The words echoed in my mind.
“You have the rest of the night with her. Then you’re gone.” Axiaz’s bright eyes appeared in my mind.
“I don’t understand.”
“Stop! You’re only making this harder for me!”
“…You’re the only thing I’ve ever cared for!”
“I’m not leaving you…”
The memories erupted in my mind. It was an overwhelming feeling. My sore heart raced, my eyes burned, my hands shook. It was terrifying. Conner’s face appeared again and again. Each time it did, the pain got worse and worse.
I suddenly woke from my dreaming, tears streaming down my face. It was only three in the morning. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. All I could feel was the pain.
I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
Somehow I pushed the memories from my mind, just as I had done since summer. But this time, it was much harder.

A burst of freezing air slipped through the front door as I stepped outside. December had finally come, along with the cold. After locking the door I hurried out into the street to meet up with Jennae. She motioned for me to come up her driveway.
“Hey, my dad isn’t working today and said that I could use his car, do you want a ride?” She jingled the keys with a grin.
“Oh, yeah that would be great.” I smiled and quickly climbed in.
“Also I have an ortho appointment later today so I’m gonna leave early… but I might be back in time to give you a ride home.”
“’Kay, sounds good.” I said through chattering teeth. The heat started working eventually, making my shivers disappear. It was 7:20 when we got to the parking lot, so we had ten minutes to waste. Jennae headed off for the far end of the main building while I went into the commons. Warm air flooded over me as I opened the door. I found Lindsey, who had been back for a while, but we hadn’t seen much of each other. She was standing next to Sam, so was talking to Jayce. I sighed, rolling my eyes. Lindsey spotted me and sped and sped across the room.
“My gosh thank god… I swear… if I have to listen to one more minute of them gushing over one another, I’m going to be sick.” She complained.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ugh…” she shuddered and followed me to my first period.
“Just be glad you don’t have a boyfriend…” I laughed.
“Well… you can’t blame me for wanting one… I mean, Sam has Jayce… you have Derek… and I…”
“Linds… I’m not going out with Derek, and you know that. He hates me now.”
“Why?”
I sighed, “I don’t know… Things are really confusing right now.”
“Speaking of Derek…” Lindsey mumbled. Suddenly I saw what she was looking at and almost turned to run. Instead I stopped dead in the middle of the hall. “Come on…” she hissed, pulling at my arm.
“Linds i…” I turned around, “I don’t like being near him…”
“Why? Are you scared of him or something?” she pulled me over to the wall so that people could get past. As she spoke the words something clicked in my mind. Maybe that was why… maybe I was scared of him… or scared of rejection. Derek being a vampire didn’t matter much anymore. He wasn’t very different from Jennae… I nodded. “Alright, then you need to face your fear.”
“No…” I pleaded.
“Em, it’s now or never.” She gave me a hard stare. My heart was pounding. “All you’re doing is walking, it’s not hard.”
“Fine.” I mumbled, allowing her to pull me along. I didn’t look at him once as I passed, but I felt his eyes on me. It was painful and awkward… for me at least. “God,” I huffed as we turned the corner, “never make me do that again.” I glared at her. She released my arm and continued down the hall. I trailed after her, feeling broken.
“Em, tell me something…” Lindsey began, “Do you want to get over him?”
“Huh?”
“Do you like him still?”
I hesitated. “Yes…”
“Okay, so, do you want to get over him?”
“I… I don’t know…” I shrugged.
“Well, the only way to not be so scared of him, is to get over him. You have to challenge yourself to do things you wouldn’t normally do around him. Pretty much… you just need to be yourself and pretend whatever happened, didn’t happen. You got that?
I sighed. I didn’t want to get over him… I didn’t want to let go. “I need him…” I whispered to myself.
“Em?”
“I guess…”
“’Kay, I need to go…” Lindsey hurried off down another hall just as the first bell rang. First period passed by quickly, since all we had was a test. I was one of the first to finish. Once class was over I slowly made my way to Science. There was a new seating chart up on the board. I groaned. Derek was in front of me. Once everyone got to class Mr. Richard stepped in front of us.
“Alright, today we’re just doing book work. Chapter five, page 110, one through fifteen.” Everyone got up at once, but I hesitated and was one of the last to get a book. I worked slowly, trying not to think of my dream. There was about fifteen minutes left of class and people started to finish, which meant people were going to start talking. I finished up and turned in my work, then took my seat again, listening to the conversations of people around me.  
“Oh my god I can’t believe he asked her! That’s so cute!” I heard some girls giggling. Across the room I heard some guys talking about some new car. I rolled my eyes. During this whole time I was aware that Derek was watching me, which made it really difficult to concentrate on everyone but him.
Suddenly I heard the question, “So what ever happened to that Conner guy?” It was in one of the mixed groups.
“No idea… I heard he dropped out and ran away.” One of the guys said.
“No way man, I heard he committed suicide.” Another said.
“Wow…” As they continued on it got worse and worse, almost to a point where I couldn’t take it. Suddenly Derek was in front of me.
His dark eyes dug into mine. “Is something wrong?” To my surprise he seemed really concerned. I felt my eyes water.
“N-nothing.” I managed.
“Don’t lie to me. What’s wrong?” He asked again.
“Derek it’s nothing alright? Just leave me alone.” I hissed, looking away from him.
“Stop it. I know you’re not telling me… I want to know…”
“Derek…” I glared at him.
“I want to help.” All my anger suddenly disappeared.
“I…” he watched me with careful eyes. “Not now… okay?”
He sighed.
“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t talk about it here… and I’m not comfortable talking about it anyway.” My eyes were flickering around the room. I didn’t want to look at him. I felt like if I did, I would spill everything to him right then.
But he just stood and said, “Fine,” and left. I released my breath and buried my head in my hands. This is getting harder and harder everyday…
As the day progressed he asked me again and again. When he asked me a third time I began to get angry, which made him leave sooner than the first two times. Thankfully, being annoyed with Derek kept my mind off of my dream.
Sixth period finally arrived. Mrs. Aquino had us going over our essays that we’d been working on for the past week. We had to have our papers revised by another student. A guy named Joseph was my partner. He wasn’t my first choice but he was still nice.
“I really like this section, it really gets the point across…” He was saying after reading my paper. His complements made me look at my writing from a different perspective, and by the end of the period I felt a whole lot better about how things were going. I was anticipating that Derek would come up to me when I was at my locker, but he didn’t. I didn’t see him anywhere inside the school.
During the day I hadn’t looked outside much. But as I hurried towards the front of the school I remembered someone saying something about snow. My eyes grew wide at the sight of the white ground and little flakes falling from the cloudy sky.
“Wow…” I whispered. I had always found winter so beautiful. Everything looked so bizarre from the pale white snow. As I stepped outside I felt the same chill that I had this morning. Only this time it was a lot colder. I didn’t see Jayce or Zane so I had no chance at snagging a ride. Instead I would have to walk.
Finally I reached the crosswalk and hurried across the street. There was no one else in front or behind me. They probably all got rides, unlike me. The falling snow seemed to create its very own eerie silence. I shivered violently as a blast of cold air hit me.
“Hey,” Someone shouted. A guy. I turned to see who it was.
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Well I don’t, so leave me alone.” I kept walking. Derek just followed behind me.
“No, I want to talk to you about whatever it is that’s bothering you. There’s nothing you can do to make me leave.” I stopped walking.
“Why do you have to know?” He didn’t respond. I waited. Still nothing. I turned around, ready to yell at him, but found that he was right behind me, staring me down.
“I have to know… because I care.” His deep voice sent chills down my spine. “Now tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I don’t have to tell you, so I’m not going to, okay?” I was suddenly yelling. “I can make my own choices and I’d rather keep some things to myself.” I turned away and began walking quickly. Suddenly he was in front of me. I gaped at him, frightened.
“Tell me.” he ordered.
“No.”
“Tell me,” his voice grew louder.
“No!” I shouted, taking a step back.
Suddenly he grabbed my shoulders. “Tell me now,” He shouted back. “… or I’ll make you.”
“Derek… you don’t want to know what I’ve been through. I don’t care what you are… or what you’ve done,” he sighed, turning away for a moment, “but what I’ve seen, is my own business. I’ve got people who will stick up for me and protect me, so back off.”
“Who’s going to stick up for you now? Do you see anyone around us? Do you?” he strained his voice. I didn’t answer. “That’s what I thought. You don’t know what I’ve been through, and I’m sure it’s a lot worse that what you’ve been through, so don’t even think about playing that game with me.”
“Too bad.” I glared at him.
“So tell me, whose going to stick up for you?”
“I’ve got Zane, and Jennae… and Jayce…”
“And I’ve got a few more on my side than that.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
“I…” he froze. “I’m saying, I’ll fight for you… I’ll do anything… because…”
“Derek?” he didn’t say anything. He avoided my eyes.
Finally he looked at me. “I just… I have to know, okay? I care about you. I need to know what’s wrong. I need to make you feel better.” I couldn’t look away, even though I wanted to. His gaze wouldn’t let me. We stared into each others eyes for longer than I ever hoped possible. He didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. He just stared at me.  For a moment, a thought buzzed through my mind. I suddenly wondered what he was really trying to say. My heart raced and my body shook from the cold. His grip loosened. “Tell me.” He ordered once more, his voice gentle and soothing.
I stared at him still, my eyes wide. Finally I couldn’t control it. I broke down, letting my knees buckle, but he held me up. Tears streamed down my frozen pale face as I told him everything.