The bitter wind blew hard against her cold rosy cheeks as she walked down Cheney Street. Her nose felt like an ice cube, like it had been left in the freezer for days, maybe months and her fingers were so cold she could no longer feel them. It seemed like she’d been walking for days, when really it had only been a few hours. It was almost eight o’ clock and her parents would be out looking for her soon if she didn’t get home. She walked further and further down the icy sidewalk careful not to slip and fall on her butt knowing it was most likely to happen due to her being clumsy. The wind blew harder blowing her beautiful long chestnut brown locks all around her. She heard footsteps behinds her breaking the ice with every step they took. She looks behind her and sees a young boy around her age. She’s seen him before at school before following her around everywhere she went. After class he’d be there and when she got out of the bathroom, when she walked to her car but never when she walked home until today. She walks faster almost running down the road, hoping he doesn’t catch up to her. He notices her walking faster and starts jogging down the road after her.
He yells to her “Aria come here now!”
“Go away Joey,” she screamed.
Aria turns and sees that he’s getting closer. She starts to run trying not to think about the crazy guy that’s trying to follow her home. She looks back and sees him running and didn’t take the time to notice where she was going as her body collided with the ice cold snow and the hard ice beneath it. He’s getting closer she thought to herself, you need to get up! Aria slowly got up feeling a sharp pain in her left foot knowing there was a good chance she might have broken it. She hobbles down the road and sees her house just as he is coming up behind her. She knows the footsteps are getting closer and closer as she is walking up the steps to her house. She doesn’t see him anymore and it scares her wondering where he could be. Aria stumbled up the front steps up to her brick house and opened the door slamming it shut quickly thinking she had slammed her finger in the doorway. She peeked out of the window in the door and didn’t see him. She looked all around and saw the wind blowing the snow and cars driving carefully trying not to skid across the ice, but still she didn’t see him. She didn’t see the boy that used to make her happy, the one that now haunts her dreams turning them into nightmares. Aria looked out the window looking for him but still couldn’t see him making thousands of things cross her mind; is he in my house; is he waiting for me outside somewhere? Then all of a sudden he was there, right in front of her door.
She screamed so loud people in Africa could probably hear her. He tried to open the door. She screamed even louder but no one came to her rescue.
“Aria let me in, its cold out here I just want to talk,” he said.


Aria looked out at the boy who haunts her every move and watched as he smirked when her face became red in anger and the tears started streaming down her face as she started to cry. She watched him as he started to laugh at what had become of her. He tormented her making her feel weak, and scared, like she didn’t have a choice in what was going to happen to her because she knew he would never leave her alone. Ever.


He started pounding on the door waiting for her to open it laughing as he watched her tumble to the ground in fear, drowning in her sorrows. He’d broken her spirit and tormented her trying to make her feel bad for what she had done to him, for leaving him and no longer caring for him not caring how it made him feel.
Aria couldn’t understand why Joey wouldn’t leave her alone. She sat there in the corner by the door with her arms tightly wrapped around her legs shaking back and forth, scared for her life, thinking back to a couple months ago.
It was Tuesday morning and I was late for school, I quickly had gotten out of my car and ran towards our high school when he bumped into me. Joey was new in school, he had just moved here from Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had dropped his bag and my books had tumbled out of my hands to the cold, wet cement ground. When I had bent down to retrieve them he already picked them up.
He looked at me and said “I’m really sorry I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going are you okay?”
“It’s okay, I should really watch where I’m walking next time and yeah I’m fine. Are you new here? I haven’t seen you around here before? I'm Aria Lucas. What’s your name?”
“I’m Joey Green, I just moved here from Tennessee.”
Aria heard more pounding on the door as Joey tried breaking it down. She didn’t care anymore, she just accepted what she thought was going to happen. She knew he was going to get her this time. She tried going to that happy place in her mind the one that most people talk about, you know the stereotypical one with flowers, sunshine, and rainbows, animals that may or may not talk and nothing goes wrong there and everything is happy go lucky but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t think of anything with flowers and sunshine, all she could think about was the horrifying boy staring down at her with piercing brown eyes from the small window in the door.
She thought back to all the times he had come over to her house and watched their favorite movies and played monopoly on the living room floor and all those times he would be so angry he lost he’d flip the whole board off the floor scattering everything to god knows where and she would have to remind him that it was just a fun game, not to get to mad because it’s not worth getting angry over. The first time they went out on a date, to the movies to see one of her favorite series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part Two. It was the first time he had ever held her hand as he walked her to the passenger seat of his black jeep wrangler opening the door for her and shutting it after she buckled in. It was the first time he’d ever kissed her as he walked her up to her front porch and told her goodnight and it was the first time she felt wanted in a really long time. The first time he told her he loved her, sitting up at the top of the hill, watching the fireworks go off on the fourth of July one by one. Those were the good times she thought to herself. When we were happy and she wasn’t scared half to death every time she went to do something because now she knew he was there watching her no matter where she went and no matter what she did.
She heard someone yelling and finally came back to reality. Aria didn’t see him by the door anymore and she got scared thinking did he get in my house, but she figured if he had she wouldn’t be sitting here in this spot any longer. She looked around for a minute and saw him. He was beating the window hoping it would break, but he wasn’t having any luck. Aria didn’t move; she sat there gripping her legs tight against her chest not knowing what to do. She tried to block everything out and just think of what makes her happy. Her mom, her older brother Jake, her dad and her friends and even her dog Spike, and her home that had once felt safe before she met Joey, everything felt safe before Joey, now nothing feels safe anymore.
She didn’t feel safe around anyone or anything anymore. When she went to the store, when she went out to dinner with her friends or family, she knew he was there, she may not of seen him but he was there watching her every move. Aria started to feel her legs go numb from clinging so tightly to them for so long. She loosened her grip around her legs and gripped her hands tightly to her coat trying to stay calm. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth against the wall trying to reach her happy place again but couldn’t as the pounding on the window got louder and louder.
She could hear him yelling at her through the glass. “Aria just let me in, I’m not going to hurt you I just want to talk to you, I miss you,” he cried out.
Tears started forming in her eyes slowly streaming down her face off the tip of her nose and down past her chin hitting the knees of her blue jeans. She tried to calm down and not show him that he could make her feel this way but she couldn’t. She tried to think of why this could have possibly happened to her and doesn’t realize till she looks up and starts staring at her again.
She remembers all those times he wouldn’t leave her alone. He’d get so angry over nothing, all those times she’d tell him she would see him tomorrow because she was hanging out with her friends or going with her brother to watch him race at the race tracks. He’d ask her to stay with him and not go but she refused. Aria remembered the look on his face every time she’d tell him she wanted to hang out with other people and not just him: he’d clench his fists till his knuckles turned white and his face would heat up with anger. If he was any angrier steam would have shot out of his ears. He would leave her standing there annoyed and irritated as he ran off kicking and throwing the things closest to him. He had a problem with sharing her. Joey would get worried if she was with her brother or with her parents, the people who care about her most in the world and especially when she hung out with her friends doing god knows what. At the time she didn’t care, thinking he was only trying to be a good boyfriend and just wanted to spend time with her but it got worse.
It got to the point where Aria would ask him before doing almost anything; she’d ask him if she could hang out with her brother at the movies that night or go to the mall with her best friend and if he said no she would make an excuse to not go, like she wasn’t feeling well or she had a family event to attend. She was scared if she didn’t he would leave her or do something worse. He was taking over her entire life, keeping her all to himself, not letting her see anyone or talk to anyone but him. After a while she wouldn’t ask to do anything because she knew he’d make her feel sorry for leaving him for her friends or her family. She’d just sit upstairs cooped up in her room till Joey snuck through her window to hang out with her.
Day after Day she’d be in her room with her phone shut off so she couldn’t hear the reminding buzzing sound of the people she was shutting out, the people that cared and loved her, wearing the same grey pair sweatpants and oversized orange sweater she got on her trip to Cocoa Beach in Florida last summer that she had worn the day before and will probably wear tomorrow, just sitting there on her bed waiting for Joey to climb through her window. Sometimes he’d show up and sometimes he’d leave her there to sit with no one to talk to. Aria would sit on her bed watching her favorite movies on DVD over and over again till she felt like she could recite the whole movie without even watching it and then she’d watch it again.
He was changing her and the people around her could see it. She used to be funny, caring, and loving but now she didn’t care about anyone or anything. She was lifeless. She didn’t do anything anymore, her friends would try and talk to her during school but she walked away whenever she saw Joey. They’d come to her house to try and talk some sense into her but every time they’d show she’d slam the door in their faces after she told them to go away, because it’s none of their business, then would go right back upstairs to her bedroom watching the same movies and stuffing her face with rice crispy treats, snickers, potato chips and chugging down her coca –cola.
Aria didn’t care that she was slowly pushing all the people that cared about her away for Joey because she felt he was the most important person in her life now. Aria could remember the day her brother tried talking some sense into her like it was yesterday. He’d opened the door and was startled by the mess on the floor, the clothes piled up in the corner, the junk food wrappers stacked up on the table next to her bed, the sound of her favorite movie, a walk to remember, playing so loud he was surprised she hadn’t turned deaf and Aria sitting in the corner on her bed in the same clothes she has been in for almost a week, stuffed under her big green blanket. Jake walked in grabbed the remote and turned it down. He walked over to her bed and sat down next to her wrapping his arm around her shoulder shaking her till she looked up at him.
“Aria there’s something wrong with you. You don’t hang out with your friends anymore. You don’t hang out with me anymore. All you do is sit here cooped up in this room for hours stuffing you’re face with junk food, you don’t even like junk food and your room is seriously so screwed up I’m not even sure how your living in it. You can’t stand having your room dirty; your clothes should be put away in your drawers or in your laundry basket not stacked so high it could almost reach the ceiling. Aria you’re not yourself anymore. You don’t talk to me anymore; you used to tell me everything we used to be best friends, and now you don’t talk to anyone anymore but Joey. Aria you’re losing the people who love you and if you don’t stop seeing him soon you’re going to lose all of your friends and even you’re family. As one of your best friends I’m telling you that it’s best if you leave him. He’s no good for you. He’s ruining your life and you don’t even care. You’re a senior in high school and you haven’t even applied to college yet because you don’t want to leave him. That’s not like you, you couldn’t wait to get out of this town and go to college. I’m telling you now that if you don’t leave him soon I’m going to have to kill him. Look I’m not trying to be that protective mean older brother but it’s for your own good. Just think about what I said okay, I love you.” He kissed the top of her head slid of my bed and walked out of the room and left her there to think about what he had told her.
She thought about how her friends don’t try to see her anymore because they were tired of being rejected for Joey and how she was treating her family ignoring them, not caring that they loved her or that she was pushing them away. She realized Jake was right. She looked at her room in horror as she ran to get her garbage can shoving the wrappers to the bottom and tossing her dirty clothes into her hamper. She walked past her mirror and couldn’t stop staring at herself, of what she had become. She hated herself for letting him do this to her. For tearing her apart and making her forget about her family and her dreams.
She ran over to her window slammed it shut and locked it so he couldn’t get in that night or any other night. She walked over to her desk grabbed a piece of paper and pen and started writing.
Joey, I don’t think this is working out anymore, I’m sorry. I realized being with you is hurting myself, you’ve torn me down and when I’m with you I don’t care about anything or anyone and that just not something I’m proud of. I’m not myself when I’m with you and that’s not right. I’m sorry; I just can’t be with someone that makes me feel this way. I’m sorry, Aria.



She remembers when he showed up that night and tried to open her window and couldn’t get it. He started banging on the window but she just watched as he struggled not giving in to the temptation of opening the window. She taped the note against the window and watched as he read it. He was crushed by the fact that she could so easily leave him. She can still remember him banging on the window thinking he was going to break it and her brother rushing in to tell him to leave before he calls the police. He left and that was the last time he’d shown up at her house. Ever since that day he would follow her always knowing where she was going, who she was going with, and what she was going to do.



There was a crash and glass shattered all around her. Aria’s hands flew towards her face making sure none of it got in her eyes. Joey stepped through the broken window and ran over to her grabbing her hands.



“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to break the window I just wanted to talk to you”.



Aria could hear footsteps and whispers’ coming down the stairs, knowing it was probably Jake coming to save her. Hopefully it was the police he was talking to. She was scared; she didn’t know what to do.



“Come on Aria we can be together now, it can be just like it used to be I promise, let’s just get out of here” he begged.
She started to speak when suddenly Jake came running from the upstairs and pounced on Joey. Jake was sitting on top of him, his fist colliding with his face over and over again. She could hear sirens coming up the street as she tried pulling Jake off of Joey.
“Jake just get off this isn’t helping anything the police are coming please for me just stop,” Aria begged. She could hear the police coming up the steps just as Jake got off of Joey.
“Freeze, no body move,” the three of them said as they picked Joey up off the floor putting his hands behind his back placing them into their handcuffs. They walked him to the car and put him in the back seat.
She could hear Joey crying out for her to forgive him but she didn’t care anymore. Jake walked to her side wrapping her arms around his waist crying into his chest. “Shh its okay he can’t hurt you anymore,” Jake said as he rocked me back and forth.



The police officer has walked back in and had started to arrest Jake for beating Joey to death. Jake had put his hands behind his back not fighting it knowing what he had done was wrong and the police officer cuffed him walking him out to the back seat of the other police car.
The other police officer walked over to her and said “you’re safe now, Joey won’t be getting out of jail for a while for what he’s done to you, have a good night,” and he walked away getting into the passenger seat of the car and drove off down the road.
She had wanted to follow her brother to the police station to make sure he was okay but couldn’t get her brain to tell her muscles in her body to let her move so she stood there as they drove away not knowing what to say or do.
She was glad it was over, the late nights of crying and the friends she couldn’t see, and the family she had let down. She could be herself again and go for her dreams and a normal teenagers life and it was all thanks to her brother the one who actually knocked some sense into her and made her realize she could do better and she will.