Once I was out of the shower, I cleaned the scrapes on my knees with some disinfectant and swapped my pajama shorts for long pants to hide them from Anne. I couldn't smother the fear I felt. Had Jared seen me or not? Surely if he'd seen me he would have confronted me already.

Anne arrived home just after I'd finished getting dressed. I put a smile on my face and tried to act as normal as possible, but it was hard when I jumped at every sudden sound.

It was Friday, so we ordered pizza. She telephoned our order to the local pizza restaurant. Thirty minutes later we were curled up on the couch in front of the TV watching a really bad reality show while munching on slices of pizza. With the chaotic events of the day, I didn't have much of an appetite. The knots inside of my stomach made it impossible to eat. Anne raised a concerned eyebrow.

"I'm not that hungry," I muttered, looking away from her worried gaze.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked with a frown.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I promise." Then I remembered the party the girls wanted me to go to the following evening.

"Is it okay if I go to a party tomorrow night? Some guy at school is having a party at his house. I'll be going with Stacy and Kennedy. Stacy mentioned something about sleeping over, but I'm not sure if I will," I said, playing with the thread coming undone at the bottom of my top.

I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to go out, but I couldn't just stay in my house indefinitely. Had he seen me? Surely if he had I wouldn't have gotten away. It made no sense that he had seen me and had done nothing. The thought calmed me down.

"Sure," she agreed. "Just let me know what you're going to do. I can pick you up if you need me to," she said, taking another bite of her pizza.

"I will."

My parents never would have let me go to a party without knowing the parents beforehand and giving me a strict curfew to adhere to. This new freedom would take some getting used to.

Unable to keep up the pretense that I was fine, I said good night and headed upstairs to my room. As I entered my room, my eyes were glued to my window. The dark night sent a shiver down my spine. I didn't want to put my bedroom light on. In the darkness of my room, I crept toward my windows. I gently closed my window and closed my curtains. I was petrified.

Too anxious to go to sleep, I climbed into my bed and sat with my back against my headboard and my comforter tucked around my body, keeping my eyes fixed on the curtains hiding my bedroom window. I could hear every little sound, the insects outside in the garden, and the gentle rustle of the leaves from the branches of the trees in the evening breeze. My curtains didn't move, and my window remained closed under my watchful gaze.

Finally, at around four in the morning, utter exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep.

******

I woke up with a start. I was lying in my bed, tangled in my sheets. Sunshine streamed through a gap in my curtains. The clock next to my bed told me it was close to noon. I'd slept practically half the day away.

Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes as I yawned. When I tried to get out of my bed, I felt the sting on both of my knees. I raised my pants to just above my knees and dreaded what I knew I was going to see. I had scrapes on both of my legs, proving that Jared and what had happened in the clearing had been real.

How was I going to get through today? Today was the party, and I knew Stacy and Kennedy wouldn't let me live it down if I cancelled, so I had to go. The only comforting thought was that I would probably be safer in a room full of people than alone in my bedroom.

The house was quiet when I went downstairs to the kitchen. I found a note on the door of the fridge from Anne telling me she'd gone out to do some shopping. I was alone. It was a good thing I had some time to pull myself together. I was convinced Jared hadn't seen me. And if he hadn't seen me, it meant he didn't know what I had seen and didn't know that I knew he was...different.

There was no way I was going to tell anybody what I'd seen. For a start, I doubted that anybody would actually believe me. So my only course of action was to act like nothing was wrong. I would continue as I had before and would try and act as normal as possible if I did happen to bump into Jared. Deep down, though, I knew it was easier said than done.

After a bowl of my favorite cereal, I went upstairs and got dressed in some jeans and a shirt. Stacy was going to pick Kennedy and me up in a couple of hours before the party so that we could get ready together. My current predicament was what I was going to wear to the party. It was nice to be able to focus my mind on something as trivial as trying to pick out an outfit—it distracted me from other, more worrisome thoughts.

I fished out a pair of black skinny jeans, but after looking through some of my tops, I still couldn't decide. Then I spotted a beautiful blue baby-doll top my mom had bought for me a couple of months ago. I hadn't worn it yet. Happy with the outfit I had chosen, the only thing I needed to settle on was which pair of shoes I was going to wear. Like with my clothes, I didn't have a lot of options. I found a pair of black ballet pumps that would work.

I packed the outfit I had chosen into my duffel bag and then rummaged through the drawer of my dressing table for lip-gloss, which was the sum total of my makeup. I decided to pack my toiletries and pajamas and a change of outfit for tomorrow in case I changed my mind and decided to sleep over at Stacy's house.