You know how they say there is a calm before the storm? Well what they really mean is that before everything gets fucked up there is a point in your life that is so so good that you dont want to move on from it. You wanted to stay there forever, you wanted to be that happy forever.

But lets face it, in reality the chance of that calm lasting is ridiculous. Something would happen and everything would get messed up. I expected that to happen, but I didnt expect it to happen so soon.

We were a mess.

You couldn't blame us really. The entire time it took us to get to the room we stood as far away as possible because honestly if he had then we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off each other.

Great, I sounded like an animal.

The minute I opened the door and went went inside Jake caught my hand and pulled me towards him.

He then grabbed put his hands on either side of my face and started kissing me.

I respond back in kind and roam my hands through out his hair and tug on it as he pushes me against the wall his hands rub a small circle at the small of my back as lifts me up on his waist again.

The kiss is hot, urgent and wild. He smells like honeysuckle and even though the heater hadn't kicked in yet I was already sweating.

My hand slips under his shirt and for a millisecond I start doubting myself.I mean literally had zilch experience in this, like nada nothing but still I was on auto pilot. Even though my brain was panicking everything else knew exactly what to do.

His hands reach the top of my dress and he breaks away his face red and his hair wilder than usual.

Almost instantly I find myself wishing that he didn't stop.

"Are you sure?" He asks once again and I don't bother to answer I instead I take his hand and place it on the zip of my dress and then grab his stupid bow tie off and fling it across the room.

He smiles against my lips,"I'll take that as a yes."

He starts to unzip my dress and pretty soon I'm left only in a thin camisole.

"You have no idea how many times this scenario has gone through my head." He says breathing heavily,"There I somehow always have the will power to leave. This time though..."

"Don't." I say breathing heavily and suddenly I'm hit with the cheesiness of this scene but I don't care ,"I don't want you to go and I don't want you to walk away."

"I'm trying to be the good guy here, Clara." He says smiling slightly twirling his fingers through my blonde hair which was no longer in it's neat bun.

"What's the point?" I say gently brushing my thumb against his bruised cheek,"Good girls fall for the bad boy, now don't they."

"That's the problem." He says whispering in my ear,"You were never a good girl to begin with, now were you?"

I laugh and my high pitched giggle fills up the whole room echoing in my own ears. It's like every single nerve in my body was on high alert. Everything was sharper, heightened more relevant.

I'm aware of everything about him from his hands around me, his swollen lips and his bright, bright green eyes.

If I wanted my life frozen at any moment of time I would pick this one.

"Oh we are bad girls who just haven't been caught yet." I say teasingly and his green eyes sparkle.

"Clara Wilson, aren't you something else?" He says before kissing me once again and heading towards the bed,"Screw being good."

I had done that long back. I just didn't figure out yet that I was going to regret it.

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I woke up with a phone call. I rub my eyes sleepily.

I glance at the alarm clock which shows that it's five in the morning. I'm in half a mind of ignoring it but I make a grab for the nightstand and reach out but the phone stops ringing.

Thank god.

I was literally in no state to talk and neither did I want to talk.

I pushed myself off the bed slowly carefully not to wake Jake up who was sleeping beside me peacefully.

Jake looked different in his sleep. Not calmer or more peaceful, just different. But it's a difference I would love to wake up to every morning.

I carefully tip toe towards the bathroom careful not to step on the strewn clothes all over the floor.

I slipped into the bathroom trying to gather my thoughts. I looked wild.

My hair was was all over the place and my lips were swollen. My make up was smudged and instead of it looking like I had one of the best nights in my life it looked like someone had attacked me.

The phone rings again and I make a grab for it hoping that Jake does not wake up in the process. He looks like he's sleeping soundly after a long time and I don't want him disturbed.

"Hello." I answer his phone my voice hushed.

"Clara?" A panicked voice says,"Why do you have Jake's phone?"

I easily place the high toned voice,"Because he's with me Spencer."

I hear a pause,"Is he safe?"

She asks it's slowly carefully as if daring not to hope which makes my hands go cold.

"What do you mean, is he safe?" My voice is urgent now as I step into the bathroom and close the door.

"Answer the question." She says curtly.

"Yes." I say knowing that I had no option,"But I thought you said the day before-"

"I struck a deal with my brother." She responds,"If you see the news it's all over it."

I forget to breathe because I have a sneaking suspicion that when I open the news I know exactly what will be the headlines.

"What deal did you strike?" My voice is a growl and even I'm taken aback by the amount of poison in it.

"That's my buisness-"

"Oh you bloody well know it's not Spencer, now spill." I demand.

"My brother wouldn't have let this go so easily it's personal Clara, it's about our mother. So I had to give him his best chance otherwise he would have gunned after Jake, Clara." She says almost begging me to understand.

"What did you do?" I ask again hoping that she proves my paranoid thoughtswrong.

"Conrad Henderson had a mole." She says slowly,"I ratted him out."

And that's when I know exactly what's happened.

"Eric got the mole to tell him where Conrad Henderson was going to be and Jake was supposed-" she breaks off and there is silence.

"Is he dead?" My voice is barely a whisper.

"Yes." She replies after sometime.

I slide down to the bathroom floor slowly trying to process what's happened.

Conrad Henderson is dead.

Jake's father is dead.

Shit, shit, shit.

"Jake was supposed to be with him in the car and I thought that he-" she broke off.

"He wasn't." I say coldly.

"You need to stop Jake." She says very tone frantic,"The first thing he's going to do is rush over to Eric."

"And you expect me to stop him?" I hiss,"I don't think anyone can."

"Choose like I did then." She says her voice losing all it's urgency and becoming cold,"You said you would do anything to keep him safe, so lie."

"How do you expect me to lie to him about his father." I say,"He's dead Spencer!"

"There were going to be consequences." She says slowly,"And when you got into this you knew-"

"Save it." I snap.

I cut the phone on her before she can say more because right now I don't want to think. No, I just want to rewind life back to New Years midnight and let it be frozen there. But then when had anything gone right for me?

I clench my fists trying to debate on how to tell Jake. I have no idea how I feel about Conrad Henderson's death because honestly I have no time to think about it.

You can do this Clara. You signed up for this and you are going to stick with it. For once in your life you are not going to run away.

But how can I tell Jake the truth?

About Alec, about his father and worst of all me? How could I tell him that I knew about all this in a way and did nothing to stop it?

He would hate me for that. He would definitely not understand why I kept it from him. Why it was necessary not to tell him.

I know I was being selfish but the very thought of him hating me made me terrified.

Losing him when I just got him, could there really be anything crueler than that?

This is not fair.

This so NOT fair.

It takes me a minute or more to calm down but my hands are still shaking. I slowly open the bathroom door hoping that if I go back to sleep this nightmare would be over.

"Clara?"

Oh no.

"What are you doing up?" Jake's voice is lazy and happy.

"L-Long story." I stammer.

He smiles and moves his hand through his already messy black hair. When he moves I can see a tattoo of a dragon curling around his shoulder.

I had never noticed it before but it wasn't as if I had seen him shirtless millions of times but just after one night I had memorized everything about him, his laugh, his greener than sea eyes and that tattoo that curled around his shoulder.

"I never knew you had a tattoo." I say lying on his chest in a breathless, flushed tone.

"You don't know a lot of things about me Clara Wilson." He says twirling my hair on his finger and looking at them wistfully,"But you're the one who has come closest. Stick around and I'll make sure that you know everything."

"Oh I intend to." I say and then after sometime add,"I finally get it."

"Get what?" He says looking at me curiously.

"Why this sex thing is put up in such a high pedestal."I say after sometime.

"Sex with me is put on a high pedestal." He says grinning and I roll my eyes.

"Puhleez if anything it's your arrogance." I say playfully.

"And I have every right to be." He says.

"Well I'm not convinced." I say.

He raises his eyebrows and smirks,"What you want me to prove it to you again?"

"Clara"

His voice jerks me back to reality and I find myself standing in front of him. He has his hands on my waist and he is looking down at me worriedly.

"What happened? You don't look so well." He asks and my heat wrenches into a tight knot.

I can't tell him, I can't do this.

"Jake-" I stop myself and clench my fists. I have to brave for this.

"Jake it's your dad." I finally manage to choke out.

The effect is almost instantaneous. His face hardens and his eyes turn as shade of dark green. All the muscles in his body is tensed as if he is getting ready for a fight.

"What about him?" He asks me his tone cold.

Don't back out now.

"He's dead."

My voice is barely a whisper but I'm sure Jake has heard it. I want to go hug him or do something but I'm frozen in my spot.

Yeah kudos to you Clara.

"What?" He looks confused now as if he thinks that he heard wrong,"What do you mean, he's-"

Just then the phone in my hand starts ringing loudly and I can see his mothers name flashing on the screen. I wordlessly hand over the phone to him and he puts it on his ear.

"Mum, slow down." His voice is forced and sharp as he holds the phone so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

He remains quiet for the the rest of the phone call, silence filling in the room like a poisonous gas.

I don't know how long I stand there looking at Jake's back. It may have been two minutes, two hours or even two decades.

At first nothing happens. He lowers the phone slowly, his fingers clenched tightly around it. He stays like that for a moment before taking the phone and hurling it with all his might right at the wall shattering it to pieces.

And that jolts me from my near frozen state.

"Jake...." I start to say but I trail off trying looking at his rigid body language.

I stand still for a minute and force myself to calm down and stop my voice from shaking.

"Jake we should go to the hospital." I say trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible,"I'll just find out which-"

"No."

And that halts me. His tone is low and had it not been so uncharacteristically silent I would have probably missed it. But even though it's one word it carries so much of anger and so much hate that for the first time in my life I'm truly, genuinely scared of him.

I'm not backing out now.

"Jake, you need to go and see your fat-"

"Absolutely not." He says in that same steely firm voice.

For a minute I'm stunned at how calm he's being. Except for the throwing of the phone he hasn't done anything yet.

He slowly bends down lifting his shirt off the ground and putting it on.

"Jake, what are you doing?" I ask.

"Going to get a drink." He says calmly,"Perhaps celebrate."

His tone is flat and for some reason I can't make out if he is actually serious or not.

"Jake, your dad-" I start to say but he stands up fully dressed now.

"-Is dead." He interrupts in that same tone,"Good, great."

Despite myself I gasp,"Jake come on , you don't mean that."

"I do." He says,"I really, really do. In fact I should go pay my respects shouldn't i? Tell him what an excellent father he's been, just how supportive he's been- oh wait." He starts laughing,"That's hilarious because he wasn't."

"But before anything else I should go congratulate Eric." He says heading towards the door.

"Jake you need to think this through." I say trying to keep the panic out of my voice,"How can you be so sure that Eric was behind this?"

He laughs but it is absolutely void of any humour,"You are naive to think otherwise."

"Jake."I say,"Right now you're family needs you. You're mother needs you."

His fist clenches,"My mother needs me, what a massive colossal joke. My mother is just as bad as my father if not worse. She was a coward and she left me with him. She ran away the first chance she got and she didn't even fight for me. For her Im still just my fathers son."

"You know that's not true." I say in almost a pleading voice,"She loves you and you love her-"

"I tried ." He says bitterly,"But all she needs is her image."

It takes me some time to process this. He looked perfect withy his mother earlier, happy and proud while leading her down the aisle. So why was he being so bitter?

"Jake I know what you're going through. Just please-"

"How do you know?" He asks his eyes flashing darkly,"Miss goody two shoes with the high morales-"

"That's not fair." I say,"You don't get to call me that. You of all people know that my life hasn't been-"

"What just because Alec didn't love you back, how pathetic." Jake sneers and for a minute I'm stunned. I always Jake had a nasty side and although I had seen it, he'd never used it against me.

"Jake come on you can't do this, you can't crawl into a hole like this. Stop lashing out."I plead with him,"Just let me help you, just let me-"

"Help me?" He says clutching his fists so tightly,"What makes you think that I want you to help me?"

His tone is enough to make me take a step back and doubt myself, doubt him.

"Because I'm going to stand by you." I say firmly,"And I know you're lashing out, I know you're confused-"

"What I need you to know is that you need to leave me alone." He says.

"Jake look at me, you don't mean that." I say trying to sound convincing,"You need to go see your mother, you need to clear your head. I promise we will get through this, together."

"Together." He laughs,"Did you actually think for even one moment that we could be together? That you and I would last for more than a second?"

I look at him trying to form something, anything but my mind is frozen on what he's said.

"You like fixing things Clara." He says his voice flat,"But sometimes you need to understand that things are broken beyond repair, so much so that they do not want to be fixed. So for the love of God just give up already"

"But you said.." My voice broke pathetically as I stared at him almost horrified.

"That guy you're with is not me." He says with no emotion,"The guy you're with-"

"Don't for a second say that he's not real, because Jake Henderson that guy I'm with is the one is the most real part of this entire charade you put up-"

"And how well do you know me?" He asks.

"Better than anyone else." I say looking at him with all the confidence muster,"I know you well enough to know that you're trying to mask what you're feeling right now and you're lashing out. I know that you're trying hard to not feel that you're putting up walls."

"You don't know me at all." He says blankly,"Just because we spent some time together, just because I slept with you, do you magically believe that you can fix me? That you can take out a magic wand and everything will be alright?"

"So what are you trying to say?" I ask softly.

"To back off. To understand that there is nothing you can do-"

"I'm not trying to do anything-"

"Oh yeah?" He says his eyes dark and angry,"Everything I do you compare it to Alec don't you? You think I'm a nice person, you think that I can be redeemed, I can't , I can't, I can't.And do you know why?I'm terrible. I play with people's feelings, I sleep with girls without caring and I'm the reason my fathers dead."

He then grows quieter,"But I don't feel guilty at all."

"Run away before you cut yourself on the broken edges." He says,"I'm not a project you're gonna be able to fix Clara."

"I don't believe that." I say firmly,"Everyone can be fixed and I don't care if you're broken or whatever you think you are-"

"I don't want to be fixed." He snarls,"Have you ever thought about that in that pretty blonde head of yours? That maybe I'm better the way I am."

"I don't want to run away and I know you're hurt, just let me in." I plead

"And why should I let you in? What makes you think that your different from any of the other girls I slept with? Spencer or even your sister?" He asks his voice is steely and low,"If you truly think that I'm the charming sweet funny guy next door then you're wrong. You chose wrong."

"I didn't choose wrong." I say quietly.

"Who are you trying to convince,"Me or yourself?"

"I didn't choose wrong." I yell,"I didn't choose wrong because despite everything I am in love with you. I am in love with you."

"Its obvious isn't it though?" I say,"When I chose you over him, it was so glaringly obvious. I'm so deep in this pit that I can't pull myself out and the thing is that I don't want too. What we did here today was because I love you Jake Henderson. I'm willing to stand with you and the choice I made. No matter what."

My voice cracks and I can feel tears prickling my eyes,"I love you."

His face is blank and so white it looks like it's carved out of alabaster. He clenches his fist tightly and for that moment I can't recognise him. All I can see is his cold, dead green eyes and at that moment he looks

"That's not my problem."

And with that he turns and leaves.

_____________________________________________________