I shift under Clay's weight, trying to make myself more comfortable as I keep my hand connected to his warm, muscled chest.

It's late into the night now, and I lay curled up into his chest with my hands around his neck.

Sleepiness weights down my eyelids and threaten to pull me into a deep slumber as Clay wraps his hands tighter around my exposed back.

The house is silent with only the sound of an odd vibrating noise coming from under the blankets. I start to think that was slightly out of place, and reach down towards the source of the odd noise.

My hand grazes something that seems to be vibrating and I pull my fingers back, cocking my head to the side in puzzlement.

We separate as I turn my body fully towards the item, and my eyes widen with shock at the sight of my phone, lighting up with notifications. They pour in, with almost thirty on the screen now.

Clay jumps slightly in surprise as I gasp and throw myself at it, knocking into his shoulder.

"Mierda, mierda, mierda. Hijo de puta. " I swear violently in Spanish under my breath, realizing suddenly what the notifications are.

My mother had been trying to reach me for at least two hours, yet I had been too preoccupied with Clay under the sheets to notice.

As I open her messages, I flinch at the extensive profanity in them, and the twenty four missed calls from both my mother and father. Each text grows increasingly more aggressive as time went on, as I got later and later than what I had promised.

I'm completely naked, but I can't bring myself to care anymore as I throw the sheets off of me and run across the room.

Clay sits up, watching me with wide blue eyes that follow my rapid, jerking movements. They're filled with less of the usual wonder and dreaminess that welcome me, and instead are glazed over with a gaze of sleepiness and concern.

Sweatpants and an oversized hoodie are tossed to me by Clay as I curse wildly, throwing the warm clothes on without a pause in my pacing. A twinge of pain in my back from hunching over my phone causes my swearing to increase, the throbbing ache of my spine consuming me.

"Fuck!" The first English word I spoke the entire morning, jolting Clay out of his confused daze. His eyes adjust and his hand flies to his face as I slam the light switch on, and the room floods with a blinding brightness that makes my head pound.

"Ellie?" His morning voice soothes the anxiety deep in my chest. It was one of the best quirks that I had noticed from him, and the very first thing that had made me fall for him, hard.

When he had found me at three in the morning, laying naked in Bryce's backyard, his croaky, deep voice settled somewhere in my heart and took root.

It took a permanent spot in my heart, even when the warmth in my heart had ruined the sisterhood that I shared with Hannah.

"What's wrong?" He asked, the deep sound of his morning voice cracking slightly in a way that makes me feel like I'm melting into the floor.

"I'm fucked." I look up at him nervously, my eyes stating glued to my phone.

He smiles, not understanding. "Yeah, I know right, last night was just-"

"No, Clay." I stop him before he begins. "I mean, that too, but I'm saying that I'm in deep shit with my Mom right now. Dude, I was supposed to be home by nine, and it's one o'clock in the fucking morning!"

Clay takes a second to register the news before flying up from the bed, throwing his arms around aimlessly as he searched for his own clothes.

"I'll drive you home." He tries to get both legs into his pants at the same time while simultaneously pulling his phone out to check the time. His abundant clumsiness wins over his attempt to multitask, inevitably failing as he slams into his dresser with a loud bang.

I gasp, running to his side as he mirrors my earlier curses, holding the side of his injured head with one leg staying awkwardly in his pant leg.

"Are you okay?" I ask quietly, gritting my teeth as my body tenses, anticipating an uproar of concern from his parents room. They stay silent, oblivious.

"I'm fine." Clay breathes softly, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. "I have to get you home."

I wrap my sleeved arms under his shoulders to lift him off the cold, wood floor. My mouth parts in agony from the searing pain in my back. The pain sharpens dramatically as I try to pull Clay off the bedroom floor and back onto his clumsy feet, and I have to suppress a cry of anguish. Tears spring to my eyes but I blink them away, hoisting him up and turning away from him to wipe them off my face.

"How long ago were you supposed to be home?" He asks me, his eyes latching onto mine and scanning them for any sign of panic before I avert them.

"Well, I promised to be home by nine o'clock, and that's at the latest." I glance quickly at the Star Wars clock hanging over his window. "That would've been when you brought me upstairs. I'm two hours late."

"Wow, that's late." He huffs worriedly.

Clay places his hands on his hips and exhales through his teeth, mirroring the knotted expression of a concerned mother. Despite my mounting anxiety and urgency of the situation, I smile at the similarity as I tie my shoelaces hurriedly.

"I know." I roll my eyes, adjusting the drawstrings of his hoodie nervously around my neck. "What excuse do I give her?"

"Just be honest. Tell her that you were here, with me." Clay states boldly and darts his gaze up to meet mine, watching me closely to see my reaction.

My emotions have a faint whisper of sadness for him, I feel bad for ignoring his advice, but he does not understand why there's no way I can tell my mother that. His parents have always been very open and honest with him. He will never understand the anger that I would receive in return for breaking a promise, just for a few more hours with a boy.

My mother knew the power of young love and what it could do to someone, and she never wanted me to go through that. Of course, I would not tell my mother what we had spent those hours doing, but she would know. And she would judge me for it.

"Okay. I'll say I was here." I don't mean to lie, but it shoots up to my lips and is out of my mouth before I can even think to stop it.

"Can you please take me home now? I'll get my ass whooped if I stay longer." Clay's eyes widen and his eyebrows rise, shocked at my words.

"No, no, no. She doesn't actually hit me like that, love, I'm only joking." I bat his arm playfully to ease the tension and soothe his nerves.

I adjust the necklace around my neck, clutching my sweater and jeans in my arms as I head out the door.

Clay darts ahead of me once we reach my car, and he pulls the door open for me, smiling reassuringly at me. His blue eyes sparkle and a real smile rises to my lips, I have somehow forgotten the urgency of our situation as I stare into his diamond gaze.

I shake my head and look away from him as my phone pings again, the brightness of my screen blinding me in the contrast of the dark night around me.

Faster than a strike of lightning, my heart drops into my stomach as I scan the text message in front of me.

A heavy weight pulls at my chest, making it hard to breathe as I clutch Clay's arm suddenly for support, shaking my head slightly as I read the text over and over again, only for it to feel even less real the more I read it.

I scrunch my eyes closed and reopen them to scan the message again, my shaking hand moving the phone over to Clay's fearful eyes for him to read it.

He refuses to take his eyes off the road to read the message, but hears my unsteady breathing and pulls over to the side of the road in front of my house.

Red and blue lights are flooding my driveway, beaming into my bedroom window with vibrant colors and blinding me as I sit in my car with Clay at the wheel, frozen still as he reads the text.

I'm at a loss for words, my lips are parted, trying to speak, but the only sounds coming from them are faint choking noises as I lose the strength to close my mouth.

My family car is absent from the driveway, and the door is flung aside with the strong wind howling into my now open house. Police officers surround the fence around my home, and bound up to me once I mistakenly make eye contact with them.

Behind the officers, looking nervously down at the ground, is the very boy that I would expect to see here the least. I feel Clay's arm tense slightly under my hand as the face of Max Dwyer rises to meet my eyes, his blonde hair swept to the side from the wind and his shining eyes full of tears.

Max latches eye contact with me, the three of us frozen and unsure of what to do, and he trots quickly up to my window after a full minute of silence.

Reaching me, he looks right past Clay and stares deep into my eyes, his fingers tapping unevenly on the car door in his anxiety.

"Isabelle. I have to tell you something." Max's voice has lost all of its natural smoothness, replaced by a squeaky and choked version that only thickens the fear in my heart.

"What is it?" Clay shifts in his seat to force Max's eyes to meet with his, but the blonde boy just looks right over his shoulder as he holds his bright green eyes in my boring brown gaze.

"I- I found him." He says quietly to me, the red and blue lights flickering over his freckled skin.

"Found who?" Clay asks with a deep voice, moving his arm down to interlace his fingers with mine as I shake even harder, knowing what was coming next.

"Your Dad. He was just there, on the floor," a single tear drops from Max's glittering eyes, "so I called the police. Your Mom is with him, in the hospital. I can take you there if you-"

"I got her. Go home." Clay cuts him off, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and disconnecting from my fingers with the other to start up the car.

"I'll go." Max nods, rubbing the back of his neck and never moving his eyes from mine. "Isabelle, I'm just- I'm so sorry." He whispers, his words only for me.

"It's okay." I choke out so quietly that I can barely even hear myself.

Clay throws the car into drive, steering out into the road and driving dangerously fast towards the hospital. The car is silent, so quiet that my pounding heart is the only noise I can hear for miles. We get farther and farther away from my house, but the red and blue lights still flicker in the window.

Flickering, flickering, and gone.