I doodled absentmindedly on the back of my book. The faint background noise of the professor teaching us something I didn't care about could be heard.

I turned my eyes to look out the window. A beautiful garden was right in front. It made me want to go there and lie down on the freshly cut and watered grass. I wanted to look up at the sky and hope to see him. I wanted to ask him so many questions. Why did he leave me? Why didn't he fight back to stay alive? If not for me, at least for himself? But now what? Was he happy up there?

I shook my head. How can someone be happy up there even if it was heaven? He must be lonely.

I put my head on the desk and stared out at the garden.

It wasn't long before I drifted off to dreamland, a place where it was either heaven or hell for me.

I dreamt about him. I smiled. Then this was heaven. He smiled back at me and extended a hand in my direction. "I love you," he whispered to me. I was about to take it, anything to feel his skin on me after so many years.

Just as I was about to touch him, I was roughly pulled back into something hard. I looked up and it was Jesse. His eyes were glowing red and he glared at Jake with a manic grin on his face. It was scary. I was terrified.

In an instant, my heaven turned into a nightmare. Jesse didn't let go of me even though I shouted at him to do so.

Jesse pulled a gun out and I screamed at him to stop. I shook off his hand and jumped in front of Jake.

Jesse pulled the trigger anyway and the bullet came hurtling right at me. The bullet pierced through me and I waited for the pain but I felt nothing.

I slowly turned around and let out a deafening scream as I saw Jake lying on the floor, bleeding heavily from his chest area.

I sank down beside him and gathered him in my arms.

"Don't. Don't leave me again," I whispered to him.

He gave me a tiny smile as his eyes glazed with unshed tears. "Be happy. Don't cry because of me. I love you."

"I love you too." I said in between cries. "Don't leave me."

But he was already gone. Just like in every of my nightmares.

My eyes shot open and I saw the garden. Pulling my head away from the desk, I realised I was still in class, except it was empty now.

I wiped away the sweat formed on my forehead as tears began forming at the corner of my eyes.

It had been three years since Jake died at the hands of my psycho boyfriend, Jesse. But I still had to endure watching Jake die a thousand times in my nightmares. Rarely I got any good dreams of him.

I packed up my things in my bag and slung it over my shoulder.

Thank God this was the last class of the day. I was tired and sleepy. But I didn't want to sleep because I keep getting dreams with Jake in it. Although I must be happy that I at least get to see him in my dreams, but if the dreams turn into nightmares and result in me helplessly watching him die again and again, then no I don't want to sleep.

The hallways were empty. A few students lurked around in the corners looking eerie and giving off a bad vibe. I steered clear of them. The university was open to students till six in the evening. No one is allowed in after that. The gates close at six. I checked my watch it was five-thirty. So I had been sleeping in that classroom for more than half an hour.

I made my way to the dorm building, alone as usual. It was times like this when I missed Brooke. She was my best friend, and still is for me.

The last time I heard about her was that she and Brian made it to the same college and are happy together. I was no longer in touch with any of my high school friends and but I miss them a lot.

It was my fault that we lost contact with each other. Honesty, I was too ashamed of myself. I was sure they wouldn't want to see me anyways because if they really wanted to be friends with me anymore, they would've tried to reach out to me.

But it was fine. I didn't blame them for leaving me. No one would want to be associated with a girl who constantly thought about death and cried over her years long dead boyfriend who was killed by her psycho ex.

I wouldn't want to be associated with me either.

I reached my dorm room and opened the door. Just as I did, greasy green substance poured out from above on me. I was a little too shocked to react.

Laughter was heard from within the room. My roommate along with four of her friends were sitting huddled in a corner of her bed, a laptop open against the wall.

"Clean that up," she ordered and turned back to her laptop, still giggling with her friends.

I hated her. And her four friends. One of them was a guy who reminded me too much of Jesse as he looked me up and down. I shuddered under his stare.

I dropped my bag on my bed. I wasn't going to confront them. They've pulled these lame pranks on me a lot of times.

"Mail it to her," one of her friends said to her.

"Yeah, that way she'll agree." Another one added.

"Yes, I've sent about four pictures to her," my roommate said, sounding evil.

I knew they were up to no good.

"Play the video," the guy said.

Suddenly, the sound of water filled the room. I looked in the direction of their laptop and was astonished to see a girl from my class in the shower. She was completely ***** and I recognised it was one of the girl's dorm shower. The girl in the video started bathing, seeming oblivious to being recorded.

"What are you doing?!" I shouted at them.

"What? Can't you see?" My roommate asked sarcastically.

"Why did you make a video of this?!"

"We needed someone to do that stupid project for our group. We had to do something."

"Let me guess. You're going to blackmail her to complete your project for you."

"You're smart. Your grades say otherwise."

"Why are you doing this? Can't you do the project yourself?! How can you video her while she's bathing. How would you feel if someone makes a video of you like that."

"No one will dare to, duh. We would've done the same to you but then we'd end up with an F in the project." The group roared with laughter.

I was so sick of these girls and this guy. They had no humanity in them. They didn't know how to respect someone's privacy. They didn't know that ragging was wrong.

"You guys are inhuman," I spat at them.

My roommate rose up from her seat and crossed her arms across her chest. "What did you say?"

I shrunk back from her sneer. I couldn't do anything to protect myself from them. I was overpowered. These girls were athletic, almost muscular. And the guy was a plain pervert. He was like Jesse. With him around it felt like Jesse was also there and it scared me.

I wanted Jake beside me, not these heartless people. He would have never allowed anyone to treat me like this. He would have treated me better.

I still remembered my first day of university. I had minded my own business the whole time, going to classes, daydreaming about Jake, missing my friends from high school and eating lunch alone.

Then in my last class of the day, I had met a girl. She seemed different from all of the other girls. She seemed like someone I could see myself being friends with. But I was in no mood for friends. I wanted to isolate myself from everyone and didn't want to make any new friends.

But then she came up to me and introduced herself as Lily Walter. She then started talking to me as if we were long lost friends. And soon enough, we did become friends. Unfortunately, she wasn't my roommate. My roommate was a bodybuilder girl named Charmaine Peters and I had a few classes with her. She didn't talk much with me but that was fine because she kind of scared me.

She was friends with a girl named Kim Wright. That was all I knew about her.

My new friend, Lily was a nice girl. She helped me when I needed help and talked to me whenever she could. She seemed like a pretty busy girl. She had her own group of friends. I didn't know who but she usually disappeared with them during lunch, so I was left by myself during lunch everyday. I didn't mind.

It wasn't after three months that I was finally able to trust her. I told her about my past and she sympathised with me. She told me countless times that it wasn't my fault and that I should move on, and I appreciated her saying that to me. It made me feel a little better about myself.

I told her how I was in a toxic relationship with a boy in high school but fell in love with Jake, a good guy who treated me a lot better than Jesse did. When I finally became strong enough to break up with Jesse and slapped him in front of the everyone in our school cafeteria for treating me like shit, that was the day he drugged me and took me to his house. When I woke up it was already past eleven. Still, I called Brooke, my best friend and told her about my whereabouts and she told me she was coming for me right then.

That night, Jake, Brooke, her boyfriend Brian and my other friend Sam came to rescue me. They came right before Jesse could take advantage of me. Jesse had a gun on him which we didn't know about. He first tried to shoot Brooke but Brian jumped in the path of the bullet. Then he shot Jake who came for me as Jesse had attempted to take me with him by threatening the others to not come any closer or else he'd shoot me.

But the thing that shocked us the most was when Jesse shot himself in the head after he shot Jake. Everyone found it a little baffling. Jesse loved himself. He'd rather spend the rest of his life in prison than shoot himself. But I didn't care about that.

Jake died two days after the incident at the hospital.

I still rememberd the doctor's words.

At 3:02 AM, the patient passed away.

We couldn't save your friend.

We're sorry.

Lily and I became a lot close but the only time we actually met and talked together would usually be after classes when the hallways would be deserted and not a single soul would be around to hear our conversations. I found it rather weird how I saw her only after classes.

All day I wouldn't catch a single sight of her. Many months passed and I still didn't know who her friends were.

But then something happened. It was about a week after I told her about my past. She started to avoid me. We no longer talked and I wanted to confront her. Was she scared of me? Does she think that I was the one who killed Jake? Maybe she thought I was a freak?

When I had the chance to catch up with her, I had asked her if she no longer wanted to be my friend. But then she just blushed and looked down.

"It's not that," she had said in a small voice. "I got a boyfriend and wanted to spend some time with him."

At that time I saw a younger version of me in her, a stupid, lovestruck girl who absolutely adored her first boyfriend.

"He'd be here anytime soon," she had informed me.

"Hey, babe," a guy said, coming up behind her and encircling her waist with his arms.

He looked over at me and scanned me from head to toe. His gaze reminded me of Jesse's vulgar stares. I stepped back.

"What're doing with Ms. Depressed Attention *****?" He had whispered into her ear.

She then had jabbed him with her elbow. "Be nice," she had scolded.

Turning to me, she smiled. "This is Jason Hills, my boyfriend," she said, gesturing to him. "And this is Claire, my friend," she said to Jason.

God, even his name started with a 'J'.

"I'll see you later," I said and without waiting for a response, I dashed away from there.

The next day, I found several pieces of paper with 'MURDERER' written on it with red. There were dozens in my backpack, one glued to my seats each in almost every class. My notebooks and textbooks had that word written all over the pages.

I was so close to tears that I locked myself up in my dorm room after three classes. I couldn't take it anymore.

After a few days, everything was clear. Everyone knew about my past.

Turned out that Lily's friends were none other than Charmaine Peters and Kim Wright, and previously was Jason Hills too until he became her boyfriend.

Jason made fun of Lily for befriending someone like me and told the other girls about her friendship with me which she had apparently kept concealed from them because she was probably embarrassed by me.

Apparently, they forced my past out of her and had a good laugh over it. I didn't even know what part of my past they found funny, nor did I want to know.

From that day, Charmaine always targeted me. Lily never tried to stop her, but she never participated in her pranks against me.

And from that day, I was alone again.

I was at a burger joint to get myself some burgers. I was hungry after a long tiring day. Exams were going to come up soon and my grades didn't look any better no matter how hard I tried to focus and study.

Today was Valentine's Day. Watching almost the whole burger joint filled with couples, making out and feeding each other made me lose my appetite. Still, I stuffed the burger into my mouth because I had paid for it and  forced it down my throat.

How I wished Jake was here with me. Maybe we'd be like one of the couples here, feeding each other and talking about sweet things.

I had tried convincing myself to go on living. I tried to convince myself that he wasn't coming back, he was dead, probably a skeleton by now. I never once visited his grave after the funeral. I couldn't bring myself to see it again.

It was worse enough that his parents didn't want me anywhere near them or the grave. They were ballistic when they got to know that their only son passed away, all because of a mere teenage girl and her psycho boyfriend.

After I was done eating, I immediately left. Walking down the street, I couldn't help but be bothered by the seemingly happy couples around me. I had the sudden urge to pull them apart, do something terrible to their bond or just tell them to get lost.

But I suppressed these thoughts. It wouldn't do me any good. At least they were happy. I wouldn't kill their happiness just because of my jealousy. They were so lucky to have each other. Still alive. Still so much in love.

I was starting to hate Valentine's Day.

Arriving at a deserted part of town through which their was a way to the dorm building, I was starting to feel a little chilly.

I couldn't stop thinking about Jake. I've been thinking a lot about him than I ever did before. Was there anyway he could return? If only I had a time machine, I would turn back time, be with him and ensure nobody could harm him. I would protect him from everything and we would be happy together. I would do anything to get him back, anything. I just wanted him back in my life.

How many years was I going to live like this? Like a lifeless body moving around. I didn't even want to be here. I didn't even want to do this.

I could see how Jake's absence has affected my life for the worst. And I wasn't doing anything to make it better. If it goes on like this, I don't think I can keep on living for long.

I didn't have anyone to live for anyway. My dad and mom forcefully sent me to this university to study and become an engineer when I don't want to. All they care about is themselves and their image. Seeing as I didn't have a goal in life except wail in despair, they knew they had to make a choice for me. I didn't object mainly because I no longer cared about what happened of me. It had been about four months since I had last talked to them. They haven't been much of parents to me. So what was my purpose of living? This was barely a life anyone would want to live.

"Claire," a low voice interrupted the silent night. I halted in my steps. The voice had come from behind me.

I turned around and what I saw startled me. There, hovering above the ground, was a girl. She seemed to give off a white light of her own.

"W-what are you?" I asked, my voice sounding hoarse and scratchy.

"Hi, I'm Vanessa Archer," she said, drifting closer and waving at me.

"No! Go away!" I yelled at her and shooed her with my bag which was half slung on my back.

"Hey," she said, moving back. "That's not very polite."

I screamed when she revealed a pair of wings on her back.

"Please, just listen to me," she said, coming closer again.

"No! Begone, you ghost!" I screeched at her.

"Can you please calm down for a second? I'm here to-" she was interrupted when I smacked her in the face with my bag.

"How dare you! You smacked me?!" She spit angrily and I swear I saw her eyes glow red for a second.

I screamed and ran off.

I kept running, never looking back. I ran and ran till I was tired. I hid in the narrow path between two buildings to catch my breath.

Did I really just see a ghost? I mean she did look like ghost. I could see right through her. When I smacked her with my bag, it didn't feel like my bag hit anything solid.

"Claire," I heard the same dreadful voice again. I looked around and saw her right next to me.

I raised my hand and punched her but my hand went right through her face, horrifying me.

"Can you please stop?!" She asked, annoyed.

"What are you? What do you want from me? Go away! Shoo!"

She huffed. "Don't be such a female dog! I wonder what Jake sees in you!"