(Disclaimer- me no own.)

woot. so i'm writing chapters a lot faster than im posting them. i currently have 21 chapters
finished on my computer. :D yes i doooo! but i'm still updating a little slow. but not TOO slow, i think.
i've been trying to update every day, which is kind of fast, I think. but anyway. here we go: chapter fifteen.

Mistaken

"Talk to me. Please?" He begged me, tapping my back lightly with his cool hand. Water spilled endlessly from my mouth. He wiped it with his gentle fingers as he held me in a sitting position with the other hand. "What happened to you? I knew I'd find you out here somewhere. How did this happen?"

I tried to breathe through all of the fire, tried to answer Kyle. I managed only to grunt out a strangled sound of pain. His face scrunched in sympathy again, as it had that very first time I'd spoken with him. I wondered what he was doing here in Forks. Had he come looking for me? I still felt odd, disconnected, flat. I felt like a slit of paper shoved in the back of someone's pocket. I was there, but I wasn't alive. Just a little piece. My head lolled in his palm. His thumb massaged a small circle into my hair as he sighed.

"Let's get you to a hospital, shall we?" He suggested. My voice came back quickly, painfully.

"No!" I rasped. My fingers flew to my throat, squeezing it, trying to stop the sharp sting from slithering there. It didn't work. He placed me down on the passenger seat of his car and ran around to the driver's side, snatching the map I'd dropped. He got in quickly and threw the map to the floor by my feet, gunning the engine while I tried to swallow back the fiery pit in my throat. I needed to keep him from taking me there. To the hospital. Someone would find me. And I didn't want to be found, to be put back in that place. There was nothing left for me. I wanted it to end, but not in that way. That would just prolong the ache in my heart. I needed to be gone for good, submerged in darkness, in death. Not in a small white room. Never that.

"No." I said again, working hard to speak. "Please. Don't take me there."

"You've nearly drowned to death. In a puddle. How does that happen, Riley? Either you fell really hard and went unconscious, which there are no scars to prove happened, or you were trying to drown. What is it, Riley? You want to die? Tell me." He sounded so angry, so disgusted with me. I was angry and disgusted, too, but not for trying to die. Only for trying to believe. For letting myself think that I could be happy. I didn't deserve such happiness. I was a lunatic. I gritted my teeth.

"So what if I did want to die?" I hissed, sounding like a chain-smoker. "What do you care?" I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning into the door. I wanted to get away from him, to run away and repeat my horrible act of suicide. But it hadn't worked that time, and I couldn't count on it to work if I tried again. I'd have to find another route out of here. Maybe I could find a gun. Maybe he'd have one in here somewhere. His glove compartment? My finger touched the button on the little box and I watched the compartment fall open. It was empty except for a small book. My face molded into an angry scowl as he watched me cautiously.

"I don't have any guns or knives, sorry." He spit sarcastically, completely revolted by me, knowing exactly what it was I had been looking for. This only made me angrier, this stranger, this man. Why was he able to know me so well, when I didn't even know myself? I hated him. I hated him so much. "I spent every day and night out here on these roads looking for you. Did you know that? I didn't want to find you dead. I'm lucky I found you only half dead. I knew you'd do something like this. But why? What could be so bad?"

"What could be so bad?!" I screamed at him, loosing control of myself. Every ounce of anger and pain that I'd held inside of my tortured chest escaped me now, like someone had opened the door to my own inner hell. I didn't care who found me anymore. I didn't want to hold in my misery anymore. I was done for. I'd find a way to end myself later. I didn't care if he knew my secrets. Nothing was real. None of it. I was alone. So alone. I wished I was dead. I started to cry.

"They're not here." I bawled. Tears spilled suddenly, sobs quaking abruptly in my chest, drowning me in agony and pain. I gasped at the flow of emotion leaving my eyes, and so did he. His arms were around me within seconds, rocking me, the car swiftly in park. "No one's here. I'm alone. I'm alone! I came here to find them, and they don't exist! They're not here! I can't find them. I should have never come here. I should never have come to Forks!" I turned my face into his chest then, overcome with my wild screaming. The fire in my chest was licking slowly into my throat, acidic and horrible. "Please…" I sobbed quietly, not really knowing what I was begging for. Death, maybe. He hushed me, his fingers looping around my hair again and again.

"Riley, what do you mean, you should never have come to Forks?" He whispered into my ear, his breath warm. I shook against him, crying uncontrollably still. I felt stupid for opening up to this unusual stranger, but I had no one else. I was secluded. Alone. I shook my head into his shirt, staining it with tears.

"I should have known nothing would be here."

"Here?" Confusion marked his voice and I looked up at him, my eyes watery and hard to see through, trying to see if I'd detected the correct emotion in his tone. As I stared, my face just inches from his, his features changed from confusion to longing, troubled to warm. My eyes widened and my sobs stuck in my chest, my heart pumping. I felt so delirious, so insane. I wanted to feel normal. Just once.

His lukewarm lips met mine slowly, and I sighed dejectedly against them. These were the only lips mine had ever met. The only lips they'd ever feel. I wanted to feel them. I wanted to feel something. I wanted so much just to be happy. His mouth moved softly, tenderly, on mine, as his fingers pulled me closer. I curled in around him, around the stranger. Kyle, a human. He existed. He was here for me.

Could I be happy without my imaginary friends?

Could I be happy…with Kyle?

My lips pushed his harder, trying to reach for the feeling I'd always felt in my dreams. Love. Where was it now? I could feel a touch of warmth spreading throughout me, almost there. I was almost happy…but I was no where near it. I wanted Jacob. Edward. Someone, but not Kyle. But Kyle was all that I had. Everything. He was the only one that wanted me, the only one that cared, that existed. He was here, right here. And this wasn't a dream. This wasn't a dream.

My fingers entwined with his as I pushed up from my seat, crossing over the console to where he sat. Wetness rolled down my face, touching his, a fierce hatred filling my core. I hated myself for kissing him, for touching him. I hated it. I wanted Jacob, not Kyle. It was wrong of me to do this to him, to me. I was horrible, but I couldn't stop. I'd missed this rare feeling of happiness, even if it was merely a shadow of what I'd felt in my sleep. He pushed gently at my shoulders anyway, holding me back, before I could seat myself on his lap. I could feel my face crumbling with misery as he watched me, the tears coming stronger once again. I looked down at the seat, holding tight to his hand. I was betraying myself.

"What are you looking for?" He whispered against my hair. I shook my head, refusing to answer. I couldn't talk about them anymore, about Jacob and Edward. My heart was in shreds. I needed to be patched together. This would only rip me apart. I sniffled. "Please?" He tried, noticing my resistance. Again, I let my face drag against his shoulder, denying him an answer. He sighed.

"Riley, I think you read your map wrong." He said finally. My eyebrows met in the center of my forehead and I looked back at him, seeing the map in his hand, his eyes inspecting it unhappily. A strange, halfhearted longing ripped through me at his words, but I didn't understand. His fingertip stroked my cheek. I melted at the touch, nuzzling my face into it. I missed the touch of loving hands. My heartbeat threatened me, my thoughts trickling into a matching rhythm. Jacob, Jacob. I gulped.

"What do you mean?" I croaked quietly.

"This isn't Forks. You're no where near Forks, actually. You're only in Mason." He sighed again, shaking his head. He pushed me softly back into my seat and reached around me for the seatbelt. "Put this on, please." He ordered politely as I stared at him in bewilderment. My breath was too quick, hyperventilating.

"I…read…the map…wrong?" I muttered slowly, confusedly. It wasn't making sense. What did this mean if I wasn't in Forks? A warm flush of red covered my cheeks as I realized my own stupidity. My heart was broken and dismantled for nothing. Here I'd been trying to kill myself when I hadn't even reached my destination yet! I'd almost wasted my chance of finding Jacob because of my inability to read a road-map. I was so dumb.

My eyes widened as I grasped what that meant.

Just a moment ago, my future, my life, had been proven not to exist. But suddenly, so suddenly that I was left sitting on the leather seat with my mouth hanging open and my eyes spread wide, it was again possible. Happiness. It could exist. They could exist. Jacob could be real. It might not have been just a dream.

But I couldn't let myself get my hopes up. Not yet.

I stifled a relieved sob, leaning into his chest for a quick hug. He'd told me exactly the right thing. Everything I needed to hear to stay alive at this moment…he'd expressed in three simple words: This isn't Forks. I swallowed hard against the destructive sense of joy, shaking.

"Take me, please?" I whispered. He smiled at me warmly as his foot hit the accelerator.

"Of course."

(author's note: don't hate anna because she kissed him. you have to realize that she is truly going crazy... she's
desperately depressed... and she kinda needs all the positive emotion she can get. and kyle is there for her, hes
helping her. but that doesn't mean she doesn't love jake. she obviously does. haha. so. just keep reading! next
chapter is up already!)