Shameful Indulgence (In Editing)

XXIV

• Jacob's POV

Tuesday, 4:15 pm

So, I never got the chance to see Rebecca before last period. I had a chess tournament she was never informed of that lasted two whole hours. Of course, she wasn't invited. It wasn't like she was going to go anyway. She'd be sleeping the entire time, forgetting why she even decided to show up in the first place. Underneath the cool clothes and glowing facial features, I was still the nerd she picked on when she entered this school. You can change one's appearance but not their personality. Which I knew was an understatement.

"Okay, so what's the length of the hypotenuse?" I asked. Rebecca had a huge math exam tomorrow and she hadn't spent the week studying. If she did, she wouldn't have been so stressed out like she was today. She stared blankly into space, not even paying attention to a word I was saying. I know it's been a while since tutored her in math, but she couldn't have been that dull to not have known the answer to a simple problem. We went over it like five times already.

"Rebecca. Are you even listening to me?" She snapped out of her fantasy and shifted her head towards my direction. "Huh?" She said cluelessly. I gave her a confused look. Since after she left the soccer field this morning, she had been acting really strange. Was it me? She was surely mad that I bailed on her before sixth period.

"Is something wrong? Cause I've explained this problem numerous times and you still haven't given me an answer yet."

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just..." She sighed. I encouraged her to proceed in what she wanted to say, closing the book and placing my hands on her lap, but she hesitated. "I'm just worried. I didn't want to tell you this cause I didn't wanna freak you out, but... Alyssa found a discount card from a gun shop in Chris's backpack and I can't stop thinking about what he might do with it." She explained, feeling somewhat relieved.

"The card?" By the puzzling look on her face, I could tell that was a strong 'no'.

"The gun. Idiot."

I chuckled, pushing her hair back lovingly, "She found a card, Rebecca. Not a gun." I know that I should've been taking this situation seriously, but she was jumping into conclusions way too fast. Chris was bad news. But not to a point where he would hold anyone at gunpoint. Then again, he did have a crazy obsession with her. He probably still did.

"Jake, you don't fucking know Chris like I do. He was a drug addict. After that, he became a fucking lunatic. I was scared shitless I didn't know what else to do. Next thing I knew... my dad got a job offering in Los Angeles. Chris was three months sober after I had found out. I couldn't tell him. Not when he was finally doing so well. So now you see this guy's full of surprises. And this is exactly why I didn't want you to know about him from the get-go. Now that he knows you're my boyfriend, he's gonna hurt us."

I understood that she was scared, but all of this didn't really add up to the fact that Chris would want to kill us. I'm pretty sure there was some reasonable reason for why he had a gun. He probably didn't even have one. It could all be in her head. You can't know too much with just a card in his backpack. We needed more evidence.

"Look, I know you're stressed, and Chris is doing whatever he can to get his revenge, but right now you have an exam you need to study for. And we don't have much time left for you to know this by heart. I promise we'll figure this out later."

Rebecca shot up from her chair and vigorously threw all her worksheets and books off the table infuriated, "NO, I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FUCKING EXAM, JACOB! CHRIS HAS A FUCKING GUN!" She yelled. I looked up at her terrified. Okay. So, maybe this was serious. But what was I supposed to do? Call the cops on false accusations? God knows what the consequences were doing something like that. My parents would disown me for the rest of my life.