Hey guys, sorry for all those really, really short chapters. They are bugging the crap out of me too, so I'm going to put more effort into the chapters. So here y'all go. Hope you like it! This chapter is a little more intense than any of the other chapters. And even though that is hardly possible, I made it happen. So I hope you guys like it. (:

I knock on Eli's door and he quickly answers. "That took longer than I expected."

I make a face that says 'I'm about to make fun of you' "Sounds like you were waiting around for me." I say to him.

He laughs and gestures for me to come in. I've never really been in his house before, but his family looked like they were loaded.

"What," He starts. "Not what you expected?"

I shake my head. "Not at all," I say. "I was expecting maybe-

"A trash can?" Eli jokes.

I laugh. I look around and see a huge flat screen TV. "So, is this what we are going to be watching it on?"

"No," He says. "We are going to be watching it in the bigger screen down in the basement."

"There's a bigger screen?" I say. He shrugs acting like it's no big deal and starts to walk down the stairs. "I am officially jealous of you, Eli." I joke and follow him downstairs which looked like his very own house.

"This is the basement," He says. "AKA, my room."

My eyes widen to see everything from a mini fridge, to a couch right in front of the TV. "Wow," I say. "And I have to share a small room with my sister while she's in town!"

He laughs. "It's not that special." He opens a door to a closet by the huge TV that had tons of movies in it. He started tossing them one by one on the couch and he comes out with a few in his arms and drops them on the couch. "Ladies choice." He gestures to the pile of movies and I look through them. He seriously did have every scary movie under the sun. I was pretty impressed by his variety.

I change the subject. "So, how did you talk your parents into getting all this?" I gesture to the room and then go back to looking at all the movies on the couch.

He shrugs. "I don't know. I think they just gave it to me so I don't annoy them as much."

I laugh and say sarcastically. "Eli? Annoying? I've never heard of such a thing."

He laughs. "You've been hanging around me too much, haven't you?"

I playfully roll my eyes and look back down at the movies and make my choice: Paranormal Activity. Even though it wasn't really that much of a scary movie to me, I always thought it was a good movie. I hand him it and he nods. "Excellent choice, Edwards." He says and proceeds to put the movie in. "I've actually never seen this movie all the way through." He says.

"What," I joke. "Too scared to?"

"Psh," He starts sarcastically. "Right, because I haven't seen anything scarier."

Eli's POV

I walk over to her. "I haven't seen you in a while," I say. "Where's my hello?" I grab her hand and lean in to kiss her until I noticed something was missing. I run my finger across her knuckle and notice that she wasn't wearing any ring. I hold up her hand. "Where's your ring?"

She makes a pouty grin. "No hello?" She says.

I give her a confused look. "Wha-, that doesn't matter right now. Where is it?"

I let go of her hand and she holds it up to her face and looks at it. "It must have fallen off or something."

Must have fallen off? I can safely say what the hell.

"Why are you trying to talk about things that don't matter?" Clare says and gives a sinister smile. She takes the bowl of popcorn from the table that I already set out and holds it up to me. "Popcorn?"

I pause and wipe a frown on my face. "Clare," I say. "You used to guard that ring with your life, and now you are saying that it doesn't matter?" I say and her grin fades. "Eli..."

She stops right there and I start to get scared. "Is there something you aren't telling me Clare?" She laughs. "Wow, this sounds familiar, huh?" She says.

I raise my voice. "Clare!" I say. "Answer my question!"

Her smile fades and now she started to look angry. "It's nothing Eli! When I said it doesn't matter, I meant it." She pauses to look at me intensely. "It. must. Have. Fallen off." She walks over to the couch and takes the remote and presses play. "Let's just watch this movie, shall we?"

I get confused. "Clare-

"You know what," Clare says and stands up from the couch. "I didn't come here to argue," She starts looking angry again. "But if you want to then I can just go!"

"Clare," I say. I didn't want to raise my voice, but it just happened. "If it doesn't matter then you wouldn't make such a big deal talking about it."

She takes a step closer, but not in a good way, more of an intimidating way. "I should be saying that to you, Eli." She says with her eyes narrowed and her voice lowered.

"Clare," I say sounding more sincere. "I just want to know what's wrong."

She starts to look like she's about to cry. "Oh my god!" She yells, which surprised me. One, she never said god's name in vain, and two, she started to sound like she was actually starting to cry, plus, I wasn't expecting her to yell. "Why every time we do something it turns to an argument!" She says.

"Clare," I say calmly trying to calm her down. "I'm not trying to argue ok?"

I see tears actually stream down her face this time. "Then why do you think something is wrong!" She yells again.

"Because," I raise my voice again, ignoring the fact that I'm trying to calm her down. "You're standing her crying when I'm just trying to talk to you!"

She raises her hands and slaps them back down on her sides. "Eli," She yells. "Nothing's wrong with me!" She crosses her arms and shakes her head and says quieter. "Maybe I should just go." She says and starts to walk up the stairs. I didn't stop her because I thought she needed some time alone. She at least deserved that.

I didn't know what it was, but I wasn't going to force it out of her.

Clare's POV

I stomped out of Eli's house and then into the street to bring myself back home. I found myself in the middle of the street, but ignored the fact that I may get hit by a car. I found myself crying even harder than I was when all my thoughts went back to everything in my life.

Before I came to Degrassi, my life was very surreal. Since I was at a private school, nothing really bad happened to me. Everyone was good, everyone followed the rules, and everything was how it was supposed to be.

So now, here I am. Crying in the middle of the street, hating myself. I always thought that things would be different when I met Eli, but in a good way. Of course, I was wrong about that. Loving Eli as much as I do scares the crap out of me! I mean, I love him so much that the thought of losing him kills me a bit. Cheesy, I know. But it's true. I mean, Eli has been so good to me. Even when he did all that crazy stuff with Fitz, I still loved him. I just hate getting hurt. Like what happened with KC…That hurt me so badly. I keep reminding myself that I didn't love KC though, I've just never really hurt like that before KC. I'm just glad to know that Eli would never leave me for some blonde cheerleader, and that he cares about me. He knows that I don't want him chasing after me right now, because he just knows me that well. I'm really glad that he didn't come chasing after me though, because then I would be even more pissed off than I am now.

I thought for a moment and realized I wasn't pissed off…I was just scared to death. All these things that have happened to me are…well…scaring me. Losing Eli, my dad's death, and of coarse, Reese…I started to think about what really happened that night and I don't remember how it felt, and how it was supposed to feel. Was I really that stupid? Was I really that drunk that I only remember before it? I looked at my hand reminding myself how stupid I am, and then set it back down.

Honk. I hear behind me and then car lights flashing. I look back and run quickly to the sidewalk as the car drives by. I stand there, petrified, staring at the street. Right then, it started to rain, and also right then, I didn't want to go home. The rain felt good on my face, it was like they were washing away the tears. I shake my head and start to walk forward. I can't stay outside forever. Besides, it was starting to get cold, and I might get hyperthermia. Yes, it was that cold; it was almost winter. I start walking slowly forward with the hood of my thin sweatshirt up that was hardly helping considering the rain just soaked through my sweater.

I hear a car pull up to where I was which scared me. I turn to see a hearse with Eli in the driver's seat. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've never been this happy to see Eli in my life. He steps out of the hearse and walks in front of me. He examined and probably saw that I was shivering. He opens his passenger door and takes out a sweatshirt and puts it around my shoulders without a word. He then turns and looks at me for a moment. He looked so…sad. I've never seen him like this. We both stand their looking at each other with sad faces. My tears started to build up in my eyes and I started to bawl looking at Eli. He frowned and pulled me into his shoulder and I cried into it. He didn't say a word, because he probably knew that I didn't want to start talking about what happened that really happening. I then pull my face up from his shoulder and he wipes a tear from my face. "Let me get you home," He says.

I shake my head. "I'm perfectly capable of walking Eli," I barely let out, wiping another tear from my face.

"Clare," He says. "It's almost thirty degrees! You're going to freeze out here!" He yells, but this time, I knew he was just concerned.

He reaches out to pull me so I could get into his car but I back away from his distance. "I don't care!" I practically yell and start to cry more.

"Clare!" He says and then I fall into his arms again and start sobbing even harder. "I'm just going to take you home, ok? I can't let you walk home."

I then give in and nod my head. He puts his around my shoulder and opens the passenger door and I climb into it. He closes the door and I stand there still sniffling from crying. He gets into the drivers seat and drives off with no words to be said. I stare out the window the whole time and occasionally take a glance at Eli to see his face completely blank.

We pull up to my house and nobody is hope. That was a huge relief though. "Well," He says blankly. "We're here." He looks at me and looks concerned.

"Thanks," I choke and take his sweatshirt off my shoulders and hand it to him. He takes it and tosses it in the backseat.

I start to open the door and Eli stops me by saying "Clare," I turn around to him. "You don't have to explain, ok?" He puts his hand on mine. "Just get some rest ok?" He says one last time. I give him a weak smile and then step out of the car and watch him drive away. I step back into my house and see the house is empty. I step over to the kitchen to see if there was any note of some kind.

Mom and Darcy went to my grandma's without me, so I was left home alone all night. I didn't mind them doing things without me, because then I could just be by myself. I agree with my conscience that I shouldn't have done that to Eli, and that every time we do something I always have to open my big mouth and make it go wrong. I shake my head and the tears scatter when I do that. I figured I needed to get my mind off things, so I pull out my iPod and plug it into the speakers in my room. I turn it on shuffle and the first song that pops up is Hotblack - Oceanship. I love that song, but listening to it always made me cry. I lay down on my bed and quietly listen to the song. Whenever they said "It's a mad, mad world" my heart started to race. Why did my life have to be so complicated?