It’s early Wednesday morning, and I'm getting ready to go out to breakfast with Lexi. It’s been about a month since I’ve talked to her. I know she has been busy with her classes this summer so I’m not too upset about it, but it still sucks she never answers her phone anymore. I’m glad her classes are over now and I can catch her up on all of the latest gossip. I’m not really one of those girls that talks about people behind their backs, but that's what Lexi and I do, when one of us are disconnected from everyone for a while, we catch each other up.
My phone vibrates, and I look to see if it’s Lexi asking if I’m on my way. It’s not:
Melissa- Aye party at my place friday night
Haley- Mind if I bring Lexi
Melissa- She got an invite last night but she didn’t answer
Melissa- Are you guys still doing breakfast?
Haley- Leaving to pick her up now
Thats weird, Lexi and I always tell each other about new parties, whether we both got an invite or not. Maybe it was late last night when she got the text and she was already sleeping. Lately Lexi has been going to sleep really early, which isn't like her, but I figured it was because she didn’t get much sleep while she was taking her classes.
I pull up to Lexi's house and see she's sitting on her front porch typing on her phone. She barely notices I'm there so I honk my horn, she jumps and looks up at me. I wave her to hurry because I'm hungry. I can feel my stomach starting to twist in knots. We don't talk much in the car, just the typical ‘Hey, how are you? Long time no see.’ She keeps looking down at her phone, but I’m too focused on the road to see who she’s talking too.
Something is different, what isn’t she telling me?
We pull up to the diner in downtown Groves right next to the community college. As we walk in I can smell the sweet scent of freshly baked muffins and fried french toast. My stomach grumbles a low growl as we take a seat in our usual booth by the window. Lexi and I come here often, we always get the same breakfast: an order of french toast with extra powdered sugar, and an order of eggs benedict with extra sauce to split. We get the same waitress everytime, Meredith. Meredith has to be in her late forties, early fifties, but she doesn't look it. She’s one of those girls who look way younger than she is. She always tells us it's because she's never put anything bad in her body, and moisturizes everyday. I remember when she yelled at us when we started wearing make up. “That crap is so bad for your skin!” she would tell us, “Do you know what that is? Do you know what they put in that?” Neither of us answered, “Chemicals, chemicals is what they put in that face stuff. Do you think chemicals will give you a face like mine when you’re my age? No.” she answered for us.
Ohh the good days...I look across the table at my best friend for as long as I can remember only to see she’s on her phone again.
“So,” I start, “did you hear about Melissa’s party on Friday?”
“Yeah,” she responds after taking a sip of her coffee, ”Ouu that’s hot. I'm not too sure if I wanna go.”
Seriously, since when do you miss a party? I want to say, but I bite my tongue instead. “But we haven’t been to one in forever. Come on, it’ll be fun.” I plead, hoping to get her to come with me.
“I know, I’ve been so busy with school,” her phone lights up, she stops to look at it, smiles, and flips it over. “We’ll see,” she says giving me a small smile.
Meredith brings our food over which puts an end to our conversation about the party. “Mornin’ ladies.”
“Mmmm, I've been waiting for this since June!” Lexi moans as she tastes the eggs benedict sauce.
“It’s been awhile, I was starting to think you guys were getting too cool for me,” Meredith jokes patting my shoulder.
“Nah, Lex took summer classes, and I’ve been picking up extra shifts at work.” I started filling my plate with my portion of the French toast onto my plate as Meredith walks away to greet another table.
We eat breakfast like usual, me catching Lexi up on everything she missed. No talk about the party, and no interruptions from her phone. After breakfast, we go back to my house to watch a movie. Lexi is back on her phone again, so I decide to ask, “Who ya talkin to?”
“Uhh, just a friend I met during my classes this summer.” I know that look on her face, she’s hiding something.
“Is this friend a guy?” A sheepish grin forms on her face telling me I’m right. “Was this guy in one of your classes?” I push, hoping I don’t already know the answer. Her grin falls, this time telling me I’m wrong...This is NOT good. Why would she do this again? “Lex, hun what are you doing? You know what happened last time..” We ignore the remainder of the movie as Lexi explains to me how she digressed from her last online incident from three years ago.
The memory still fresh in my mind, it was freshman year and Lexi was going through a lot of stuff. Lexi has always been the quiet and shy type of girl, she hates speaking in front of people, can’t say no to anyone for fear of displeasing others, and can’t stand up for herself. That’s why when people started making fun of her in middle school, she took it as a joke and tried to ignore it-but it only got worse. By the time high school had started, Lexi stopped talking to everyone except for me and few people she met online. I didn’t think anything of it when she first told me about Shawn. “He’s great!” she promised. “He’s really nice, and he’s super cute! He has blonde hair, with blue eyes. Plays football, lacrosse, and swims for his high school. PLUS he only lives three hours away and has a car!” Shawn was two years older than us and his parents didn’t care what he did. Of course, this intrigued Lexi. Lexi has that persona that makes people thinks she's older than what she is, she is way more mature than anyone else in our class, so she was naturally attracted to older guys. 
I was happy for her, Lexi has never really had a real boyfriend before. Yes, she's had crushes, and has gone on dates, but she didn’t think any of the guys actually liked her. She made herself believe it was all a part of some joke. Months pass by, and she carries on this relationship over the internet with Shawn. After about a year, they make plans to meet up. This was when I started to become worried. Stories weren’t adding up, but Lexi ignored it.
Lexi- You can’t come over!
Haley- I just want to make sure you’re safe
Lexi- Stop he is coming and, you are staying home! That’s  the end of it.
Haley- Fine
Still determined to be there, I call my older brother Gregory, “We need to go with her! Please drive me.” I pleaded. Making him believe he was my last chance. If Gregory said no, I would walk, but it would be hard to follow a car by foot if anything happened.
Finally, Gregory agreed to go with me, just to make sure everything goes fine in the beginning. I knew Lexi was meeting Shawn at the end of our block, at the empty house the owners were rebuilding. She told me they were meeting there and then walking back to her house to watch movies. Gregory and I waited in the street beside the house, blocked by the big pine tree in the front yard. We saw a small lincoln pull into the driveway, “That’s him,” I whispered.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Hush, I’m nervous,” after a second I noticed Lexi walking down the street. “There she is.” I pointed at Lexi as she gets in the car. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, why did she just get in the car? Gregory you need to go over there! Now!” I started freaking out, trying to open the door. “Gregory let me out!” I shouted.
“Haley! Calm down, she’s fine. They’re probably just talking,” just then the car flies out of the driveway and down the street. Gregory and I both watch as the taillights round the corner heading out of our neighborhood. “That’s not a part of the plan, is it?” He asks starting the car, and heading in the same direction.
I began to cry, frantically dialing Lexis number into my phone. “She’s not answering,“ I sob as we see the car in the distance. Gregory speeds up, determined to close the gap between the cars.
I'm going to lose her, I thought, My best friend! I knew something bad was going to happen, why wouldn’t she listen?
After following this car for twenty-five minutes, we pull into a trailer park. Gregory followed the car until they parked, then kept going. “What are you doing!? They’re back there, turn around!” I shouted.
Once three trailers down, Gregory pulls into an empty spot, “You stay here, I will go get Lexi.”
He should’ve known I wasn’t going to listen. I got out of the car behind Gregory and quietly followed. I watched him sneak up the the car and look in the window, is she there? Oh please God, let her be safe...Gregory then walks up to the trailer and looks in the window, and ducks. That’s when he notices me, I ran to him and sat beside him. “I told you to stay in the car!” He whisper-shouted.
“Where is she?” I questioned ignoring his previous statement.
“Haley, I’ve got this. Go back to the car.” We sat staring at each other, neither of us moving. Then we heard a crash coming from inside the trailer. We both looked in to see broken glass and the room clear of people. “S***,” Gregory huffed under his breath. “They’re gone, there was just five guys in there...Lexi is in the car,” he grabs my wrist to keep me from running to her before he can finish. “The car is locked, and her hands are tied up.”
“Did she see you?” My eyes begin to well with tears again.
“Yeah, she saw me, but we need to figure out how to get her out without making noise.”
“Who cares!? Just get her out of there, I want to go home, and I’m sure she does too.”
“I know, I’m trying! You can’t be reckless in this type of situation, Haley!” We remained sitting silently under the windowsill trying to come up with a plan.
“She’s in the car, what do you want me to do now?” We heard a young male voice say.
“Take her to the warehouse, you’re gonna stay the night with her there.” This voice was much deeper, obviously coming from an older guy. “Nothing is to happen between you two, at least not yet anyways.” The two guys laugh, and my stomach to churn.
Disgusting, I thought. Just then it hit me that I still had a picture of shawn on my phone that Lexi sent me a while ago.
As I pull my phone out of my back pocket, Gregory begins to yell at me, “Seriously Haley, you need your phone right now!?”
I ignore him, trying to find the picture in our messages. Once I do, I shove my phone into his face, “was he in the livingroom?”
“Yeah, he was the one that got out of the car. I think two others followed behind him. They were all young like him too.”
“Okay that one was Shawn, we need to figure out how to get around everyone and get Lexi out of that car before they leave for that warehouse.” I state, my panic beginning to ease away.
“Agreed,” just then we heard the voices again.
“I need to get the bags and money from the room before we leave,” said the unknown younger voice, I'm assuming it’s Shawn.
“Let's go,” the other unknown voice said, opening the door.
After I heard the door close I ran to the garage opening and peeked my head in. Empty. I turned around and saw Gregory right behind me “I'm gonna go in and take a look and see if there is anything we can use to open the door.” He whispered moving around me, into the garage. I then ran over to the car and looked into the passenger seat of the car, the seat I saw Lexi get into back at the house. I saw nothing. What the hell? My heart stopping, and panic slightly coming back I  jumped to the back windows to see Lexi laying down across the seat. Like Gregory said her hands are tied up, I notice her feet are too. She has her face buried in the seat, I lightly tap on the window, she jumped and looked at me. Even though it was dark outside, and there was a faint tint to the windows, I could still see her tear stained cheeks, and bags under her eyes. This broke my heart. I can’t stand to see her like this.
Hoping for fate to be on my side, I tested my luck and tried to open the door. Locked. I glance into the garage, hoping to figure out if Gregory had found something yet. I began to walk towards the garage and was welcomed by a loud crash. Startled, I stopped in my steps, and saw him running towards me. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back towards the car. “What was that!?’’ Not caring about the volume of my voice anymore, I knew they heard that noise.
“Shut up and let's go, we don’t have much time before they come out here” Just then, he busts the car window, reaching in and unlocking the car. He opened the door and pulled Lexi out of the car. We untied her legs and hands. She jumped up and into my arms sobbing her apologies. Just then three of the five guys from the living room come running out of the front door, SHawn being one of them.
“Let's go!” Gregory shouted pushing us in the direction of the car. He unlocks it as we get closer. The three guys were now joined by the other two and they were all chasing us. We got to the car and took off before they could reach us. I saw them turn around and head back towards where they came from. Not long after we were being followed by two cars. Determined to get  away, Gregory raced around traffic and through red lights, both cars close behind. No one in the car talked. Gregory focused on the road, and I held Lexi in the backseat.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw red and blue serion lights flashing. Not wanting the cars to catch us I told Gregory to keep going, “Haley I can’t,” he says pulling over to the side of the road. I turned in my seat and saw the cars pull over as well, they must not have seen the cop. Six guys get out of the car, and walk towards us.
“Gregory stay in here.” I warned.
“I'm fine,” he said climbing out and shutting the door behind him.
Just then three cop cars pull in blocking all the cars on the side of the road. Six officers come running out, guns pointed. I didn’t know what to do, so I started crying. The six guys who were following us tried running, but the cops chased after them, shooting one of them in the leg. After capturing the runaways, the cops pulled Lex and I out of the car, and started speaking to everyone one on one. What started as a traffic violation, turned into the six guys being arrested for kidnapping, and attempt to run. The police let Gregory take us home after they had collected our statements.
Once we got home, Gregory agreed to help Lexi with whatever she would need help with legally, but after that, we vowed to never speak of the night again.
“This isn’t like last time,” Lexis’ small voice brought me back to reality reminding me she was still  with me as my eyes started tearing up. “Don’t cry, I promise I'm going to be more careful. I’m not putting myself in that type of situation again.”
Yourself!? I thought, “Okay, and what about Gregory and I?” unable to contain the harshness in my voice. “We saved you that night, we almost lost you, I almost lost you.” I said putting an emphasis on the I.
Lexi looked at me in shock. “I know..and that’s why I’m going to be more careful this time,”
“No Lexi, you’re not,” I can feel my heart racing, and beating against my ribcage. The thought of Lexi getting hurt, scares me. Before I can even comprehend my thoughts, I dig money out of my purse, stand up, and throw money on the table. “I’m sorry but I can’t do this again, I...I have to go.” And with that, I left the diner. I felt bad leaving Lexi, but I knew she lived close. Before I had my car, she would walk and meet me up there all the time.
Later on that day, I found myself laying in bed contemplating what had gone on in the diner, and how I should deal with the news I had learned. I hadn’t checked my phone yet since I got home, but I know Lexi has sent me numerous texts.
Lexi: Okay, I deserved that....
Lexi: Can we please talk about this?
Lexi: Haley...?
Lexi: I'm calling you
MISSED CALL FROM LEXI
MISSED FACETIME FROM LEXI
Lexi: Hals answer your phone please
Lexi: Okay, I give up, call me when you’re ready I guess
I'm not ready...but I need to talk to her and figure out what is going on, and why she would talk to people online again.
Haley: Why
I know that she’ll understand what I mean, so I don’t even explain myself. I didn’t expect an immediate response since it’s  been two hours since she has texted me, but I was wrong;
Lexi: Finally!
Lexi: IDK I was lonely, and bored
Haley: That’s not an excuse
Lexi: You don’t even know him, at least give him a chance?
Haley: No, I’m not letting you do this again
Lexi: YOU’RE not letting me do anything, I’M doing this on my own
Haley: Stop talking to him
Lexi: No! This is not your decision
Uhg, I am NOT doing this with her! I can’t sit here and watch her do this to herself, and me...
Haley: You’re right, it’s yours. Here’s another one for you, it’s me, or him....

Haley: You’re right, it’s yours. Here’s another one for you, it’s me, or him....
She’s kidding...I have to read the text a few too many times before I realize Haley is serious. Not knowing how to respond, I text Damon;
  Lexi: We need to talk
  Damon: Okay, whats up
  Lexi: I told Haley about us...
  Lexi: Well, sort of...
  Damon: And?
  Lexi: She’s told me to choose between you two
  Damon: What did you say?
  Lexi: I haven’t responded, I texted you first.
  Damon: Well...what are you gonna do?
I don’t know...I thought feeling my heart drop to my stomach, and twist into tiny knots.
Automatically I thought back to last week when Damon first told me how he felt. It was the first time we had ever talked on the phone together, previously we had only exchanged text messages, and I was so nervous.
What do I say? What will we talk about? My mind raced, and my heart thumped as his name came across my screen. Luckily, I didn’t have to think while talking to him, things just seemed so natural.
“I gotta tell you something..” Damon exclaimed in a slow and steady voice.
And here is comes...I had expected him to tell me some big secret, or tell me he didn’t want to talk anymore. I felt like I had started to catch feelings for Damon, even though we had agreed upon only being friends. Above all, Damon was my best friend, and I had no clue what he was about to say. “Okay..whats up’’? I said matching his tone.
“I know this is fast, and I know we’ve only known each other for a short period of time, but I believe in love at first sight. When we first started talking, we both only wanted to be friends- although you were a rather attractive friend ;) The point is, we just clicked. I’ve never felt as close to anyone as I feel with you. I’ve never had a very stable, or easy life, but with you, that doesn’t matter. You feel safe to me. You make me want to forget about the past, and move forward. You know I’m not religious but I think there is only one person made for everyone, and I think you were made for me, you help me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t wanna be just friends anymore. I know we live worlds away, but I think we can make it work. I plan on going to school near you, so we won’t have to worry about distance...”
I didn’t know how to respond, my mind went blank and all of my previous worries were disregarded. I couldn’t think of any way to respond, it was like I had forgotten how to speak. “Lexi, are you still there...?” Damon asked, sounding self conscious of what he had just admitted, “Look, I said I know this is fast, and I don’t expect yo..”
“Stop,” I said abruptly interrupting him, “Yes.” I know I’m not making sense, but it was the only thing I could think to say”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I like you too. Yes, I want to be more than friends. Yes, I think we can get over the distance. I don’t really know, just yes.”
A small smile forms on my face as I reminisce in the memory, but it falls the second I look back down at my phone screen. Both Haley and Damon deserve an answer. I just don’t know what to say. Instead of responding, I change into a pair of shorts and a Tshirt, throw my long brown hair up into a ponytail, slip on my shoes and go for a run letting my music and my feet take me away from the mess.