A Second Chance ✔

Ten

When I opened my eyes, I was dreading what would happen.

This was my last chance. I wanted it to go the way it should.

I was planning on sneaking into the house before Jesse arrived with the younger me, but I didn't get a chance to do so because as soon as the house was in sight, Jesse's car pulled up in the driveway.

So I still followed my plan up to stealing the gun from his room and waited for him to arrive.

When he arrived past eleven, he got out of the car and began making his way to the front door. I don't know why I didn't think of this before but I realised I could easily shoot him now when there was no one around to save him.

He was rolling the keys around his finger. I aimed the gun at him. It was now or never. I prepared myself to shoot.

Suddenly he stopped short. He lowered his hand and furrowed his eyebrows. Then he whipped his head in my direction and I think we made eye contact for a nanosecond before I yelped lowly and ducked behind the thorny shrubs.

I remembered Vanessa's warning to not let anyone see me.

I wasn't sure if he really looked at me. Even if he did I'm sure he didn't recognize me. At least I hope not.

I raised my head a little to peek between the shrubs and saw him approaching in my direction. I panicked. He can't see me.

I began crawling back and once I was into the woods, I hid behind a big tree. Slowly, I peeked from behind the tree and he was where I was previously half hid in the shrubs. He was still approaching me and so I crawled all the way from the tree to the back of the house. Thank God it was dark outside otherwise he would've definitely seen me. He followed me till there but before he could see me I quickly opened the kitchen window and slid in before shutting it.

I waited for five minutes for him to leave but didn't risk peeking through the window in case he was still there. My heart was beating wildly in my ribcage. That was close. I was so scared that he would see me.

I heard a lot of shuffling above me. That would be me trying to escape from the ropes tied around me and then calking Brooke for help.

The front door slammed shut, startling me. I hid behind the kitchen counter in case he walked into the kitchen. But nobody did for a long time. The only sounds I heard were my screaming and his loud slaps and then my kicks and punches.

I tried to resist myself from bursting into the room and shooting him right in the head.

I waited for sometime before silently opening the window and getting out of the house.

Just as I got out and was back to the front of the house, I saw Brooke arrive and then Jake and Sam.

I let them go inside and gave myself a pep talk while they were in. Vanessa had told me to trust myself and then everything would work out. I did just that.

Soon Jesse dragged me out with him while pointing a gun at the young Claire. I had a couple of seconds before Brooke followed him. I was not going to let him live this time. If I was going to have a good life, he must be out of the picture. Jesse Winters must die.

I raised my hand and held the gun tightly. I analysed the situation and made a quick decision on which spot to shoot so that it instantly kills him but doesn't hurt me.

I stepped forward for a better aim but instead I heard a loud snapping of a twig and dry leaves under my feet.

When I looked up, to my great horror, Jesse and the young Claire were looking straight at me in utter shock.

I froze, the gun threatening to drop from my hand.

Jesse seemed to recover from his shock immediately as he let go of Claire and pointed his gun at me.

This pushed me in action and I raised my gun at him again.

We had an intense five second stare down before we heard Brooke rushing out of the door and towards Claire. That was the only moment of distraction that was needed for Jesse to lose eye contact and me pulling the trigger.

I watched with strained eyes as the bullet barely whizzed past Brooke's hair and in front of Claire's eyes and finally hit its target.

Brooke was too busy in checking if the younger me was okay or not to notice me, or Jesse collapsing a few feet away from her.

I had shot him on his forehead. The bullet was lodged into his skull and he fell down and didn't move or get up after that.

Brooke gasped when she heard the thud and looked confused for a second before deciding she didn't care and looked at Claire to see if she was okay or not.

Whereas I felt as if a huge burden was lifted off of my shoulders. I know killing someone shouldn't make you feel giddy with happiness but I couldn't help it. I pitied Jesse but didn't regret shooting him.

"Claire? Claire! Can you hear me? Look at me." I heard Brooke's frantic cries and I looked in their direction to see that Claire was still staring at me.

I don't know what price I would have to pay for exposing myself to both Jesse and Claire like that but as long as I got to be with Jake and my friends, and maybe Vanessa too, I didn't care.

So I just put a finger over my lips to signal her to keep quiet about it.

I saw her swallow hard before she nodded quickly.

Before losing sight of them, I saw Brooke turn her head in my direction but I knew that before she could've seen me, I had already disappeared into thin air and only the seventeen year old Claire had seen that.

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