Still With Me

Prologue

When I was in elementary school, I thought being normal was the worst thing I could grow up to be. Maybe I was six or seven. We had to imagine ourselves as a grown-up, pick a career from a preapproved list, and then do a project. There wasn't an option I wanted, so I picked doctor and went straight home to complain about it. My dad was thoroughly confused when I explained that I didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer or teacher, but wanted to be a hairdresser exclusively for gorillas, who also juggled part time while in a traveling ukulele band.

He tried throwing logical facts at me but I was undeterred by the fact that gorillas probably didn't need hairdressers, or that I didn't know how to juggle or play ukulele, and that no one even wanted to see a juggling ukulele band in the first place.

Then he hit me with the that's not a normal career path speech. I replied, in my cutesy, little-kid way, that being normal sounded boring, and I'd much rather have interesting things happen to me, even if they made my life harder. Looking back now, I would do anything to slap six- or seven-year-old me silly and eat my words out of existence.

My dad wanted me to have a normal, boring life without hardship. I scoffed at the idea. It's ironic how in the end he was the one who set into motion a chain of events that ensured my life would never be completely normal again.

There have been multiple attempts to end my life made by two different men, all within in the last year. There's Tony, the man who's quite possibly a real psychopath, and the reason I've had to move three times and change my identity each time in order to keep myself safe.

Then there's my boyfriend Aiden's biological dad, Andrew Kessler, who's ruthless and clearly has no problem getting someone to murder a teenage girl in order to send a message to his estranged son, who'd threatened to blow the whistle on his true, shitty past and ruin his chances of becoming governor.

My mother is having an affair with the father of one of my best friends, and I have no idea if or how I should tell Mason. Plus, there's the whole Mason's most likely in love with me thing that I really don't even want to think about addressing right now.

Annalisa's half brother, Luke, is going to stand trial for murdering Aiden's stepfather, which he claims he doesn't remember doing because he wasn't sober at the time, and Annalisa is just now realizing that she can't bear to not have Luke in her life.

Noah and Chase are in a weird we're friends but not really stage because Chase walked in on Noah in bed with the love of Chase's life, Charlotte, who really doesn't know if she even likes either of them as more than friends.

My middle (and favorite) finger is dislocated from punching Ryan, Aiden's now ex-stepbrother, in the face. My nose is swollen and bruised from walking into Mason's elbow, and there are a bunch of cuts and bruises on my body from Aiden's dad's attempt to murder me.

And to make all of that worse, I'm being relocated as soon as the agents assigned to my case finalize our new location and identities. King City is the one place that feels like home, where I have friends I adore and a boy I love. But Aiden already knows all about me, and I decided to break some small rules so that I don't have to completely give him up—namely the no contacting anyone from your old life rule. But what my mom and the agents don't know won't hurt them, and I'll be supercareful. When the time comes to leave, I won't feel like my heart is being ripped out; I'll still have Aiden.

But in the meantime, while I'm still here in King City, not only do I have Kaitlyn and Ryan trying to make my life miserable, but my best friends are all in the middle of their own dramas, and I still have two grown men trying to kill me.

Nice.

Honestly, Julian's the only one in this group who has his shit together and is living a relatively normal life—except for the fact that he hangs out with all of us.

After the accident when Aiden and I were run off the road by Harvey, Andrew's right-hand man, Aiden and Mason gave the cops a pretty convincing story about what had happened, mostly sticking to the truth but omitting any mention of me or Julian. As far as I know, the detectives don't see any discrepancies in their story.

Harvey, the man who ran Aiden and me off the road and tried to shoot me, wasn't found, but "Aiden" didn't deliver a kill shot, so authorities believe Harvey is injured. They ran the prints on the knife that he held to Aiden's throat and they were matched to a Harvey Vedenin, who, to no surprise, has been arrested before. It's also not a shock that Harvey Vedenin is a known associate and bodyguard of Andrew Kessler, which gives validity to Aiden's story. Of course, there's no evidence that actually proves Andrew Kessler was behind Harvey's actions, but we know the truth.

Aiden and Mason stayed at the beach house for an extra week to sort everything out, and the rest of us returned home, Noah driving Jason and Jackson back to Mason's house. During that week they stayed back, I didn't dare go to school. While I couldn't really afford to miss any more of it, I felt guilty returning to school and pretending everything was fine when it was anything but.

Aiden did end up speaking to Vivienne Henfrey, the reporter who'd made it clear she was not a fan of Kessler's, and who'd practically begged Aiden to go on air. I watched Aiden on the news from home, my heart exploding with pride at seeing his handsome and determined face as he shared a part of his life that I knew he'd rather bury so far inside of him that his subconscious didn't even know it was there. I know how hard it was for him to share his past, but he was confident as he told the world about how he is the son of Andrew Kessler. He explained how Andrew left when his mother was sick and pregnant, and how he hasn't tried to contact his family since she died.

He was the same Aiden as usual—cold, stoic, and deadly beautiful, looking even more intimidating with the bruised jaw and ten stitches on the side of his forehead. And the world couldn't help falling in love with him, right then and there. That's the thing about Aiden. He has that presence and charm—even on camera, even when he's not trying—that just makes people gravitate toward him, that makes people like him, makes them want him to like them, even when everything about him screams don't mess with me.

Vivienne took Aiden's story and old family photos and ran with it, destroying Kessler's platform and family-friendly agenda with it. She basically proved that Kessler is the biggest hypocrite on the planet and doesn't actually care or live by any of the issues he campaigned on. Obviously, Kessler denied everything. His team worked quickly and efficiently at his response and recovery from this new revelation, and as far as I know, he has no plans of dropping out of the race for governor.

We were all together when we heard Kessler say as much, and Charlotte asked, "He'll never recover from this, right? People will think he's an awful person or a phony or a hypocrite and won't elect him if he chooses not to drop out? Right?"

Annalisa snorted as she replied. "You never know—worse people have done worse things in this country and have still been elected to high places of power, so . . ."

We all deflated a bit after that, knowing it was true, but at least Andrew's under more public scrutiny and won't make any attempts to take my or Aiden's life anytime soon.

Hopefully.