(Disclaimer- i still have nothing witty to say. no ownage.)

i don't know what to say here, either. ahah. i'm so boring today. but uh, i promise
to have chapter five up tomorrow. its already finished, but i normally put my chapters up
too fast and then i don't get as many reviews.. which stinks. so i'm waiting. impatiently.
:) but yeah. read and review! thank you very much.
OH! and i just put up my fictional story on fictionpress . com under sampire, too.
please read it!

Desperation

I stood from the ground, my knees wobbly. My fingers latched onto the handle of my car door, trying hopelessly not to fall over. I needed to see his face. He continued forward, his legs taking long strides, carrying him closer to me. His hands were outstretched, reaching. I imagined him scooping me into his strong arms, kissing my nose, my cheeks, my lips…Telling me he loved me, that it would all be okay. I needed to hear those words. I needed him. I needed Jacob. Tears filled my eyes, and for a moment, I couldn't see anything. I wiped at them with my right hand, still clinging to the side of the car with the other. I hadn't managed to completely stand yet. I was still half on the ground. I couldn't keep myself from screaming his name. I loved him. I missed him. I needed him. More than anything.

"Who let you out of your cage, Psycho?" A voice said. It wasn't the voice I'd been expecting. My breath stuck to my lips, no longer willing to merge with the cool air. A horrible ache reverberated through my chest, curling around the muscles and the tendons, leaving them frozen. I couldn't breathe. This wasn't Jacob. This wasn't him at all.

The boy came closer, and I noticed that his skin was not as beautiful as my eyes had previously led me to believe. It was not a stunning russet, it was a cheap spray tan. He was orange, not red-brown. My teeth clenched, closing off the entry for my sobs to escape from. The boy wasn't as tall as he'd seemed. He was taller than me, but not as much. His black hair was long, but it was greasy, gross. His eyes were black, too, and disturbed, highly amused by whatever expression I displayed on my face. He sneered at me as I sat dazed, staring with my tear-filled eyes, still hanging off the side of my truck.

"Did you hear me, or are you having another hallucination?" He spat. I cringed, recoiling from the sound of his cruel joke. How I ever could have thought he was Jacob, I didn't know. He was nothing like him. Maybe my mind really was whacked. I'd do anything to make Jacob appear in front of me. Perhaps this was a feeble attempt to bring him to life. But no. He wasn't dead. He was living, somewhere…waiting for me. I had to believe that. I wouldn't last ten minutes outside of that insane asylum if I didn't believe that. I tried hard to inhale the fresh air around me, clear my head. He raised an eyebrow.

"Go away." I finally managed, tugging on the door handle, pulling myself back onto the seat of the truck. He snorted, coming closer. His hand found its way onto the inside of the door, and he held it open. It was obvious that he wasn't about to just let me go. Why did he have to torture me? But I remembered him from high school. He was a friend of a boy who'd once liked me. A friend of a boy I'd turned down. He'd always been a jerk. Horrible. That's why he had to torture me. He was cruel. He'd never had any respect for anyone. I remembered thinking that he would wind up in a jail cell. I'd hoped he would. My teeth met audibly as he smiled antagonistically, fear trickling onto my face.

"Or what? You gonna go all Carrie on me?" He laughed, shaking his head. I wanted to punch him. I turned to the passenger seat, looking for something heavy I could hit him with. I knew well that my fist wouldn't do much. He continued to chortle at his stupid jokes. "You never did make it to prom, did you?" He grinned.

"I never wanted to go to prom, Kevin." I hissed, watching him in my peripheral vision as he reached in to touch his fingertip to my hand. He slid it across my skin, making me shudder in fear. I ripped it out from beneath him, holding it on my lap instead of the wheel. I couldn't seem to find anything heavy enough. I didn't even have a purse. I had nothing. Just my hands. And my teeth, I supposed.

"Oh, I think you did want to go. But Jared never asked you. He went with Sarah, forgot about you. You did turn him down, of course, that one time. But it never really mattered much to him. He always knew you were a freak." By the time he'd finished saying this, his face was less than an inch from mine, his hot breath hitting me in the face. I knew from the look in his eyes what his intentions were, and they weren't good. I started to shake, pushing back as far as possible against the seat. My fingers instinctively ripped the key from the ignition, dragging it hard across the skin of his cheek. Blood trickled out from beneath the uneven metal piece, lines of red racing down his face. I stuck my hand over my nose, trying not to breathe in the smell. He jumped back.

"You bitch!" He screamed at me, already launching himself back into the truck with me. He was too late, though. I'd already stuffed the key back in its place, gunning the engine. My right foot stomped hard on the accelerator and the car leaped forward, leaving Kevin hanging from the side of it. The car door swung freely, hitting him in the back as I continued to speed up and break repeatedly. My left foot met his face and he flew out into the street, rolling into the ditch. I sped away quickly, tears falling from my eyes. I could barely breathe. I couldn't see where I was going. I just kept driving, fast, dangerously. I didn't care.

Where was Jacob? Didn't he care about me? Didn't he care about these cruel people, what they were doing to me? What about Edward? Wouldn't Alice have seen these things happen? Wouldn't she have told him? Wouldn't he have come to save me?! Didn't they care? Didn't they love me?! They had to love me! They had to! Please, they had to still care…

My foot pressed down on the break and I threw the truck into park again. I couldn't continue like this. My face was soaked with salty tears, my eyes blind with rage and desperation. My arms clasped around my torso and I held myself there, wishing that another set of arms would take their place. I couldn't feel anything from the waist down. Everything was numb. My sobs shattered off the windshield in front of me and shot back, stinging my ears with their piercing sound. I knew that I was in danger. I didn't even have a clue as to where in the road I was parked. I could have been smack dab in the middle of a highway for all I knew. Kevin could be coming after me, intent on my death.

It was strange, thinking that. For once, having a human be a danger to me, rather than some strange, beautiful, mythical creature. Somehow it was much more menacing when the murderer was of my own species, nothing special, just like me. Maybe it was just the fact that there was no one left to protect me now. Maybe that was why it seemed so much more terrifying. Because I had no one. Because it was all a dream.

I curled into the seat, letting my face rest against the console. What was it worth, leaving that place, if there was nothing out here for me? If life didn't consist of those impossible men, those beautiful, loving…creatures? What was the point? I couldn't seem to decide which was worse. Surely it would suck being stuck inside of a little white room for the rest of eternity. It would be horrible to never be able to explore the real world, to never be given the chance to look for my Jacob and my Edward, my supposed imaginary friends. I'd never have a chance to look for them. Never would finding them even be a possibility. But could it be worse than that? Could being free be worse than being held captive in that hospital? Would it be worse to be given the chance to find what I'm looking for? To spend the rest of my life searching for a happiness I'd only found during sleep, but never find it? Because what if I couldn't find them? What if I never found Jacob? What if I scoured the entire planet and could not find him anywhere?

What if Jacob and Edward didn't exist?

Would it be better to be stuck inside of a little padded room, forever unsure of that happiness, always wondering if it was real? Would it really be better to stay oblivious, rather than have the chance to find the truth, and come up empty handed?

What if my happy ending really was just a dream? What if every moment I'd spent in Jacob's arms…every second of that perfect life my sleep had conjured up…what if every bit of my happiness was just a farce? What if Jacob…Edward…Bella…the Cullens…all the mythical creatures I'd ever come across…what if none of it existed? What would I do then? What would I live for? Would I ever be able to live without them?

For as long as I could remember, they'd been a part of me. Before that supposed dream, the dream that had provided me with every answer, every ounce of happiness and misery…before that happened, I'd still had dreams of them. Of Edward and of Jacob. I'd just not been aware of who they were at the time. What did that mean? Didn't that mean something? Didn't they have to exist, then?

I shook my head, trying to stop crying. I couldn't think about it anymore. I just couldn't. I couldn't do that to myself. I had to make it home. I had to wipe the anguish from my face. Make every bit of desperation, terror, confusion, hope…make it all just disappear from my face. I had to reapply the happy, calm mask. I had to look normal, keep up my act of ordinary teenager. Even if being in that little white cell would be somehow better for me, for my mental state, I couldn't go back there. I couldn't give my parents a reason to send me back. I needed to keep playing pretend, to make them think I was okay. Because whether I suffered or not, whether I truly went insane or even if I died in the process, I had to look for them, for my imaginary loves. I couldn't give up hope. I had to believe that they were out there. I had to try. I just had to try.

Even if I came up empty handed in the end.