All of the theories everyone has been coming up with are great :) AND…someone in the reviews section has a correct theory! But I'm not telling who, so you'll just have to keep reading to find out what's going on.

"No," I whispered, backing up. "No, this isn't happening. You're supposed to be…to be…"

"Dead?" Mason supplied, with a smirk. "Some dead things don't stay dead."

I shook my head, telling myself that this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Mason was dead. The only way he could've been in front of me was if…

Slowly, carefully, I reached out towards Mason. My hand went straight through him. "Whoa. Okay. So I'm seeing ghosts now. You are a ghost, right?"

"I don't know," he said, smirk still in place. "You tell me."

I grabbed my head, closing my eyes. "Oh my God, I'm insane. I have gone totally off the deep end." But when I opened my eyes…he wasn't there.

I was shaking. I took a deep breath, trying to get myself under control. "Get a grip, Rose. You don't have time to be crazy, you've got too much else on your plate right now."

"I disagree."

I whipped around. Mason was behind me now. "Please, just go away. You're not real."

He reached out and took my hand. To my surprise, I actually felt it. "If I wasn't real, I wouldn't be able to hold your hand right now, would I?"

Seeing him there in front of me, feeling his hand holding mine, something inside of me broke. I gave in to him, throwing my arms around his neck. He was warm, which I didn't expect. "How?" I cried, holding him close to me. "You know what? Never mind. I really don't care. God, Mason. I've missed you so much."

He pulled away, looking right into my eyes. "Could've fooled me."

"What?" How could he say something like that to me? He had no idea how hard his death had been on me!

"You've been so distracted lately that you haven't had any time for me." he whispered, looking sad.

I felt horrible. Maybe I hadn't been thinking of him every second of the day, but not a day went by that I didn't mourn him. "Well, yeah. I got attacked, Mason. I almost died! I've been trying to remember what happened to me so I can put whoever did that to me away."

The smirk returned, but it wasn't nice. "That's not the only thing you've been distracted with. Been spending a lot of time with that counselor, haven't you?"

I blanched. "Dimitri has nothing to do with this."

"Dimitri, huh? Yeah, there's no way you've been distracted by him. You're on a first name basis with him, after all." I hated the sarcastic tone of his voice.

"Look, if you came here just to give me hell about things you know nothing about, you can just leave."

He smiled, holding his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I won't say another word about your boyfriend." I glared at him and he winked. "You know, if you really wanted me to leave, Rose, I wouldn't be here right now."

I tilted my head, confused. "What do you mean?"

He was starting to fade, growing translucent. "You know what I mean; you just haven't realized it yet." With that said, he disappeared.

"Mason!" I yelled. "Get your ass back here!"

"Rose?"

I looked over to see one of my neighbors, Mrs. Blanche, standing on her front porch. She was an older woman in her sixties, but she looked more like she was eighty. I'd gotten to know her a little over the years when I raked her yard or cleared snow from her driveway for her. Her husband left her five years ago, running off with another woman who'd gotten pregnant when he'd cheated on Mrs. Blanche. "Are you okay out there?"

She must have heard me yelling at Mason. I could only imagine what she thought right now. "Yes, mamn, I'm fine. I've got to head home now, but thanks for checking on me."

I ran off before she could say anything. I didn't like being rude to her – I liked Mrs. Blanche; she always gave me homemade cookies when I worked for her and made me feel at home – but I couldn't stick around. I ran until I was inside my house, finally stopping to lean against the door.

I closed my eyes. What had Mason meant when he said he'd be gone if I didn't want him there? Whatever he meant, though, he was wrong. I hadn't wanted him with me after he brought up Dimitri, but he hadn't disappeared. And why couldn't he just tell me how the hell he was here in the first place?

"Oh, you're home. I didn't hear you come in. Are you okay?"

I opened my eyes to find my mom coming down the stairs. "Yeah, I'm alright. Just tired." Couldn't I come up with a better excuse today? "What's all this talk about a shovel?"

My mom looked out the front window. "Where's Dimitri?"

"He went home." I told her. "Why?"

"Oh. I thought he'd want to discuss this with us. Oh well. Come on, we'll talk in the kitchen."

[BREAK]

It turned out that there was good and bad news about them finding the shovel.

A man who lived about five miles out of town had found the shovel in the back of his property. When he saw that it had blood all over it, he called the police, just in case it wasn't animal blood. They picked it up and sent it to a lab, which did a quick test to tell them what kind of blood it was – animal or human – and what blood type if it was human.

When it came back human, the police scoured their open cases to find victims they'd found with the same blood type. Apparently, there were only two matches, so it was fairly easy to find out who the blood belonged to.

The good news about them finding the shovel was that they found fingerprints on it. The bad news was that they couldn't find a match in their database, which meant my attackers didn't have a criminal history. Basically, we'd found a new clue, but it got us nowhere.

Lissa came over later that night. Desperate to forget everything that had happened and just have a normal night with my best friend, I made my mom take us to the store so we could get junk food and magazines. I also talked her into letting us order a movie on Pay-Per-View.

I smiled the whole night, loving that I could just relax and not worry about anything. Sure, I loved being with Dimitri, but there was something about hanging out with my best friend – just us girls – that had me forgetting all the horrible – and disturbing, like seeing Mason – things that had happened to me the past couple of months.

We finally crawled in bed around three in the morning. I was exhausted and would've fallen asleep the moment my head hit my pillow, but Lissa had other plans.

"So, you really like Mr. Belikov, huh?" she asked.

My eyes snapped open. "What?"

She laughed. "It's just that you've been spending a lot of time with him, trying to get your memory back and all. I know you, Rose. If you didn't like him, you wouldn't be seeing him so often."

I gulped, not feeling relieved at all. Deep down, I kind of wished that Lissa had figured it out, that way I wouldn't have to tell her. But, of course, that didn't happen. "Yeah, well…uh…" I had half a mind to back out, forget about this entire discussion. But I knew I couldn't. I'd promised myself earlier that I would tell her tonight, and that was what I was going to do. Dimitri wouldn't like it, but I could deal with him. I trusted Lissa; I knew she wouldn't tell anyone, especially if I'd get in trouble if she did. "Liss, there's something I need to tell you."

She sat up on the other end of my bed to look at me. We'd slept like this since we were in kindergarten, me on one end and Liss on the other. It was easier to sleep like this at her house because her bed was bigger than mine. In my bed, we were squished together, but I really didn't mind and I knew she didn't, either. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm okay, if that's what you're worried about." I couldn't look at her face. My heart felt like it'd dropped in my stomach. Even though I knew she'd keep my secret, I had no idea how she would react to the news. "About Dimitri and I…"

"Dimitri?" she gasped. "You call him by his first name?"

"Uh…"

She threw her legs over the side of my bed, getting up and heading to the bathroom. "You know, there are a lot of girls at school who envy you. I'll admit it, that man is beyond hot. There're a lot of girls who have a crush on him."

I smiled. "Yeah, I know."

She came back out of the bathroom, rubbing lotion in her hands. "What was that?"

"Liss –"

"And what ever happened with Anthony? Have you heard from him?" she interrupted, sitting back down on the bed beside me. We were both sitting Indian-style now, our knees touching. "Cause you really seemed into him."

I put a hand on her knee. "I really need you to stop talking and listen to me for a minute."

"Sure, go ahead."

Again, I couldn't look at her face. I put my hands back in my lap, fiddling with my fingers. "You see, the reason why I call him Dimitri is because…well, we're sort of…together." I closed my eyes, bracing for impact.

I heard her sigh. "Finally! I was wondering when you were going to tell me."

My head snapped up in surprise. "You knew?"

"Duh." She shook her head, a smile on her face. "I didn't know for sure, but I had an idea. The first week of school, like I told you before, I kept feeling something pass between the two of you. The day you had your accident, I felt your emotions before we left school. Don't look at me like that, I wasn't trying to. Your emotions were just too strong. I couldn't block them out. I knew that you were going to see, uh, Dimitri, but I didn't think it was him at first. I thought that maybe you'd been talking to Anthony or something.

"But then I came over and I saw you getting ready for your 'session'. You were getting all dressed up and I thought it was weird. Who gets dressed up for counseling? That's what made me bring you and Dimitri up. I thought I'd just wait and observe the two of you, but I never got the chance. It wasn't until the day you got back to school that I knew." she concluded.

I shook my head in disbelief. "How?"

She laughed. "Come on! Give me some credit. You were bouncing up and down like a school girl at lunch, before your first session with Dimitri since you got back. When I put my hand on you to stop you, all of your emotions just ran into me. Seriously, they bombarded me. When looking at both that and the fact that you two spend so much time together, I knew. I was just wondering when you were going to tell me."

I smacked her lightly on the arm, breathing out a sigh of relief. "You could have told me you knew. I've been freaking out all night, wondering how you'd take the news!"

"I do have a question, though. Well, a couple of questions. How did this happen?"

I explained everything to her, starting with how Dimitri and I had hung out all summer and how he'd told me his name was Anthony. For another hour, we sat there as I explained everything to her. By the time I was done, we were laying down again, nearly asleep.

Lissa turned on her side to face me, throwing an arm around me. "I'm so happy for you, Rose. At least something good came from all of this…"

With that, we fell asleep.

[BREAK]

I spent all day Saturday with my friends. First, we went to a park, just to hang out and catch up. I wanted to know everything they'd done during the month I was gone, and they wanted to know everything I'd remembered about my accident. I told them, even including the part about Dimitri finding me. The police knew that Dimitri had found me because he was the one who brought me to the ambulance, but no one else knew, other than my parents.

After that, we went to Christian's house – his aunt Tasha had to work, so we had the house to ourselves. We sat around playing board games and watching movies, with me teasing Christian and Lissa about the safety of where I sat. Hey, I didn't want all their love sweat on me. Who knew where those two had done it?

As the sun started to sink below the horizon, I woke up. I hadn't meant to go to sleep, but when you're lounging on a soft couch, watching movies with the lights off, it's pretty easy to fall into a doze. Mia had fallen asleep on Eddie and, even though he didn't know it, I saw him brush her hair back behind her ear as she snoozed. He had the same expression on his face that Dimitri had on his when he looked at me. I suddenly wanted very much to hear his voice.

I sat up, looking around. Christian and Lissa were in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge from the sounds of it. "Hey," I whispered at Eddie. When I had his attention, I told him that I was going out to make a phone call and to pass it along to Christian and Lissa if they asked.

I stepped into Christian's patio. I pulled out my phone and dialed Dimitri's number.

He answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hey," I replied, feeling a little wistful. I liked talking to him over the phone, but I wanted to see him. "What are you doing?"

"Dimka?" I heard a female voice on the other end. "Who're you talking to?"

There was silence on the other end for a moment before Dimitri got back on the phone. "I'm sorry, Rose, but I can't talk right now. I'll call you back tonight, okay?"

I desperately wanted to ask who was there with him, but I didn't want to be too intrusive. I trusted Dimitri; I didn't think he'd be doing anything I wouldn't approve of. Still, there was a voice in the back of my head saying, He's with another woman! How could you be so dumb? I silenced that voice. "Oh, yeah, sure. I'll talk to you later."

"Okay. Bye." He hung up.

I kind of felt like I'd just been slapped in the face. There was a woman with him – wherever he was – and he hadn't told me he loved me. Hell, he hadn't said a damn thing that made him sound like he was talking to his girlfriend.

Told you, the voice sneered.

"Oh, shut up." I whispered to myself. I opened my phone back up and sent a quick text to my mom, letting her know I was okay. I stayed out there another minute to collect myself before going back inside. Everyone was up and in the living room, the lights back on. Mia was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. I had to fight hard to stifle a laugh. She was so tiny that she looked like a little girl. I couldn't say that to her, though, or she'd get mad. "So what's going on?" I asked everyone.

They all looked at me. "First, tell us who you had to call." Christian said.

"My mom, to check in. She won't let me text her cause she's afraid that if something happened to me again, anyone could send a text from my phone saying that I'm okay. I keep trying to tell her that no one would bother doing something like that, but she doesn't listen. Now, what are we doing?"

Christian explained that Roman – one of his geeky friends who was obsessed with stickers and art car shows (I know, weird) – had called to let him know that the movie theater was showing a special presentation of the first Star Trek movie in an hour.

I sighed. "Oh, and let me guess: you want to go?"

Sure enough, an hour later, we were at the theater. I wasn't interested in seeing the movie – not because it wasn't good, but because I didn't care much for science fiction movies – but I did want to spend more time with my friends. Roman joined us, and although most of us – everyone but Christian – thought he was a little weird, we tried to make him feel welcome.

But halfway through the movie, I needed a break. I was on the verge of falling asleep, so I decided to go to the bathroom and walk around a little to wake myself up.

The movie theater was different from others I'd been to. It was two stories, four theaters on the bottom floor and three on top. The only bathrooms they had were on the top floor – I'd complained multiple times to my friends about how hard it was to climb stairs when you really had to pee – so I headed upstairs.

I'd gotten up one flight and had one more to go when Mason popped up out of nowhere. I groaned. "Not again. What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you that same question." He smirked, putting an arm around my shoulders as he fell into step with me.

"That sounds pretty pointless, seeing as you're the one who decided to show up here. You know, the rest of our friends are downstairs in theater three. Why don't you go bother them instead?"

He grabbed my hand with his free one, making me stop. "Because you're the one I care about, Rose. You always have been. You can't tell me you didn't know that."

My heart broke hearing him say that. I didn't know what to say, so I shrugged out from under his arm and kept walking. He followed me.

"Aw, c'mon, Rose. We both know you aren't shy. Just talk to me, that's all I ask."

"I'd rather not," I breathed, making it to the door to the top floor. I went through it and into the bathroom, which was right across the hall from the stairway door. Thankfully, Mason left me alone. I did what I needed to do fast, hoping that Mason wouldn't pop up while I did. I washed my hands and splashed a little cold water on my face, hoping to keep myself awake and alert. It was a good thing I did.

When I came out the bathroom, I saw someone coming up the stairs through the stairwell door's small window. I knew it wasn't Mason…because this person was wearing a black ski mask. My heart leaped up into my throat as I realized that I was probably in danger. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it into one of the theaters before they made it up the stairs, so I retreated back into the bathroom.

I ran into one of the stalls and shut the door as quietly as I could. I locked it before getting up on the toilet so no one could see my feet, just in case they came in. I held my breath, waiting.

I didn't have to wait long. I heard the bathroom door creak open and the sound of slow footsteps making their way into the room. For a moment, when the footsteps stopped and I didn't hear anything, I thought it was just another person coming to the restroom, probably to check hair and makeup. But then I jumped as the sound of someone slamming the first stall's door open filled the restroom.

There were more footsteps and then a second slam. Oh, God. I thought. They're going to find me. Think, Rose, think! Quickly!

I still had nothing when I saw feet appear underneath my stall's door. When nothing happened, I thought I got lucky and the person would just leave. But then I saw the door shake and heard the loud pang of someone hitting the door. When the door didn't open, the person began shaking and hitting the door, over and over.

The lock on the door wasn't made to withstand that kind of damage. I knew it'd give soon. I looked around, trying to find something I could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. I looked up and down, wondering if I'd be able to make it over the top or under the bottom of the stall wall and into the next stall. I highly doubted it. But that's when an idea came to me.

I grabbed the tops of the stall walls, testing my weight on it. I figured it would have to do and bent my knees, getting ready for the door to bust open. When it did, I didn't have time to be shocked, even though the person coming after me was in all black with the ski mask on. How had he – I could tell it was a man – gotten through the lobby downstairs dressed like that?

I leaped up, keeping myself from falling by holding myself up on the stall doors. I swung myself forward in mid-air, like I was on a swing, keeping my legs straight out in front of me. It worked. My legs went straight into the man's chest, knocking him back on the floor. I let go of the stall doors, landing on my feet outside of the stall. I didn't stop to check and see who the man was; I ran like hell out of the bathroom.

I remembered something Dimitri had told me when we were running on the track in the gym.

"What do you do if someone attacks you and you know you can't take them on hand-to-hand?" Dimitri asked while we were taking a break.

I thought about it for a second. "Um, scream?"

He smiled. "You could try it, but if someone really wants to hurt you, they're going to do it, whether you scream or not. No, you run. You run as fast and hard as you can until you find other people."

That's what I decided to do now. I figured that going downstairs would just make me slower, so I headed for the first theater I saw. I'd almost made it when I heard the bathroom door open.

Running into the theater, I yelled for help. There was a wall separating the theater seats and the entrance, so I had to run all the way to the end of it before reaching people. But, to my dismay, I saw there were no people in here. This theater must have been done showing movies for the day.

I didn't stop, though. I ran up the steps to the middle row. I ran into the seats, dropping down when I made it to the middle of the row. It was sticky and disgusting, but I really didn't care at the moment. I rolled underneath the seats as best I could, hoping it would be enough to camouflage me.

Mason appeared, squatting, right next to me. I looked up at him, wording "help me" so as not to make any noise. He shook his head. "I can't."

I turned away from him, listening, but I couldn't hear anything. Maybe, just maybe, I got lucky and Ski Mask didn't see me come in this theater. I could've sworn he did, but maybe that was just my fear talking.

I was just about to climb out and see if the coast was clear when a hand grabbed the back of my hair and pulled me out from under the seats. I tried to let out a scream, but another hand clamped around my mouth. A scene danced before my eyes.

Big arms wrapped around me and pulled me into an alley. I tried to scream, but a hand snaked over my mouth, forbidding me from doing so.

No. I wouldn't let that happen to me again. This time I wouldn't make it if I didn't fight back. Luckily, his hands weren't around my body, so I was able to move my arms. I put as much force as I could into the punch I threw behind me. It was pure luck that I was able to hit him in the face.

Ski Mask didn't let go of my hair, but his grip did loosen. That was all I needed. I pulled forward, releasing myself from his grasp, but not without losing a little hair. I got up and spun around. Bad idea. I should've just run like Dimitri had told me to do.

Ski Mask punched me, knocking me back. It hurt, but I couldn't pay attention to that now. I tried to punch him again, but he dodged my blow. I was bracing myself for Ski Mask's next punch when I suddenly remembered something. When Dimitri had been practicing with me in the gym, it was hard for me to focus on his hands and feet at the same time. I decided to try his technique, but my plan was just a little different.

I punched at him with my right hand, expecting him to dodge it. He did. I quickly threw out my left fist and that was when I knew my plan would work. Ski Mask was so focused on my left hand that he didn't even see the kick coming. I threw my leg up as hard as I could…right between his legs. He went down.

I turned, starting to run, but he grabbed my ankle and I went down, hitting the ground face first. I was going to have a bad bruise later – if there was a later.

I didn't bother getting up. By now, I was pissed. I looked back at him, thinking of all the pain I'd been through over the past couple of months. I pulled the leg he had a hold of and, using his strength against him as he tried to pull me back, kicked him as hard as I could in the face. His head snapped back, blood splattering out of his nose as it did.

I started running before I'd even gotten up. I ran as hard and fast as I could back into the hallway. I rounded the corner and pushed the stairwell door open as I did. It hit the wall, making a loud banging noise. Ahead of me, I saw my friends coming up the stairs. "Run!" I yelled.

I don't exactly know why they immediately did as I said. It could've been the tone of my voice, or the look on my face. But I like to think it was the fact that my friends just had that much faith in me.

They only stopped and waited for me when they got to the bottom. I kept running and heard their footsteps as they began following me. People gave us odd looks, but I didn't care. All I knew was that I needed to get my friends and myself to safety.

It wasn't until I saw Dimitri and Ms. Amos that I stopped, making my friends run into me. They were outside the theater, but I could see them through the big windows in the front. They stood close together, underneath a streetlight. As I watched, horrified, Ms. Amos ran her hand along Dimitri's arm, linking their fingers together when she got to his hand.

My heart shattered into a million pieces and I wanted nothing more than to collapse in my own misery. But I knew that I had more important things to deal with.

More important things?! That's your man out there, holding hands with some tramp! that sneaky voice in the back of my mind screamed at me. I didn't pay it any attention.

"Rose, what's wrong?" Lissa asked, grabbing my arm. I didn't see it, but I felt her flinch, probably from all the emotions running through me right then. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her follow my gaze outside. She gasped when she saw what I was looking at. "Are you okay?"

"Doesn't matter." I hissed before continuing to the door. My friends followed me, whispering to each other as we made our way through the lobby. I wouldn't let myself look at the man I loved, who was breaking my heart.

I walked out the theater. Dimitri and Ms. Amos were just ten feet away, but I refused to look at them. I hoped I could just walk the other way without Dimitri noticing me. I didn't know if I could keep myself together if I had to talk to them. But I should've known better. I could spot Dimitri in a crowd almost immediately – despite his height – and he could do the same with me. How could he not notice me walking out of a theater with my friends?

"Rose?"

I completely stopped. In this case, I had to take a deep breath to calm myself. As I did, I felt my hands unclench. I hadn't even known they were in fists, but now I felt where my nails had bitten into my skin.

I turned around, focusing on my anger instead of my heartbreak. Even though I was angry, I couldn't help but notice that he and Ms. Amos were about three feet apart and weren't holding hands anymore. "Oh, hi, Mr. Belikov."

I could tell he knew I was mad immediately. His face fell, but he quickly masked it. "Hello." He nodded to the rest of my friends. "How are all of you this evening?"

"Uh, not so good." Christian answered him. I quickly turned to Christian, giving him a glare that could melt an iceberg. At least, that's what I thought. By the look on his face, I think I was right.

"Why is – Oh my God, Rose. What happened to your face?" Ms. Amos asked.

I'd forgotten about my fall and when I turned to Christian, the left side of my face – the side I'd fell on – was turned toward the streetlight, giving Dimitri and Ms. Amos a clear view of the damage. "It's nothing," I said, a little too fast.

Dimitri stepped forward. "Rose, that isn't nothing. What happened?"

"I…" I looked around at all the people around me, my gaze staying on Ms. Amos just a beat longer than the rest. "I don't want to talk about it now."

I knew he'd noticed when I looked at Ms. Amos. He nodded. "I understand. If you need to talk, you're welcome to stop by my office at any time."

"Dimitri," Ms. Amos spoke up, stepping forward. "Why don't you take them all home? It's getting late and they really shouldn't be out and about after…" She trailed off, looking at me. She didn't need to finish. Addressing the rest of my friends, she added, "I would take you home myself, but I live right down the road and don't have my car with me."

"Oh, no, that's okay. Really, we'll be fine." I told them, trying desperately to get out of this situation.

Lissa stepped up next to me. "Actually, Rose, I think getting a ride would be a good idea. Ms. Amos does have a point."

Oh. My. God. I couldn't believe it! Lissa saw what just happened – she saw that tramp with her hands all over Dimitri! – and now she was agreeing with her. I felt betrayed.

"Uh, yeah, I'd actually like that." Mia agreed. "I'm getting really tired and don't want to walk home like this if I don't have to."

Dimitri nodded. "Okay, let me go get my car. Don't move." He looked at me as he said the last part. As he turned and left, Ms. Amos went with him. My blood boiled. I thought about bolting for it, leaving my friends behind. After all, Lissa had just betrayed me and the rest of them had no idea what was going on. I started to turn, just slightly, but Lissa caught my gaze, stopping me.

"Rose, what the hell just happened?!" Eddie whispered, coming to stand at my side. "Why were we running?"

It surprised me when Christian put his hand on my shoulder. "Someone came after you again, didn't they?" I was shocked. Christian joked with me so much that I'd forgotten he could be serious with me. I'd also forgotten how smart he was. "That's why you were upstairs so long."

The answer must have been written all over my face because all my friends gasped.

"Rose, why didn't you tell us?" Mia asked. She came over to me and grabbed my hand.

I surprised her when I pulled out of her grasp. I was holding on to my anger so that I didn't break down and cry. "Stop babying me!" I shrieked. "I can take care of myself. I did earlier. I am perfectly fine and I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Fine." Eddie growled, grabbing Mia's hand – the one I'd shaken off, I noticed. "Have it your way. We won't bother you about it again."

Dimitri pulled up in his car then. He rolled down the window. "My car only seats five people so one of you is going to have to squeeze in the back with others. Sorry about that."

All four of my friends went for the backseat, obviously mad at me. Lissa was the last to get in. She turned and gave me a look that said she wasn't mad, she understood. I knew that she was getting in the back so that I'd have to sit in the front, with Dimitri. I sighed, going around the back of the car – mostly so that Dimitri wouldn't be able to watch me easily – and slipped into the passenger's side.

"Could you drop me off first?" I asked, thinking he wouldn't be able to refuse with my friends in the car. "I'd really like to be home right now." There was a double meaning in that and I knew he picked up on it. What I was really saying was, I really don't want to be around you right now.

To my dismay, he found a way to refuse. "Actually, I need to speak with your mother, so it'd be easier if I dropped you off last."

"It's late. I don't think now's the best time for that." I replied, hoping we didn't sound like we were fighting.

"I called your mother to let her know you'd been hurt. She said she didn't mind if I came by."

I scowled, sitting back in my seat. Why did he have to be so smart?

We rode in silence, other than my friends giving Dimitri instructions to their houses. As we dropped each of them off, they mumbled their thanks and goodbyes before heading inside. Lissa was the last to be dropped off, her house the closest to mine.

"Thank you for the ride, Dim-Mr. Belikov." I whipped my head around to look at her when she stumbled over his name. "I'll see you later, Rose. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Lissa." Dimitri replied, calm and collected. Good. Maybe he hadn't noticed.

Lissa shut the door and walked to her house. When she was safely inside, Dimitri put the car in drive and started to go. There was thirty seconds of silence before he asked, "You told Lissa?" I didn't answer. I was too upset and I didn't want to talk to him. He took that as an admission of guilt. "Rose. How could you do something like that? Do you realize what you've done?" His voice was still low and calm, unlike my earlier outburst. It infuriated me.

I couldn't take it anymore. "Nothing. I have done absolutely nothing. And you wanna know why?" He pulled over to the curb, a couple of houses down from my house. "Because there is nothing to hide anymore."

I reached for the door, but Dimitri grabbed my arm, stopping me. "Rose, wait! What happened? To us? To your face?"

I flailed the arm he held, getting him to let go. "It doesn't matter. I'm going now."

"No, you aren't." he growled. He was getting angry now. He grabbed both my arms and made me look at him. I caught myself gazing into those beautiful, brown eyes and the very last pieces of my heart broke. "Tell me what happened."

"He found me!" I screamed. "The guy who attacked me found me. He came after me, Dimitri! He hit me, and he pulled out my hair, and he did this!" I gestured to my face. "I fought him off. I didn't just run or sit there and let it happen this time. I fought back, and I won."

There was worry written all over his face. He let go of my left arm, using that hand to try and touch my face. I flinched back. "I'm so sorry, Roza. Are you okay?"

I looked down to the ground, the tears finally spilling out. "No." I whispered. "I'm not okay. I needed you." My voice broke on the last word.

"What? Speak up, Roza, I can't hear you."

I turned back up to him, the hysteria rising back in my voice. "I needed you, Dimitri! I needed you and you weren't there. Instead, I run away from that…that monster to find you with another woman!"

"Rose, it isn't what you think. I –"

"I don't care!" I yelled, smacking his hands, which were reaching for me. "It doesn't matter anymore. We're done."

With that, I opened the door and began walking down the sidewalk. I heard his car door open and then his footsteps approaching. "Rose, wait, you don't understand!" Even when pleading with me, he was able to keep his voice low so no one overheard. "Let me explain."

I tried to ignore him, but he got in front of me, blocking my path. "I only love you, Roza. Please, please don't do this."

He reached out, taking my face in his hands. Before I could do anything, he kissed me. I panicked. I knew that if I didn't do something to get him away from me, I'd break down right there. So, I did the first thing that came to mind.

I pulled away and slapped him. Hard. The look on his face was devastating. It was as if he just found out the world was about to end. But I couldn't let that get to me, couldn't let him break through the façade that was keeping me together. I considered telling him not to call or text me, but I think the look I gave him was enough.

I jogged off, reaching my house in under a minute. I didn't look back. As soon as I was in the house, I knew Dimitri hadn't called my mom. All the lights in the house were off and I couldn't hear the TV in her room, which usually meant she was asleep.

As soon as I was in my room, I fell on my bed, crying myself sick.

So…I'll just let you guys review and tell me what you think about all of this…