Piecing it Together

Chapter 9

Jordyn POV

Yesterday we had our family Thanksgiving. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. The last time my family was together, we had the blow out of Alexis telling them I was dating a girl. This time around it was mainly them talking about Alexis getting married.

My grandma is the most excited out of all my family members. She adores Jake. She believes in marrying young. I guess she and my grandpa got married when they were seventeen and have loved each other ever since.

I was happy that Alexis was getting the spotlight on her. My parents and grandparents can't argue about me liking girls this way. I'm sure they would love to hear that Paige and I broke up, but I'm glad they don't get to know. My grandma hasn't made eye contact with me once.

I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt a little. All I would have to say is I'm going on a date with a guy tomorrow and my grandma would love me again. I wouldn't do that because I know tomorrow's date is going to be meaningless.

...

It is Friday and Paige is almost here. I am excited to see her.

I had to beg for her to come, not realizing when Kyle said next weekend for our date he meant this week. So she is going to be here and I will be leaving to go out with him.

I'm in my room getting ready.
When I was done, I went to my bed and put my headphones in. I have been going through Pandora trying to find the perfect song for the wedding, but not having luck. Every idea I come up with I find a reason for why it's not good enough.

I feel someone plop down beside me. I look to see Paige on my bed. She has her hair down, but there was something different about her. She was glowing. I could feel my heart beating rapidly.

I sat up on my bed by her. I couldn't stop staring at her. The smell of her perfume was intoxicating.

My eyes were drawn to every part of her. Her smile, to her hair, to her eyes and even her body looked fit, and for Paige who was already fit that is saying something.

It's like the moment you see someone attractive and your eyes are glued to them. The only difference here is, I have seen Paige many times, but there is something about this time that I'm so drawn too.

"Earth to Jordyn." I heard her say and just hearing her voice was making me get butterflies.

Why is this happening right now?

I tried to snap myself out of it.

"What are your plans for the night?" I was curious what Alexis and her were going to do.

She starts typing on her phone. It kind of feels like she was giving me the cold shoulder.

"I think I'm going to go to a party with Derek."

I almost jumped off my bed when she said Derek.

"What is with him and you lately?" My voice wasn't pleasant. I didn't mean for it to come off like that.

Paige looks at me with her brows narrowed. "We are friends and friends hangout. There is nothing to be concerned about."

"I'm not concerned." I try playing it off.

Paige starts to laugh. "You can't fool me Jordyn."

Before I could say anything, I heard my mom yell from downstairs. "Jordyn, Kyle is here."

Both of us stood up. I have no idea what is going through her head, but she stands there waiting for me to leave. I feel bad that she just got here and I'm leaving. Not that I'm just leaving, but I'm going on a date.

"Have fun." She says and starts to walk out.

I stand there frozen. For some reason, my feet won't move.

Paige stops to look back at me. "Are you okay?"

She walks back into the room. Not only am I not moving, but now I'm not speaking.

Paige brings her face closer to me. She was staring in my eyes to see if there is life in me.

"Jordyn." She keeps repeating.

My eyes went down to her lips. They look like they are calling my name, technically they are.

I finally moved, but not out the door. I put my hands on her face and brought her head to me. I kissed her lips, which took her by surprise.

I pull away. I look at Paige who looks confused by the episode I just displayed. I quickly rushed out of the room and ran down the stairs.

What am I doing?

I get into Kyle's truck. I feel nervous, but not for the reason most people do when they are on a date. I feel bad, but I already have it in my mind that I don't want to be here.

We are going to eat at a restaurant here in town that his parents own. I have been there a couple of times, so I'm pretty excited about that.

The truck ride was silent in conversation, but not with music. He had his music loud. He listens to hip hop & rap. I knew this before being in his vehicle. He is always posting lyrics and YouTube videos of songs.

I was singing along in my head to what is currently playing. Seem like the whole city go against me Every time I'm in the street I hear

"YAWK! YAWK! YAWK! YAWK!" I yell with the song.

Kyle looks over at me laughing.

"Don't laugh at me, I know how to have fun."



Paige POV

The kiss Jordyn just planted on me was different from the ones we have exchanged recently.

I go to Alexis's room to distract myself. The last thing I want to do is sit here doing nothing while Jordyn is on a date.

I'm going to a party with Derek in a bit. I tried to get Alexis to come with me, but she refused too. She worries me a little.

Lately all she does is sit in her dorm. She is content with getting married in a month and afraid to live her life or have fun without Jake here. I don't question her though. I don't know how it is to be engaged to someone, let alone be engaged to someone you can barely communicate with.

Derek couldn't show up fast enough. I am over the wedding talk. I can only take so much of it.

Derek and I head to Scott's. We got there at about nine. I can hear the music from the driveway. Scott's parents have a nice base system in their house, which makes the music intensify, especially the songs with the power trip before the beat drops.

Derek and I walk in together but go our separate ways. I know Jordyn isn't the biggest fan of Derek and I hanging out.

Thinking of Jordyn, I get a text from her.

Jordyn: Are you at Scott's because that is where Kyle is wanting to go.

Paige: Yeah, I'm here.

I guess I will be seeing Jordyn and her date.

I put my phone in my back pocket. I go find a drink then head to the living room. I bump into Scott, so we strike up a conversation along with some other people who are around.

"Do you want to dance?" A random guy asks me. I think he is one of Scott's college friends.

Why not? The music was good. I'm feeling good. We start dancing. It turned into dirty dancing. It was all innocent fun.

When the song was over, I looked up and saw Jordyn and Kyle watching.

Go figure.

The look on her face tells me she wasn't pleased with what she saw. What she did next proved it. She turns to Kyle and kisses him.

When Jordyn breaks the kiss, she looks directly at me. I know she was trying to get a rise out of me, but it wasn't going to happen. I'm not into this game she wants to play. She can play alone.



Jordyn POV

My blood was boiling watching Paige dance with this guy. Her ass was all up in his junk. His hands were going all over her body.

Does she know I'm here already? Is she trying to make me mad because my date wanted to come here?

Paige's eyes connect with mine when the song ends.

I quickly turn my head away from her. I stand on my tippy toes as I wrap my arms around Kylie's head pulling him down to me. I kissed him. The kiss was awful. I regret it the second I did it.

My eyes go straight to Paige after I let my arms drop. She doesn't look mad or jealous. Does that mean she is over me?

I turn my attention back to Kyle who does not look happy.

"You cannot use me to make her jealous." He scolds me with disappointment shooting through his eyes. "I thought you were over her, but clearly you aren't."

"I'm sorry Kyle."

He gives me a side hug. "I'll survive" He points towards where Paige is. "Trying to make someone jealous is never the way to go. It usually doesn't work out the way you think it will. You should try being honest with Paige and not use others."

I nod then walk off. I go over to where Paige is. She is now dancing in place by herself now.

"Hey."

Paige spins around. She looks at me smiling as she is still moving to the music.

"Where's Kyle?" She questions looking around.

Before I could answer my phone went off. I grab it seeing Callie calling.

"Hey." I say into it while plugging my other ear to drown out the noise around me.

I hear a frantic voice on the other side. "Jordyn, I'm scared. Please come get me."

I start to panic when I hear the desperation in her voice.

"Where are you?" I ask as I start heading to the door. My whole body starts to shake.

I could barely make out what she was saying, but I heard her say the lake.

When I get outside, I realize I don't have my car.

Shit.

I turn around to see Paige is standing right there with her keys in her hand. She tosses them at me.

"You will have to drive." She says as she gets in the passenger side. "What is going on?"

I start driving, trying to stay calm. "Callie called. She says she is scared and wants me to come get her at the lake."

My whole body felt like it was going numb.

"Paige, what if he is hurting her?"

I can feel Paige staring at me, but I keep my focus on the road. "Christian? I thought you took care of that."

Guilt starts taking over. Every time I tried, Callie would get mad. I gave up when her parents didn't believe me.

I speed up.

"Stop here." Paige tells me. "If we pull in there, he will see us. Who knows what will happen."

We get out and start walking quietly, but quickly. It is dark and cold outside. You can hear the crickets and the bullfrogs from the lake. Any step we take, I hesitate when I hear a crunch under my feet.

We start getting closer to the lake and that's when I hear crying. Paige and I run towards the sound.

Callie was lying on the ground in the fetal position. She was soaking wet. Her body was trembling. Her skin was red but turning blue from the cold. Her phone was by her smashed and Christian was nowhere to be found.

I kneel by Callie. She jumps when my hand touches her. I tried moving her hands that were covering her face.

"It's Jordyn."

Callie drops her hands down. When she saw for sure it was me, she wrapped her arms around my neck. Her sobs got louder.

Paige and I helped her to her feet. Paige then takes her jacket off and wraps it around Callie.

I take a step back and look at her. She has a gash on her head and bruises all over.

Paige and I start walking her to Paige's vehicle. Right before we get her there, I hear a stick snap behind us.

We turn around and see a shadow behind us. I squint my eyes to try and get a better view.

"Leave her here." Christian's demands.

Paige releases Callie. She looks over at me. "Get her to the vehicle."

I look at Paige then at Christian. Christian starts walking towards me and Paige steps in front of him.

"You are not going near her." Paige was squaring off with Christian.

I get Callie in the vehicle. I know Paige has a blanket she carries in her trunk, so I grab it to wrap around Callie. I put the key in the ignition and turned the heat on. I was going to check on Paige, but Callie begs me not to leave her.

I look out the window. I try to spot Paige. When I see her, I notice Christian raising his arm back.

Christian slaps Paige across the face. Paige went to the ground holding her face.

Christian kneels by Paige yelling at her, loud enough we can hear from in here. "Look bitch, I told you that you are not leaving with her."

Paige moves her hand up in his face and sprays something. Christian went to the ground screaming.

Paige gets up and runs to the car. When she gets the door closed, I hit the lock button. She puts the vehicle in drive and peels out.

"What happened?"

Paige was clenching her face where she got smacked. She moved her hand and pulled out pepper spray from her pocket.

"They gave it to us at orientation. I took it off my keychain before giving you the keys."

Paige is very sly. If she didn't come, I don't want to know what would have happened.

I start panicking when I get scared. She gets brave and takes control.

I look back at Callie, who is in a ball on the seat with the blanket wrapped tightly around her.

"Do you want to go to my house?"

She shakes her head. "I want you to take me home. I need my mom."

I hope this means she will tell her mom the truth.

"I'm sorry he hit you, Paige." Callie voices from the backseat "No one deserves that but me."

Paige looks up in the rearview mirror at Callie. "Baby girl, no one deserves to get hit. I would take a hit for you any day if I knew it was getting you out of there safely. You have to promise me you won't go back to him."

I look back at Callie hoping she would make the promise. I could never talk her into it, but maybe someone else like Paige could. Maybe tonight she realizes it's not worth it. Christian isn't the guy she thinks she needs.

"I promise." She says as she lays her head against the window.

The words were music to my ears. I know her saying it doesn't mean anything until she proves it. There is some type of spell he has over her that makes her keep going back. This time I'm going to try even harder to make sure she sticks to her words.

We drove her to her house. The rest of the ride was silent. We didn't have music playing.

We walked her inside. Her mom saw her and started to freak out. Callie explained everything to her. She kindly asked us to leave, which I understood. I just wanted to make sure Callie told her the truth this time.

When we get to the door to leave, her mom stops me. She has tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

I didn't know how to respond. I feel like she should have known I wouldn't make something like that up.

Paige and I get in her vehicle. "Do you want me to take you back to the party?"

"You can drop me off at home."

Paige pulls up to my house and parks. She gets out as well instead of dropping me off and going back to the party,

"I guess you don't want to party more either?" I tease her. "I thought you went to the party with Derek. How was your vehicle there?"

"He got dropped off here and I drove."

That makes sense.

We quietly walked in my house while my parents were asleep.

"Do you want some ice for your eye?" I ask as I look where she got slapped.

Paige shakes her head no. When I head up the stairs. When we got upstairs, Alexis was also asleep.

"You can stay in my room." I offer her.

I walk in my room with Paige following. With her stuff being in Alexis's room, I give her some of my clothes to sleep in. I could have given her clothes, because I have a lot of her clothes here that she has let me borrow or let me have, but there is something about seeing her in my clothes that is satisfying.

"How was your date?" Paige questions as we lay in my bed. She is turned on her side looking at me.

I turn over to my side. "It was okay. He is more of a gentleman than I thought, but I wasn't into him."

"Why is that?" She asks.

I look at her brown eyes. "You know why Paige."

A guilty smile comes across her lips.

"Exactly." I say laughing.

She reaches her hand to the bottom of my shirt and lifts it up slightly. Not sure what she is doing, but I try to keep my body from shaking.

She runs her hand lightly over where I have a scar developing from the surgery.

"You scared me that night. I thought I was going to lose you."

Looking at her eyes, I could see a glimpse of the fear she had from that night.

As I speak, I slide my hand to hold on to hers. "You are getting in the habit of saving me. It's like I have my own hero."

Paige looks down at our hands then looks back at me.

"If it's a hero you want, I can save you." She then places my hand on her heart. "Just stay here and I'm always there even when you think I'm not."

I'm lying here still looking at her. I'm biting my tongue not to say something to ruin this moment. I can feel her heart beating fast, just like mine.

"It's you." I whisper when I realize it's been Paige this whole time.

When she said, 'I'm always there even when you think I'm not', it made me realize it's her who writes the notes in my lockers. I don't know how they are getting in there, but it's her. Those were the exact words in the recent one.

Her eyes were full of confusion. "What do you mean it's me?"

I lean in to give her a short kiss.

"Nothing." I say when I pull back a little.

I don't want her to know that I know it's her yet. I lean in again and kiss her soft lips. I lay my head back on my pillow. I stare at Paige as I rub the side of her face.

I thought I lost her, but she has been right here the whole time.