AN: OKAY, so finally! After a hundred thousand years of not updating, here comes another chapter!....I'm sorry! :) I've been reallyyyy busy (and lazy) but no worries! Here is chapter nine! Now, I don't know what your expectations will be but...this is the best I could come up with. Next chapter will be posted soon! I promise! XD Thanks for everyone who has reviewed in the past and whoever are new readers...thanks for taking up so much time reading this! XD Lol. :) So, here it is. Bye! R&R, as usual! :)

Chapter Nine – Crazed as ever

-Melanie Stryder-

"Come on Melanie, try harder. Just get into that memory lane and dig deep." I snickered and gaped at him disbelievingly for his poor attempt for highlighting that sentence with humor and enthusiasm when it clearly did the opposite to me. I rolled my eyes at his false worried eyes; I knew behind those round penetrating eyes, he was filled with nothing but anxiety and longing anyway…but much was the same for me.

I'm sure he barely even cares about my loss of memories…but who am I to blame? He is after all, only being paid. He's entitled to pretend once in a while. What a fraud.

"Ugh, look here shrink man, it's not that easy, okay! My mind doesn't work like a machine that directly records everything that happens in my life!" I jumped out of my seat and yelled at the psychiatrist who was in front me. I was pretty sure that my face would appear to be in a deep scarlet shade because I could mildly feel the fuming heat rushing to my cheeks.

I was more than drained and sick of the infuriating repetition. Everyday for three weeks now, I would have to 'reminisce' and try to achieve my slack memories of Jared back. But every single troubling time, I always fail—another disappointment…to no avail. Neither of them would even sympathize anyway. Whatever I was going through, they had no idea how it would be like. The exercises of recalls and flashbacks were not meek, but humiliating, bizarre and unreasonable. Not to mention, it gave me unfathomable migraines and unclear images; literally blurry and dragging sights.

But either way, I couldn't complain to Jared, he would only feel more depressed, if that was even possible.

Sure, I'm not one hundred percent supportive of the idea about trusting him and Jared coming with me to these petty therapy sessions or driving me home to my apartment and spending time with him forcibly (Everything still seems to me like an impractical joke Jamie or Jeb planned, for some reason) – but Jared's a nice, acceptable guy who seems to have earn my relatives' trust. I have nothing against his kindness, so why not give him a chance, right?

"Uhh…" the therapist stuttered, obviously taken aback. "Melanie, it's natural to feel troubled thoughts and to hesitate, but being patient will do the trick. Just sit down and be calm—"

"Oh, screw you and your pointless mind games!" I unconsciously slammed my fist unto his desk and turned my back on him, feeling overwhelmed that I actually pulled that scene. I stomped towards the door, hearing 'good ol' polite' Jared apologizing to Doctor whats-his-face back there.

"Look, she didn't mean that. Sorry—excuse us for a moment…"

I stepped out of the room when Jared eventually caught up with me in the middle of the hallway.

"Mel, Mel!" The anger was strongly flowing within me with the tears threatening to fall. I was surprised to how I simply struck at the shrink like that. (To be honest, I forgot his name since he didn't seem to be relevant to me anyway, no need to know him)

Jared's inescapable hands gripped my shoulder and spun me around to face him. "What was that all about?" He softly asked.

I couldn't answer him at that instant, the headache was taking its terrible course and I desperately needed to sit down.

He waited for my response while I took several deep breaths and only fixed my stare at his eyes. We were still awkwardly positioned standing in the middle of the hallway when somebody abruptly switched the lights off and the sight before me was nothing but darkness. At the same time, the whole building seemed to be twisting around; all wild and out of control.

The next thing I knew, Jared was calling out my name and shaking my body, and to my shock, I was laying on the floor, on the brink of drifting away.

It was either the building had just collapsed, or I had.

-Jared Howe-

The skies outside were dull and the clouds were nearly covering every inch of the sky. The sun has set, but the ominous outline of its shines were still clear and hanging. It wasn't twilight much, but the moon was already up in the sky, right beside one cloud that was dreamily hovering.

I'm starting to wonder to myself if we even have any hope left at all. I just can't understand how this even started, honestly. I really am not the same as I was before this problem with Melanie came into our lives.

Truly, my life is getting more ironic every single minute that I continue breathing. I feel like a moron after everything that has happened. I'm stuck in a constant reality daze wherein I keep wishing that Melanie could get her memories back and we both could move on in our lives and everything would go normal again.

But no, you can't have everything. If there's one thing I have learned in life, it's that you have to go through all this pain for something. In my case; Melanie's the person I'm striving for.

I can't help but ask myself every morning, when I open my eyes to another yearning day, when I have to pick up Melanie and bring her to our appointment with a therapist and see her hurting with all those exercises and recollection of memories, I just can't help but ask the same feeble but justified, the heart-striking yet true question. One sentence that makes my head spin and my stomach churn: What if she never remembers me?

After Mel's whole unsuspecting melt down three hours ago back at Dr. Gerald's office, Melanie passed out right in my arms. I had to bring her back to her place, which was just four blocks away, while she was still unconscious. I was too uneasy to simply stick around and wait inside her room, instead, I decided to take a breather and bluntly wait for her to wake up in her living room.

"…uuhh" A straining lively groan came from the bedroom. I directly recollected my thoughts and stood up from the couch and speedily paced towards her room all the while holding the glass of water I readied minutes ago.

"Here, take this." She was starting to sit up with her hand pressing against her forehead. I took the liberty and sat beside her, handing her the water. She carefully held the glass in her hand, but I noticed her slightly shaking.

"Thanks." She softly said, taking one sudden glance at me, which I know she thought I wouldn't see. She gulped the water down hastily and let out a huge sigh, finally placing the glass by the bedside table.

"You okay? The whole passing-out thing a while back was unexpected...." I started, undeniably feeling guilty about it. Only now did I sincerely fully realize that it was my fault for all those headaches. My selfishness led me to my insensitiveness. "I'm really sorry, Mel. It's all my fault, I never considered the fact that you might me sick of all this mess."

"No, no. Jared, it's…fine, I guess. It's nothing, besides; it's that doctor's fault. He was really a pain in the ass. I couldn't stand him." She squeezed in a little laugh, making me faintly smile at how she could take things so light. But that wouldn't convince me enough that she was completely all right. I wanted to make it up to her, give her a break from all the therapy sessions.

"It's really not fine, Mel." I answered back. "But let me do something to at least make it up to you."

"Don't be ridiculous, you don't have to do anything. I mean, we could meet up with the next doc or something. Maybe around this week…?"

"No, definitely not. We're not meeting up with anyone this week. Maybe not even for a long time. Let's have a break; I know you'd want that. And, you probably want to go to work with no interruptions anyway, right?" I reversed the topic back to her work so she would forget about the shrinks for a moment.

She didn't answer, which I knew meant yes.

"Exactly" I nodded, satisfied. And I finally made up my mind to what I would do to make it up to her. "Listen, you want to go out? You know, have some lunch, and do something…fun?" Her eyes lit up and she hopefully looked at me, but she was trying too hard to hide that encouraged stare. I couldn't resist but smile triumphantly since I knew she definitely couldn't deny my offer.

"Go out?" She asked, her gorgeous-looking big hazel eyes gazing up at me.

"Sure, why not." I grinned.

"Do something fun?" Her lips pouted. "Where are we going?" The excitement was already leaking through her voice and there was no hesitancy to where I would bring her; the image of the place had burst in my mind almost instantly when she asked where.

"You'll find out when we get there. You up for it?"

"Hell yes!" She jumped from the bed, making it bounce. "I'll clean up." She dashed out of her bedroom and into her bathroom.

At least I was able to make her truly excited in a long time.

-Melanie Stryder-

"Oh…wow. No way!" I couldn't believe this; it felt too surreal. I hadn't been in this place for who knows how long and here I am again.

I was slowly taking in the details of my surroundings and taking note on the different points that had changed over the years. In front of me, was a frozen vast of lake, completely transformed into a skating rink with antique old precious trees forming around the solid circle ice. Houses were nearby, but nobody was particularly lurking around the streets so that means I could skate here again like I did when I was in high school.

I don't specifically remember everything—with the blurs and uncertain parts of my memories still missing—but I could recall that after classes when I was back in my teenage years that I would sneak in here and do some skating before dinner time in Jeb's house. The confusion of my unclear memories was strong, somewhat blocking my mind from looking back into those years, but something told me that I was with someone in all those times I would come here, but I could be wrong.

Jared was simply standing with an endearing smirk on his tanned face, his eyes scanning the place as well and clearly watching my not-so-subtle reactions to it.

"Jared! I can't believe this!" Before I could think openly, my arms abruptly threw around his neck and I heard an odd gasp coming out of him.

"Uhm…Mel?" I leaned back to see his face and I saw that he was stunned as I was.

"Sorry, I didn't…uhm, it was—sorry." I whispered, slowly detaching my arms when he unexpectedly brought me closer and held me tighter which only added to astonishment.

"Can I—Uh, is it okay if we stay like this for a few seconds?" He said to my ear. Goosebumps rose in my arms and the hairs in my neck stood, but I couldn't comprehend why he wanted to continue this and it surprised me that I didn't protest. I didn't want to protest.

Plus, it did feel nice.

He finally sighed after a few moments and he removed his arms around my waist. My chest rapidly felt a tiny, unfamiliar ache when he did but it faded easily and I wondered what that was.

His forehead creased and his lips tightened into a firm line, which got me worrying.

"Is something wrong?" I asked him, taking a step toward him.

"No. Everything's fine. I'm sorry I…suddenly hugged you like that." His eyes were fixed on the ground, and for another astonishing time, my hand shockingly grabbed his and tangled our fingers together.

For another second, the heartache was there once more…only stronger.

"It's fine." I smiled at him sincerely, and he returned the gesture. He quickly glanced at our holding hands and I hurriedly stole mine back to save him all the discomfort, but when I did he looked like he was about to say something but thought otherwise.

He cleared his throat and spoke.

"Uhm…ready to put on those skating shoes?" He said, swiftly changing the topic, which I was grateful for. The tense atmosphere could use come easing up.

"Yeah, definitely. Can't wait to skate on that smooth land of ice again. God, it's been forever since I've been here." I laughed and shook my head at some random memory I dimly remembered. "I seriously am thankful for you bringing me here, Jared." I looked at him while we walked to the wooden benches where we could sit and put our shoes on.

"No, it's my pleasure, Mel. This is the least I could after all those things you've been through. Besides, I really wanted to visit this place again." He then smiled at me but I was a little confused.

"You know this place?" I thought he merely brought me here because that's what I wanted. I always imagined him asking Jeb or Jamie about places that would probably trigger my memory and bring me there, but I never thought he would know my most favorite one.

"Yeah, of course. Don't you remember?" He didn't exactly see the irony of that, I think. "Oh right…you don't." No wait, he did see the irony of it. I noticed that he had a sadder tone on the last part of his sentence so I decided to ask him some more about how he knew about my secret rink.

"How could you know about this? This neighborhood is more or less abandoned and I didn't even tell a soul about any of this. These big trees are actually blocking and covering the skating rink's view so nobody can see it very much, and how could you?"

"Are you kidding me?" He laughed and was only more puzzled.

"What?"

"I was the one who showed you this place."

"What do you mean 'you were the one'? No, no. I found this all on my own." I arched my eyebrow and stood up to walk toward the rink and Jared followed and replied.

"I mean that I was the one who invited you to cut Health every Wednesday because we were going here, in this exact place, eight blocks from school. We couldn't exactly come in from the front gate of the village because it was locked and barricaded since this entire neighborhood is forlorn. So we had our own secret passageway, do you remember where it is?" We were in the middle of the ice now, and for some reason, he was smiling from telling me all about this, but I was doing the opposite.

"Yeah…I would climb the old Jones house's gate from behind and run through their yard to get to the front. I would then pass by two more houses and turn about to make sure nobody saw me and if they did, they would get confused because I pretended to head for another way. And then at the very end was…this…" I couldn't finish. I knew what he said was true. How could I not remember this if I've been with Jared in all those times?

"Yup, that's the one." And then he took off, skating around the circle like an expert. I was still caught up in a daze but then I snapped back to reality, and my legs starting moving, catching up to him.

"Jared, I'm sorry I couldn't remember you in all this." I apologized when I was already beside him, still moving gracefully around. He turned to look at me so that he was back skating and he tilted his head.

"Why would you be sorry? It's not your fault, Mel. Don't think that it is, it's nobody fault." His front was still facing me and his back still turned the other way. Because he was looking at me, he didn't see the rock behind him.

"Look out!" But it was too late. He stumbled backward and fell flat on his back, I ran toward him but from my hurry, I tripped from my own feet and fell. A small shriek came out from me and I closed my eyes automatically. But I noticed I landed on something bulky and strange.

"Urgh!" I heard something say. I then hurriedly opened my eyes to see that I landed on Jared.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." But I couldn't help but laugh, and I couldn't stop.

"Why…urgh, ow…why are you laughing?" He asked with a deep husky tone, and I was still on top of him.

"I…don't…know." I still laughed. "This day just keeps becoming weirder and weirder." I finally breathed it out in between the chuckles.

"Well, you got me there." He said.

"Oh, sorry! I forgot you're hurting." I giggled again but slowly moved out of his way, but landed beside him instead. He sighed in relief and he too surprisingly laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" I asked.

"Don't blame me, your laughter's contagious." He chuckled but it only lasted a few moments. And then he beamed at me.

My hysteria was gone after I breathed in a couple of times to get a hold of myself and then I turned my head too to face him. His eyes were glinting from the afternoon sky, and his mouth was stretched across his face from his terrific smile and I couldn't help but smile in return.

I took a deep breath and sighed too, in relief, but also in happiness.

"This is nice." I whispered, but he would surely hear it since his face was only an inch away. His smile faded but his expression turned thoughtful, and his gaze roamed around my face.

"Yes, very much."

At that moment, I was more than grateful to have a friend like Jared. And I passionately wished that I could remember all the times we've spent together, because I know they were great, and memorable.

And we just laid there, our backs on the ice, our faces toward the sun, our thoughts wandering…and our hands intertwined.