1.15 We're friends...right?

The black van behind us is definitely following us. David keeps on glancing at the side mirror, so I know he noticed it too. I feel my breath get shallower by the second. I know exactly who is after us. The moment I visited my Dad, I knew Black Dawn would have caught wind of it. That's fine by me, I'm still determined to look for Uncle Fern, grill him about what exactly happened that night. I am not expecting to be the one being followed, though.

"We should lose them," I tell David. His eyes remained up ahead as he maneuvers the car through the late afternoon traffic. His hands are as steady as a rock, with only a slight tension in his jaw betraying our current predicament.

"So, you noticed it too." he says with an even voice.

"Lose them," I repeat, panic gripping my throat now.

"Do you know who these people are? Why are they following us?" David wonders as he carefully switches lanes, getting ready to put distance between us and the van.

I don't answer him, focusing on my breath instead. I hate it when a threat is behind me and I have to rely on someone else to keep me away from it. I have no choice but just to sit there and anticipate the worst.

I watch nervously behind me as David works on losing them. They're still close, but not as close as before. The roads around me are getting unfamiliar, but they give me relief. Soon enough, we lose them. I can't handle a confrontation with them right now. Not with David beside me. I don't think I'm ready for him to know the truth.

David begins to drive slowly, and I frown at the location we found ourselves in. "Um...where are we? Why are there suddenly so many trees around us?"

"I don't know. My navigator's not working." he tells me as he presses on the controls of his car.

"What? So you just drove around without knowing where you were going?" I can't believe him. And here I thought he had it handled.

"You told me to lose them," David argues. I grasp the ends of my hair in frustration.

"Them. Not us. I told you to lose them. Not for us to get lost!" I realize that I'm throwing a fit. The anxiety I felt earlier does not help my nerves either. I open my bag to look for my phone, hoping it can tell me where we are. I can't find it. "Ugh. Great. I left my phone at the apartment."

"It wouldn't have been useful. There's the reception's spotty here." David says, relaxed.

Oh. So he just decides to be Mr. Cool now? "Are you kidding me? How are we supposed to get home, then?" I snap at him.

"By car, obviously. Look, we'll figure this out. We can ask for directions or something." David replies. I honestly don't know how he's still calm about this. I get that he doesn't know how dangerous those guys who were following us are. But you'd think anyone would be rattled by strange people following them on the road, more so when they don't know who they're up against.

"Calm down. We're okay." he tells me, sensing my panic. He starts to drive down an unmarked road until we see orange cones up ahead.

"Ahh shit," I mutter silently.

David does not respond, he just pulls up on the side of the road. A worker approaches the car and David immediately rolls down the window of his car, ever polite.

"Sir, there's road maintenance up ahead. You need to turn back." the man says, diligently stating the obvious.

"That's okay. We just need directions. Do you know how to get back to the city?" David asks the man, and I close my eyes, tuning them out. I can't believe this is happening.

"You okay?" I hear David's voice beside me. We're driving again now. Hopefully, he knows where he's going this time. Just when I am about to relax, his car's engine suddenly sputters and stops in the middle of the road.

"David. I swear to God." I tell him, my breaths becoming more ragged than before. This is bad. I haven't had an anxiety attack like this since I learned that my Dad was arrested.

"That's weird," David murmurs, more to himself than to me.

"I can't believe this. You spend so much on this car and it breaks down at a time like this." I tell him, thinking back to the receipts I found in his wallet.

"I dont---" he suddenly stops, "Wait, how do you know I spend so much on this car?"

I look at him, a deer caught in the headlights, "Why are you still talking? Just fix the car." I snap at him.

"Maybe you should try fixing it. Oh wait...you know nothing about cars." he taunts, forgetting my earlier quip about the receipts, but onto me for another reason now. "In fact, according to your Mom, you don't even know how to drive. Which means that you lied to me that day when Simon and I bumped into you at that store."

I roll my eyes at him. "You knew I was lying. Isn't that why you asked me to carpool with you?"

"Oh yes, I did. And it made me wonder about all the other things that you could be lying about right now," he says, the teasing lilt to his voice is gone now.

We stare at each other, rising tension between us. So, I was wrong. He wasn't calm the whole time that van was following us. He was just waiting for the right time to show his frustration. "If you're talking about your wallet, I believe we fixed that problem before," I tell him.

"I'm not talking about the wallet. I'm talking about you obviously knowing the people who were following us earlier."

I look down, swallowing. "I don't know them," I say, schooling my features to hide my lie. He raises his eyebrows at me, mouth in a firm line. I know he is going to prod, so I scowl at him, "Give it a rest, David."

He looks at me in silence, obviously contemplating on entering another argument with me. Thankfully, he seems to have changed his mind at the last second. "You know, you're the only one who calls me David," he comments instead.

"That's because you make me angry." I tell him. It's true. 'Dave' is too soft a name to call someone as annoying as him.

"So..like what Moms do when they're mad at you. They call you by your full name."

"Ew. I'm not your Mom." I reply almost automatically.

"What would you rather be then?" he asks. The familiar teasing glint in his eye is back. I gape at him.

"N--nothing. I don't want to be anything to you." I announce, thrown off guard by his question. I wrinkle my nose at him, disturbed. "Speaking of Moms. You really need to stop getting all chummy with mine. It's creepy."

"Why? She likes me. The feeling is mutual." he says.

"Please don't make me throw up." I tell him in disgust. "Can you just try to fix the car now, please?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he says, giving me the salute that I've gotten used to seeing from him.

I watch his movements as he makes his way towards the hood of his car, my mouth reluctantly forming a smile. This man and his moods. I can barely keep up with him.

"David!" I call him and he turns towards me, barely out of the car. "We're...friends, right?" Almost immediately, I regret what came out of my mouth. I don't know why I just suddenly said that. I begin to panic. I've never asked anyone something like this before, not even people that I've known since kindergarten. This is the kind of desperation that I detest. Breathing in to ease the embarrassment on my cheeks, I tell myself that it's okay if he says no and makes fun of me. I don't need him as a friend, not when I'm hiding something from him.

David squints at me, taking a mighty long time to answer the question that I shouldn't have uttered in the first place. "Dina.." he tells me softly. "I think... that would be entirely up to you."

I look up, surprised at his answer. I want to say something back, but I could not find the right words. Without another word, he gets out of the car and out into the front of the hood. I squeeze the bridge of my nose in embarrassment. No wonder I feel as heavy as a sack of rice back at my apartment, I've taken all my energy to deny something this big. I have a crush on someone I should stay away from. I hope God is real because I really need all the help I can get with this one.