Saving Me

Katherine’s POV

I felt my phone vibrate and looked down to see Alex’s name across the screen. Butterflies swarmed around in my stomach, but yet I was angry. I never remembered exchanged numbers with him.

“What?” I demanded, answering the phone.

“What a lovely way to answer the phone,” he responded.

“How the fuck did you get my number?”

“When they gave you your phone to see what you could remember, they left it on your table while you were sleeping.”

I grunted and threw myself down on my bed. Rena was sitting across the room watching me carefully. I never told her that I had been talking to Alex, but I could tell that she already knew.

“Why did you touch my stuff?” I started to yell.

“Well, I didn’t want to lose touch with you.”

I paused and took a deep breath. I started to feel kind of bad for treating him so poorly. He was really sweet, and I didn’t know why he kept bothering with me when I was pretending to be heartless. After all, the best way to protect your heart is to pretend that you don’t have one, and all I wanted to do was protect my heart. “Why?” I finally asked.

“Because you’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. And I know that I can break through this cold outer shell that you’re pretending to have and get down to the real you.”

I wanted to cry. My heart was breaking before I even got him. He was wonderful with a beautiful personality. He wasn’t bad looking either. What I couldn’t understand was why he wanted me of all girls. I wasn’t very pretty, and my boobs weren’t very big. What caught his attention? Usually, guys caught how cold I was and then stopped trying, but he wouldn’t quit. Somehow he knew that I wasn’t the bitter girl that I pretended to be.

“Can I please see you, Kat?” He asked after a while of silence.

“No,” I whispered softly. “No you can’t.”

“Why?” he asked. This wasn’t his usual ignorant and sarcastic why, this was asked with a hint of pain. Maybe he was tired of chasing me, and he was finally going to give up.

“I don’t want to be with you, okay? Don’t you get that?” I spoke gently, instead of my usual resentful tone. I wanted him to understand and leave me alone. I wanted him to believe me.

“If you mean it, then say it to my face.”

“Alex, I—“

“I won’t leave you alone.”

“You can’t see me.”

“Fine,” he said, frustrated. “I’m not going to leave you alone.”

“Fucking whatever.” I hung up my phone and threw it across my room with a growl.

“Whoa there,” Rena smirked. “Alex?”

I explained everything to her even though I knew she already knew. Rena had a way with seeing into people with her eyes and figuring things out without even saying a word. I had no idea whom she had inherited it from. My mother seemed to have nothing in between her ears and behind her eyes. I didn’t know much about my father, other than the fact that he was gone, and a criminal.

“Hm, well why can’t you just tell him that you don’t want to be with him to his face?” she asked when I was finished with my explanation.

“I—“

“It’s because you want to be with him. I know,” she said with a half smile.

“No, I—“

“Kitty, you have to let yourself go. Don’t you understand that? Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to grow up to be a lonely cat lady? This Alex kid sounds like a really nice guy. Life is too short. Trust him.”

“I can’t do that. Not after what happened last time. You don’t understand,” I said, even though I knew she did understand. It had never happened to her before, but she saw the pain I went through. Rena was the type of person that could feel someone else’s pain. She learned from watching other people.

She smiled and stood up. “I understand a little bit more than you know. You can’t just let yourself drown in this miserable existence. Stop thinking and start living.”

“I’m not miserable. I have friends...”

“Kat, you shelter yourself. Your idea of a crazy night out is when you get a senseless rush at work. You need to start living. Don’t you remember how good it felt to be in love? How you could feel every cell of your body? It’s like you’re going down the hill on a roller coaster, or you’re taking a deep breath of cold air after being trapped in a sauna. Don’t you miss that?”

“It’s not worth the pain,” I corrected. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t handle dropping the argument. There’s no way I could give in to him just when he was about ready to give up.

“Then obviously you can’t remember how it feels to be in love,” she smirked, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I wished he hadn’t cared. I was perfectly fine alone, and now he won’t let me go. It was suffocating, and it made me want to scream. I was so relieved yesterday when I left the hospital. I thought that I’d never see him again and we’d never speak. I was hopeful that his three weeks of him trying to get inside my head would have left no mark on me and I’d eventually forget him. But of course it wouldn’t be so easy. Nothing had ever come to me that easy.

Stella’s POV

I smiled as I saw Alex’s car in his driveway and pulled in behind it. I hadn’t spoken to him since the night of the accident. Three weeks to us was a record. He usually talked to me the same night and apologized, even when it wasn’t his fault. He must have been angry. I knocked on his front door, but no one answered, so I opened the door and walked in. He always left it unlocked. The familiar house that usually smelled like Newcastle and Budwiser, smelled empty. The air was stale and the house seemed let go as opposed to his usual neat and tidy habits.

“Can I please see you, Kat?” I heard him say. He sounded just as broken as the last time I had talked to him. I wondered if Jack had woken up and how everyone else was doing.

Who was Kat? Is that why he hadn’t talked to me in three weeks? He was with someone else?

“Why?” He asked, sounding so worn out. “If you mean it, then you’ll say it to my face.”

I slowly walked through his kitchen and stood against his bedroom doorframe with my arms crossed. He was sitting on his bed facing the opposite way. He held his head with his right hand and held the phone with his left. His hair looked roughed up, like how it turned out when he let it go after a concert instead of showering. I had never seen him so worn out.

“I won’t leave you alone.”

I tried to hear the voice on the other end. It was a girl. She sounded angry, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I could see that he wanted to be with her, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I got here at the perfect time, as I usually did.

“Fine. I’m not going to leave you alone.”

He dropped the phone out of his hand and rubbed his face.

“That couldn’t have gone as planned,” I said.

He sharply turned his head towards me and I saw a look of dread. His face was red, and his eyes were sinking into his face and had black rings hanging around them. He had lost a lot of weight and it showed.

“What’s a matter? Didn’t you miss me?” I smiled.

“What are you doing here, Stel?” He asked softly.

“I missed you,” I confessed.

“Baby, you need to leave,” he whispered.

I smirked and walked over to his bed. I rested my head back on his pillow. “Don’t you miss this?” I asked, hinting towards him laying with me for hours.

“I—I....” he stuttered.

That stutter was the reassurance I needed. “I can see you haven’t slept in days. Come lay next to me. Just fall asleep with me here.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, looking down at the bed.

“Why not?”

“Because I stink.”

I chuckled. “You can take a shower first, I don’t mind.”

He stood up and walked slowly to his bathroom, leaving his cell phone behind.

I smiled a devilish grin as soon as he closed the door behind him and picked up his phone. There was a girl named Katherine listed as his most recent call. That must have been the girl that he was talking to when I walked in. He sounded so desperate to be with her, but I knew he still wanted me.

I sat his phone down and called Matt on mine. He was who I guessed to be by Alex’s side the most through this whole thing after seeing them on the night it happened.

“Yes?” He asked, answering the phone.

“Hey Matty,” I said seductively.

“Can I help you?” He asked, avoiding the subject. Matt and Jack were the only ones out of all of the All Time Low crew that acted like they weren’t fazed by my games, but the fact that Matt didn’t tell me to leave him alone told me that he was hiding the fact that he wanted me.

“Who is Katherine?”

“That’s the girl that Jack hit, why?”

“Oh, I just heard Zack and Naomi talking about her, is all. What’s her last name?”

“Kiley or something.”

“Thanks. Bye, sexy,” I said.

“Yeah, bye,” he clicked off.

So Alex was falling for the girl that Jack almost killed. Somehow or another, I wasn’t too surprised. Alex always fell for the broken ones. It wouldn’t be hard to find her and let her know how things worked with Alex now that Matt had lead me straight to her.

Minutes later, Alex walked out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waste.

I bit my lip, attempting to turn him on. I wanted to see what I could make him do.

He smiled and held my chin, rubbing his thumb against my cheek.

I pushed forward and kissed his lips. He kissed back, and slowly created a more feverish environment. This was too easy. All I had to do was bite my lip and he was mine again.

I pushed him back and yanked at the bottom of my shirt, preparing to pull it off.

“Stella—,” he said, gasping for air. He held my hands at my shirt, stopping me from continuing on.

“It’s no big deal, Alex. We’ve done this before. Watch,” I smiled. I pulled my shirt over my head to reveal a purple lacy bra.

He bit his lip and stared at my chest. “I don’t want to do this,” he whispered.

“Let me help you,” I smiled. I had to have him wrapped around my finger. I knew he wanted to do this, but it just didn’t seem right for him to want to. I guided his hand to my bra, and unbuckled the back of it. It slid down my arms and fell to the floor.

I kissed him once again, fast and hard. He sat down on his bed and pushed my back down to crawl on top of me. It was going just as planned.

I ripped the towel off of his hips and threw it to the floor.

“No, I don’t want to go any further,” he pleaded, panting for air.

“Shh,” I smiled, slipping my pants and underwear to the floor.

He rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling. “Stella, please stop.”

“Alex, I love you. You’re mine. What makes today different from three weeks ago?”

“Don’t tell me you love me. Don’t you lie to me when I’m this vulnerable. I’m hurting, and I know you never care enough to spare me, but please let me go this time. I haven’t slept in five days, and I haven’t eaten in four. I can’t do this today. Please leave me alone. Just let me go this time.”

“You’re cute, Lex,” I smiled. “Telling a naked girl to leave you alone.”

He was silent, and it made me realize how bad he was hurting. For the first time ever, I actually cared enough to leave him alone.

“When can I see you again?” I asked.

“I don’t know,“ he whispered.

I kissed his cheek and put my clothes back on. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to spare him. What was so different about this day that I actually wanted him to be saved?

“Bye, Lex,” I said before walking out his bedroom door.

“See you later, Stel.”