling or texting them for a whole week to constantly texting and calling them. I also called the hotline and told them everything. After two weeks they had found nothing of either boy, well not until Saturday.
I had religiously become dedicated to our local news stations and stations all across the nation. But in the end our local station was the most helpful.
“Good evening. This is Mona Kim. I have some good news for you about our missing boys’ case. Jason Linvion has been found. He was found in the middle of our own Rocky Mountains, although slightly dehydrated Jason is fine and being cared for at…”
Jason was alive…That would mean that…Shane was dead.

I just knew she was going to be pleased. Our whole plan was just a petty distraction for me, but for Anna it was an obsession.
She would always bring up the plan before it was finished and now all she wanted was for the plan to be carried out. I understood her obsession over our plan, I experienced it myself once, while creating my own plan.
Now, the plans bore me, but it keeps Anna happy.
“Dang, I forgot to get the whereabouts of my car from Anna. She seemed so busy though! I can wait to get my car back until later.”
I was at my parent’s house so I didn’t have my plans and I would just have to go back to the apartment later to finish up the plans.
Of course it would be more than just finishing up the plans, with two targets there would be lots of revisions and adjustments.
Would we carry out the plan on both of them at the same time or twice the same way? That would definitely affect the final outcome.
“I have to call Anna there is too much I have to ask her about. But she was so busy! I don’t want to disturb her.”
Pulling out my laptop I opened up a new Word document and began taking notes
•
Where is my car?
•
Do we do two at once or one at a time?
•
When?
•
Where?
•
What do you want the final outcome to be?
“I really should just call her. There is so much to figure out.”
I picked up my phone and dialed her number.
It rang. Once, twice, three times.
“Please, Joeseph! I have lots of studying to do!”
“Sorry, sorry honey…Anna…”
“Well?!”
“Uhm, sorry?”
“No, what do you want?”
“Oh! I see! Well I just wanted to know several things.”
“Yes?”
“Where is my car?”
“What do you mean? How in the world did you lose your car?”
“You took it.”
“I what?”
“You took my car after the picnic.”
“I remember now! I took it over to your apartment. It should be in front of your building.”
“Well, that helps”
“Why are you being so sarcastic?”
I had forgotten that Anna knew nothing of my other life and that it was hard to hide from the cops and Megan who was probably looking for me, and hide my real life from my parents.
“No reason, I simply have lots of questions for you.”
“Okay…”
“Do you want to kill them both at the same time?”
“The targets?”
“Precisely”
“One male and one female?”
“Yes”
“I think we should carry out our plan in two parts. First the male, then the female.”
“Alrighty, when do you want to do it?”
“I think the winter, with lots of snow. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? All that red on all that white?”
“Both on the same day?”
“I don’t know it might provide too much evidence, thus destroying our perfect plan, but I think that would be better”
“Okay. Where?”
“I have just the place…”

“Megan! Did you see? You were on the news!” I could have strangled every person that told me that, and the number of people who asked me if I had seen that I was on the news made me wonder how many people watched the news at night.
“Yeah, I know” was my answer to most people. After that most people just walked away but Lois Merill, a curious freshman girl approached me and wouldn’t leave.
“You were on television.”
“Yeah, I know”
“Why were you? I saw your picture but I didn’t hear the story.”
“It is a long story.”
“I have an off next period”
Would this kid ever go away? “And?”
“Do you?”
“Yeah…”
“Then you can tell me about it during that time.”
“I don’t really want to”
“I really don’t care if you don’t want to tell me about it.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Lois Merill, Lois like Lois Duncan.”
“Why should I tell you about my life and care who you are?”
“Is the other guy dead?” I stopped in my tracks.
“What?”
“The guy that they didn’t find yet”
“I actually don’t know”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think that he is alive?”
“Really?!”
“Yeah”
“Oh, sorry”
“I don’t know anything for sure. So don’t feel bad.”
“Alrighty then! Bye!” Lois waved at me and skipped down the hall.
“Bye,” awkwardly I waved after the funky freshman girl. I couldn’t make any sense out of the conversation we had just had.
“Is he alive?” I whispered to myself under my breath.
I needed to find Jason, but where would he be? Would he be in the tree house? Should I call him? I walked out to the student parking lot and got into my car. Pulling out my phone I dialed Jason’s number. It didn’t even ring and an automated voice told me that his inbox was full and I couldn’t leave a message.
Where is he? How can I get a hold of him?
What if I didn’t talk to him but Laura!? I started my car and drove to get some lunch, the whole time hitting myself on the head. I could have just called Laura all week!
After school I called her.
“Hey, Laura!”
“Uhm, Megan?”
“Yeah! It’s me!”
“Why are you so excited?”
“I just haven’t talked to you in a long time!”
“What do you want?”
“What do you mean by ‘what do you want’?”
“Just drop the act”
“Fine then. What do you know about Shane and Jason?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone”
“Meet me at McDonald’s on Fifth Street?”
“No”
“Meet me at… That little Chinese joint?”
“No, I will meet you at Java”
“Why Java?” Everyone wanted to go to Java! In the past few weeks Java had been such an emotional place I was not looking forward to another trip there.
“Do you want to know or not?”
“Fine, I will see you in fifteen minutes”
“See you then, but don’t go in. I will meet you in your car.”
“Uhm, alright”
Then all that I could hear was dial tone.
I grabbed my coat and drove to Java, parked my car and waited.
Next to me two girls were in a car putting on lipstick. I recognized them as Megan Merrill, the funky freshman’s older sister, and her best friend Lilly Karsh. They were joined by Abby Graese, their other best friend, before walking into Java with their boyfriends.
I was so jealous of them. They were some of the most kind and popular girls in school. They had football star boyfriends who brought them presents for no reason and were constantly taking them on romantic vacations. Their lives were so uncomplicated and free
A knock on my window disrupted my thoughts. It was just Laura. She was wearing a very low cut shirt and a very short cut skirt. Her hair was pulled into a tight French twist and her eyes were simply lined with black coal and mascara.
She knocked again, pointing to the locked door. I unlocked it and she got in.
“Going somewhere special?” I asked.
“Maybe a date later”
“Maybe?” I raised my eyebrows at her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Did Shane come over to meet Jason?”
“Yes”
“Where did they go?”
“Into the woods”
“Have you told the police any of this?”
“No”
“Did Jason have anything with him?”
“Nothing different from his usual” His pocketknife He always had his pocketknife with him.
“Why did Shane and Jason need to talk?”
“I showed Jason something” Laura felt her purse nervously.
“You showed him the recording?!” I couldn’t believe it! She had shown him the recording. Although it was worth nothing to Shane, Laura or I it proved to Jason that something non-existent had happened that he thought had happened.
“Maybe…”
“What did he say?”
“He was upset at me” Tears began to gather in her eyes, any anger that I had felt towards her for playing that recording for Jason evaporated.
“What did he do to you?”
Tears spilled out of the corners of her eyes. “I can’t tell you”
“Yes, you can”
“No, he’d be even more upset”
“Did he hurt you?” Laura didn’t say anything back. She was hunched over crying.
“Did he hit you?” she shook her head: yes. She looked up at me. Tears were mixing with her mascara and running down her face in long strips of black. “You need to tell the police, or your parents. He can’t just hit you and get away with it.”
“But there is no way to stop him…” he must have been abusing her for a while. I leaned over and hugged her.
“I’m sorry, but the police could help.”
“No, they can’t. He will just do the same thing to me that he did to Shane. He’d do it to me know if he knew what I just told you.”
“What did he do?” I was still concerned for her but the part of me that was worried for Shane and hoped he was alright over ruled the part of me that was worried for Laura.
“He…He…” She pulled back and looked at me.
I saw the vulnerable girl who I had befriended in second grade, but there something else was there too. She began to lean forward. Further and further until she kissed me. It had happened so fast and I didn’t know what she was doing until it was too late to move. Eeeeewwwwweeeeyyyy! My brain screamed.
I have nothing against bi-sexual people but I wasn’t that way. She may have just kissed me on the cheek but I was utterly shocked.
“What the hell?!” I rarely ever cussed but my mind was still at a blank.
“I really LIKE you Megan. I have since the third grade.”
“What?!”
“That’s why I hated all your boyfriends, especially Jason. He was so mean to me, he still is, and he was so nice to you. Also, you guys spent so much time together. He got to be with you all the time, kissing you, hugging you.”
I had to give it to her bluntly. “Well, Laura… I don’t like you back in that way. I like guys.” Her face crumpled again and a sob escaped her mouth.
“Jason killed Shane because he told you he like you and now Jason will probably kill me!” She screamed the last part at me before slamming open my car door, just barely stopping short of the car next to us, and jumping out. She wobbled away on her high heels, yelling behind her.
“Just so you know I am happy Shane is dead!”
I watched her leave before closing the door, and putting my head down on the steering wheel. Why does everyone I have a relationship, friend or not, end up going insane or getting killed?!

I dropped Will off at home and drove to my own home.
It may have been Tuesday morning but there was no way I was going to go to school that day,
Right as I fell into my bed my alarm went off. I shut it off.
When my dad came in I moaned and begged him to call me in sick. Eventually he subsided and left the room.
After the house was empty I fell asleep. I slept until three o’clock when I was awakened by my cell phone buzzing.
“Hello?”
“Hey Megan!”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Will”
“Oh, hey”
“Are you near a television?”
“Yeah”
“Turn it onto Chanel 7”
I turned on my bedroom television and turned to Chanel 7, just in time.
“Hello, my name is Mona Kim and I am coming to you this evening with some breaking news. We go to Abigail Garner for the full story”
“Hello, this is Abigail Garner and I am coming to you from the house of Jason Linvion at the edge of the great Rock Mountain forests. Earlier today a lost hiker came upon the remains of Shane Alexander.
“Oh my gosh” I whispered into my phone.
“I know” Will whispered back.
“Fowl play is suspected and the main suspect is Jason Linvion,” A picture of him flashed on the screen, “and his sister Laura Linvion is suspected to have assisted them.”
“She couldn’t have! Why would Laura help Jason?!”
“Unfortunately when the officials arrived here to arrest both Jason and Laura were not here, nor were they are their high school”
“Oh my gosh! Laura, she’s going to be...”
“…dead” Will finished.
“Search teams have been sent through the nearby forest to search for the two teenagers. As a station 7 News is dedicated to keeping you updated with the two young killers wreaking havoc on our little town.” Before she could say another word I flipped off the television.
“What are we going to do Will?!”
“I have no idea.”
My phone beeped
“One second Will”
I opened the text. It was from Jason.
“Do you value my sister?”
I texted back
“Of course I do”
“Will! It was Jason!”
“What did he want?”
“To
know if I valued Laura”
“What did you say?”
“I said of course I do”
“I don’t think that was the right thing to say…”
My phone beeped again.
“In what way do you value her?”
“She is my best friend”
“Will! I think he is about to kill her!”
“Stay calm”
My phone beeped
“Not as the way you value me?”
“Close but I don’t have a relationship with her”
“Will! What should I do?”
“Megan, what is going on?”
“Jason is about to kill Laura!”
“How do you know?”
“I just know!”
“But what makes you…”
“He killed Shane because we were getting close”
“What does this have to do with Laura?!”
“She is attracted to me!”
“Like attracted… attracted?”
“Yes,”
My phone beeped
“Laura says differently”
“Don’t hurt her! What do you want? I’ll do anything! Where are you?”
“You need to come over!” I screamed into my phone.
“What’s wrong Megan?”
It beeped again.
“It’s too late, there’s nothing you can do for Laura now”
Tears began to stream down my face.
“Will, I need you” my voice was choked with tears.
“What happened Megan?” I continued to weep into the phone, “I’ll be right over” Will said before hanging up.
But right before he hung up I cried almost inaudibly into the phone, “Laura is definitely dead.”

Two people dead because of me. And lots others in danger. What happens if no one ever catches Jason and I fall in love again? What if Jason kills that person too or what if Jason kills anyone who likes me, or kisses me? What if I want to marry someone but Jason kills them?
This will stop right here. I need to find Jason.
It took ten minutes for Will to get to my house. He rang the doorbell and before I could get it my dad answered the door.
“Hello” my father pleasantly said to Will.
“Hello, sir. I am here to see Megan”
“I think she’s here, but first. Aren’t you Shane Alexander…The missing boy?”
“Uhm, no. I am his twin brother, Will.” My dad was dumbfounded.
“Why does everyone have a twin?”
“That’s what I wanted to know?” I walked into view of the door, coming to stand behind my dad.
“You have a twin, Jason has a twin.” My dad continued to talk to Will.
“Okay then, Dad” I stepped beside him, “Will, come on in” Will smiled at my dad before I escorted him to my room.
When the door closed the tears I had been covering with a fake smile began to slide down my face.
“I can’t believe that Jason just…and Laura…”
“Shhh…It’s alright”
“No! Everything is wrong! Shane and Laura are dead because of me! You and all potential boyfriends of mine are all in danger!”
“Why? Don’t you think we can stop him? Don’t you think we should stop him?”
“Not all by myself”
“But you have me”
“Not by ourselves”

“Do you think we should go to the police?”
“I don’t know what I want to do!”
“Why don’t you know?”
“Everything is so complicated that I…”
“What?” Will raised his eyebrows. “That you can’t think straight?”
“Yeah, I guess…”
“Well, you need to decide what you want to do”
“Do you think we should go to the police?” I couldn’t decide anything; there were so many things that could go wrong.
“I think that it was the most reasonable option, they could track him through a call.” I could tell that Will was Shane’s twin. They both saw the sense in every situation.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You should try calling him now. If we can establish a sense of trust maybe you could track him”
“But…Will…I can’t stand the sound of his voice after what he did to Shane and now Laura.”
“The best way to help them is to put Jason in jail”
“But, Jason…Doesn’t…Well, I guess he does deserve to be in jail.”
Will nodded and handed me my cell phone off my nightstand.
“Try calling him now”
I held it for a few seconds before typing in Jason’s number into the phone.
I looked a Jason before pressing the send button. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard.
The phone rang once, twice, three times.
“Hello” It was Jason!
“Jason, it’s me”
“I know. What do you want?”
“Just to talk”
“About?”
“Did you really kill Shane?”
“Of course I did! I don’t joke about stuff like that”
“But why?”
“I don’t joke about stuff like that because it would be misleading.”
“No, why did you…”
“Megan, can you come here?” my dad yelled up the stairs.
“Jason, I need to call you back. My dad is calling”
“Whatever” and he hung up on me. Will whistled under his breath.
“You’d think he’d be more suspicious of calls and stuff”
“Let’s go to the police, I bet that I can get him on the phone long enough.”

I wish that Joeseph had never called. After he called me I couldn’t concentrate on anything!
I put away my failed attempt of an English essay and pulled out my own set of plans.
Joeseph had no idea that I had my own set of plans. He thought the only ones were safe in his apartment where no one could see them, but his looked so ugly! They were just a scattered bunch of notes on random sheets of paper. My plans are written in cursive on pink paper and are bound together in a binding and even had a lock on the edge.
I admired the front cover. I had disguised it as my diary so that no one who found it would wonder why there was a lock on it. I pulled the key out from where the hard support met the cushiony part of my chair and unlocked the lock.
I flipped open the cover and filled in the first page. “The Plans for the Ultimate Destruction of Mrs. Stine and Mr. Cassell”
I laughed to myself as a flipped page after page filling in blanks that related to when, where and who.
All the while I was thinking about Joeseph and Leo. Joeseph was so good at plotting and everything, I wish that I hadn’t ever gotten into a relationship with Joeseph. But I had been stupid freshman. He was just a guy who would always smile at me when I got something to eat at Edy’s, I knew he wasn’t in school, he had dropped out during his junior year, but when I found out that my sophomore year he was going back to school as a junior I couldn’t help but obsess over where he would go to school. Would he go to the same school as me? In the end it didn’t matter that he went to Cherokee Trail and I went to Armsalmada Academy. We still would see each other at the zoo and about this time last year he asked me out. I thought So what? I have nothing else going on in my life right now.
I wish we had become plotting companions and I would have met Leo and just been able to be with him and not hide it from anyone.
Before I knew it I was at the end of the notes and our plans were all set. We just had to bide our time until it snowed.

I wish that Joeseph had never called. After he called me I couldn’t concentrate on anything!
I put away my failed attempt of an English essay and pulled out my own set of plans.
Joeseph had no idea that I had my own set of plans. He thought the only ones were safe in his apartment where no one could see them, but his looked so ugly! They were just a scattered bunch of notes on random sheets of paper. My plans are written in cursive on pink paper and are bound together in a binding and even had a lock on the edge.
I admired the front cover. I had disguised it as my diary so that no one who found it would wonder why there was a lock on it. I pulled the key out from where the hard support met the cushiony part of my chair and unlocked the lock.
I flipped open the cover and filled in the first page. “The Plans for the Ultimate Destruction of Mrs. Stine and Mr. Cassell”
I laughed to myself as a flipped page after page filling in blanks that related to when, where and who.
All the while I was thinking about Joeseph and Leo. Joeseph was so good at plotting and everything, I wish that I hadn’t ever gotten into a relationship with Joeseph. But I had been stupid freshman. He was just a guy who would always smile at me when I got something to eat at Edy’s, I knew he wasn’t in school, he had dropped out during his junior year, but when I found out that my sophomore year he was going back to school as a junior I couldn’t help but obsess over where he would go to school. Would he go to the same school as me? In the end it didn’t matter that he went to Cherokee Trail and I went to Armsalmada Academy. We still would see each other at the zoo and about this time last year he asked me out. I thought So what? I have nothing else going on in my life right now.
I wish we had become plotting companions and I would have met Leo and just been able to be with him and not hide it from anyone.
Before I knew it I was at the end of the notes and our plans were all set. We just had to bide our time until it snowed.

The lady strapped on a police belt and we all walked out to the parking lot. We got into a cruiser and drove off
On the ride to Jason’s house I kept imagining where Jason had her. In his room? In their basement? No, they didn’t have a basement. I was almost positive that I knew where they were, but I didn’t know for sure. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
All I could think of was 'They have Wilfretta'.
We pulled up at Jason’s house. There were at least five police cars parked in their drive way and multiple police were walking around the house.

A police officer opened my door and began to explain how they couldn’t find anyone.
I ignored him and walked to the great pine tree that held the tree house.
I reached the bottom of the tree and immediately began climbing up the tree.
“What are you doing?” Will stood at the bottom of the tree staring up at me.
“They might be up here…”
“Please, come down”
“No”
“Please, Megan, come down”
I ignored him too and climbed until I reached the little structure nestled in the branches.
No one was there.
We were now sitting around the Linvion’s dining room table with the police officer from when Jason attacked me in the parking lot and Mrs. Linvion.
Earlier the police couldn’t enter the house until Mr. or Mrs. Linvion got home. While they waited men thoroughly searched the yard, the neighbor’s yards and parts of the surrounding forest.
When a bewildered Mrs. Linvion arrived home we had performed a search of the house and hadn’t found anything.
“You are sure your house doesn’t have a basement or an attic?”
“Positive”
“And we have no results”
“Where could they be?” Mrs. Linvion had a worried look on her face.
“They have to be somewhere in the house. Megan was talking to Jason for such a long time that when we arrived they were still at the house. And with the amounts of police who have been here ever since that I am sure that they wouldn’t have snuck away.”
I rested my head in my hands. Where could they be?
Suddenly I remembered something. Jason and I had been hanging out one day here when Jason had stopped on the stair landing, pointed to a specific painting and said something. But, what had he said?
“I have an idea!” I stood up and walked up their stairs, stopping on the landing where the picture was.
I stared at the picture, racking my brain for what he had said. The police chief shifted his weight irritably when I did nothing.
He began to rock on his heels and said, “What is so special about this painting?”
“Special…Special” The memory came rushing back to me.
He had run his pointer finger along the painting and said, “Megan, did you know that there is a special feature to this house that only I know about?”
I ran my finger along the edge of the painting. It moved! I pulled at the edge but it didn’t move any further.
I ran my hands along the whole frame. On the top I felt an indent in the woodwork. I pressed down on it and there was a clicking noise.
I pulled at the edge of the frame again and it swung wide open to reveal a hole in the wall.
The police officer turned to Mrs. Linvion, “Did you know about this?”
“I had no idea that this was here The picture was here when we bought the house and I liked it so much that I haven’t touched it.”
I felt the floor of the hole. It was smooth but not slick and went back as far as I could feel.
The picture was long and reached almost from the top of my head to the floor. The police man pulled out his flashlight and began to step in. I stopped him.
“May I please go first?”
“But,”
“Please?”
The look on my face must have been convincing because he handed me the flashlight. I turned it on and walked into the tunnel.
The tunnel turned out to only be about four feet long and led to a ladder that went as far down as I could see.
Cautiously I handed the flashlight back to the police officer and began my way down the ladder. I counted rungs as I went. After about thirty rungs Will began to descend the ladder. After about thirty more Mrs. Linvion began and thirty more the officer began down.
As my feet reached for the 126th rung I felt ground.
I was in a small cavern that held the entrance to a tunnel that led directly under the house. Soon everyone was in the cavern. I took the flashlight again and walked down the path.
We walked for fifteen minutes when we turned a corner. There was a light at the end. I knew that Jason had to be there so I turned off the flashlight and signaled for everyone to stay where they were.
With each step I got closer to the light and I felt a ball of fear and nerves form in the pit of my stomach.
I reached the end and walked into a cavern four times larger than the first one. There was a little kitchen, a sitting area and four beds.
In the sitting area Jason was reading a book and Wilfretta was sitting looking nervous. Laura was moving busily in the kitchen.
“Wilfretta!” I cried and ran over to her before anyone could stop me. She ran to meet me and I wrapped my arms around her thin frame. I looked at her. For such an ugly name she was so pretty; she had blond hair, dark grey eyes and full red lips.
After our embrace I looked over at Jason who had stood up.
“I’m so glad you could make it Megan”

A smile spread over Jason’s face as I looked over towards him.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, Megan, you are so…I don’t know…To the point”

“What do you want?”

“I have already told you”

“Jason, I can’t love you, not after I have seen you this way”
His smile faded and he stepped around the couch. He placed his hands in his hips staring intently at me. Laura came to stand by me and Wilfretta.
“Megan, I love-”
“Don’t start that again”
“Let me finish” Jason had stood up and was standing near a small opening in the wall, a fireplace? He ran is hand over the ledge, stopping at a particular spot and putting his pointer finger on it before continuing running his hand along the edge.
“Megan, I love you but I see how you could never love me again.”
Jason stopped and cocked his ear, there was a shifting sound.
“Jason, what is going-”
“Megan, let me finish. After what happened to Shane, it would be devastating to anyone. I will always consider dating you to be my greatest accomplishment. I am sorry that our relationship had to end because of that scum.”
He began to walk closer to the fireplace.
“I love you Megan and always will…It’s just too bad we couldn’t be together anymore. Au revoir, Adiós, Good evening.”
“Where are you going?”
Jason feigned a hat tip and stepped backwards into the fireplace. He winked and disappeared.

Just then the police officer, Will and Mrs. Linvion rushed out of the cavern opening.
“Was that Jason?” Mrs. Linvion worriedly said before rushing to Laura, “Are you a murderer? You can’t be! I’ve failed as a mother!”
“Mom, I’m not a murderer…But Jason…Jason” Laura collapsed into her mother’s arms and wept loudly.
“What happened?” The police chief and Will were standing to the side looking uncomfortable and curious.
“He was talking and then he just disappeared”
“Interesting, where did he disappear to and where from?”
“He was standing by the fireplace talking and then he just stepped into it and disappeared. I don’t know where to.”

It was mid-November and it still hadn’t snowed. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t snowed. Ever since after Halloween and the lack of snow Anna had been especially grumpy.
I don’t know what we would do if it never snowed. Wait till next year?
I think that Anna would just leave me if it never snowed and I made her wait till next year, but that will never be allowed to happen! I may not deserve her but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to try and keep her.

“Where could he have gone?” I turned to ask Will if he had any ideas but he wasn’t behind me anymore. Will was sitting on the couch with Wilfretta. They were talking to each other deeply and seriously.
“Will? Wilfretta?”
They looked away from each other, dazed.
“Hmmm?”
“Do you have any idea where Jason might be?”
“Well, have you retraced your steps…I mean have you retraced his steps?” Wilfretta looked at me with wide eyes.
“No”
“Then you should”
“Do you want to act it out?”
“Uh,”
“I will act as Jason and Will can be me” Wilfretta
I looked at Will uncomfortably wondering if she would make me hug him like I hugged her. That would be extremely awkward considering that I just found out that they might be interested romantically in each other.
The police man ignored them and walked over to the fireplace. He bent down and looked in the fireplace. There was a wall of brick encasing the whole inside. The fireplace wasn’t even made to be used, just to decorate.
“Okay. Megan, you and W and Laura go sit on the couch,” Wilfretta walked up by the fireplace and faced us, “Oh, Megan! I love you!” Wilfretta grasped at her chest.
“Very funny. Now get to business”
“What was he doing while he said that?” the police man had also sat down and was thoughtfully stroking his chin.
“I don’t remember” Wilfretta shrugged.
“He was running his hand along the mantel and then he put his finger on a point.” I jumped up and stood next to Wilfretta and ran my hand along the mantle. At about the center point I felt a slight indent in the frame. Gently I pressed my finger on the point.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe that was the wrong spot…” Wilfretta suggested.
I continued to run my hand along the ledge and soon felt another indent. This one I pressed and I felt it move beneath my finger. In the background I heard a shifting sound again.
I looked at the fireplace and still…nothing. I ran my hand over the rest of the mantle. At the end I felt I tiny switch. I flipped it with very little pressure and with no noise and barely any noticable difference the back and sides of the fireplace slid away.
“Woah” Will whistled under his breath.
“Are there anymore hidden passage ways that we should know about?” The police man was investigating the hole.
“Is Jason in there?” Mrs. Linvion stood up anxiously and tried to look through the fireplace, “Its dark in there!” she complained.
“And?” She was really beginning to irritate me. Why did she care so much about Jason? He almost killed her daughter and had killed one of the most important people in my life.
I elbowed the police man out of the way and stepped backwards into the fireplace, like Jason had just done. With a whooshing sound all of the carvern lights disappeared and I felt like I was moving. It was pitch black so the only way I could tell that I was moving was by the sound of air streaming by.
Where was I going?
The ride lasted about two minutes before the platform that I was standing on slid into an opening. The opening had a curtain covering a door frame.
Before I moving I listened for any sign that Jason could be outside of the curtain. I heard nothing.
I stepped out into a small room with dirt walls. There were no furnishings and a simple opening in one wall that led to a tunnel. There was also another curtained opening.
I stood in the opening contimplating what to do for a while before I heard a whooshing sound behind me and I saw Wilfretta appear in the elevator-like opening.
“Woah! That was cool!” exclaimed Wilfretta, a look of excitement fixed itself on her face.
“Is everyone else coming?”
“I think so”
“What should we do?”
“There is an opening to some sort of tunnel that I figured Jason went down. We should follow him.”
Wilfretta just shrugged and looked at me.
It was killing me, I just had to ask, “Do you like Will?”
“Uh, well”
“Come on, I loved Shane and they look a like so I see where you are coming from. Fess up”
“Yeah, but he is way different from Shane. He has blue eyes, the color of the sky on a beautiful blue day and his hair is longer and…” Wilfretta’s voice faded away as I looked at her. “What?!” she complained.
“Nothing, its not important.” I had been thinking that they would be a wonderful couple and also that she was too young to go out with him right now. She was a freshman and he was a junior but she was only thirteen. Wilfretta was the youngest in her class, with a late winter birthday.
We stood together waiting for the others to come but they didn’t.
“Where could they be?” I asked aloud.
“Should we move on?”
I debated the pro’s and con’s of going forward without anyone else. We would be alone and could move faster after Jason, but we wouldn’t have anyone to call for help. We could face Jason in a less confrontational way but we would have no one to stop him if he got into one of his moods.
“We will wait for two more minutes.”
Slowly two minutes ticked by.
“I think we should go ahead,” Wilfretta looked at me seriously, “Every minute we spend waiting Jason gets further and further away.”
“Okay lets go.”
We walked towards the dirt opening together.
If only I had looked in the curtained second door.

It was snowing! Finally! IT WAS SNOWING!
I woke up on a Saturday morning and looked outside to find that it was snowing hard and furiously. In no time there would be enough snow for our backdrop to be perfect, we needed to act fast.
I picked up my phone, flipped it open and dialed Joeseph’s number.
“JOESEPH!”
“I figured I would be hearing from you soon”
“You knew about the snow and didn’t call me?”
“I know you like your sleep on Saturdays…”
“Well, yes I do. That and my Saturday morning pancake and bacon breakfast,” I sighed. I love bacon and pancakes so much! Maybe Mom would make me bacon pancakes this morning… “HEY! Stop trying to distract me!”
“Sorry”
“Do you have everything ready?”
“Yes, and this snow couldn’t have come at a better time. My rent was due last week so Mr. Cassell will be coming by my apartment this evening to try and collect it. I will simply say that Mrs. Stine said that she would help me out with rent this month. We all go over to Mrs. Stine’s place. Subdue them then carry out the plan.”
I giggled with glee. “Sounds absolutely perfect!”
“Okay, honey?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got to go. Call you soon?”
“I will meet you at your apartment around three?”
“Sounds good”
“See you later! I love you!” I hesitated. I didn’t really love Joeseph anymore, what should I say?
Suddenly all I could hear was a dial tone. He must have hung up I assumed.

I was right in the middle of talking to Anna when I heard a knock on the door.
“I know you are in there!”
My heart leapt in my chest.
Who was it?
I looked out the peep hole, it was Shane! Just as quickly as my heart had leapt up it sunk.
What was he doing here?
Him being here ruined everything!
What if Mr. Cassell came over when he was here?
What if Anna showed up?
How did he know where to find me?
My parents had sworn not to out me!
And Laura? I doubt that our parents even told anyone that they still had contact with me.
They had been so embarrassed by the whole scene back in Colorado that they didn’t even want me to live with them full time. They are the ones who usually give me money for rent. They wanted me to have a place to go to if someone showed up looking for me or questioning them if they had seen me.
Slowly a plot began to form in my mind as I pressed the end button on my phone, not even hearing what Anna said back, and swung open the door.

Wilfretta and I quietly walked through the little room and through the dirt doorway. The path went a little way, maybe 15 feet before turning. There was no visible lighting but the whole path was visible.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Wilfretta asked.
I shrugged and began to walk down the path. We turned the corner to face another 15 foot long path that ended in a corner.
“Is this what it is all like?” Wilfretta asked again.
Once again I shrugged and began to walk down the path. The same thing happened ten times, each time Wilfretta asked a new question.
“How long do you think this is?” or “I wonder how deep down we are?”
Finally I got fed up with her.
“Wilfretta! Shut up!” She looked hurt, “Oh, Wilfretta, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to snap but you just kept asking questions and I don’t know the answer and they are making me wonder what we are going to do and where we are and if we are ever going to get out alive and it just made me frustrated.” Wilfretta still looked upset but just a little less ready to cry. “I’m sorry.” I said again before moving on.
After thirty or so little turns we came face to face with a dead end.
“Great!” I threw my hands up in the air and looked a Wilfretta expecting to see the same look of frusration and utter amazement on her face that was currently on mine. Instead she looked confuzed.
“How is there a dead end here?” she asked.
“Jason led us on a wild goose chase!”
“No”
“What?!”
“If Jason really went up the fireplace like we both saw he would be here now too if it were a true dead end.”
“What?!”
“It’s not a real dead end”
“What?!”
“How much simpler can I make it?!”
“What?!” She shot a whithering glare at me. “Oh, sorry. I am just shocked.”
“By what?”
“Jason really had this all figured out. He figured I would put the clues together and find him down there and so he had an escape tunnel and then he blocked the path behind him so that we couldn’t find him.”
Wilfretta looked at me. Her eyes were squinted at me. “I can’t believe you.”
“Oh my gosh! What?!”
“You just take everything at face value. There has to be more to this. If Jason is really the guy you say that he is he wouldn’t have made it that simple. I think he wants you to find him, but he also doesn’t want it to seem obvious.”
“How do you know?” Wilfretta had a self satisfied look on her face that revolted me I expected her to press a magic button on her phone and call Jason. I expected to find out that they were in cahoots together, but she just laughed in light tinkling voice.
“Megan, just trust me. We were stuck in a cave together for almost twenty-four hours. I think that I got a pretty good idea of his master plan from little comments he kept making.”
“Wilfretta, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but do you really know Jason?”
“Not really” she admitted.
“He killed Shane, Will’s twin! Just because I broke up with him to go out with Shane. Also, he threatened Laura and captured you. He is dangerous!”
Wilfretta laughed again. “Stop taking things so seriously”
And above us I heard another laugh followed by, “Yeah Megan. Stop taking things so seriously.”
I gasped.
It was Jason.

We both gasped, and Wilfretta grabbed my arm. We looked up and saw Jason standing on a ledge just poking out of the top of the blocked tunnel.
“Megan, you still think that I killed Shane?”
“Of course. I know that you did.”
“Well I didn’t”
“I will never believe you.”
“You didn’t look around that one cavern did you?”
“What?”
“The second door”
I stood speechless. What was happening? Was Shane alive? Was he in that second door?
“Is Shane in it?”
“I will never tell.”
I turned to go back
“Its me or him”
“Definitely him”
“I know that you would never be interested in me ever again, but you can either come catch me or you can go find him.”
I looked at Wilfretta. She looked at me then looked at Jason. I raised my eyebrows at her. Silently trying to ask if she was sure I should go after Jason.
She nodded twice, firmly.
I didn’t know if Jason had seen this. I thought that if I could capture Jason Wilfretta and I could lead him to the authorities and then go back to where Shane was supposed to be.
I couldn’t go back for Shane now. I wasn’t sure I could even trust Jason that he was back there. Much less trust that he was alive.
I looked around where we were.
The platform was about five feet above me head. Maybe I cold lift Wilfretta up to the platform. But how would I get up?
The dead end looked like it was filled with lots of crumbly, loose dirt that would be impossible to climb. But the sides of the tunnel were packed harder and slightly slanted towards the platformt that Jason was standing on.
I dropped to my knees and began to dig at the dirt to form a foot hold.
“What are you going to do then?” asked Jason.
I ignored him and continued digging. Once I finished with one foothold I began another one about half way between the first one and the top of my head.
I finished that one and one right at eye level.
“Wilfretta, I am going to help you climb the wall. But, as you go you need to create new footholds so that I can follow you. Okay?” I whispered this into her ear.
Wilfretta looked longingly at her perfectly manicured hands.
“I’ll get you a new manicure. Please, just do it”
“Fine” she whispered back.
I held onto her hips as she placed her feet into the first foothold and grabbed onto the hand hold that was at my eye level.
Wilfretta streached and created another hand hold above the first and stepped into the foothold that was at the height of my waist. We continued this as high as I could hold her.
About half-way up the side of the way Jason called down.
“As much as I am delighted that you chose me I am afraid that I can’t make it that easy. You will reach the top soon and I won’t want to be here when you arrive. Good bye!” He waved and loped down the tunnel attached to the platform.
Although his departure saddened me, the more head start the longer it would take to find him, it filled Wilfretta with determination. Soon she was at the platform and she left a trail of footholds.
I climbed the path quickly and we set off together to track down Jason.

We walked along a metal grated path for fifteen minutes and saw no traces of Jason. We went around a sharp corner and came face to face with a metal door.
“Do you think that Jason put this whole path together?”
I started to think ‘There she goes again with those questions’ but I stopped myself remembering how hurt she had been when I was frustrated with her for asking questions before.
“He couldn’t have. I bet this was used before for something. Maybe the gold rush?”
“Nah…This is all metal. It couldn’t have been from then.”
I shrugged and examined the door. It was made of steel and slid open, but not by hand. It probably was automated. But how to open it? On the frame was mounted a small keypad. Wilfretta saw it too.
“What could the code be?”
I typed in Jason’s birthday. A loud negative sound blared through the tunnel. I typed in the last four digits of his number, same result. I typed in 1234 and 1590 and his house address and the year we were born and this year. All gave me a resounding blare.
“Really?” Wilfretta looked at me like I was stupid.
“What?”
“Your birthday?”
I smacked myself on the head. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
I typed in my birthday and the doors slid apart with a slient ‘swoosh’.
“I can’t believe that wasn’t the first thing that you thought to put in,” said Wilfretta and I smacked her playfully on the shoulder.
Smiling we began down the corridor. The walls were no longer made of dirt but concrete and small lights were visible in the ceiling. The grate we were walking on was suspended over a black void, leaving us only to imagine what we were walking over.
Wilfretta was a few steps ahead of me when she stoppend and held her hands out to the sides, as if she were steadying herself.
“Wilfretta? What are you doing?”
“This grate is moving as I walk on it!” she said this in a regular tone but I could hear and edge of panic.
“Just keep going, carefully and slowly”
I waited for her to get across before I started to cross.
The grating was moving constantly with every step I took. I could see why Wilfretta had held out her arms to steady herself and looked so shooken when she had reached a steady piece of grating.
Each piece was about six feet long and I crossed it relitively quickly. When I reached the end Wilfretta began to walk forward again only to find that the piece of grating right after the stable piece was also unstable.
Looking down the corridor we were currently in I saw that there were about ten grates left and I figured that every other one was unstable. I was right.
We spent a good part of the next hour carefully crossing the grates.
When we reached the end we were faced with another door. This one was made of wood but also had key pad attached to the frame.
I typed in my birthday and nothing happened.
“Are you kidding me?!” I cried out in frustration.
“Did you put in your birthday?” asked Wilfretta.
“What do you think?” I snapped.
“Fine then, I won’t help you.”
“Wilfretta! Sorry! You just have to understand I am under a lot of stress. I want you to help. I really do.”
“What ever.” She crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from me.
I turned back to the key pad.
I typed in all of the numbers I had typed in the past key pad and none caused the doors to open.
“What could it be?” I looked at Wilfretta. She still had her arms crossed and was ignoring me.
While I was looking at Wilfretta I noticed something engraved into the wall behind Wilfretta.
“Wilfretta, look at the wall.”
“Why?!” She glared at me.
“I will stop snapping at you. Just look at the wall next to you.”
She rolled her eyes and looked at the wall. “It says Megan and then that’s underlined and then it says 1029.”
I typed in 1029 and the doors swung outward to reaveal another passage.
This one was short and led to a set of stairs that streached as far up as we could see and ended on a landing that then turned around and led to another set of stairs.
“We must really be far down,” said Wilfretta.
“Yup, I think.” I responded before beginning to climb the stairs.
We got up to the first landing and Wilfretta looked at the next set of stairs that awaited us.
“My calves are going kill me tomorrow!” said Wilfretta.
I laughed with her and together we climbed the next five sets of stairs. I figured that each set of stairs was two flights, so we climbed twelve flights of stairs before reaching another door.
The first thing I did was look around us for any notes from Jason. Then I typed in all of the usual codes.
“What could it be?”
“What year did you and Jason meet?”
“Uhm…2007”
“Try that”
I typed in 2007 and nothing happened.
“Try 2010”
I typed that in and again nothing.
“When did you guys first kiss?”
“2007”
I typed that in. Nothing.
“What day did you break up with him?”
“September 9th” I replied hesitantly. Why would Jason use that date?
“So 0909”
“Wilfretta, I don’t think that he would use that.”
“And, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but if you don’t try it you will never know.”
“Wilfretta…”
“Just try it!” Now she was beginning to get frustrated with me.
I typed in 0909 and the door slid apart to reveal another door.
“Really? Really? Are you kidding me?” I banged my hands on the door.
“Megan! Its okay! We will get through this! We can just try all of the possible codes and…” Her coaxing was no use. I continued to pound on the door.
My fists were sore so I resorted to kicking the door. I kicked the door fourteen times before I felt a piece of the door move beneath my foot.
I paused in my fit of rage to investigate the panel.
“Wilfretta! Look!”
We both bent down to look at it.
The panel when untouched blended perfectly with the surrounding metal. When touched slightly it came apart from that metal and could be pushed in slightly with no results.
“Maybe you have to push it in really far” Wilfretta leaned down and pushed on the panel. She couldn’t get it very far. “Help me Megan!”
The panel was large enough for both of us to put our hands on it to push. Together we pushed it in far enough that the door began to slowly rise, like a garage door.
The room was dark. Wilfretta jokingly clapped her hands and said, “Lights on.” Suprisingly the lights all turned on.
On the far side of the long hall-like room a door was just shutting and I could see Jason was the one closing the door.

It was Jason!
“Hey!” I yelled after him just as the door was closing. Wilfretta and I rushed across the room and swung open the door.
Jason who had gotten about halfway down the hallway spun around to face us.
“How?!”
“How long have you been setting this up?”
“I knew that you were going to leave me eventually, you are too kind and wonderful and amazing for me! I knew that you would never stay with me, so I set up this elaborate plan for you and your new guy. Whoever he would be...It just happened that I already hated the guy you decided to leave me for.”
“You make it sound like we were married and I divorced you for some reason! I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!! I wasn’t going to carry on with something that got me nowhere.”
“You think that I am to blame for all this?! You say that you didn’t love me anymore but you just loved him more than me and thought that he would be a better person to love instead of me!!!” Jason’s face was turning red and I could tell that he was working himself into another fit.
“Jason, calm down! Just come back into this room and we can talk it out. Please, just calm down.”
“You just think that I am phycotic based off of you believing that I killed your boyfriend, but I have feelings too! I need somebody to love me!!!” Tears began to run down his now purple face.
“But how will someone love you if you keep killing people?”
“I didn’t kill them! I just…I just…Wanted to get back at you for what you did to me! You made me suffer, you cracked my heart in half and then stomped on the two halves! I wanted you to feel the heart break that I felt! You didn’t deserve him, you deserve me!” Before shouting ‘you deserve me’ he dropped to his knees and grabbed the hem of my shirt.
“Jason, please. You need to move on, you need to get help with your problems…”
“You mean that I need help with EVERYTHING in my life?!”
“Yes…You need some emotional, mental, and physical help. Let go of my shirt now. We can all just walk back to your house and take you to go talk to your family and explain everything to them. We will get you help. We can find someone for you. Besides me, you could…Go out with….Hmmmm…” I thought for awhile. Who would I condem to a horrible life with Jason?
“Cousin Amanda!” yelled Wilfretta.
I shook my head at her and carefully guided Jason back to the room. He was still holding onto my shirt, now the sleeve not the hem, and crying uncontrollably.
I tried to motion to Wilfretta to tell her to go to the door and see where we were and if we were close to an exit, but she couldn’t tell what I was trying to get her to do.
Clearly she mouthed, “I am going to go check out where we are.”
I rolled my eyes at her and let her go investigate.
Jason continued to weep on the hem of my shirt and I sat uncomfortably on the edge of a modern looking couch.
The whole room was designed in a contemporary style. All the furnitures had sharp edges and were various shades of black and gray.
There was a little kitchen attached to the room. I felt my stomach grumble and I realized that I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night.
Slowly I uncurled Jason’s fingers from my sleeve and walked to the kitchen.
The tiles beneath my feet were cold, I could feel the could seeping through my shoes and into my socks. The air in the kitchen area also felt five degrees cooler than it had in the far corner of the other room where the sofa and chairs were located.
I bent down and touched the tiles. There were slick, very cold and…wet?
Looking even closer at the tiles I found that they seemed to be made of ice. I figured that they must be some type of natural air conditioning.
I continued to the refridgerator and found some decent looking fruit. I picked up an apple and sat down at the table. As I ate the fruit I stared at the ice tiles.
Jason wiped his eyes and came to sit by me.
“Interesting aren’t they?”
“The tiles?”
“Yeah, I designed them. There is a natural spring running right below our feet and I spent a lot of time down here. I needed a way to regulate the temperature. Depending on the temperature outside and how it affects the temperature in here the tiles will either capture and freeze or warm the water of the spring. If you wait long enough you can watch the process work.”
I looked at Jason, I had never known he was invintive. For having been together for almost four years we didn’t really know each other as well as I had though.
Wilfretta suddenly burst through the door.
“Megan! Megan!” She stopped short when she saw Jason sitting camly at the table.
“What?” Jason looked at Wilfretta questioningly.
She looked at me with her eyes open wide. I couldn’t tell if she was afraid or shocked.
There was a loud banging on the metal door and it opened wide.
In walked Laura, Mrs. Linvion, the police officer and Will. Behind Will walked in another police officer. He was really big and muscular with a shiny bald head. In his arms he carried something.
It was Shane!
“Oh my gosh!” I threw down my apple, pushed back from my chair and ran towards Shane.
Tears began to stream down my face.
The officer helped Shane stand on his feet.
I hugged him tightly, he was so frail and thin. So thin that I could have wrapped my arms twice around him. I kissed him on the cheek, then on the lips. He began to cry and our tears mixed as we stood hugging each other tightly.
“I never thought I would see you again,” he whispered to me. His voice was strained and quiet. I could tell it took a lot of effort for him to get out those eight words.
“I thought that you were dead” I tried to whisper out but my throat was so thick with tears that it came out in a loud sob.
“He almost was” said the police officer who had been helping Shane.
“How did you get down here?” I asked him.
“Chief called for back up and I showed up.” I hadn’t realized that the police officer who had been helping us all along was the Chief of the station.
“He was supposed to be dead,” I heard a voice snarl. Jaosn was sitting in the kitchen with his nose wrinkled and his whole body gave off a sense of disgust. “I actually can’t believe he really is alive. He suffered just as long as me, two weeks, and then I left him to die.”
“What did you do to him?” I asked.
He just smiled.
“What did he do to you?” I asked Shane. But he just cringed.
Both policemen went to grab him but suddenly the door Wilfretta had come through opened quickly and police began to stream in.
“Megan! This is what I was trying to tell you about, but Jaosn, then Will, then Shane…I just forgot” Wilfretta yelled. She wasn’t very far from me, but the noise in the room was unbearable.
I felt a hand squeeze mine. I looked and saw Jason.
In the confusion of all the police he had run over by me, grabbed my had and was now whispering in my ear.
“I love you Megan, but my best interests lie elsewhere.”
He kissed my cheek tenderly and began walking away. I frantically looked around for a policeman who wasn’t arguing with another police or talking into their walkie-talkie.
When I looked back he was gone.

Jason was gone for good.
No one knew where he went that day and no one could find him.
Even now, six months later, I haven’t heard from him, letter or voice.
Shane refuses to talk about what happened in that cave. All I can tell is that he was tourtured for two weeks, some how he lived through it and Jason left him to starve to death.
Although he put me and Shane through all that he did I hope that Jason is okay. I know that he has to be out there somewhere, living in some city, going by some name.
Maybe he had plastic surgery and dyes his hair. He would have the money.
Four days after the cave incident all of his money, $240,000, disappeared out of his account.
Shane and I go to the same school now. I had become a celebrity when Jason disappeared for good, so I transferred to Shane’s school.
Wilfretta goes here now too and is loving life as a freshman with her senior boyfriend, Will.
Laura and I still email some but she decided to move to Arizona after Jason disappeared and rarely talks to her parents.
I have more friends now and rarely even think about my life with Jason, but every now and then I pull out the picture of us and think about Jason’s new life.

I swung open the door and was face to face with Shane.
“Hello Jason. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Why hello. We? I don’t see Megan anywhere…” A look crossed over his face that made me know that Megan wasn’t with him.
“Come on in,” I opened the door wider and followed him as he entered.
“Nice place you have here”
“Thanks, my mom decorated it herself.”
“I know”
I closed the door.
“Very spacey” he continued.
I turned and leapt on him. He tried to struggle out of my grasp but was unable to. He was still his puny self and I had kept my muscle mass from before by lifting twice a day. In no time I had him duct taped to a chair in my kitchen. It was about one o’clock only two more hours till Anna arrived and I could reveal our double plan had just turned into a triple.
Shane sat sulking in for a few minutes before speaking up.
“So, how you been?”
I laughed, “I just duct taped you to a chair and you want to make small chat?”
He shrugged, “Yep.”
“Alright, I’ve been good. How about you?”
“I’ve been alright”
“Why did you come to find me?”
“Well, your parents let slip several times by accident things about you to Laura and so Laura emailed Megan. Megan, who has officially gotten over you, paid no attention to the email and just wrote it off as you being settled in a new life. She doesn’t want anything to do with you, but I have something to settle.”
“Looks like you will have a hard time with that”
“Maybe” he smiled menacingly, “So what have you been doing here?”
“A little bit of work, my senior year in high school, I’ve got a girlfriend too. Anna, she is nothing compared to Megan but the best I will get here.”
“I see.” He nodded his head.
“You guys graduated last year though right? What have you been up to? College? I know Megan always wanted to go to University of Northern Colorado.”
“We are both in college and we graduated almost three years ago.”
“Where?”
“UNC”
“See, Megan gets what she wants. So, you staying in dorms?”
“For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…”
“Tell me!”
“It will just upset you”
“You know…I have some big plans for you. Do you want to start now?”
I pulled out a sharp knife from a drawer.
“Gosh! No need to get violent! Will you hurt me if I tell you?”
“Maybe…” I fingered the edge, “Very sharp. That’s good though. Sharp knifes make better cuts.”
“Promise!”
“Fine I won’t hurt you for the truth”
“I asked Megan to marry me; we are getting married in June then getting a small house just off campus.”
“I won’t hurt you for that. I saw it coming.”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“Hey? Are you like a super senior?”
“Technically yes, I am” I laughed and Shane laughed along nervously with me. I continued, “When I moved here I changed my birth certificate so I am only a year older than most of my classmates. Instead of two and a half, I am really twenty.”
Suddenly there was a gasp behind me.
“You are how old?!”
There standing behind me was Anna. “Y-y-y-ou are t-t-t-t-w-wenty?” Anna’s eyes were filled with tears and her voice was shaking. “You are a pedophile!!!”
“Anna, no! You don’t understand!”
“I understand perfectly! You LIED TO ME!!” Anna was screaming at the top of her lungs and crying hysterically. She must have come in when Shane and I had been laughing.
“Anna! You have to understand!”
“What about our plan? What about us?! Never mind, ‘us’ has been gone for a long time!”
“What do you mean?”
“I am seeing someone else! He is three bazillion times better than you! He understands me! He cares about me! I’ve been meaning to break up with you but it seems like we have both been keeping secrets!” I was dumbfounded.
“What?” my voice was soft and quiet. It was Megan all over again, and yet again Shane was the cause of it. I would have heard her come in without him here. “IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT!! IT IS ALWAYS YOUR FAULT!!” I lifted the knife and began to storm towards Shane.
“No! Joeseph stop!”
I turned back to face her. “Who?”
“What do you mean who?”
“Who did you cheat on me with?!”
“I won’t tell you until you put down that knife!”
“NEVER! Tell me what I want to know!”
Her face went grave, “Leo”
“Swim Leo?!”
“Yes”
“I am going to kill him and you and him!” I turned back to Shane. Suddenly Anna jumped on my back.
“PUT DOWN THE KNIFE!” She yelled as she held onto me.
All hell broke loose as my front door broke open. Five armored police men ran in closely followed by Megan and several more police.
They wrestled Anna off of me and pinned me down to the ground.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. I you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”

I smiled at her each time I saw her come in for lunch at the diner I was working at. She had no apparent boyfriend, much less a ring on her finger.
Today, I decided, was the day. I approached her table while smiling broadly.
“Do you want me to clean up your plate for you?”
I figured that since I worked at the diner this was an appropriate conversation starter.
She looked up from her book, dazed.
“Sure”
I cleared away her plates and came back.
“Can I sit down?” She hadn’t continued reading her book and had been watcing me.
“Sure. I am Anna.”
“Hi, Anna. I am J.L.”
“J.L.?”
“My real name is Joseph but I go by J.L.”
“Well, my real name is Anna”
I laughed lightly before saying, “Do you want to come out to dinner with me tonight?”
“Sure”
“I think this will be the start of something great.”
I reached across the table and held her hand.
She was all mine.