Sarah's POV

There’s really not a lot of things that bother me.

I don’t like spiders. Who does? Those make me cry. But as far as angry goes? I really don’t get that mad. I can get frustrated, but you really have to push my buttons.

Melanie.

Melanie pushes my buttons.

I can handle when she harasses me. I can ignore the texts, the dirty looks, the snide comments. It’s annoying, sure. Can be a bit frustrating.

But when she bothers my friends…that’s when I get mad.

I hate the way she creeps on Alex. And that’s not because we just started dating—that’s just freaky in general. For god’s sake, she can’t take a hint. For example, he hates being touched by people he isn’t close to, like me, his sister, and Mitch. Yet she just won’t stop touching him!

I hate the way she treats Rain. She does the same thing to her as she does to me; snide comments and dirty looks, but then she tries to be all buddy buddy with her. It’s revolting.

She’s a genuine prick to Mitch. She belittles him, pushes him around, I’m pretty sure she was the one destroying his stuff in tenth grade, and even tried to get him in trouble with our parents on multiple occasions. He just…laughs it off, and it kinda scares me when he does that too much.

And then there’s Elliot.

She sent him death threats, on top of everything else!

Mitch actually tried to jump her when he found out. Alex had to stop him, and that’s saying something.

Why am I talking about all this?

Well, the day this all started, Melanie decided to pay me a visit at my job. I don’t know how she knew I was working. I swear, she’s a stalker.

Not only did she come on my shift—a shift I hadn’t even been scheduled for, I just picked it up because they called me and I needed extra money after I spent so much on my graduation dress—she approached me on my lunch break, so I couldn’t get away.

Well, I could’ve gone to the back. But…morbid curiosity got the best of me, I guess.

Melanie sat across from me, placing her on her hands and smirking at me.

“Hi, Sarah,” She purred. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Uh, yeah, I like it that way.” I stopped eating and put my hands in my lap. “What do you want?”

“Straight to the point!” She sat upright. “I like it that way, too. But I needed to tell you to get out. Like, for real this time.” 

I rolled my eyes at that.

“This again? Really? You could’ve just texted me—”

“I mean it.” Her tone changed and her eyes narrowed. “You need to stay away from Alex and the others. It might save your life. Not that I care about it, but he might. And I love him, so I might as well try–”

“You’re obsessed. That’s not love.” I snapped at her. “And also, I wouldn’t leave them if my life did depend on it.”

I leaned back and looked at the ceiling.

“What, trying the tricks that didn’t work on Tiger on me now?”

I didn’t look down, but I could feel her staring at me.

“You don’t get it.” She practically growled. “Not now. But it’s our destiny, and you’re just a stumbling block.”

She stood up.

“You don’t deserve him, you know. You never will.”

She started to walk away…but she turned back at the last second.

“But you deserve what’s coming to you.”

She left, leaving me with a weird pit in my stomach.