//Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago. I was in insight, you got me alone, you found me, you found me...// I knew you were trouble-Taylor Swift.

"Bella!" he sing-song in that horrible, horrible voice of his. I snap the open book in my laps close and quickly cover myself with the blanket, pretending to be sound asleep but my room mate dramatic entry could wake even the dead.

"Watch out!" he screams and I stiffen knowing he will bounce on me soon...

"Ough" I gruff as his dead weight landed on me. "I think you broke a rib."

"Tested and trusted to wake you from your fake sleep" he grins, pulling me to a sitting position. "Remember the friend I told you was moving in with us?" he ask, ruffling my hair. I swipe his hand with a pillow, which he expertly dodge.

"You broke my ribs." I repeat, squinting my eyes at him, I remember he said something like that this morning as I was rushing out of the house, already fifteen minute late for classes, thanks to my nightmare.

"You've survived worse. He's in the living room go make him feel at home, I'll be with you soon." He says and begin to leave my room.

With a frown I scramble out of the bed. "I need a girl now that you're going to be two guys. I wish your girlfriend will just move in with us already."

With a laugh, Daniel pause to look at me from the entrance. "Trust me, you don't want Cynthia in this house. Do you have any idea how freakishly independent she is? You both get along only because you rarely see each other and this guy is great, you wouldn't even know he stays here. You might wanna change into something appropriate though." he says eying me up and down. "I already told him, he's not allow to look at you, but you are not allow to tempt him either"

"Oh come on, of course I'm going to change, you are only allow to see my fancily long legs because you are my best friend, and you've given yourself the role of the brother I never wanted." I tease walking towards my closet to get something longer than my hip length Minnie pajamas.

"They are long alright, but aren't that fancy." Daniel says scrunching up his nose. I gasp in mock horror and throw the nearest thing I could find at him before he rush out of the door.

This is us, I couldn't have chosen a more lovable room mate, but then again I didn't, he and his girlfriend chose me.

I clear my throat as I enter the living room with bare feet and spot the new guy intently staring at our landscape portrait on the wall. Cool, Daniel got us a rock star. I thought, noticing the guitar strap around him.

He quickly turn around at the intrusion, his blue eyes going wide as they land on my brown ones. "You?" he says with a disgusted look.

"Iverson?" I whisper in disbelieve and instantly begin to shake. I can feel my legs giving up on me, turning into Daniel's overcooked spaghetti.

Hold it together Bella, this isn't real, its just a dream, its a dream.

I shut my eyes and open them again, but he's still standing there, a somewhat, puzzled and irritated look on his face.

No he can't be here, it's never happened in the apartment before and he doesn't frown in my dreams, he's always laughing maniacally, making fun of me.

Wait, where is Jasmine? Usually, she would be the first I see, she would have been here, embarrassing me, humiliating me, and he would have been in a corner with a red cup in hand, laughing and watching as Jasmine and her clowns pour muds on me.

People would have gathered calling me names. Why is it just him today?

"Ah.. Bella" a voice calls from behind. I whirl around so fast expecting Jasmine to pounce on me. Instead Daniel approach me with a smile. "I see, you've already met our guest?" he says and my eyes grows painstakingly big

"Him?"

"Yes." Daniel smile. "This is Iverson Benson, my friend? Remember the one I told you is moving in with us?" He add at the confuse and horrified look on my face.

"It can't be him." I begin to shake my head, my body heating up in anger, fear and embarrassment. Iverson. Iverson. Iverson. That guy ruined my life, I had to run but he haunt me still, give me sleepless night randomly for the past four years. My social anxiety disorder is courtesy of him and his girlfriend-Jasmine.

How can he be here again? How can I stay under the same roof with him? This is going to ruin whatever little progress I've achieved with my self esteem. When will he stop following me around like a stupid, childish mistake from the past that he is.

"No! No! No!" I state, shaking my head frantically, I could see the black dots at the corner of my eyes.

"What is it?" Daniel touches me. I flinch away from him and start taking steps backwards still repeating just that word.

"No!"

"Calm down Bella, take it easy there?" he says with his palms out. "We can just talk about this and he doesn't have to stay if you don't want him to but you need to calm down. Hey, I'm right here. No one is going to hurt you." He cajole. Taking cautious steps towards me.

"He is not here to hurt you and I'm on your side. it's Daniel Jacobs, your room mate, remember?" He says in our routine way anytime I seems to be having an attack. I stop back stepping but can't seem to stop shaking my head, with wide horrific eyes reflecting my fears.

"Remember this?" Daniel grabbed a mug off of the table.

I nod. "We bought it together at Walmart."

"That's it kiddo. Take a deep breath in your nose and out your mouth, no one is going to hurt you, I'm here right here, your friendly neighbourhood spiderman" He says, and with that, I burst out laughing and crying at the same time. He holds me by the shoulder, still instructing me to breath in and out, Until my breath evens out and he hugs me.

But that only remind me, Iverson is still and indeed in our living room. I catch his confused expression over Daniel's shoulders and I quickly shrug out of his embrace.

"Daniel, it's gonna have to be a freezing day in hell before I'd stay under the same roof with this...this..."

"It's Iverson, you got it right awhile ago?" the idiot interrupts me, taking a step towards us.

"This...Scumbag!" I seethe.

Daniel looks over at him in puzzlement. "You know him?"

"Know him? This...this..."

"It's Ivers...."

"Shut up!" Daniel and I shout at him at the same time, and that gives me some comfort. I take another breath. "This is him Daniel, this is the asshole that ruined my life."

"Excuse me?" Iverson says in a disbelieving tone. "How the hell did I ruined your life? You aren't talking about that one time silly prank that has been long forgotten are you?"

Silly prank? Is he shitting on me right now? Silly prank? I grab the little pillow from the sofa and throw it at him with all my strength. Instantly looking around for anything else but found none. Blinded with fury I lunged myself at him but Daniel catches me and pull me farther away from him with my hands flying in the air trying to at least grab his shirt and I can dig my claws into those sea blue eyes of his. Eyes that I once thought were beautiful.

"Dude get out of here, go in the room" Daniel says but Iverson attempts to move closer to us. "Go now, if I let her go believe me I will call your time of death in two minutes" Daniel tells him again. Slouching his shoulders in resignation, he walks away with his head down.

"Uhm..hey." Daniel says when I stop struggling.

"Hey" I reply, running my fingers through my dark brown hair.

"Wanna take a walk?" He asks offering me his hand.

"Yes please" I take his hand and look around for a flip-flop.

After about thirty minutes of quietly roaming around, we finally settled down under a secluded tree, a stone trow from our apartment, I'm a lot calmer now but not sure I'm ready to go home just yet.

I finish the cone iced cream we got on the way and when Daniel clears his throat, I know its time to break the silence that has befell us since we left the apartment.

"Small world huh?" he says quietly testing the waters.

"Yeah, I should run into Harry Styles sometimes."

He chuckles and stretch out his legs. "You never mentioned his name." he says and I nod. After everything that happened between Iverson and me, his name became unpronounceable for me, most times, I will myself to forget, just couldn't. He's the skeleton in my cupboard.

"You should talk about it. Maybe you will feel better." he advice.

"It's a long story"

"All we have is time."

I wipe the remnant of the ice cream off my fingers and clear my throat. Today more than ever the story feels fresh in my memory. "I had a crush on him" I know I don't have to mention his name. I glance at Daniel, he wasn't looking at me, he knows that will make me feel uncomfortable, but I know I have his undivided attention.

"But he had a girlfriend, Jasmine. Okay this is where it gets shitty, you know I'm not good in narrating" I look at him and he gives me an encouraging smile.

"I'll just ask questions if you lost me." he says.

"Okay. Jasmine happens to be my school mother's best friend, you know I went to this school where you get a senior as your guardian and we kind of call them school parents." I begin.

"They were a year ahead of me, Jasmine, Isabelle my school mother, (I actually picked her because we share the same name) and Ive...." I stutter and bite my tongue.

"Don't worry about it, go on." Daniel encourage.

"Well, I had this huge crush on him and he happens to be dating my school mother's best friend and even though I envied her, there was nothing I could do about it, I liked her.

Everything was the same until one fateful day, Jasmine and my school mother left their bags with me when they went to the gym, it didn't take long for Jasmine phone to start ringing, when I saw his name on the screen, I went like batshit crazy. It was like seeing my idol, the call went unanswered alright, but I later snooped into Jasmine's phone and took his number, worse mistake of my life!

Before I could talk myself out of it, I sent him a message, another bad choice, he replied immediate asking who I was so I told him I was his secret admirer. I knew he probably got that a lot. He's popular, plays basketball and has the looks, half of the school population had a crush on him." I look to Daniel who is staring intently at his shoes now, he nods for me to go on.

"We started doing this anonymous texts and calls after then. I was so happy, those days. You know, I didn't have many friends so automatically, he became my confidant. I wake up every morning to cheesy messages from him and won't go to bed until I've talked to him on phone. Finally he convinced me to tell him who I was and I did. I told him how I got his number and everything. I thought I could trust him, I thought he felt something for me too." I laugh sadly and Daniel lift his head to give me a sympathetic smile.

"We arranged to meet one day, he told me how he was going to leave Jasmine because they weren't getting along and all. I was to meet him at a cafe, I remember picking my nicest dress and making my mum do my hair, I was having my first officially date, at seventeen, with the guy I loved, Iverson Benson, every girl's choice.

I could barely contain myself. When I got to the Cafe, he wasn't there so I texted him and he assured me he'll be right there. I got a seat and sat there quietly like the fool that I was, soon enough they arrived"

"They?" Daniel asks and and I nod trying to fight back my tears and taking steady breath too.

"Iverson, Jasmine and my school mother, before I knew what was going on, I've received two slaps from Jasmine and was bathed in coffee, she started shouting and calling me names"

I cringe inwardly remembering those, Daniel takes my hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

"She and my school mother said I betrayed them, she smashed a left over burger on my head. I remember people gathering to see what was going on, all the while Iverson stood to the side like he had no concern in the world. I begged for the ground swallow me but it didn't happen. One of the cafe attendant finally came to my rescue, she drag me through the mini crowd and showed me a back door.

School became hell, Jasmine made it her life goal to embarrass me anywhere and everywhere we met. She usually just dump whatever she had on me, water, coffee, she called me trash, everyday there would be a note posted on my locker, that was messages shared between Iverson and me.

I lost my school mother, I lost the little friends I had, people called me a new name each day. I became an outcast and soon depression set in, followed closely by my attacks. I tried to kill myself, my mum decided she's had enough, so we moved. I changed school, saw a therapist and got better.

Two years after, a guy asked me on a date and I think I went to bed the night prior, dreading how it was gonna go, I never found out because my nightmares started that night and I bailed on him and that's how it's been since then."

"Hmm, and you never heard from him again until today?" he ask and I nod. After about five minutes and I thought he wasn't going to say anything, he turned and hold my hands in his.

"Isabella, do you trust me?" he asks and I couldn't hold my surprise laugh, of all the things I thought he would says.

"Yes of course I trust you silly, I just told you a story I rarely talk about, not even my mother knows this story in the details I just gave you" I tell him and he smiles.

"So you know, I will never do anything to hurt you or jeopardise our friendship?"

he asks, again I nod. My eyes misting over. I must have done something right to deserve Daniel because aside from my mother, he's the next best thing in my life and we aren't even involve romantically, but I trust him with my life.

"Okay, I think Iverson was brought back into your life for a reason, and he's going to stay and you're gonna have to suck it up and deal with it, and I'm gonna be by your side all the way through."

Thank you so much for reading! A VOTE will mean a lot.