"May?"

The young adult could not believe his eyes as he took in the sight of the soaked brunette standing outside of the door of his apartment in LaRousse. She was desperately clutching to the cloth bag she was holding, the items inside no doubt effected by the rain. Her face was wet, whether with tears or with rain Drew could not tell. She looked up at him with eyes full of fear and hurt. What had happened to her?

It had just dawned on him that it was still raining, and she was still standing right outside of his door.

He stepped aside and welcomed her. "Uh . . . Come inside, May."

She shuddered and crossed his floor in silence. Drew hastily closed the door, locking it behind him. He then strode to her side and carefully slipped her dripping bag from her hands.

Drew found himself once again staring at her, mostly out of shock. What was she doing standing in the middle of his apartment? Why was she here? Why hasn't she said anything yet?

Forcing himself to snap back to reality, Drew dropped her bag by the door and gently guided her to sit on his couch next to him. The snobbish part of him worried about the rain ruining the sofa, but he did his best to ignore it.

"May?" he repeated.

No response.

He lifted her chin with his thumb and index finger. He examined her face. Her sopping hair was sticking to it, but other than that, there was nothing out of the usual. No bruises. No scratches. No redness.

"May, babe. Tell me what's wrong."

She exhaled shakily, as if she'd been holding her breath. "I'm so scared," she whispered.

Drew's green eyes searched her blue ones. "Why?"

May looked towards the floor, causing the young man to release her. "They were chasing me, Drew."

Drew felt intense shock and anger simultaneously, but as usual, he managed to maintain his composure. "Who was?"

"I'm not sure."

Drew ran his hands through his green hair and exhaled loudly. There were so many questions running through his mind that he found it hard to pick one to say aloud. "Where were you?"

At this, May pulled her legs towards her body and leaned into him. She would feel more protected if she was curled into a ball. "I was walking back from the contest hall."

"At night? Alone?"

When she didn't answer, he pulled her closer to him and allowed her to sit in the silence she embraced as soon as she walked into the comfort of his home. After minutes of comforting her in silence, Drew decided that he absolutely had to know the answer to his next question.

"Did they . . . hurt you?"

Slowly, she shook her head no.

Drew slowly closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax. Thank God. She was okay, for the most part anyway.

"You do know that if they had laid a single finger on you," he said, "I would have been forced to hunt them down individually."

May's tone changed into something more euphonic. "Individually?"

Drew shrugged. "Or all at once. Depending on how I feel that day."

He felt her chuckle silently against him and he cracked a smile. "Now come on. Let's get you into something dry. You're ruining my couch."

With his arm still around her, Drew led her to the only bathroom in his apartment. He congratulated himself on keeping it spotless; he would not want a guest (especially this one) to think that he was anything other than cleanly. He watched her as she cautiously stepped inside and glanced at the window. She crossed her arms in front of her and met his eyes, though she wasn't being defiant. Her nerves still looked unsettled.

"Stay here," he instructed her, "while I find you a T-shirt."

"But I have a bag of clothes," she protested.

He smirked at her. "They're soaked. That's usually what rain does to cloth bags."

She turned bright red and snapped her head in the other direction to glare at the shower curtain. Drew knew that if they weren't already resting against her chest, she would have crossed her arms.

He turned around, smug with the fact that he had just won this very minor battle and briskly walked to his room in order to find something that suited her slim figure. His fingers flew to the bottom of his shirt drawer, assuming that the smallest ones would be there. In the end, he opted to lend her a large one, so that he would not have to face the problem of having to lend her pants to go with it. She could just wear it as a gown.

Upon returning to the bathroom, he found May with her back against the wall with the prior look of vulnerability on her face. She was shivering, but was too lost in her thoughts to notice. Instead of tossing it to her like he intended to, he walked up to her until he was within a close proximity and handed it to her. She looked up angelically and gratefully accepted it. A slight silence followed. Without thinking, Drew reached out to touch her face. However, he managed to catch himself before his hand grazed her cheek. He let it linger awkwardly next to her face before abruptly bringing it back to scratch his head.

"I'll, uh, go dry the things in your bag," he announced, showing no sign of doing so, as his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.

May nodded and once again turned her attention to the floor. Upon sudden realization of something, her eyes widened, and she looked up from the tile to his green eyes, which hadn't moved from her face. "No, you can't."

Drew lifted an eyebrow. The smirk was back. "And why not?"

A shy blush crept across her face. Her hands seemed to be subconsciously wringing out the shirt she was holding. "I . . . I have underwear in there."

He rolled his eyes and almost laughed. "Yeah. Like I've never seen underwear before."

May squeezed the T-shirt. "But Drew—"

"Babe, it'll be fine."

Why the hell did he keep calling her that?

Her facial expression seemed to mirror that same question.

"Just shower," he recovered. "You're shivering. The last thing I need is for you to catch a cold."

She didn't budge.

He sighed. "Look, I won't even look. I'll just dump it into the machine."

He noticed that he was towering over her. Without waiting for a response, he left and closed the bathroom door behind him. He grabbed the red cloth bag by the front door and froze.

Several men were chasing May. Did they follow her here? He exhaled slowly, pumping life back into his limbs. He attempted to push the thought aside as he made his way to the washroom. Walking past the bathroom, he could hear the shower running. Relief washed over him. As he opened the dryer, he could hear her humming a song he could not identify. The sound relaxed him. He closed his eyes and sighed before turning on the light of the small room.

Drew unzipped her bag and decided to shake the contents into the machine. However, a letter landed on top of the clothes pile in the machine. Maybe this is what May didn't want him to see. Maybe she didn't really care if he saw her underwear after all. Curiosity got the better of him. He picked it up and opened it.

Scribbles marked the page, working in unity with scratched words to make the paper into an inked mess. The water stains only added to the chaos. The only legible words in the midst of smudged lines were:

I miss you, Drew.

He stared at them. Moments ticked by. Those words could mean anything. He had to stop himself from interpreting them in the way that he wanted to.

In haste, he reached up and grabbed a pen from a cup that was sitting on a shelf above the washer and dryer. He scribbled the words:

I'm right here. Waiting for you.

Let her interpret that how she will.

He carefully folded the note in the way that it was before it was touched by his hands. Shortly afterwards, a scream was heard.

His head snapped in the direction of the door.

"Drew!" came May's voice.

He pushed start on the machine, sprinted down the hallway, and opened the bathroom door without even considering May's privacy.

"Drew!" she sobbed, her face visible at the end of the shower curtain.

"What?" he demanded. "What is it? What happened?"

"The window!" she cried. "I heard something!"

His heart was pounding. They followed her here.

Drew took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. Some unknown number of men had been led to his apartment because of the girl in his bathroom. How had this night changed from being so peaceful to something straight out of an action movie?

What should he do? Go to the window? Stay away from the window? Hide with her and hope for the best? He didn't know.

"Turn off the shower," he instructed.

She did as she was told.

Drew tossed her a towel and heard rustling as she wrapped it around her body. "Stay quiet, okay?"

He didn't wait to see her nod in acquiescence.

He crept toward the window, his heart pounding. His hands rested on the bottom of the window and, after a short pause, opened it in one swift movement.

Nothing; it was too dark to see.

Without taking his eyes off of the outside world, he felt around for the flashlight that he kept in the drawer in case of a power outage. Firmly grasping it in his hand, he pointed the light outside and again found nothing. The only thing that was noticeable was a tree with an extended branch.

How cliché.

He shut the window and sighed. He could hear May quietly crying behind the shower curtain. The sounds shattered his heart.

He slid the shower curtain aside and saw her curled up on the shower floor. Her teary eyes stared up at him. He reached down, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her to stand on the white bathroom tile. She clutched onto his shirt, hiding herself. Water from her drenched hair dripped onto his skin.

"It's okay, babe."

She didn't acknowledge his comment. "Where are they, Drew?"

He had to stop himself from chuckling. "They were never there to begin with. Believe it or not, you heard a tree branch."

Upon hearing this, her tense body relaxed.

He observed her sudsy hair. "I think you should finish taking your shower, May. It's fine. Tree branches usually aren't lethal."

She released his shirt and turned away from him. "Stop teasing me, Drew."

He smirked. "You're right, you're right." He reached for the doorknob. "I'm being insensitive."

She watched him turn the doorknob and tensed up again. "Wait."

He did.

"Can you wait for me?" she asked. "In here?"

He stared at her, making her a tad uncomfortable.

"It's just that… I'm still really paranoid and I think it would help a little if you were in here with me."

Drew paused to consider her request. Then, he released the doorknob. "Okay."

He pulled himself up on the counter of the bathroom and stared at the window, careful not to watch her. The pinpoint he had chosen was in the opposite direction of the shower.

May sounded grateful. "Thank you so much. I'll be quick. I promise."

Drew just nodded and put all of his concentration into the window next to him. Do not focus on May. Do not focus on May.

The shower started and the curtain was pulled closed. He could hear the water hitting her skin. He could hear the water smack the floor as May wrung out what he presumed to be her hair.

In order to distract himself, Drew thought about who could have possibly mentally scarred the girl who he had known for almost ten years. She was so loveable that it could not have been anyone she had met before. They had to be strangers. Did they normally hang out around the contest hall? If so, he could easily go back and find them. Did she really manage to get away unharmed?

Drew pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. May was frightened out of her mind because he was not there when she needed him to be. This thought was sure to plague him for a while.

The shower stopped and Drew excused himself from the bathroom so that she could don the clothes that he had provided her with. He ran his hands through his hair once again as he waited for her outside of the door, his back pressed against the wall.

She emerged with her wet clothes in a bundle, looking embarrassed. "Thanks again," she whispered.

Drew smiled. "It wasn't a problem."

He checked his watch: 2:13.

"Are you tired?" he asked.

May nodded, "Exhausted."

A short silence followed.

She looked him in the eyes and smiled. "Well, goodnight."

As soon as she began walking in the direction of the living room, Drew put his arm in front of her, blocking her path.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where are you going?"

May wrinkled her eyebrows. "To the couch, Drew."

He shook his head when she said the word "couch." "You're not sleeping on the couch. Have my bed."

May stubbornly crossed her arms. "Yeah? Well you're not sleeping on the couch either, then."

Drew paused slightly before replying. "But, it's my apartment—"

"So what you say goes?" she interrupted.

The young man's green eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes, that's usually how it works, seeing as I'm the only one who lives here."

"Well, tonight is different. I'm here. And while I'm here, I will not stand to taking away your comfort, which includes your bed. Sharing is better than taking."

Drew resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he stared at her, taking in what she said. "So I guess that's settled then."

May kept his eyes locked with his. "I guess it is."

Before he could be mesmerized, Drew grabbed May's wet clothes and strode to washroom to hang them up to dry. When he emerged from the room, he waved May over to follow him to his bedroom. He listened as her feet padded against the hardwood floor of the hallway. It was a nice change; he wasn't used to sounds other than the ones that he made. He never truly noticed how quiet his apartment was.

After May walked into the spacious room behind him, he closed the door behind him softly, allowing it to only click into place.

Drew quietly sat on the right side of the bed, while May stood awkwardly by the door. It was only after he patted the space next to him that she sat on his left. Drew's mind felt blank and full at the same time. The girl he'd known forever was actually sharing a bed with him. The both of them sat in silence, not exactly knowing which words to choose for conversation.

Drew laid back and rested his head against the pillow he used every night. He glanced at May, who was still in a cross-legged position.

"Come on," he encouraged. "I won't bite. Much."

She giggled for the first time that night and lay back as well.

The two stared at the ceiling above them until Drew had the courage to take May's hand within his own. He felt her turn her head to face him, but he kept his gaze to the ceiling.

"May, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

He turned to face her. "Are you sure they didn't hurt you?"

"Drew—"

"Because I swear, I will leave right now and find every single one of them."

"Drew . . ."

"The way you're acting tonight is honestly scaring the hell out of me. Did they say something to you?"

"Drew. I don't want you to leave."

He blinked. ". . . What?"

"I don't want you to leave and find them. At least not right now." May squeezed his hand.

A slight blush formed on his cheeks. "That wasn't what I asked."

May smiled at him. "I'm fine. I'm perfectly okay. I got away. Don't worry so much."

Drew closed his eyes.

"I'm just shaken up," she continued. "Shaken up and paranoid."

He exhaled. "Good. You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

"You'd be the first," she confessed. He could hear the smile in her voice. This smile mirrored on his face. He brought their intertwined hands to his lips.

"Can I ask you something now, Drew?" May asked after a moment.

"Anything, babe."

She didn't miss a beat. "Are you in love with me?"

Drew didn't falter. "What makes you think that?"

"Well for one thing, you've been calling me "babe" all night long."

He continued to kiss her fingers. "Have I really?"

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Positive."

"Hm . . . I doubt it."

She smiled at his denial. "Drew."

He chuckled. "Alright. I guess I have been. But the fact that you're in my bed wearing nothing but my T-shirt may be helping."

May gasped and threw a pillow at his face, her face reddening once again.

Drew laughed openly. "I'm just kidding, May."

She settled down and allowed him to hold her. "So you are in love with me."

He stared straight into her eyes. "Very much. Yes."

"Good—"

Drew raised his eyebrows. "Good?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, because—"

"Because?" He smirked.

May broke into a large grin. "Just kiss me."

Drew's smirk widened. "I would love to. Thanks for offering."

And he did.