26/4/2018

This whole 'find out who the stalker is', it's not going well. I'm nowhere closer to finding who it is than I was last week, and it's becoming so frustrating. I feel like I'm seeing that crazy person in everyone around me.

I'm seeing them in Blake's excited yet sometimes creepy smiles. I'm seeing them in Riley's silence. I'm seeing them in Rachel's observing stares, and it's driving me crazy. I've gotten to that stage where I started thinking that all of my friends are conspiring against me.

At this rate, I'm going to go crazy by the end of the month. And do you know what's even more crazy? It's the fact that the only thing I can trust on Earth right now is you, a notebook, and if that doesn't prove the fact that I'm losing my mind, I don't know what will.

Another thing that's been driving me crazy is wondering why someone would do this to me. In the beginning, I just thought that it was someone who was a little too taken by me and wanted to be like me. However now, it's getting scarily creepy, and I'm afraid. I mean yes, I'm mean and rude to some people, but not to the extent where someone would feel the need to threaten my life.

However, right now, all of this is of no use. I must focus all of my energy on trying to figure out who it is, so I'll write a list of everything I know about the person.

1. They're someone I've upset so bad.

That one is obvious. Now, who have I upset in the past two months? Well, we have Avery, Katherine, Joel, Daniel, Sarah...you know what? this is useless, I've upset more people than I can recall. 

Moving on.

2. According to the video they so kindly left, I'm assuming they're around 5"6'. They're also thin. But this is the description of half of the student body.

3. They must always be around me in the shadows. So, I really have to keep an eye out more.

What if I try to film a vlog as if it's a part of whatever project I'm doing and then, I can re-watch it at the end of the day and try to find someone who's always around me.

This will literally be my last chance at finding who this 'S' person is. Let's hope it works out better than it did last time, especially that 'S' has been silent for the past week, so I know that they must be planning something big. Something that will catch everyone's attention.

Till I have something new to report,

Alexis.

...

"Tonight is going to be amazing. Period!" Lena exclaims from her position in front of the mirror. She's been standing there for the past thirty minutes, literally painting her face with makeup because she's aiming for the queen of the hearts.

You're probably wondering what the occasion is, right? Well, we have this huge Halloween party tonight. But the thing is that Halloween isn't for the next two weeks, so don't even ask.

"Yeah, I'm sure it'll be," I mutter while continuing my search on the phone.

I'm currently searching the list of the people who like our university's page for the profile of a certain brunette. And let me tell you that it's not as easy as it sounds given that the university's page has more than ten thousand likes.

You're probably thinking that I'm stupid for not searching using his name directly, but I'd like to tell you that I did that, and no one showed up. So, I texted Riley and she suggested that I look at each profile picture while in the meantime, she's searching using her own means, that she doesn't want me knowing. That's why I'm looking at each person's profile picture or uploaded pictures until I find him.

I've truly never been more thankful that people like to put their whole life on the internet for anyone to see.

"Are you even listening to me?" Lena asks, looking at me in frustration.

"Yeah, sure. I'm listening," I reply, not even bothering to look up from the phone. I need to find his page before we leave for that stupid party.

"No, you aren't. Ever since you became friends with that Joanna, you've been ignoring me all the time."

Yes, I forgot to tell you about Lena's newfound jealousy. Normally, Lena would never get jealous of anyone; however, ever since I started hanging out with Anna more, she developed this jealousy of our friendship.

"I'm not ignoring you, Lena. Wasn't it you who said that I should make other friends because you won't always be there?" I ask in exasperation while rolling my eyes involuntarily.

"Then explain to me why we haven't spent any time together since that night when you came back with the bruises that you still haven't told me how you got," she says, her voice tight.

Well, I won't lie, I might have been avoiding spending time with Lena for a week or a week and a half now. But no one can blame me. Lena is the curious type of person, and I know that she won't let me go without explaining what happened unless I came up with a really good lie. And let's face it, no one can come up with a lie that big.

"You're not even denying it because you know it's true," she continues in triumph when I don't answer her.

"Lena, we've both been busy with our exams, and since they ended today, I promise you that I'll spend more time with you," I promise, trying to look as sincere as I can.

And I will. My friendship with Lena is too precious for me to let 'S' ruin it. I refuse to let that happen. However, the question is, will I be able to divert the conversation if she starts asking about the bruises? I guess that's something that we'll have to find out.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Lena and Aurora where we'll see if their friendship is strong enough to survive this or not.

"Fine, I'll act as if I believe you," she rolls her eyes, then suddenly, her excitement for the party returns once again, "I can't believe that we're finally going to our very first college party. It will be so fun, I am sure."

At moments like these, it's when I see fragments of the girl she used to be before everything happened years ago. Moments when her eyes are shining with the excitement of what's to come. Moments when she's thrilled to be making new friends, like when we first met Blake, and they both instantly clicked. 

She was always the more sociable person out of the both of us.

"Rory, where's the golden crown? I swear I have seen it somewhere around the room here," Lena asks while flipping everything upside down searching for her queen of hearts crown.

"I think I saw it on the floor beside my desk," I guess, going back to my Facebook stalking.

"Oh, really? I'll check there now. You know what? Everyone at this party will be amazed by my costume. I'll probably win the best costume award, I'm sure of it..." she trails off, bending down to search in the mess of books and clothes.

"Yeah, I'm sure no one else thought of dressing as the queen of hearts," I say sarcastically. " In fact, I'll bet you a packet of chicken nuggets that we'll find at least three other people with the same-"

"Aurora, what is this?" she cuts me off, her voice as sharp as a knife.

"What?" I mumble not wanting to look up from my phone.

"Is this Alex's diary? Where did you get it?" she fires one question after another. However, I get stuck at the first one. How could I carelessly leave it out on the open like that?

"What? no, of course, it's not," I say while hastily getting up and snatching the stack of papers out of her hands. But Lena being Lena, she's not ready to give up soon.

"No, don't treat me as if I'm stupid," she snaps, her voice rising as the seconds pass and her eyes looking challengingly at me. "You will answer my questions, or else I'll go get the police. You know I will."

I look into her eyes, wanting to see if she's just trying to scare me into talking, but all I see is seriousness in her eyes. And I know for a fact - out of experience - that she does what she says when she has that look in her eyes.

"Now that we're on the same page. Tell me everything."

"Look, it's nothing. While I was studying one night, I sat against that wall between our desks, and I accidentally found a secret hiding place in the wall. You can look for it if you want." She motions at me to continue talking while she inspects the wall.

"I found a book in it, and when I read it, I found out that it was Alexis's journal. Long story short, she was talking about how someone was stalking her. That's all," I finish up, hoping that she'll get satisfied by what I said and move on.

"You're bloody stupid," bloody? she must be really mad, "how could you not give this to the police, especially after they found Alex's body? You're withholding evidence, and you could get in serious trouble for that. I thought you were a law major, you should know that. Besides, you said you found a book, but right now, we're holding a stack of papers, why?"

Of course, she couldn't just let it go. No, she had to dig in as deep as she can. I should really give her a few lessons on where that digging gets you.

"Yeah, that's the funny story," I laugh awkwardly trying to stall. "Well you see, remember how I told you that she was getting stalked? Well, her stalker slash killer is also after me."

She stares at me unblinking for a while before she bursts into hysterical laughter. "Oh my god, you're so much crazier than I thought you were."

"What?" I ask with a shock lacing my words. That was honestly the last thing I would've expected her to say right now.

Crazy? What is she even talking about? I'm telling her that I'm getting stalked, and she's laughing at me? So much for we'll always have each other's backs, I think bitterly. Maybe I need to rethink my whole friendship with Lena if she can't take this seriously.

Finally managing to calm herself down, she looks at me coldly. "You wanted to live a mystery so bad that you decided to create your own?" she asks while clapping her hand, but she doesn't give me a chance to reply before she continues.

"You want to convince me that you found a dead girl's journal? No, that only happens in movies."

"No," I argue, "I swear I'm telling you the truth this time. I'm in danger. It was this person who tried to kill me. Remember when I came back with bruises on my neck? Wait, I'll show you the notes I've been getting," I say, desperately trying to get her to believe me.

I quickly get up and rummage around my desk until I find the stack of notes and hand them to her. This will get her to believe me. I'm sure of it.

"No, let me tell you what happened. You got bored of living that monotonous life of yours, so you tried to spice it up." She shouts, throwing the stack of notes into the air. "But instead of going to going to the country fair or traveling like any other normal person would, you decided to write and direct your own mystery novel, and you got so much into it that you're starting to believe that it's really happening."

Yup, I'm definitely rethinking our friendship. She was getting ahead of herself too fast that she's not even giving me a chance to argue.

Completely oblivious to the rage growing inside of me, she continues. "So, you wrote a fake journal, and sent yourself fake notes, and then you simply started to try and find your imaginary stalker."

"Really?" I challenge, "what about those bruises? Did I give them to myself?"

"Maybe, you're the kind of person who's crazy enough to do that. Or maybe you got into a fight with someone, and you convinced yourself that it's your stalker. You're just a delusional girl who's imaging things and being paranoid like you always are," she stresses on stalker.

However, instead of riling me up more, like she probably wants, all of my anger gets replaced by desperation. If my own best friend won't believe me, then who will? I guess I was right in not going to the police in the first place.

"I'm telling you that I'm not just being paranoid, everything leads to this. You're my best friend, and you have to believe me, I'm not imagining things," I plead with her, trying to get her to believe me. I need her to believe me. If she won't, then who will?

"No, you always do this," deplorably for me, it looks like she's made her mind up. "You always play detective, and I'm honestly getting tired of this. When will you stop trying to live in one of your thriller novels? You have to wake up, this is real life and I'm finally happy. Why do you have to do this every time?" 

Why does she always make everything about her? It's something that she started doing after the accident, and I thought she got over it in high school, but apparently, she hasn't. Maybe we both need to go to a physiatrist after all.

"I'm not doing anything, even you can't deny that things have been strange from the moment we stepped foot here, I'm afraid. You have seen the notes I got. That person is coming after me next," I plead one last time, having faith that the blindfold over her eyes will be lifted, and she'll see that I'm actually telling the truth.

"No, I'm done with you and your constant worries. I can no longer keep up with you, so I'm simply done," and with that, she clips the golden crown on her hair and leaves the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

For the first time in my life, I know that my friendship with Lena is beyond saving. She thinks so low of me, and I know that I'll never be able to forgive her for that.

Lena, How did our fun times - times when we were being stupid together, times when you tricked the pizza delivery guy like in Home Alone - turn into this unsolvable mess? 

My former best friend, I hope that if I end up just like Alexis, you'll be able to forgive yourself for not helping me when you had the chance to. Don't worry, I forgive you for that, even if I can't forgive you for thinking lowly of me.

So, farewell my friend. 

Hello!

I just got an idea for a new book, and I got so excited, so I thought that I'd share this chapter and then start planning that story out!!!

So, what do you think of everything Lena said? Do you think that she always thought Rory was crazy but never said it out loud until now? Or were her words just said in the heat of the moment?

Please don't forget to vote and comment i you like this chapter.

Till the next chapter...