Chapter 7

I have never regretted not listening to Haley's boy talks as much as I do now. This guy standing maybe a few inches away from me is smiling while I probably look like I'm having a panic attack.

"So what are you here for?" he asks, not noticing my inner turmoil right now. I'm completely inexperienced in every way when it comes to things like this.

Looking around, I notice that many other girls are looking over this way, or more specifically at him. Luckily, none of the girls were giving me nasty looks since all their attention is focused solely on him.

One thing that stands out about the girls is how different they all look from me. They all have soft features, pale skin, amazing hair, and expensive looking clothes. Compared to them, I look like I'm homeless.

"What's your name?" he asks, taking my attention away from the other girls.

I clear my throat to make sure that it doesn't accidentally crack. That'd be embarrassing. "Um...Nebraska," I answer, patting myself on the back mentally when it comes out clear.

He nods. "Nice name, it's unique," he says, tilting his head a little. I give him a confused look. What, no comment about how my name is a state?

One of the girls comes over and taps his shoulder, stealing his attention away from me. She looks like a Greek goddess, how is this fair? Since he's no longer paying attention to me, I take that as my chance to leave without being noticed.

What was I thinking? He just works there, it's his job to be polite to me. It doesn't mean anything that he keeps looking at me. He probably just did that so that I'll get tempted to buy something.

Speaking of which, I didn't even get the chance to buy anything from there!

I shake my head to try and clear my mind. Maybe my lack of a relationship is starting to get to me. I'm to end up being a lonely cat lady.

When I get back to where Jason is, I see him still playing with Adam while Lucas is looking around. Jason looks up when he sees me and walks up to me. "Braska, can I sleep with Adam tonight?" he asks.

And leave me alone to face my stalker? Hell no.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I tell him.

"Why not?" Lucas asks, putting down his phone. "Adam sleeps in the same room as me and I don't mind another body there. Plus my parents absolutely adore Jason so they won't mind." Thanks Lucas.

"I just don't-"

"No school tomorrow!" Jason blurts out, pointing at me. He then sticks out his bottom lip and tilts his head to the side. Oh please not this. "Please," he begs, blinking up at me.

I take a deep breath and think about it. If I let Jason go, that means I'll be alone in the house which might be when the creep makes a move and kidnaps me or kills me in my sleep. But if I don't let Jason go, then he'll most likely be disappointed and not talk to me for an entire day.

After a few moments, I decide to take the risk. "Okay," I reluctantly agree. Maybe if I stay on the phone with Haley the whole night he'll leave me alone. It's worth a shot.

Jason wraps his arms tightly around my legs. "Thank you!" he shouts, getting some looks from people passing by. He gives me his bag of clothes while keeping his bag of toys before following after Lucas and Adam. Lucas is holding Adam's hand with his right hand while holding onto Jason's with his other hand.

I thought Lucas might have a hard time dealing with two kids, but so far he looks fine.

I look at the bags on the floor and sigh. Two giant bags and five smaller ones. With my lack of any upper body strength, there's no way I'm going to be able to carry all these by myself. I groan when I realize that I also have to walk home.

Before, I thought Jason would help me carry some of these bags but nope. I have to deal with all of them by myself. Great.

I easily pick up the two bags but struggle a little with the five smaller ones. Eventually I got three bags in one arm and four in the other. Walking towards the exit, I pass by a makeup store. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I decide that it wouldn't hurt to get some badly needed makeup.

Walking inside, I instantly feel overwhelmed with the amount that's inside. The counter holds foundations of many different shades. Why are there so many? Shouldn't there only be three shades, like pale, tan, and dark?

No, there's ivory, warm ivory, golden, chestnut, honey, natural, beige, warm, beige, and many more. What's the difference between all of them anyways?

I decide to skip foundation and walk over to the eye shadow counter. There's also a lot of different colors but at least I don't have to worry about it matching my skin tone. Looking at the price, I bite my lip while contemplating. Is this really worth it?

You know what, I'm not going to let anything stop me! Blowing out a breath, I start grabbing different kinds of makeup before walking over to the counter and placing all of them in front of the lady. She gives me a weird look and picks up the foundation I grabbed without really looking.

"Is this for you?" she asks, turning it over.

"Yeah, why?"

"This isn't your shade. Is this your first time shopping for makeup?" she asks. I nod and look down at the counter. Is it that noticeable?

"Don't worry, I can help," she says cheerily. She takes all the makeup I grabbed and dumps them in one of the black boxes behind the counter. "You can leave your bags here so they don't weigh you down," she adds, pointing to a corner.

After placing my bags down, I let her lead me back towards the foundation counter. "First things first, your skin tone is more...soft honey," she says, grabbing a certain shade and giving it to me.

Now that I really look at it, it does match my skin tone better than the one I grabbed earlier. She then leads me to the eye makeup area. "So we need primer, shadow, mascara, liner, and do you curl your lashes?" she asks.

You can curl lashes? That sounds painful. I shake my head and she shrugs, before handing me two bottles of primer, one for face and another for eyes. Can't I just use one for the other? "Here's a starter eye shadow palette. It has almost every color and it's not as expensive as other palettes. Here's a pack of your basic face and eye makeup brushes too. Nothing too complicated," she says, handing me the items as she says them out loud.

"Let me get you a contouring kit as well. It's really easy once you get the hang of it," she says, handing me another kit.

This was such a bad idea. I silently curse at myself as she places more and more items in my hand. "Now let's check them out," she says, leading me back to the counter. She scans everything before placing it all in one bag. "That'll be 198.24."

I just give her a blank stare. Does makeup really cost that much?!

Sighing, I hand her the money. I swear she just scammed me but I don't even have the energy to care right now. "Thank you! Come again!" she says, waving at me as she walks away. Yeah not happening, I'm never going through this again.

The bag is small enough to fit into one of the bigger bags so I just place is inside. I drag the bags all the way to the parking lot. Once I'm out of the mall, I place my bags down and lean against the side of the wall. I really wish I have a car. Now I have to carry all these bags about five miles to my house.

Isn't my life grand?

I'm just about to pick up the bags again when I hear the same, attractive voice from earlier. "Hello."

I jump and turn around, almost dropping the bags in the process. "Are you okay?" he asks, his lips curling up in amusement.

"I'm fine," I squeak out. Wow Nebraska, aren't you the most graceful thing.

"Do you need some help with those?" he asks, motioning towards the bags.

I bite my lip while looking at the bags. It would be nice to get some help with them since I have to walk a long distance without a ride, but I don't know this guy really well and for all I know he could be a killer.

Most killers on T.V lure their victims by their looks before cutting their throats off. I do not want that to be how I die.

"No, I'm good," I say, politely refusing his offer.

"Are you sure? Those bags look a little heavy for you. At least let me help you carry them to your car," he suggest.

Right, my car. Which I don't have.

"Don't worry about it, I'm good," I tell him. To prove my point, I pick up the bags and give him a victorious grin when I manage to hold them without looking like I'm struggling too much. I need to do more pushups. Seriously.

He gives me an amused look before giving me a light push. With the weight of the bags and my horrible balance, I lose my footing and feel myself start to slip.

I prepare for the impact with the hard cement...that never came. Something sturdy wraps around my waist, keeping me from hitting the ground. The smell of mint reaches my nose and immediately I know that it's the guy who has his arms wrapped around me.

He holds me so close to his body that I could feel what I'm sure are muscles that are underneath his shirt. He helps me to stand on my own two feet while I do my best to avoid eye contact with him. "Still so sure about not needing help?" he says, with a slight smirk.

He picks up every bag and holds them almost effortlessly in both hands. While it was a struggle for me to hold the bags, he looks like he's barely putting effort into carrying them.

"I don't need your help," I tell him, crossing my arms. I'm not naive, I know what happens when boys lead unsuspecting girls they don't know to their cars, especially if they know that the girl is alone.

"Look, if it makes you feel better, just tell me which car is yours so I can drop the bags off while you stay a few feet away and once the bags are by the car, then I'll leave," he suggests. Now that would be ideal, if I have a car.

But then again, that gives the guy a chance to look at the clothes that I bought. With all the weird things that's been happening to me lately, I'm not going to let any stranger look into my bag of clothes.

There's nothing personal in there since I didn't buy underwear or bras or anything, but it just feels wrong.

"Um, thanks but no thanks. I'm actually waiting for my friend to pick me up," I say, saying the first excuse that comes up to my mind.

He nods and slowly places the bags to the ground. "Well, okay I guess," he says, rubbing the back of his neck before walking away. Sighing, I reach into my pocket and dial a number that I memorized by heart.

"Haley? Can you come pick me up?"

***

"Sleep over?" Haley repeats, keeping her eyes on the road. When I called her earlier to pick me up, she arrived ten minutes later like a true friend and helps me put every bag in the backseat.

I think one of the biggest reasons is the smile she had when she saw all the makeup that I brought.

Also, since Jason decided to betray me by sleeping over at Lucas's house with Adam, I asked Haley to sleep over at my house for the night. The creep won't attack if she's with me, right? I hope so.

"Yeah. We haven't really hung out together outside of school for a while. Plus I just bought new clothes which means you can help me put together an outfit?" she suggests, trying to persuade her to spend the night.

I know that this is one of Haley's only free nights. I have to make sure that she stays over tonight otherwise I'll have no one else to stay with me. That might be the creep's chance to attack me.

"Since when did you care about how you looked like?" she asks, turning into my street.

"Um...well, because of Zoey," I say, trying to sound convincing.

Zoey Grayson is the captain of the girl's basketball team at our school. She's easily considered to be one of the prettiest girls in school. Lucas told me that his friends from the team are attracted to her tall, slender body along with her short brown hair and dark green eyes.

Normally I wouldn't care about her or her status, but she happens to target me as the butt of her jokes. Every now and then I take a different route to class just to avoid running into her.

Luckily, she's been injured from a game which is why I haven't run into her lately. However, she'll be back to school next week and she's probably going to be extra nasty to me, probably since she saw me smiling when she fell down on the court.

In my defense, she hates me and it wasn't like I laughed.

"Don't let her get to you. She's just- hey is that a car in your driveway?" she asks, slowing the car down.

I push my glasses up and lean forward to see better. An old, beat up blue truck is sitting on the driveway of my house. As we get closer, I could make out a bumper sticker.

"That's my mom's car!"

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Yeah I know there's mistakes in here. I think what I'll just do is write the entire story first then go back to edit later.