"But it is Kyle."

She shrugs. "So? That doesn’t make him different."

"But he is nice." I don’t know why exactly I am even defending him to her right now. Well, I want her to look past Nate and be happy. "I don’t know of all the guys you’ve been with before, but I would pick him out for you even if I was blind." I point out.

"You might as well be blind right now. You are very aware that I have got a strong dislike for that guy."

"Hmmm. That dislike did not stop you from impulsively riding him. I am not so sure anymore." She is never going to hear the last of my teasing on this one.

I think she might be experiencing a love-hate syndrome—in my opinion.

At first you form a dislike for someone.

Then you would become fully convinced and believe that you really dislike them.

But at some point, that paradigm of dislike you’ve formed starts to shift. You don’t realize it. You can if there is a competition. Someone in that person’s life who is making them happy. That’s the point it is known to you. You start to act strange; feeling angry and bitter that it is not you who is in their life and making them happy.

You have begun to like them in the dislike that you initially felt. But even at that you refuse to admit it to yourself and to them. You start to hate that person for making you have those feelings. I have experienced that. Someone had those feelings towards me in the past. It was crazy, traumatically hurtful and still my nightmare to this day.

I get mixed feelings of anger and something else I can’t name whenever I think of it. I hug myself and shudder when it happens. I would have chosen to be beaten instead. He was a total douche. He must still be.

He went from bullying me to oddly caring about me sometimes. He’d come into my room through my window if he didn’t see me at school. He said bullying me was an entertainment he never wants to miss even for a single day.

He once fought a perv who was trying to assault me at a party. Beating the guy almost to death like it was a capital punishment. I missed school one time because I was having painful menstrual cramps. He had shown up in my room like a dark fairy godfather like I expected he would. He strangely understood what was going on with me even though I did not answer him when he asked. He had told me to take some pain reliever. I replied, telling him I had taken one but threw it up when I vomited. He said I was a lot of work and asked if it was that bad. I didn’t answer him. Then he left. It seemed like he had really left until he came back. He held a small white polythene bag. Before I got over my surprise to ask him why he came back,

he was holding medicine and a bottle of water in front of me. "Take it. I don’t have the next minute to waste here with you."

He said in a harsh, unkind tone when I hesitated like I personally asked him to go get it for me. I cautiously took the medicine sitting in his open hand and the bottle of water in his other hand. I felt just a little bit better after taking the medicine. I was rubbing my hands on my abdomen in an effort to lessen the cramps. But then I felt his hand there replacing mine. Alarmed at his actions I tried to remove it. "Is this how you are supposed to be thanking me? I am doing you a huge favor. What can those small hands of yours do?" He said brusquely.

That was how it was. He would do something nice today and then shatter it by being an asshole for weeks after that. But then very rarely, a good side would come on to the surface, paying kind attention to me when no one else did.

So I had deluded myself into thinking that there is a good side to him, he just doesn’t know how to show it. I never knew it was all a fun, twisted game for him. Occasionally doing good things to impair my thinking and judgement of him being irreparably bad. I realized how cruel of a monster he is when I and his friend began seeing each other. He then fully set out to ruin everything and succeeded. My life. My reputation, and a road to a kind future for me were all gone. He came into my room on the last night I spent in Florida. He did not apologize for the horrible things he did. Instead he blamed me; saying it was my fault. Why did I have to invade his mind and make him like me when he is not supposed to. He then forcefully performed on me the same oral sex he had forced me to do for him in the presence of his friends who filmed the whole thing and posted it for other people to also see.

If it is possible for me to go back in time, the only mistake I would desperately correct would be not getting that scholarship into Krohn’s Highschool. The scholarship that got me so happy with me feeling like I could take on the world was nothing more than a curse in the guise of a blessing.

It brought me to that asshole. I would not have met him otherwise. If I could get my hands on a time machine, I would change that particular fate so I would not meet him. That would be saving me from a lot of emotional, physical and mental distress.

"I was alone and in distress from a nightmare. And then he came knocking on my door, what was I supposed to do?"

That part in her sentence drives away all the thought of my highschool ordeal and the notorious bully behind it out the window. "You had a nightmare?" I worriedly ask. "How bad was it?" I wanted to also ask if it was related to Nate. But I quickly realized that it would be a stupid question. What else would be bringing her nightmares. "It wasn’t too bad. I won’t exactly rate it as a nightmare. It just was too not bad for a nightmare you get after killing someone. If it is like this for others, too I would get why there are a lot of serial killers. My sister calling me was even scarier than what should have been a bad dream."

I stand up. "Your sister called?"

"Don’t be alarmed. I took care of her. She won’t be calling me again."

"What did ask about?" I know of course. Her husband, whom her sister killed and we buried. "She said she knew he came to see me. You were right about that tracker theory. She had one on him." I gasp as a nonverbal ’I told you so’

"That’s bad."

She clicks her tongue. "Not really. According to what you said, they don’t have evidence." She goes into the kitchen and I follow after her. "But she knows he was here. That is something."

She brings out the milk can and the cereal pack from the fridge and puts it on the kitchen island. Then goes to browse through the shelves, bringing out a small cereal plate. "Maybe." She pours cereal into the plate. "But that is all there is. There is no circumstantial evidence. No one can say they saw him come into our apartment. And he comes alone without a driver. So, we are in the clear. All they would have is suspicions. The law can’t hold me on just that." She finishes making the cereal and began eating.

I nod my head in agreement to what she said. It’s all true. "You are right."

"I am leaving, bye."

"Where did you say you are going again?" I ask her.

"My showcase is the day after tomorrow. So I have to rub good old shoulders with the hags of the art world, and they are very difficult people to deal with." She scrunches her nose in annoyance, putting on her high heels. I offer to go with her but she refuses. "You just got back from a journey and you would have to go back tomorrow. Just have a good rest. Wish me luck."

"Good luck. But you are luck itself. You don’t need any other." That is true. Annie knows how to work things out by hook or by crook. "Thanks!" She dramatically waves with a wide smile. "See ya! Hopefully there would be a nice older man among them who will show interest in me enough to give me a million dollars so we can handle our little bro’s surgery."