I Can't Stand Alone Anymore.

I sat bolt right up with a gasp and looked frantically around me. I was having nightmares almost every night and they always seemed to wake me up at some ungodly hour. I hadn’t slept passed nine o’clock since my arrival. The worst part was, I could never remember what it was. The nightmare was always different, that much I knew, but I didn’t know what it was. It was driving me crazy. I took a quick glance at Alekzander’s alarm clock and groaned; the neon lights mocking me with the numbers 7:43 in the morning.

Alekzander shuffled in his sleep, pulling his blanket over his bare shoulder at my audible discontent but remained in his little dream word. The lucky bastard. Unable to look in his direction without feeling resentment at his perfectly sleeping form, I decided that breakfast would be a good idea and threw on an over-large grey T-shirt and skinny jeans before walking to the cafeteria in socked feet; a habit I had gotten comfortable with.

I pushed open the doors to cafeteria and stood face to face with an empty room. There was not a single soul in there. It seemed that eight o’clock in the morning on a Saturday was not a popular time for food as everyone was still sleeping. I made my way over to the lady who was serving breakfast, slipping a few times on a waxed floor that seemed more like ice. After grabbing my food, which consisted of a peach and a bowl of Frosted Flakes, I sat down at an empty table on the edge of room, my back to the door.

I sat there eating relatively slowly, not in a rush to go anywhere and definitely not looking forward to the silence that always filled my dorm from Alekzander and me ignoring each other. I moved onto my peach after finishing my cereal. As I was taking my first bite, I looked up in surprise at two shadows looming over me.

“Oh my gosh, guys. Could you scare me anymore?” I was staring up at Riley and Ethan when I turned around in my chair. They took a seat across from me, grinning and it wasn’t very long before I grinned back at them. I hadn’t talked to either one of them since my blow up with Alekzander. I was pleasantly surprised that they were still talking to me because I assumed that they would take Alekzander’s side and ignore me.

“I don’t know Miss Hays, you can be pretty scary yourself. Everyone’s talking about the girl who hit Alekzander Knight.” Riley grinned jokingly at me but my smile faded instantly and I groaned. “What? It makes you sound badass.”

“I don’t want that kind of attention. That kind of attention never ends up good for the one on tail end of it.” I sighed, head hanging in defeat.

“Don’t worry. Everyone will forget about it sooner or later; they always do. Bigger and better gossip comes along and no one will care anymore.” Ethan smiled reassuringly at me and I found myself smiling back at them again.

“You’re right. By the way,” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me, “what’s with the random conversation? Why are you talking to me?”

“What do you mean?” Riley’s smile still hadn’t left his face.

“Well, I kind of yelled at and slapped your best friend who just happens to hate my guts. This is just kind of… unexpected?”

Riley’s smile didn’t leave his face but the tone of his voice grew more serious. “Alek is our friend, Kaylee, not our boss. We can hang out with whoever we want to.”

“Besides, you’re going to need someone to talk to right?”

“Yeah, thanks guys. You can call me Kay by the way.”

“Alright, Kay,” Ethan smiled at me, “what are your plans for tonight? Are you going to the party?”

Mona Pierce was having an ‘oh my gosh, I’m, like, going to have party for no reason other than to make Kay feel like an outcast’ party. She was constantly inviting people to her stupid party right in front of me, stressing the fact that it was invite only. And I was the only one without an invite.

I chuckled softly. “No. I wasn’t invited.”

“Well, we’re inviting you.” He stated matter-of-factly; there wasn’t even any hesitation behind his answer. I smiled at him.

“Thanks, but I have a date tonight. So maybe the next one.”

“A date already? Damn, you’re quick.” I blushed and Riley gave me a little wink. “Who are you going out with?”

“Uhm…” I didn’t know if it was a good idea to tell them or not. Alekzander obviously hated Aaron; did that mean that Riley and Ethan shared the same opinion of him? I didn’t want them to start ignoring me too. Even though this was only our second conversation, they were growing on me.

“Kay? Earth to Kaylee.” I snapped out of my thoughts by Riley’s waving hand. “Are you going to answer?”

“Uhm… I’m going out with… Aaron Cain.” I watched them closely as they exchanged looks. ‘I knew it! I knew they wouldn’t like him. Now they’re going to hate me too and-’

“That’s nice.” Ethan smiled at me but it looked forced. “Just-uhm… just be careful around him, okay?”

I forced down the urge to roll my eyes and smiled instead relieved that they weren’t angry at me, “yeah, thanks.”

The three of us sat there for a while just talking about anything and everything. They told me how classes went and which teachers to avoid, promising to give me a tour to find my classes. I was glad I had made some friends. Alekzander could shove it where the sun doesn’t shine; Riley and Ethan were my friends now too.

At around 11:30, people started to enter the cafeteria but it didn’t faze us, still deep in conversation. That is, until a small blonde girl nearly tackled Riley to the floor placing butterfly kisses all over his face. “Good.” Kiss. “Morning.” Kiss. “Riley!”

Riley chuckled under the girl’s onslaught and Ethan just rolled his eyes. I just sort of stared at her in shock like an idiot. She was short, just over five feet, with fair skin and waves and waves of bouncing curly blonde hair. Her blue eyes twinkled as a completely joyous giggle escaped her full pink lips. I wondered briefly if random beautiful girls always tackled Riley and Ethan every morning before she turned to look at me.

“Hello,” she said in a tinkling voice, a smile on her face. “Who are you?”

“Kay, this is my girlfriend, Emma Fischer. Baby, this is Kay. You know, Kaylee Hays, the one I told you about.” Riley responded a mischievous glint in his eye, as if predicting what happened next.

I was suddenly on the floor with the girl on top of me, squeezing me in a death grip. I thought she was trying to kill me until her soprano voice rang into my ear. “You are my favourite person ever!” She squealed.

I coughed in surprise at the complete change in direction. “And… why is that?” I huffed. She giggled, stood and helped me up.

“Because you slapped Alek in the face.” She giggled again and smiled up at me. I just looked at her in disbelief. Being Riley’s girlfriend, I would expect her to be on Alekzander’s side, at least be a little wary of me. She must have sensed my confusion because she elaborated on her strange reaction at lightning speed. “No one has ever done that before! I would have paid to see the look on Alek’s face. To be slapped in the face by a girl! How rich would that be!? Don’t get me wrong, I love the kid to death but sometimes he needs a swift kick. I guess it’s a good thing you’re his roommate!” She grinned at me.

The blank look on my face just made her giggle again before I was able to respond. “Uhh, thanks… I think.” I gave her a smile in return. She sat down on Riley’s lap and the four of us continued our conversation. I was great, the most fun I had had since I arrived at Crestion. However, all too soon the three of them grew serious as they locked onto a point right over my shoulder. I turned around and grimaced. Alekzander stood in the doorway, glaring at me again. I turned back to Riley, Ethan and Emma. “It was good seeing you two again,” I addressed the first two then Emma, “and it was great to meet you. I hope we all get to hang out soon.” I smiled and walked out of the cafeteria, making sure to bump Alekzander’s shoulder in the process.



I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, running a brush through my hair again. I was anxiously waiting for Aaron to pick me up. My hazel eyes were rimmed very lightly in black, making them pop but not making me look like a racoon. My naturally straight brown hair flowed to its normal place just passed my breasts. I didn’t know how to ‘do’ hairstyles so it was always natural and down and boring. I flicked my bangs out of my eyes, a nervous habit I had developed a couple years ago. I applied a coat of shimmering lip gloss, backed away from the mirror and grinned at myself, satisfied with my look.

I didn’t have a lot of make-up on, just the eye liner and lip gloss so I looked very natural but still date appropriate. I was wearing a fitted red top that scooped low down my neck and a mid-thigh black skirt that flowed outwards when I spun. It was a little sexy and a little fun; appropriate for a first date in my opinion. I sprayed myself with a little body mist and walked out of the bathroom.

Alekzander was lying back on his bed. His eyes lifted to me for a quick second before lazily going back to his book. That was all that was ever done in our room, reading, because neither one of us was talking to each other. I walked over and sat on my bed, my back to him. We sat in silence for a while, the clock ticking past seven slowly like it was taunting me.

“Hey, Alekzander?” I started, still facing away from him. The only response I got from him was a grunt, which I assumed was Alekzander speak for ‘go ahead.’ “I just wanted to apologize to you for the first night… you know… I said some mean things that I shouldn’t have. Sorry.”

There was a very long drawn out pause. I waited in silence for him to say something, anything. “You know, Alekzander, this is usually the part where you apologize for your mistakes.”

That’s when he scoffed. “Me? Apologize? Why on Earth would I do that?” I flipped around to look at him in surprise. He met my gaze with his steady one and said, very nonchalantly, “I did nothing wrong.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Nothing wrong? You did nothing wrong? You call insulting someone for no reason ‘right?’ You believe that there is nothing bad about tearing down someone’s confidence and embarrassing her in front of everyone during her first week of school?” At this point I was on my feet looking straight at him. “I have no idea what I did to you, Alekzander. I’ve tried to be nice, I’ve tried to yell some sense into you and I’ve tried to apologize. I don’t understand why you can’t at least be civil to me. Why can’t your friends be mine too? I’m not stealing them from you. As for us sharing rooms, honestly, all you have to do is but a damn sock on the door and I won’t open it!” I sighed and collapsed back onto the bed. “Whatever. We can continue to be mad at each other and make each other’s lives living hells or we can be nice. I’ll give you your space and you’ll give me mine.”

“What are you talking about?” Irritation was clear in his voice from me giving him another lecture.

“I’m just saying. Even if we don’t like each other, we can still be civil enough to give each other space. Let each other just do our own things without judgement and crap like that. Oh sure, we can hate each other all we want, but how far will that really get us?” My voice dropped low as I remembered home. “Hate does terrible things to people Alekzander; trust me, I’ve seen it. It’s not pretty and someone always gets hurt. Always. It tears you apart in side and makes you even angrier and the other person is just ripped apart beyond measure.” I stood up, turned to him and gave him a weak smile. “Think about it and let me know.”

I walked out of the room before he could answer and sat just left of the door, still waiting for Aaron. Time slowly ticked by as I played with my skirt. It wasn’t until 7:45 that he ran up to me, gasping for air, face flushed as if he had just run a mile and apologizing profusely. I just smiled up at him.

“Let’s go.” I said to him. He smiled and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the building.