It was there again.
Sitting on my math textbook was a pristine white paper folded in half.
I didn't need to touch it to know that it was thicker than any paper I've held before or that it was rough to feel.
Or that it held another threatening message.
Dread washed over my petite body as I stood staring at it and wondering what I'd find inside this one.
I've been getting this threatening, creepy notes since the beginning of this week and I won't lie and say it doesn't scare the hell out of me.
I don't want to open this one and read the fear inciting words I know I'll find written inside it, signed off with with another smiley face.
Other students bustled around me, getting their books out of their lockers and scooting off to their next class.
I pushed the annoying piece of paper off my textbook to a far end of my locker space.
I took the text book I needed out before shutting my locker with more force than was needed, causing it to make a loud bang and causing other students to pin me with questioning looks and raised brows.
Well, party's over guys, turn your eyes to something else!
I took my book and went off to my next class ignoring their eyes.
Recently, I've been getting this feeling that someone is watching me and then the notes started coming and they kinda proved me right.
Whoever is behind them knows everything about me, what I do in my privacy, who I see, what I eat and I don't even know what they fucking look like.
Goosebumps rose on the skin of my arms at the creepy thought and I tried to rub them away with my palms as I took a turn leading to my class.
I must not have been looking where I was going, still pretty preoccupied by the white paper sitting in my locker, because next I knew I'd bumped into someone.
More like a solid wall of muscles.
I raise my eyes, an apology sitting at the tip of my tongue, only to come face to face with him.
The Caden Adam Jones.
His deep forest green orbs are just as I remember them, dark, deep, endless, as they bore into my boring gray ones like he could see deep into my very soul.
It scared me to think that he could.
His grip on me tightened for a quick second till it almost became painful but I was too lost in his beautiful eyes to notice.
It might bruise and leave a dark patch by tomorrow but it didn't matter to me in the moment.
His hands that had stopped me from falling held my waist for several heart beats before he broke whatever spell it was that had held us together for longer than the few seconds it took to mutter our usual hi.
Once he realized it was me and not some shapely, hot cheerleader in his arms, he pulled his hand off my body like it suddenly scalded him.
No surprise there.
"Jade." He muttered.
That was it and then he walked right past me like I was a plague.
I should be glad he still remembers my name, deemed it a worthy memory.
But I wasn't.
It's not like I expected more than that from him though, judging from his attitude towards me since he came back into town, but somehow it still hurt something deep inside me to remember that sometime in a distant past, that we'd been friends.
I couldn't bring myself to stomach the term 'best friends', but that's what we'd been.
He always acts like we were strangers now, maybe mere acquaintances, like the years we'd been best friends didn't happen and had not meant something to him.
I bent and picked up my fallen books.
Beside my textbook lay a matte black book that wasn't mine.
It had tiny silver lines running across its surface. It looked expensive, like all his things now do.
It must have fallen off his hand when I bumped into him. And he'd been in too much of a hurry to get away from me to have noticed.
The book looked smaller than your average note book and the cover was thicker too.
It was just like he liked all his things- classic, masculine and black.
I was tempted to open it. Hopefully, I'll sneak a peek of something from his new life, the one he'd shut me out of but I subdued the urge and shoved it between my books.
Doing that would only serve to hurt me more than he already does.
As I made my way to my class, I realized how many minutes I must have spent in this hallway.
Ughhhh, now I have to run to class.
Shit, I'm really late this time.
The class was already on when I ran in, no thanks to that distraction back there and then I had to endure a walk to the back of the class to the only empty seat and that was after a lecture on the need for punctuality from Mrs Beckham.
I hate being put on the spot for any reason and being late to this class is a free way ticket to exactly that.
I focused more on making myself invisible in the class than I did to what Mrs Beckham was explaining at the front of the class.
The class went by in a blur and thankfully Mrs Beckham didn't notice my absent minded self through it.
I go through my other classes like this, worried sick about the note in my locker and what it says.
It's not like I go around making enemies.
I don't even think I should have any because all I've been doing since this junior year is trying to be as invisible as possible.
And it's funny that the only person I want to be visible to doesn't want to see me.
If only he knew how I counted the years, waiting for him to come back to me.
Now he is, but not to me.
He's not my Caden anymore and I have to accept it.
No, he's our school's resident bad boy and I'm the 'nobody'.
JADE'S POVIt's probably better off this way though, if he hadn't jolted me out of the day dream that had been my life, I might still be eating my heart out on him.Now that I know better than to be stashing my feelings on my childhood crush anymore.Okay, maybe I still am, but from a distance and it's safer this way.Not like it'll amount to anything.The gap between our lives is so wide now, it can't be bridged.He is who he is and I am........me.It's lunch break now and I have to drag my lazy as fuck ass to that always crowded cafeteria of ours.I sighed out as I entered it, my eyes roaming around, looking for Chelsea.Yeah, she's my best friend now and I always sit with her at lunch, at the corner of the room and away from the crowd.My eyes land on him.He's here already, as
CADEN'S POVSince she bumped into me this morning, my mind have been stuck on her.My Jade.I miss her and holding her in my arms again after all these terribly long years stirred my body in ways I've never imagined possible with her.I hate this rift that I created between us but things changed, and I'm not the same guy I was before I left.Doesn't mean I don't miss her and the time when I'd been just Caden.Jade's Caden.Now she's way bigger than I remembered her to be then, and she's all grown up.With smoky eyes and a mesmerizing small and curvy body that had fit mine perfectly when I'd
JADE'S POVThe only reason chemistry class is bearable for me is that I'm lab partners with Chelsea Morgan.The tall brunette is actually the only person I talk to in this school.We've been friends since elementary school but we became closer after Caden left.I have my suspicions that she became friends with me in the first place because she's always had this maxi 'insta' crush on Caden and being his best friend then, I was like the access card to getting any close to him.Over the years though, she's stopped quizzing me so much about him and paid more attention to really being my friend.Now, were best friends.It not like she's totally over her obsession with Caden, for Christ's sake the girl has pictures of him in her room, but now we talk about just us and about him only every once in a while.I'm early, considering the class is still ha
JADE'S POVThe annoying bell for change of class is a welcome distraction to me.I didn't think I could stomach one more second in this class without loosing it.This week have been hellish for me and my car tyres getting slashed yesterday just takes the icing off that cake.I need air.I stood up like everyone else, only in more haste to get out than most of them.I headed out of the suddenly suffocating room and drew in gulps of refreshing air as I went.It felt good drawing that breath.I headed straight to my locker to swap my books and get ready for my next class that's just minutes away.As I pulled open my locker, I stood there, frozen.Oh God, not again.Someone has been in it again.That someone, whoever they are, had been in my locker and had gone through my stuffs again.I know this because the paper was back and sitting proudly on the top of my books
CADEN'S POVI sauntered down the hallway, taking a turn and then headed down to the music room.The room is always empty at this time of the day and currently it's my safe haven for whenever I have a free period, like now.Yeah, sue me for wasting Jade's time knowing she had class and I don't, but it had been beautiful watching her talk and order me.Cute, actually.I still have her paper in the back pocket of my pants.The memory of the fire that had been in her eyes as she'd fought and failed to take it from me made me smile.I'm not sure why, but I kinda like the girl she's become.But things are too different now, we run in different circles, and I'm not sure she'd like to come into mine if I tried.She might not be safe in it either.I push the door opens go inside the empty room.Oh, I'd expect
JADE'S POVIt's been a few days since Ilast received a note from my stalker, and honestly, I'm not sure if I'm totally relieved about it or not.I mean, if they keep coming, I'd just have to be creeped out by the sick, psychotic words scrawled inside it by the sick pervert, but now I have to worry too about what they are using all this extra time for.Planning to really hurt me this time? Do more than slash my tyres?I shudder at the thought, letting my eyes dart around the corners of the street I'm walking down.Chills settled around me from wondering about the possibility of something happening and being worried out of my mind.I walk faster down the street, suddenly uncomfortable.I couldn't help wondering if any of these averagely normal looking people making their ways up and down the street is the reason I live my life in fear these days.It's
JADE'S POVWe spent our morning following our usual routine.From aisle to aisle, oh-ing and ah-ing and buying almost nothing.Yeah, welcome to the broke girls club. Yup, we broke, we own it and we still storm here every weekend.I was tired out by the time we finally called quits and tracked it to our favorite cafe instead.You guessed it right, it's Libby's, with her mouth watering coffee and orgasmic sponge cakes.I wish I know the secret to their deliciousness.I took a forkful of the cake, moaning as I savored the flavored goodness."Ughhhh, this is so good." I complimented with a little dramatic effect, getting a seconding and firm agreement from Ches.We were silently milking every delicious flavor from our snack until I decided it was getting too quiet."Guess who finally texted me back, after six full month
JADE'S POVI have about a million and one things I want to tell at him right now, and trust me, not half of them is nice.But at the moment, I'm choosing staying alive first.My hands are clutching hard around his torso as he ferries us away at break neck speed, obviously exploiting my dislike for both speed and bikes.His might be all expensive and beastly, but it scares me all the same.I hated that I couldn't do anything except hold on tight and pray that we get quickly to the god-knows-where destination he has in mind and let me off his beast.Finally, my prayers take hold and the answer comes in the form of the Jones home.Oh God, this is like the last place on the planet that I want to be now and I'm sure Caden knows that.At least the stupid smirk on his face as he helps me down says so.A lot has changed around here since the last time I visited.That was years ago, I think, since the day they packed