"I can't believe you got yourself locked up." Alex's brother shook his head as he drove away from the station.

I don't think he has realized that a girl had slipped into the backseat of the car as he continued to nag Alex.

I couldn't see Alex's response to his brother's remark but I could imagine him rolling his eyes. His head was turned to the side, looking out of the car through its window.

"Do you really have nothing to say for yourself?" His brother went on again.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable at this point. How do you make your presence known in this kind of situation? I shifted on my seat, unsure of what to do. Did I want to notify them of my presence? Was having them know that I was sitting in the backseat better than being invisible?

I didn't get to decide which of them was better for myself because Alex turned his head to look at his brother and jerked his head at my direction. "Stop it, you're making her uncomfortable."

I met our driver's eyes over the rearview mirror and without any prior warning, the car came to a screeching stop, throwing me against the back of Alex's seat. My hands planted themselves on Alex's seat to prevent my face from hitting it but they weren't quick enough. My forehead bumped against the back of Alex's seat while Alex got catapulted against his seatbelt. I felt his body hit the seat again as he cursed loudly at his brother.

"Fuck, Wayne! Are you trying to get us killed?"

Meanwhile, I rubbed my aching forehead and inched back to reposition myself in my seat, this time pulling the seatbelt from behind me and buckling myself in so that I don't get thrown around again in case Alex's brother decided that was fun.

I met Wayne's eyes through the rearview mirror again as I buckled my seatbelt in and gave him an awkward and shy smile, raising my right hand to give him a small wave. "Hi?"

Wayne shook his head, closing his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. I guess he was completely oblivious of my presence in the car after all.

"Jesus.. Fuck. Couldn't you have given me a heads up? I thought I was looking at a ghost." He muttered to his brother a bit too loudly.

Well, ouch. I was trying to be less sensitive of what people think of me but how was I supposed to take that as a compliment?

The road was fairly quiet since it was pretty late at night but a car eventually passed us, beeping their horns angrily. In their defense, we did stop in the middle of the road and was practically blocking it.

The loud beeping from the other car snapped Wayne back to reality and the car started moving again.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you okay back there? And not to be rude but, who are you, again?" He finally addressed me.

I gave him a tired smile. I can't muster anything more than that after everything that I've gone through that night.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Sorry for shocking you like that. I didn't really know how to greet you when I got in the car.." I trailed off before moving on from that topic when Wayne started giving me an awkward and uncomfortable laugh. "I'm Emily, Alex's schoolmate."

"Ah. Well, I've never seen you around at the house before. New kid?" Wayne asked.

I didn't know how to answer that but I opted to be honest and just shook my head. There's no need to lie about it anyways. "No, we've been going to the same school for a long time now."

"Oh?" Wayne turned his attention to Alex now, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.

Alex simply ignored him, resting his head against his seat and facing the window. I didn't know if he was pretending to be asleep or if he really was sleeping. I reminded myself that he was in the holding cell before I even arrived there. He spent more time in that cell than I did and if I felt as exhausted as I was feeling, I can't imagine how drained he must be.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Emily. You look like a nice girl." Wayne complimented. I raised my eyes to meet his through the rearview mirror again and gave him a small smile, thanking him.

Wayne looked over at his brother again before sighing, mumbling something like, "Useless brat," before looking at me again through the mirror.

"I hope you don't take this the wrong way but where are we supposed to drop you off?"

I straightened up in my seat, "Uh, Alex said that I can stay over at your place tonight since it's late and my house is quite far away from here."

Wayne nodded, "Yeah, I suppose you can take the guest bedroom, it's empty anyway. I'll help set you up once we get home."

I gave him a grateful smile, "Thanks."

"No problem," and that marked the end of our conversation. I guess he could tell how tired I was feeling and was considerate enough to not try make small talk.

I rested my head against my seat but kept my eyes on the road. Occasionally, I would find myself stealing glimpses at Alex's older brother. It wasn't that he was good-looking or that I found myself weirdly attracted to him or anything, not at all. There was just something intriguing about how he was.

Wayne was much older than Alex and I. If I remembered correctly, he and Alex has a 8-year age gap between them. That means he was 8 years older than me too.

But that wasn't what intrigued me.

I've never really met Alex's brother. He would never come to our school and pick Alex up or anything when we were closer since Wayne would probably be in University back then and had his own things to attend to. Alex used to tell me the story about how his older brother punched his own locker door open just to see if he had the strength to do it.

Did he forget his locker combination? No.

Did he wear anything to protect his hand from getting completely and utterly broken? No.

So, yes, Alex's older brother supposedly punched his locker door open and broke his hand. For the heck of it.

My eyes drifted to his hands that were holding the car's steering wheel. His left hand was on the lower half of the steering wheel, keeping hold of it, while his other hand rested on his thigh.

The guy from Alex's story sounded scary and intimidating and reckless but the guy that was driving the car looked anything but. He looked laid back and relaxed and yet, he sounded mature and was friendly enough.

Alex's stories about his brother had also painted a mental picture of a wild guy to me but the man sitting diagonally in front of me didn't look as crazy as Alex made him out to be. It was either Alex's story was simply too biased to take into consideration or something have caused his older brother to change.

But I was too tired to be curious about it at that particular moment. My mind can play the speculative guessing game tomorrow, after I've had a good night rest.

The ride felt tantalizingly long. I wanted nothing more than to sink into a comfortable bed and let go of all my worries for the night and I guess that strong desire made time tick slower. We eventually arrived at the house and Alex woke up on his own when the car glided into the garage and came to a stop. Wayne shifted the car's gear and put it into park before turning the headlights and the car's engine off.

We unbuckled our seatbelts and got out of the car. Since it was my first time at their house, I followed the brothers closely as they unlocked the front door and let me in. I took my shoes off and placed them on an empty spot on the shoe rack, mimicking Alex's actions. He grabbed a pair of slippers and dropped them on the floor by my feet. It made a slapping sound as it hit the floor and the sound echoed throughout the empty house.

Wayne jumped at the sudden noise and turned to glare at his brother. "Did you really have to do that?" He whispered angrily. I didn't know why he was whispering. Was someone in the house?

Alex shrugged carelessly, "It's not like Mom and Dad are home."

Huh, interesting.

Alex walked further into the house and I sped walk to keep up with his strides. He showed me the guest room, opening the door wide for me. "You can stay here tonight. Wait here, I'll grab some clothes for you to change into."

He walked further down the hall and opened the second door to the right, disappearing into the room.

Wayne walked past me, waving at me. "Well, good night. I'll see you in the morning."

I gave him a polite smile and wave, "Thanks for picking us up from the station and for letting me stay the night here."

"No problem. Just tell Alex if you need anything."

I nodded in response, watching him walk down the hall and disappearing around the corner.

Alex came out of his room with a fresh set of clothes in his hands and walked towards me. I met him halfway and took the clothes from him.

"They might be too big for you but they should be comfortable for you to sleep in. This is the bathroom. You can use it first." He turned to the door beside us, pushed it open, flicked the light switch on and stepped aside to let me in.

I thanked him in a small voice before stepping inside and shutting the door behind me, locking it.

I hung the clothes that Alex gave me and took off my dirty ones, leaving them on the floor by the sink before stepping into the shower to wash off all the grime off my body. Let's just say that the holding cell we were kept in wasn't the cleanest place and being able to finally shower and wash off all the dirt sticking to my skin felt heavenly.

I got out of the shower and realized that Alex forgot to give me a towel, but at this point, I couldn't find it in me to care. I slipped on the oversized shirt and the pair of joggers that Alex had lent me. Both articles of clothing stuck to my damp skin and it made it a bit more difficult for me to put them on. When I was finally able to get both of my legs into the joggers, I had to really tighten the waistband of the joggers by pulling the strings in them and tying them into a knot because of how big they were.

I picked up the pile of dirty clothes off the floor and gathered them in my hands before unlocking the door and opening it.

I was about to step through it to exit the bathroom when I realized that somebody was standing right in front of it. I barely managed to halt my next step to avoid crashing into the towering wall that is Alexander West's torso.

I tilted my head to look at him expectantly.

"Uh.." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he took his eyes away from my face and let it wander elsewhere. I raised a questioning eyebrow at his behavior before remembering that I had no bra on and my shirt was sticking to my body like a second skin.

Talk about awkward.

I contemplated on what I should do. Do I cross my arms over my chest? No, that would make it worse.

A lightbulb moment came to me and I started maneuvering my dripping wet hair over my chest. The water dripping from the strands will make the shirt even wetter but at least it'll cover my chest. Sacrifices have to be made.

"Here, I forgot to give it to you earlier. Thought you might need it." Alex offered a thick fluffy towel to me, his eyes still glued to the space above my head as he respectfully kept his line of vision from lowering.

I hastily took the towel from him and hugged it close to my body, covering the parts that were a bit too visible for my liking. I cleared my throat awkwardly, "Thanks."

Alex nodded, finally letting his eyes lower when he figured it was safe to look. He noticed the dirty clothes in my hand and nodded towards the basket by the door. "You can just drop those in there, I'll wash them tonight with the rest of my laundry and put them in the dryer so you can wear them tomorrow after it's clean."

I looked at the half-full basket and hesitantly placed my clothes on top of the pile. I wasn't sure I was comfortable with letting someone else do my laundry for me, especially if they weren't my immediate family.

"It's just Alex, Em." I told myself, "You once considered him family, too." I breathed out as I looked at my clothes sitting on top of the pile in the laundry basket. "Besides, it'd be weird if you rejected his offer, right? You can't just go home wearing his clothes tomorrow but you can't possibly bear the feeling of re-using those dirty clothes without washing them first either, right?"

I realized what might've been weirder than rejecting Alex's suggestion of letting him wash my clothes with the rest of his dirty laundry was me standing there, staring at said dirty laundry as if something might pop up from beneath the pile of clothes.

I averted my eyes from the content of the laundry basket and looked at Alex who was standing there, looking like he was waiting for something. I looked down to his hands that were holding some clothes and finally understood that he was waiting for me to move.

"Oops, sorry." I mumbled, embarrassed, as I stepped aside to let him enter the bathroom.

As he closed the bathroom door after himself, I was about to make the walk back to the guest bedroom when something caught my eye. I covered the distance between the bathroom and the living room and took out my phone to turn on its flashlight.

The white light shone in the darkness and provided some light for me to see the trophies that were displayed in the living room better. I remembered Alex telling me about these trophies when we were younger and I recognized one trophy that he took a picture of to show me.

It was a golden trophy from a taekwondo tournament that he participated in. 2nd place.

I remembered being wowed by this trophy.

The memory brought a smile to my face.

I was so easily amazed at everything Alex did when we were younger but I remembered this trophy in particular. I felt proud of him and it was also one of the reasons I started thinking of Alex as a the stronger one between the two of us. Since then, I started thinking of him as a guardian angel that's more than capable of protecting me and having my back when I needed him.

I didn't really consider external factors when I should have when I thought of him as a knight in a shining armor that would come rescue me whenever I needed him to.

I turned away from the trophy and turned off my phone's flashlight before my conscience can turn another happy memory I have from my old friendship with Alex into a bitter one.

I walked back to the guest bedroom and shut the door behind me quietly, not wanting to disturb the silence that blanketed the entire house. It wasn't a big house but it did feel kind of empty and cold.

It was hard to imagine that the young and warm Alex who had been my best friend grew up in this house. I can't exactly say the same for the Alex that I knew now, though. His character, the look in his eyes, perfectly mirrored the air in this home.

It made me want to light up some scented candles, put up fairy lights on the wall and put on some jazz music to create a more homey feeling to the house.

I sighed as I walked closer to the bed in the room and laid the towel Alex gave me over the pillow before crawling under the covers and laying down on the bed. I spread my hair out on the covered pillow and closed my eyes, finally letting them rest.

The strain that I put on them came rushing to me and I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion as every other part of my body started shutting down. My brain couldn't even conjure up one last thought before I slipped into the dark chasm of unconsciousness.