Paranoia.

O

"16th avenue, New York, 16th of may, 16:16."

'That's tomorrow.' Austen says looking over my shoulder.

'I know.' I just say and look at the paper. What the hell does this mean? Is that where Grayson is? Is he still alive? Or are we just going there to see his dead body?

'I think we should go.' Austen interrupts my thoughts. 'Maybe he is still alive?'

'But, how do we know that he's there for sure? Maybe it's some psycho who wants to kill us too?' I say, worried.

'It's two psycho's against one, right?' She says with a crooked smile.

'You're not a psycho, Austen.'

She looks at me and grabs my hand. 'We all are a little psycho, Ethan. We all are.'

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'Hello sleeping beauty, wake up, it's a special day today.' Austen says, shaking me lightly. And she reminds me of someone.

'Hello sleeping beauty, wake up. It's the first day of school.' Grayson says, his voice still raspy.

It's like 5:30 AM. Grayson is already fully clothed and eating his cornflakes. How can he be this happy and why the fuck am I already awake?

'Why so early?' I ask him, still not moving.

'Because.' He says back, placing a hand on his hip while flipping his non-existent long hair.

'That's not a valid reason.' I shout back but he already went to the kitchen.

When I think of the memory, I immediately know why I'm up this early. We're going to find Grayson. Dead or alive, but we're going to find him. I get out of bed and place my feet on the cold ground. I walk downstairs in my pyjamas by which I mean only my boxers.

'Look, it's alive.' Austen says, not looking at me. She is cooking pancakes and it just reminds me of Grayson more. I walk towards the table when Austen turns around. I see her checking me out, even though she tries to do it really sneaky, she fails.

'I can spare some of this for later of you want?' I say to her when she places the pancakes in front of me.

'Yeah, maybe in the car. I'm not that hungry right now.'

'I wasn't talking about the pancakes, you know?' And I see her blushing. I give her a smirk and start eating. Half an hour later, we're in the car, on our way to Grayson. After a long silence, Austen takes a deep breath.

'Why did you kiss me a few day ago?' She asks and I'm a bit overwhelmed.

'Oh, it, erm... it meant nothing. Why are you asking?' Silence again. I quickly look at her and I see that she has little tears in her eyes.

'Why are you crying, Austen?'

'You know I've liked you since I saw you, right? That's the reason why I sat next to you that lesson and that's the reason why I stayed there.' She turns her head away.

I can't believe what she's saying. 'You're joking. Why would a girl like you, like a guy like me?'

'Because you have a beautiful personality, a gorgeous face and on top of that, as if it isn't perfect enough, an amazing body, which, yes you caught me, I could stare at for days.'

I park the car on the side of the road and look at her. She turns around with tears in her eyes. 'Why are we stopping? We need to get there on time. If we're too late we may be....'

I cut her off by kissing her but she pulls back.

'What are you doing? It meant nothing to you, right?'

'Well, it fucking did. You're changing me, Austen. I even made a sexual joke today. I love you. I really fucking love you. And I want to wake up next to you every single fucking day. I want to grow old with you. Please. I want you to be mine.' I kiss her again. 'Will you be mine?'

She smirks a little. 'I'm all yours.' So I kiss her again, and this time, I stop when I'm out of breath.

'We really need to move if we want to get there in time.' Austen says, looking at my watch.

'Yes, we should.'