Managed to squeeze some time out to write this chapter! I'm dying from all my modules - economics, marketing, etc. I need to escape from them for a while. o_o

Do enjoy this longer-than-usual chapter (it's like two chapters combined into one XD) and don't forget to review! Thank you!

P.S. VampyWildCat, yes, Tessa is a normal human. :) love ya a lot for all the reviews!

I'm officially a prisoner.

In Physics, we were all assigned to seats randomly by the teacher, which sucks a lot. I got stuck sitting with an extremely quiet guy who barely exchanged a word with me ever since the first Physica lesson. It was already the fifth day of school and we still remained as awkwardly silent as ever.

But he wasn't the only guy who made me uncomfortable. The guy behind me was straddling me to my seat using his long legs.

Guess who? Aiden.

He was just so super freaking tall. He sat behind me and stretched his long legs on either side of me on purpose, imprisoning me. I jumped in my seat when I bumped into his leg once while shifting my sitting position. I sat frozen in my chair for the rest of the lesson, not daring to move a single inch for fear of touching him.

Ever since Tessa confronted me on Tuesday, I have been avoiding Aiden quite a lot of times. And the worst part was, he knew about it. This was his plan of torturing me and getting me to talk to him. I felt bad because I knew that it wasn't any of his fault that I was avoiding him and...

...a part of me really wanna talk to him.

But I didn't want to cause a certain someone's relationship to break up because of me so I just kept my mouth shut and continued to stare at the whiteboard in class. The Physics teacher kept droning on and on, and my mind started to drift to somewhere else. I couldn't wait to get back home and Skype with my dear Florida girlfriends later tonight. I haven't had a chance to have a proper chitchat with them ever since I came to Forks. I totally miss them to bits.

Thud.

I jumped once again. Crap, I forgot about him for one second and my left feet smacked into his left leg when I wanted to change into a more comfortable position unknowingly. My face flushed red. Maybe my ears turned red too, because I swear that I heard him laughed under his breath.

I stared at the clock, willing it to go faster. The first week of school was almost over and I was looking forward to a quiet and peaceful weekend. I might have to lock up myself in my bedroom so that my two naughty cousins wouldn't be able to disturb me.

The bell rang loudly a while later, signalling the end of class. After Aiden's legs slid out from under my chair, I stood up quickly and grabbed my books. But to my absolute horror, I accidentally dropped a book. I bent down awkwardly while juggling my other books in my arms, trying to pick it up. But before I could do that, someone else picked it up instead.

"Thanks," I said quietly, avoiding the eyes of the guy who helped me.

Aiden handed the book to me wordlessly without any expression. I took the book and our fingers brushed against each other's in the process. The warmth from his fingers made me shiver and my fingers shook. One corner of his mouth quirked upwards when he saw my reaction.

Growing nervous, I hurriedly turned and left, never looking back once because I knew what effect he was having on me. I didn't want to know what crazy stuff I would do if I stayed there any longer. I was dying on the inside to talk to him. I kept sneaking glances at him whenever he was standing nearby. I didn't know why, but whatever stuff that he does sent my heart thudding at an erratic rate.

I really wonder, how long more could I keep this up?

I was spending my Saturday hanging out with my new clique. It was such an impromptu shopping date. We were having lunch at, well, Larson's Hideout. Lisa had a sudden craving for crepes and wanted to eat here. I nearly shouted out "no" when she first suggested it but instead, I bit the insides of my cheeks to stop myself for being silly. I couldn't afford to let any of them know what Tessa had said to me because I didn't want to get them involved in this. I didn't want them to worry or anything.

Heck, was this the only cafe in the town? From where I was sitting, I could see Aiden serving food to the customers, his strong hands carrying the food expertly and steadily. His charming smile dazzled people, especially the girls. Thank goodness the girl who considered me as her enemy wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Hey girls, I need a new dress for the party. Something that stands out," Melinda said, jolting me from my thoughts. She leaned back and stretched her arms. I jerked my head towards her.

"What party?" I asked. This was the first time that I am hearing this. All three of them stared at me in surprise.

"You didn't hear? There's a party happening next Friday at Drake's house. You've to go with us!" Brynn exclaimed. Oh, Drake. I knew him because he was the current basketball captain in our school team. He was rich, tall and well-built with spike hair. So naturally, a lot of girls were drooling over him.

"Apparently, he's the eye candy of our little Miss Melinda right here. So she's not gonna miss this golden opportunity to get his attention during the party and do smooching stuff with him." Lisa winked at me. A ball of crushed napkin flew straight towards her face a second later but she ducked easily. Melinda pretended to pull a face at her and we burst out in laughter.

We saw Aiden approached our table with our food and drinks. We straightened up a little, but our giggles threatened to spill anytime soon. In the midst of placing our food on the table, Lisa accidentally let a giggle escaped from her lips. That caused us to erupt into loud giggles again, with Melinda blushing in embarrassment. Aiden just raised his eyebrows in confusion and gave us a cute smile.

"Ladies, mind sharing with me the joke?" He winked. Wait, was that wink directed at me? Must be my imagination.

"Well, you see," Lisa began saying. She jerked a thumbed in my direction suddenly while I took a sip of my drink. "Raine was sharing some of her embarrassing childhood stories, like how she accidentally kicked a boy in his face when she thought he was a pervert," she lied without batting an eyelid.

I choked on my drink. What nonsense was she saying!? Coughing and spluttering, I rasped out, "EXCUSE ME!?" I was horrified. Since when did I ever say that? And how could she said that in front of Aiden? My reputation would be tainted, I thought.

Finding it hilarious, Aiden started to laugh but he covered it up with a cough. His eyes turned a light shade of green with amusement and I found myself staring at him again.

"That's nice to know, Raine. Well then, enjoy your food, girls." He winked at me again, this time clearly directing at me. He turned and walked away to serve other customers. I let my jaw dropped in horror, mainly because I wasn't able to tell him that he was mistaken. I snapped my head back to Lisa and glared at her. She stuck out her tongue at me.

"Lisa!" I shrieked loudly. A couple of people from the other table turned and stared at our table. Oops. I lowered my head. "Why, oh why must you said something fake about me to him?" I hissed at her this time in a softer voice.

The three of them exchanged looks to one another before speaking at the same time;

"Did you think we were blind?"

"I saw those looks that he gave you, Raine."

"Aiden and Raine...you both will make a cute couple."

"Whoa whoa, guys. Hold up for a second." I held up both my hands to stop them from saying anything further. They sounded like birds chirping at the same time. They stopped whatever they were going to say and I cleared my throat awkwardly.

"You do know that Aiden has a girlfriend, right? So there's completely no way we are going to be together," I said in a matter-of-fact way. It dawned on me that some part of me was really disappointed and sad when those words came out of my mouth, because it was all too true. Aiden and I being together was never going to happen.

All three literally rolled their eyes at me. Oh my gosh, what was wrong them? They kept on doing the same stuff at the same time, which was freaking me out. Did they link their brains together or were they actually triplets?

Brynn shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It's just a matter of time before they break up. Those two don't exactly love each other. Well, it seemed that way to us." Seeing my confused look, she continued on.

"Tessa is very clingy. She goes after and sticks to Aiden because of his looks and reputation, obviously. And of course, she did a lot of bad stuff behind Aiden's back to drive people out of her way." Since we were on this topic, I figured that I asked them about what Tessa did.

And they did. They blurted out everything - how Tessa stopped a girl from confessing to Aiden by ganging up on her with her girlfriends, how Tessa dumped a cup of ice coffee on another girl when she saw her trying to flirt with him, and how Tessa tripped another girl multiple times because she heard her calling her bad names behind her back.

And the worse one was when Tessa kept making fun of a quiet girl, who apparently has a crush on Aiden, in front of everyone and ended up causing her to have depression and leave the school. She was such a ridiculous woman. My anger boiled up within me. I felt sorry for those girls and my hands were itching to slap Tessa on their behalf.

"Aiden doesn't deserve a girl like Tessa," Melinda said. "He deserves better. I mean, he's nice to everyone, the complete opposite of his girlfriend. And yet, he doesn't even know everything that is happening because Tessa would kill the person who dares to tell him anything."

"Or maybe he knows, because he doesn't seem to really treat her like a real girlfriend," Brynn remarked. She stirred her drink. "If a guy likes someone badly, he would go crazily after her."

"Yup," Lisa added. She flipped her hair to the side dramatically and pointed at me. "Our dear Raine here definitely is the one that Aiden is waiting for. Look at the way he talks to you. I see sparks flying between you guys. So much looooove..." I stuffed French fries into Lisa's mouth to stop her from continuing further. She said something which I couldn't make out and then chewed on the fries. Brynn and Melinda laughed wildly at her. I shook my head at her smugly.

We dropped the subject. I stabbed the scrambled eggs and shoved it into my mouth. As I chewed slowly, I wondered to myself, should I be scared of Tessa after hearing those stuff about her? The answer for me was, strangely, no. Sure, she was scary but someone has to take the first step to stop and show her that she has to stop doing all those awful things. Otherwise, she would go on and on and bully other innocent girls.

After breakfast, we headed to Lily's Boutique. Melinda run to the dress section excitedly, her messy and pretty bun bobbing up and down. She started looking through the rows of dresses. Lisa followed closely behind her. Brynn went off to look for skirts and I headed straight to the tops section. I spotted a cool denim cropped jacket and decided to try it on. We spent quite a while in the shop because we wanted to try a few pieces on. I bought the denim jacket because I liked it a lot. Melinda bought a really chic black dress, Lisa bought a couple of tops and Brynn bought a plaid skirt.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at the other shops and looking at shoes, bags and many other stuff. By the end of the day, I was dead beat and my legs were aching from all the walking. We parted after having our dinner, this time at another cafe thankfully. Lisa took Melinda's car while Brynn went to meet her boyfriend. I wanted to walk home since it was just a ten minutes walk from where I am standing back to my house.

I walked on the streets alone. There was only a couple of people walking around. I hummed a catchy tune to myself just to keep myself occupied. While walking for a few minutes, I noticed that something was amiss and stopped in my tracks.

Shit, I am lost. Of all times, my no-sense-of-direction syndrome decided to kick in now.

I stood alone, feeling at a loss. Maybe my aunt could come and pick me up or something. I fished into my pocket for my phone and searched for her number.

I heard something like a glass broke behind me. I froze in my place, trying to hear if there was something behind me. But there was nothing. I turned around slowly, but there was no one. No one! I turned back and faced forward, clutching the shopping bag to my chest tightly. My heart pounding louder and louder. I started taking a few tentative steps forward.

And then I heard it. There were the sound of footsteps behind. It was quite soft, but I heard it clearly. A person was following me. I stopped walking, and then the sound of footsteps stopped too.

I swore that my heart nearly stopped. I felt my blood and body turned icy cold in terror. The deafening silence was causing me to panic. I did the first thing that the voice in my mind was screaming about.

I broke into a run, running as fast as I could and never looking back. A million thoughts racing through my mind. Was this person a killer!? A kidnapper!? A rapist!? Stalker!? I didn't know where I was running to, but I kept running.

I recognized the place that I was right at this moment. I ran past Lily's Boutique in the dark but it was closed. Larson's Hideout should be nearby. I kept running.

Finally, I spotted Aiden. He was taking out the trash. "Aiden!" I cried out his name shakily and he heard me clearly. He turned quickly, looking quite taken aback to see me.

When I was close enough, I launched myself at him involuntarily. Into his arms.

I am safe.