There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate

There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate (38)

"Jordan? Jordan!"

I just didn't want to be bothered. Couldn't I sleep forever? I sure wished that I could. That was all that I wanted...

"Jordan!"

I didn't want to open my eyes, but I knew that I didn't have a choice in the matter. As much as I just wanted to stay wherever I was and just sleep, I knew that I couldn't.

As I slowly rose from my lying position, I studied my surroundings carefully. Why was I outside on the dock? Shouldn't I have been in my bed or something with the rest of the girls in the cabin?

Before realization struck me, I was being ambushed by tight hugs that almost stopped my breathing. When I looked up at my attackers, I wasn't very surprised to see Lexi, Chelsea, and AJ standing over me.

"What are you doing out here?" AJ almost cried, a worry look evident on her face. Why would she be worried about me? I just fell asleep on the dock, didn't I? What was so bad about that? It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong... I was just sleeping.

"Um, I couldn't sleep last night so I came out here," I excused with a wave of my hand, as if it was absolutely nothing to make a fuss over, which it kind of was. "I guess I just fell asleep out here. Hah, I'm glad I didn't get caught by any of the counselors..."

"But thank God you're okay!" Lexi cried, her eyes watering even more as she stared down at me. "We thought you were hurt! No, we thought you were dead!"

"Why would you think that?" I asked, rubbing at one of my eyes in confusion as I continued to look up at her.

"We were watching the news," Chelsea began solemnly as she looked down at her fiddling fingers. She was frowning, and she wasn't acting normal. Chelsea rarely ever frowned... What was going on? "And something came up..."

"What?" I asked, blinking now. "What happened?"

"Jesse's dead," Lexi whispered, staring down at her feet.

At first, the news hit me like a bullet. I thought I was going to die as well right after she had informed me of this. I wanted to just flop over and start sobbing, but I then remembered why I was outside, why I was asleep on the dock. Jesse had taken me out there the night before to say goodbye, and I had fallen asleep out here on the dock after he had finally left...

"He's... dead?" I asked, not really knowing how I was supposed to react. I mean, I knew that he wasn't really dead. I knew that he had just ran away and faked his death to protect me. But the girls still thought I hated him, so how was I supposed to react?

"We thought you were with him," AJ informed me, tears in her eyes as well. "When you weren't in bed when we all woke up this morning, at first we thought you just woke up early and left. But then we remembered that you've never been a morning person and you always wake up after us. And then Yolanda turned on the news and it talked about how Jesse's car flipped into a lake..."

I bit the inside of my cheek, not wanting to hear anymore. Even though I knew that this wasn't really what happened to him, I hated imagining that it had actually happened. Jesse was safe, but he was gone. He wasn't dead, but it sure seemed like he was.

I let tears roll down my face, but I didn't let out any sobs. Even though I wanted to scream and throw a tantrum, I still had to act like his enemy in front of my friends. I thought back to when I had hated Jesse, and I tried to think about how I would have felt if he had died back then. I definitely would have cried, no matter what...

"We're just glad you're okay," Lexi hiccupped, kneeling over and placing a hand on my shoulder. "It's sad that he's dead, even though he'd always act like a total ass to us. But we thought that you went with him for some reason. We thought that you were dead, too."