"THERE ARE three people that come to mind," I say as I make some hot chocolate using Hersey's powder and hot water. It feels chilly in my apartment, so I also throw on an old wool sweater. Jake, like most dudes, doesn't seem the least bit bothered by the cold. He does look up as I shake a can of whipped cream to top the beverages off with.

"Around a year ago," I say as I sample mine first to make sure it is up to par. The chocolate powder is still floating on top, and I have to suppress a sneeze. "There was this girl that started to parody my stories. At first, she asked for permission to spoof my work because she claimed to love them so much. Later, she just kept doing it even though I told her to stop. Her name is Princess Silver. She runs a website dedicated to her work, but it's pretty much a hate website against me. All she does is parodies my work. No one reads her original stuff."

"Seriously?" Jake asks as he accepts the hot chocolate. Despite my sad attempt to be a good host, I feel proud when he takes a sip and licks the whipped cream off his lips. "She has nothing better to do than to make fun of you?"

"Her message board is up to 2,000 members last time I checked," I roll my eyes. "They even have a Facebook group and a mailing list. I'm pretty sure they'll be getting together and having conventions next."

"I mean, I knew that people didn't like your stuff, but that's borderline insane."

"I'm sure among her band of lunatics; there must be one or two who is up to stalking me and showing up on my doorstep," I muse. "There are two other possibilities, though. Ashe&Andrea is a goth writer who also writes about wolves. She's becoming more and more popular lately. Some of my fans are going off to her side. She hates me because she thinks I don't deserve to be famous. She counts Princess Silver's hate-group as my most devoted fans. I guess it's a matter of perspective."

"Okay, I've heard of her. Never read any of her stuff, though. All her plots feel like they were stolen from classic novels that did it better the first time."

"The last one is someone I actually screwed over. There's this girl called PinkPunk who sounds violent and doesn't sound like she has two brain cells in her head. She is dating DamnedDrew."

"DamnedDrew is his actual internet handle?"

"Yeah, I don't make this stuff up. I guess his name should have tipped me off that he was bad news. He's this kid who asked to make a video game out of one of my books last year. When he finished, I told him I took my permission back because he made all my wolves retarded and way too perverted. He said no, and he put the game out anyway. It's a top-rated game, and it probably would have gone viral if I hadn't stepped in. I wrote to every one of his website hosts and told them he stole my intellectual property. I'm sure the game is still out there in the wilderness of the internet, but I had it taken down from enough legitimate sites that he hates my guts."

"Yeah, that's a shitty thing to do."

I grind my teeth but I don't take the bait. Jake doesn't understand how I feel about my characters. They're my babies. No one makes them do perverted things to each other, except me. I guess when I first agreed to let DamnedDrew make the game, I never thought about how seeing someone else tell stories using my characters would make me feel. I know what I did to DamnedDrew was wrong, but I just couldn't live with the alternative. 

The alternative was that DamnedDrew might have been better at telling stories with my characters than I was. I didn't like that back then and the thought sends a shudder through me even now. Drew might be a genius but he's also messed up in the head. Who goes around calling themselves a curse word as a nickname anyway? 

"Okay, you know your haters better than anyone. Who do you think is behind it?"

"If I knew what do I need you for? I would be calling the cops."

"What if you had to pick one off the top of your head?"

"DamnedDrew," I blurt out. "I think the girls calling me might be his girlfriend PinkPunk and her friends."

"Then why don't you confront him and tell him to knock it off? Internet trolls tend to scurry away like cockroaches if you just shine a light on them."

"But I c-can't do it if I'm not sure," I mutter and start to pace back and forth. It's not that easy. I can't just email DamnedDrew and tell him to knock it off. What if he's not the one stalking me? Then he would know that I'm vulnerable, and my identity is compromised. Maybe, he'll immediately join up with whoever it is that is terrorizing me.

No, I need to be sure first. I can't look like a helpless, panicked teenage girl — even if that is precisely what I am.

WilderLuna15 is better than that. She knows everything: every twist, every line, every motive. I can't just go around wildly accusing every single person who ever had a negative thing to say about me. I would look like a clueless airhead to my entire following.

No, that's exactly what the stalker wants me to do. He or she wants me to destroy myself with paranoia. I don't know how Jake expects me to narrow it down to one person. I can't believe I was even able to narrow it down to three. The culprit could be anyone that I ever slighted.

"Why don't you think carefully," Jake says and abandons his half-empty cup in my sink. "It's probably not that hard. The right answer is also sometimes the most obvious one."

Jake collects his jacket and heads to my door.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," Jake replies and shrugs his jacket over his shoulders. "It's almost midnight."

"It's raining out."

"It's okay. I've got a helmet to keep my head dry."

"Stay here. I have a spare room."

I march right over and take Jake's hand. I expect him to shake me off because he already has his other hand on the doorknob. He doesn't.

Instead, Jake lets go of the door and turns around. His hand is rough and cold, although as I hold it, it grows warmer. I don't know why it feels weird. I guess I've never held a boy's hand before. Funny how I've had his hands all over me on the beach, but holding hands is still an awkward gesture.

"You can sleep on the mattress. I have a blow-up lawn chair in the bedroom I can sleep on. You can't ride a bike home in the rain."

"No, thanks," Jake replies. He laughs nervously and reaches for the doorknob again. He turns around as he cracks open the door as if he's rethinking my offer. "What if your grandparents walk in on me sleeping in your bed?"

"They don't come up here. I don't barge in on them when they are napping, and they don't barge in on me while I'm supposed to be studying. We have a deal, you see."

"How about your mom?"

"My brother sleeps late on weekends. If my mom is coming to the city — which she won't because she is expecting me to go home tomorrow to Queens — she won't be here until mid-afternoon."

I am rambling, and judging by the coy look on Jake's face, he knows it. I'm scared, and I can't stop pacing around and double-checking every dark corner. Before Jake takes his first step outside my front door — my Aunt's phone rings again.

I scream and cover my ears with the cuffs of my sweater.

"Calm down," Jake says.

"It's them; it's them!"

"No, it's not. Just pick up the phone."

I nearly have a heart attack just looking in the direction of the phone. The phone is hanging against the wall, in the absolute darkness of the kitchen. With each insistent ring, it reminds me of a creepy scarab, fluttering its undead wings, from one of those mummy movies I used to watch as a kid.

"That's not my mom," I hiss at Jake. "She would never call me this late."

I give him my best, most persuasive glare. It's like I'm calling him a chicken if he dares to leave me at this vulnerable moment. The message is received, and I notice that as Jake continues to stare at the phone, his smirk fades from his face. He is starting to look angry now, as though with each ring, the phone is daring him to punch it in the face.

Finally, Jake's jaw hardens. He turns and marches across the kitchen (which is not very large) and yanks the phone up from the receiver.

"Hello?" Jake yells into the phone. He's so loud; I'm almost scared he would wake the next-door neighbors. "Do you girls want me to call the cops? I'm going to send them after you right now."

Jake listens and then hangs up abruptly. He leans against my refrigerator door and sighs. He chuckles to himself and shakes his head. Do I sense a little bit of relief in him? Maybe he's not as tough as he pretends he is.

"What did they say?"

"It's just a wrong number." Jake laughs a little at how tense we both are. "You're making me paranoid too now. The girls probably got bored and went back to posting on their female version of 4chan or something. Go to bed and stop worrying."

"Please don't leave me here alone." I catch Jake's arm as he reaches for the door again. "I'll even sleep with you again if you stay."

"Oh, gross," Jake says and wrinkles his nose. "What are you? Some hooker who charges in emotional labor?"

"It's raining out, and it's already midnight. I'm just looking out for you."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I mean it. I'll do anything. Just don't go."

"You're crazy."

"Please don't go."

"All right — all right," Jake gives in and dumps his jacket and backpack on my kitchen counter. He takes a couple of steps into the room and then spins around and backs me up against the sink. He wags his finger at me as though he wants to emphasize the point he's about to make.

"I'll sleep here, but you take your dumb air mattress. I'll take the inflatable lawn chair over this sad thing. Do you have a place where I can shower?"

"Yeah, whatever you want! You are the best."

"Okay, you don't need to shower me with compliments. Just lead me to the actual shower."

I happily nod and lead him to my bathroom. "Go ahead, do whatever you want in there. There should be clean towels in there."

"Great, now leave me alone."

"Just to make things more comfortable for you for helping me out, my grandfather stored some of his winter clothes in the bedroom closet before my Aunt left. If you want, I can find you some clean clothes to wear. You might have to belt everything, though, because my granddad is much thicker around the midsection than you."

"Fine, fine," Jake says and steps into the bathroom. He has his shirt off when I return with a set of my granddad's flannel PJs.

Darn it; he's hot. Looking at Jake now, I could see why I made that bad-bad-decision back in Coney Island. Now that's a body you only see on MTV. He's the kind of boy you want to sleep with even if he doesn't remember your name in the morning.

"Hey, eyes up here," Jake says as he sees me studying the bruises on his torso. "I thought you knew what you were getting into when you invited a boy from the wrong part of Brooklyn to stay over."

"Dumbo is the wrong part of Brooklyn?" I ask and roll my eyes.

I try not to look down as Jake throws his jeans off.

I look down.

He's wearing striped, baby blue boxers. I like the way his muscular thighs look in that thing. There's something about a boy's legs where the hair end, and then there are just pure untanned muscles leading upwards. It's like a trail, beckoning me all the way up to that bulge in his pants. Jake turns around before I'm able to follow that thought to its conclusion. His butt looks plump and lush from my new vantage point.

Teeny shorts for boys should come back in fashion. I guess I would be a very bad host indeed if I were to walk over and pinch him in that perfectly round tush.

"Can you close the door? I'm trying to take a piss."

"There's nothing there that I haven't seen before."

"Is this how you treat your guest?"

I take a step back and close the door a bit. I leave it open an inch so that we could continue our conversation.

"I thought Dumbo was the ritzy part of Brooklyn. Isn't that where all the hipsters are?"

"Any part can be the wrong part if you stay out long enough. Just like how even a writing site can turn into a dark and scary place if you piss off the wrong people."

"I guess you're right. So, was the fight over a girl?"

"Leave me alone and let me take a piss," Jake snaps and yanks the door closed.