Ride or Die

There Goes Gravity

"Andrew!?" Chloe exclaimed as she looked at the young man in front of her. "Holy shit what the hell are you doing here?" Chloe was shocked that this person from her past was here standing in front of her. No one was supposed to know where Chloe was. Only her father knew her whereabouts, but she had made a strict agreement with him that absolutely no one else in the club was allowed to know. For gods sake, she had chosen a school halfway across the country to completely eliminate the chance of any of the club members from even running into her or accidentally spotting her.

"Hey Chloe, I'll explain everything, but before I do can you please stop strangling me?"

"Oh god, I'm so sorry Andrew." Chloe said as she removed her hand from his neck, "Why would you sneak up on me like that? Actually first of all why have you been following me these last couple of days?"

"Chloe, we need to talk, do you think we can go somewhere more private? This isn't really the right place to speak."

"Yeah okay, we can go back to my dorm room, let me just tell my friends that I'm leaving." Grabbing Andrew's hand, Chloe weaved her way through the party until she found Julia and Danny right where she had last seen them.

"Hey guys I'm going to head back to the room, but you guys stay here and have a good night." Their heads instantly looked up as they heard what Chloe said and then flicked over to Andrew.

"Are you sure Chloe? Are you okay? I can come home with you?" Julia offered as she assessed the situation. "Who's the guy?" Danny asked as she looked between Andrew and Julia's interwoven hands.

"He's just an old friend, we're just going to go back the dorms and catch up. Everything's fine though." Chloe responded as she smiled to her friends to reassure them that everything was all good.

Interpreting what "catching up" means differently then what Chloe intended they both smirked at her and offered a goodbye to the pair as they walked out.

The walk to the dorm felt like a lifetime and eventually Chloe couldn't contain herself as she burst out with, "Okay I can't deal with the anticipation, why are you really here Andrew?"

Andrew stopped walking and turned, looking Chloe directly in the eyes. "Chloe your Dad's sick, he has cancer."

"No. no. are you kidding me? My Dad? Are you sure? When I left he was so healthy. No. This must be wrong."

"Chloe I'm sorry. He hasn't wanted to worry you because you're here living this new life and becoming a better person. He didn't want to drag you back into the club or interrupt your studies. He and I know that you're better without the club, so he's been trying to cover this up, but he needs you."

"How bad is it?" Chloe asked, scared to hear what the answer would be.

"Four months."

"Wow" Chloe muttered under her breath as she looked away. Tears began to sting her eyes and she knew she had to go home immediately. After her mother had passed away, she and her father had become even closer than seemed possible and she would never forgive herself if she didn't see her dad. This new life that she had set up for herself seemed to be slowly crumbling away. It felt like these last months here at school had been a beautiful safe dream and here she was waking back up to a terrible reality.

All of a sudden Chloe felt Andrews strong arms wrap around her waist and she realized that she had tears streaming down her face. Letting out a silent sob, Chloe wrapped her arms around Andrews neck and cried until she couldn't cry anymore.

After what felt like an eternity, Chloe let go of Andrew and after whipping her eyes one last time, she looked up at him and said, "Thank you for that, Andrew."

"Of course, Chloe that's what friends are for."

Once they reached the room, Chloe unlocked the door and Andrew looked around. Wolf whistling Andrew said, "Nice pad ya got here, Chlo."

"Oh shut up Andrew." Chloe's extremely small dorm had to fit her and her roommate, so naturally their room wasn't exactly the cleanest. Chloe also didn't hang up any photos of her family and friends because she was paranoid about anyone finding out about her connection to the club.

"What do you wanna bring home?" Andrew asked Chloe as he started to look through her drawers.

"I just want to bring some clothes and toiletries; I don't really care about the rest of this stuff."

"Yeah you can just buy the rest once we get home," Andrew responded. Chloe began throwing clothes and makeup in her black backpack and within 15 minutes they left the dorm.