Page 40 of All My Firsts

I didn’t think that moment could have been any more perfect thanhe made it.

I was close to tears when he pulled farther away, but he still had my face in his hands. His mouth was close to mine when he started whispering again.

“I forgot to tell you ... I also brought your favorite,Ring Dings.”

Chapter 11

I was dreaming about our picnic.

And our kiss.

That incredible kiss.

But in my dream, it didn’t stop there. In my dream, Xander did other things to me, things that made me break out in a sweat in my sleep. I heard him saying my name in my dream, but itseemed real.

“Lanie, Lanie, you need to wake up! He’s here, Lanie. Max is fucking here. Wake up!” I shot up in his bed when I processed what he said, it finally stirring me from my sleep.

“What! How do you know?” I started to climb out of his bedin a panic.

“Just stopand listen.”

And that’s when I heard it: the loud, obnoxious knocking on a door down the hall. The incessant knocking that didn’t seem like it was going tostop, ever.

“It’s five thirty in the morning. He probably thought by coming now, he would definitely catch you in your room. Thank God we got you out of there.”

We heard other people open their doors and tell him to shut up. It didn’t seem to intimidate him, and I knew it wouldn’t. On the contrary, it incited him to start screaming my name.

“Lanie, open the fucking door!”

“Hey, Einstein, don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, there’s no one in that room at the moment? Can you knock it off? We’re all trying to sleep.”

That sounded like Ryan, the guy who lived directly across from me. My worst nightmare was coming true: my darkest secret was being revealed to my world here.To everyone.

Eventually, we heard his footsteps disappearing down the hall. Xander got a text from someone who lived by the elevator saying the crazy dude left.

I was frozen in place.

Hearing his voice again, knowing he was near, in my space, had the panic racing through my veins. My immediate response was the intense need to curl up into a ball, hide away, disappear.

How could I be so dumb? How could I think he wouldn’t come here for me, wouldn’t continue to destroy me? It was his life’s mission. He wouldnever stop.

Xander came to me and held me, knowing I was breaking.

“I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you. But I’m going to take a walk downstairs, make sure he’s gone. Will you be OK for like five minutes?” He pulled back to try to look me in the eyes, but I refused to make eye contact. Pulling away, I stomped over to the couch.

“I’ll be fine,” I tried to assure him. He waited for a moment, staring at me. “I promise,” I said with more emphasis.

ButI wasn’t OK.

Xander slowly stepped away, unsure if he should leave me, but he unlocked the door and stepped out. I heard the lock click into place as the echo of his footsteps faded down the hall.

I was on high alert waiting for Xander to come back, thinking that while he was gone, Max was waiting somewhere on the floor for him to leave.

I sat in the room, expecting the hard knocking to start atany second.

The yelling of my name to resume.

I curled up in a ball in the far corner of the bed, shaking uncontrollably. The silent tears streamed down my face; I couldn’t risk him potentiallyhearing me.

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