Our Way Home

Chapter 16

Bella's waiting for me by an ambulance. The second she sees me she jumps into my arms.

"I AM NEVER LETTING YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT AGAIN YOU HEAR?!"

"I can't breathe."

"Sorry!" I hug her just as tight.

"I contacted your parents. They should be here by-!"

"MILEY ANNE HAYES." I shriek. Both of my parents are standing behind us. I'm pretty sure I saw Jared's life flash before his eyes. "WHY HAVE WE NOT BEEN MENTIONED THIS ENTIRE TIME?!" My mom says in an angry tone.

"HUH?"

"Never mind the important thing is that my baby's okay." She hugs me.

"You worried the living daylights out of everyone!" Dad hits my back.
"OWW!"
"I'm sorry for getting kidnapped. I never wanted this to happen you know."

"If you guys are done I want some hugs too."

"ZOEY!!!" I escape from mom and dad to Zoey.

"GIRL IF YOU DISAPPEAR ON ME AGAIN I SWEAR ILL KILL YOU MYSELF!!"

"YOU LOVE ME TOO MUCH FOR THAT!"

"It's true I do. But seriously I don't where I would be without you in my life. So don't ever go into shady ally's like an idiot!"

"Yeah, but if she's an idiot I must be an idiot too." Jared comes from behind and puts his arms around me.
Once everything dies down Jared sees me off.
"Be more careful from now on alright?" He holds my hands. I nod. "I'll pick you up tomorrow."

"Kay." I give him one last hug.

"I wish I could stay with you a little longer. I'm afraid if I let go I'll wake up and it'll all be just a dream."

"Me too." He lightly kisses my forehead. I instantly get butterflies. "I love you, Miley."
I slightly tuck my lips.
"What?"

I quickly pull him in and lift my feet to reach his lips without thinking. He's a really good kisser by the way. The soft-touch of his lips on mine is electric. I pull away.

"I love you too." He kisses me one more time before I go. My face must be beet red by now.

"I don't know if you've noticed but we're all still here," Zoey says.

"Why do you have to ruin the moment?"

"It's a blessing and a curse."

****

The next morning when Jared picks me up I can tell that somethings off with him.

"Is everything okay? You're awfully quiet."

"I'm always quiet. Don't worry I'm fine." He's obviously a bad liar. I can feel his whole body shaking. Something is definitely wrong.

When we're at school I try to take his hand but he flinches and shakes it off.
"Hold on for a minute. I don't think we should make our relationship public just yet."

"What? Why not?"

"Cause people are jerks and they're gonna judge you no matter what. If we make it known I can't protect you from getting hurt." He scratches his head.

I get where he's coming from. I'm reminded of that incident in the bathroom.
"Jared you know that's inevitable, right? You should face the hard truth that you can't protect me all the time. I know I'm gonna get hurt more times than I can count but that's what I signed up for when I said 'I love you' you understand right?"

He grabs my hand. "I get it. As long as we're together I know we can make it through any storm."

He kisses my hand and walks me in.
"Who knew you were such a hopeless romantic underneath all that?"

"Shut up."

****

Obviously, we both knew that people would stare and spread rumors but we didn't mind it at all. No matter what anyone says it doesn't even matter in the end right?

As I'm going down some stairs a small push sends me to the bottom. "That's what happens when you mess around with someone like Jared." It was a familiar voice of a girl who was close to Jared.

When I try to get up blood is dripping from my forehead. "Did I really hit the ground that hard?" It stings when I touch my head. I suddenly start getting dizzy and eventually fade out.

When I woke up I was in the nurses' office all bandaged up. The first few minutes after waking up I forgot what happened and where I was. It all came back to me sooner or later.

Jared storms in panting. "Hey, are you alright?! I found you by the stairs completely passed out and bleeding. What happened?" He sits down on the bed.

I don't want to cause trouble for him with something like this. "My head was somewhere else and I tripped. I'm so clumsy sometimes honestly."

"Why are you lying to me?" I stiffen up.

"If you don't want to tell me what really happened that's okay. But just so you know you've never once been a burden to me, Miley. I wanna see all of your weaknesses just as much as your strengths. So you don't have to hide things from me okay?"

I don't know how but he sees right through me like glass. They do say "great minds think alike."

"It's the same for me. Even though I'm pathetic you make me want to be stronger. I don't think I could imagine my life without you, Jared." My voice breaks and I lean towards him to pull him in.
When we're apart he lightly kisses my forehead.

I take the rest of the day off and Jared takes me home. He's still a bit tense about something.

"Are you okay? Is anything bothering you?" I ask.

"Huh? Oh. No..no it's nothing I'm fine." He's lying.

I look down at his hand to hold it but I notice some red inflamed dots on his wrist.
"What is that?" He looks down and immediately turns away from me.

"It's nothing don't worry about it."

"Jared let me see your hand."

"What? No!"

"LET ME SEE IT!" I take his hand and pull up his sleeve to observe it. "Oh my gosh. Jared what are these?! Are these burn marks?!" He aggressively pulls away.

"DONT TOUCH ME!" He slaps the back of my hand. Now that I'm looking at him clearly he has some bruises on his neck too.

He's never yelled at me like this before. My family hears the commotion and step outside.
After realizing what he did he slowly walks toward me. "Miley I'm so sorry. But I can't talk about this right now." Tears form in my eyes.

"He did that to you didn't he?"

He looks behind me and immediately starts to run.
I turn around and go pale.

"ANNALISE!!!" He yells.
The rubber of the car scraped against the cement.
Followed by glass shattering.
"JARED!"