My Personal Stalker

Chapter 43: Brutal Honesty

Disclaimer: Please read the Author's Note at the end of this chapter...

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"Noah, where are we going? We've been walking for ages." I follow him down an unpaved road. For the past few minutes, he hasn't said a single word except for 'Follow me'.

"You'll see." His voice is low and dry, almost unrecognizable.

My whole body is aching from staying up all night, not to mention the worries in my head. I attempt to catch up with Noah but he's walking too fast. "I don't think you should walk that much. Your nose is still healing."

He is still ignoring me. It's like talking to a completely different person and as much as I hate to admit it, his behavior is slowly intimidating me.

I decide to just go with it, not asking any more questions. He'll tell me what's going on when we're there... hopefully.

All of a sudden Noah stops in his tracks. It happens so abruptly that I almost crash into him. "That's where you wanted to go?" I look around to find myself in between ruined buildings. "We had to come here just to talk in private?" I consider turning back around and leaving when Noah's words stop me.

"You don't recognize it, do you?" His face is tense but unreadable.

"Why would I recognize this place? It's an empty yard way out of town. Why would a single soul come to...?" That's when the memories hit me. I remember the police reports, all of the headlines I didn't mean to read 'Innocent child shot by an addict', 'Young boy dies just out of town', 'He didn't make it to the hospital in time', 'America griefs with the Andersons'...

I hold back the tears as everything comes flooding back. There's a reason, I have never come here. Some part of me knew it would be too much to handle. Out of nowhere, Noah takes my hands. I didn't even notice him coming closer. "I'm so sorry." He whispers into the silence.

My jaw is trembling. "Why? What are we doing here?" Finally, I dare to look him in the eye and regret it right away.

"This was a bad idea. Chloe, if this is too much to handle, we can go somewhere else and..."

"Noah!" I shout. He can't leave me here imagining the worst.

Noah takes a deep breath, keeping his eyes on our hands. "It all started when I was a kid and my parents died in a car crash. I didn't have any other relatives or friends that could take care of me. So I had to make it on my own. My service worker found a place for me to live but the condition's were horrible. Not knowing what else to do, I spent most of my childhood on the street and earned my money illegally. There were some boys who offered me to work as a drug courier. Honestly, at the time I was thankful for the opportunity..."

Flashback // Noah's POV:

"Noah, come on. You know what happens if we're late." Elijah rushes me past a busy playground.

"We'll be on time. It's not that far." I return while noticing a small boy approaching us.

Quickly, he catches up with us and starts examining me. "I've seen you before. Aren't you friends with my sister?" His eyes are wide.

"You're Finn, right?" He nods proudly. "I wouldn't say we're friends but I know your sister from school." Despite Elijah's impatient looks, I stop in my tracks and kneel down. "Look, Finn, we're kind of in a hurry. Why don't you go back to the playground and wait for your family to pick you up?"

He stares at me with his big brown eyes. "But I want to come with you."

I run out of things to say to him when Elijah steps in and hands him a ten dollar bill. "If you promise us to go back to your family and not tell anyone you saw us here, you can have these ten dollars." Elijah offers.

Finally, Finn agrees and takes the money. He smiles looking at the money in his hand. "Now I can buy as much ice cream as I want."

I get up to leave. "Alright, I'll see you around." After making sure Finn can't hear us anymore, I turn back to Elijah. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."

He just shakes his head laughingly. "Isn't Finn's sister Chloe Anderson? The girl you like?"

"Shut up!" I murmur while moving on to the meeting point. We reach a deserted area, perfect for this kind of business.

Suddenly, there's a sound of wood cracking under someone's foot. Elijah and I exchange an unsure look. "Do you think someone's following us?"

We just start looking around when our client appears in the alley. It's a shabby man, probably in his thirties. He is slowly limping towards us. "Bastards," he spits out, "Do you have what I need?"

I try to look as relaxed as possible, fighting against the urge to run away from him. "Do you have the money?"

At first, the man smiles feignedly but then his face turns more serious. It looks like he's scanning the bushes behind us. "Who did you bring? Did you rat me out to the police?"

"What? No! Of course not..." Elijah stammers. Without a warning the man shoves us to the side, his hand in his pocket.

"Liars!" Completely out of his mind he runs towards the bushes, pulls a gun and shoots an invisible target. A second later, I hear a thud behind one of the bushes. "This is your fault!" The man shouts before limping away.

I look at Elijah who has his eyes fixated on the bushes. "Do you think...?" I whisper, not daring to finish the question.

"I don't know." Elijah takes a step back, then another. "We should leave. Maybe it was just an animal."

I can't believe what he's saying. "Are you crazy? What if it wasn't? We are witnesses."

But Elijah doesn't listen. He shakes his head nervously and runs away. For a split second, I consider following him even though I wouldn't be able to live with myself anymore.

I stand there frozen in place until the realization hits me of what just happened. Without losing another minute, I rush towards the bushes where the sound came from. I fight myself through them as quickly as possible, only to discover my biggest nightmare.

"Finn?" I whisper. To my relief one of his eyelids moves. "It's gonna be fine, okay? Just let me... let me call an ambulance." I choke on my own words.

Present // Noah's POV:

"... the ambulance came shortly afterward and I was taken to the police station to testify." I swallow hard finishing the story. Then we fall into silence, long, dreadful silence. Chloe's eyes are staring dead ahead. She doesn't even move a single muscle. "Can you please say something?" Still, she doesn't react. "I know I should have told you earlier and I'm deeply sorry... for everything. It's just that I didn't know how to tell you. I know how close the two of you were and I guess I just couldn't stand the idea of being the cause of your misery..."

"Shut up!" She bursts out before falling into silence again. It's pure torture seeing her like this. When I thought about telling her I expected her to scream or cry. Everything would be better than this.

Finally, she looks me in the eye. "Did anyone else know? Joe, Aileen, Colin?" Her face is completely tense.

"No, I didn't tell anyone although I'm not sure if Colin knows..." I attempt to step closer to her but she moves away.

"Okay" she simply returns, keeping a straight face.

I barely dare asking. "What do you mean by okay?"

"I understand... Noah, I can't tell you anything else right now. What do expect me to do? Just smile and be okay with it... Finn was my world... and I'm not saying it's your fault but I just don't know how to react properly, okay? Just give me some time to think!"

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Author's Note:
Hey loves,
I'm equally excited and sad to announce that the next chapter will be the last one. Anyway, that doesn't have to mean that the story will end there. I'm thinking about writing a sequel with all the ideas I have left...

Furthermore, I will start posting a new romance story soon, so stay tuned.

Thank you for all of your love and support so far 🥰♥️