Free Forsaken by Keary Taylor Page A

but return the smile
and just gave a shrug.
    I pulled my pants off, only feeling a
little self-conscious that Alex was seeing me in only my bra and
underwear. My stomach did a little quiver as Alex stripped down to
his boxers.
    With a squeal, I jumped into the water
with Alex’s hand in mine.
    It felt good, to just let things go
and just be us. I needed some fun, to get back to the here and now.
We chased each other in the water, creating a game of underwater
tag. Alex of course won, cheating with his lack of needing to
breathe.
    It was totally black for nearly an
hour before Alex gathered me back up in his arms.
    He touched his forehead to mine,
looking at me intently, though it was hard to make anything out
with only the lights in the windows to see by. “You know I love you
right?” he said seriously.
    “ Of course,” I
answered.
    “ Okay, just never forget
that. That’s all that matters.”
    I pressed my lips to his, gently at
first but ending with more force.
    “ I love you Alex,” I
breathed. “Don’t you ever forget that.”
     
    It didn’t change what I wanted from
Alex but after our night in the water I wasn’t quite so depressed.
I made an extra effort to not make Alex miserable anyway. And to
make myself not so miserable to be around.
    My recent paranoia of thinking Cole
was stalking me brought that subject back front and center in my
mind. The thought that Cole had been lying to me before about why
he had come after me had never even crossed my mind before Emily
had brought it up. I had also tried very hard to block the whole
terrifying incident out of my head. But why would Cole lie about
that? Had there been something more sinister and complicated behind
it all the entire time? I felt like I was going in circles, always
asking the same question and coming up with no reasonable or even
unreasonable answers.
    The more I thought about this the more
it drove me crazy. Of course the one person who knew me better than
anyone would notice.
    “ Is something wrong,
Jessica?” he asked me one sunny afternoon on the deck. “You seem
really distracted lately.”
    “ I don’t know, I just…” I
shook my head as I stared out over the water, watching but not
really seeing the group of teenagers swimming. “Emily just said
something a while back that I can’t seem to get out of my head.” I
would leave out the part about Cole stalking me at all
costs.
    “ What?” Alex questioned,
his brow becoming furrowed. I lost my train of thought for a few
seconds as I let my eyes wander over the perfection of his
face.
    “ Uh…” I stuttered for a
moment. “Well, Emily asked me about what happened with Cole when he
took me and I told her. She said something though about what he
said as to why he took me. She thought he was lying, that there
must have been some real reason why he came after me.”
    “ You’re worried there
might have been more behind it?” Alex probed.
    “ Yeah,” I said as I nodded
my head. “Why me? Was it just because I’m human? Did he just want
the long lost connection? He had to have known there was something
different about Emily, that she wasn’t the person on trial either.
Why not her? And after finding out about Emily, there has to be
other people out there who have gone through this too. Why not any
of them?”
    Alex’s hands suddenly but very softly
lay on either side of my face and his steel gray eyes burned into
mine. I felt myself suddenly relax and then realized just how
worked up I had been getting over all of this.
    “ It doesn’t matter,” he
said softly but firmly. “No matter the reason he came after you, he
can’t touch you now. Not ever. I made absolutely certain of that.
You saw it yourself. You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore,
wherever he is.”
    My insides that had felt so twisted up
for so long now suddenly relaxed. In truth, I had been terrified
constantly for the last few weeks. Even if Cole really was
following me around, he couldn’t touch