A Dream In Hiding

Chapter 1

Noah's POV

"Dinner!"  My mom called.  I heard a scramble of feet from my three siblings.  But I didn't budge.  "Noah!" My mom repeated.  "What, mom?" "I said, dinner!" "I'm not coming down" I could almost hear the sigh that came from my mom.
About an hour later, my older sister, Abby, came in with a plate of chicken and rice.  "Here you go" "Thanks" I mumbled. "Are you ok?" "I guess so." "Alright. Bye, Noah." Abby left the room.  Then, my mom came in.  "Noah... You may want to see this."  She hands me a newspaper.  On the front cover, there's an upside-down car.  A silver Lexus.  Alex's.  There's a girl inside, with brown hair, just like Alex.  But the girl seems a little too wide to be her.   On the heading, I see "Truck hits car, car flips over and kills the driver".   The words 'kills the driver' made me shiver.  "W-why are you showing me this?" I knew why. "Sweetie... Look." She points to a small sentence.  "Driver later identified as Alexandra Ruby Johnson, depending on a driver's license." Tears brimmed my eyes as I teared the paper apart.  I threw it on the ground, and a tear rolled down my cheek.  My mom walked out, and I cried myself to sleep.
"Noah, it not dat bwig of a dweal.  She just gwonna come bwack, wight?"  My little brother, Michael said. My mom looked at Michael, then me.  I clenched my fists. "Sweetie, please come with me." My mother told Michael.  They both walked out of the room, leaving me alone in the kitchen.  I stared at the front cover of the newspaper, the car practically split in half, dents and scratches all over it.  I see another section that says, "The truck driver, Miller Downey, claims that it was Johnson that hit him." "Bullshit!" I screamed.  "Alex would never do that!"  I stood up, still keeping my eyes on the paper.  Alex was dead. But she couldn't be... Yes she could!  No! 
Wait... What if somebody killed her? Not the truck driver, but a murderer?

4 years later

"I'm open! I'm open!"  I yelled.  Jack passed the basketball to me, and I dunked the ball.  The crowd of college students were so loud, it was hard to focus.  Being a college basketball player wasn't easy. "Bruins! Bruins! Bruins!"  The crowd chanted.
After the game, I got changed into my long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and a beanie.  I was just leaving when I saw a girl with a black hoodie on.  She had brown hair and green eyes, just like...
Alex.  She walked the same way, and looked the exact same.  But she was taller than Alex, and - I didn't even know this was possible - skinnier than Alex.  But it just looked so much like her.
I thought about that girl all day. What if it was Alex?  But how could it be? Alex was dead.  Or... Was she?  Yes. She was, and I don't want to make my mind wander just like I did when she first died.  I know I would never forget her.  Ever.
In my dorm room, I was doing my homework when my phone buzzed.  A text message from
"954-240-6273".  It said: "Have you ever seen something so awful... Yet so... Happy?"  What the hell did this even mean?  Why was this number texting me? That didn't make sense.  I mean, there's only one thing that I could think of, but that would only mean - but how?  No.  It must be a wrong number.  I picked up my phone and texted back "Who is this?"  A couple seconds later, I got an answer.  "You know who it is, but I don't think you know that."  Now I was really confused.  What did they mean?

A couple days later, I was sitting on the sidewalk, drinking a Starbucks latte. I didn't even think about what happened a few days ago.  Not until my phone buzzed.  I looked, and another text from the same number showed.  "Can somebody ever be so boring that you want to throw giant pasta shells at their face?"  Oh my god.  Was it her? No, it can't be... Or can it?
I sat on the sidewalk for a while, just thinking.  But then I saw three boys and a girl.  The girl was the same girl I saw after the basketball game, but the three boys weren't familiar.  I heard one boy call, "Ha, you don't even have a place to run home to, huh?  You don't even have a mommy?"  They all started to laugh.  Two years ago Alex's mom died, it was just something random, nobody knows how.  The girl screamed as they slammed her against the fence.  As soon as she got back up, she ran over and punched the boy in the nose, when she pulled her hand away I could see blood on her knuckles.  "You shut up!" She screamed.  She ran over and pushed them against a brick wall, knocking them all down.  I saw one of the boys grabbing something out of his pocket.  Something metal.  A gun.
Before I could think, I was running.  The boy jumped up and put her in a headlock, pointing the gun at her temple.  "One more move, little girl." The boy whispered.  She struggled to escape his grasp.  When I was right next to the boy, another yelled, "Thomas look out!" But it was too late.  I had already knocked the gun out of his hand and put it at the back of his head. "Let her go... now!" I yelled.  The boy didn't move.  "Get the hell away from her!"  He let her go, and the three boys ran.  The girl didn't turn around.  She just cleared her throat and ran away.