"Errgghhh."

I was only one more wrong note away from slamming my guitar against the coffee table. I had been sitting in the living room all day trying to come up with anything that even resembled music.

I was blocked. I was always fucking blocked anymore.

It didn't help that my wrist was still throbbing from last night's Nathan appearance. I could barely put any pressure on the strings because it was so painful. It was so swollen this morning that Cam tried to drag me out of the house to go get it checked out. I convinced him it would be fine and I would rest it. He said if it didn't get better by the time he got home, he was going hogtie me and carry me out of the house to take me to the doctor.

It really wasn't fine; it freaking hurt and was still extremely swollen. I wrapped it in an elastic wrap after Cameron left to try to help it. The wrap wasn't doing anything other than making it hurt worse.

I would have stopped playing my guitar right now to give it a break if it wasn't for the letter Link forwarded to me this morning over my email. It was from the record label. They were growing extremely impatient with me. They contacted Link and sent him a notice for breach of contract. The letter said that if I did not provide them additional material by the middle of next month, they were going to take me to court. Link knew my contract better than anyone else and was only mildly concerned over the threat. He tried to quell my fears this morning by telling me they didn't have a leg to stand on but encouraged me to submit something to them even if it was complete shit. He said it might buy me some time and get them to back down.

After Cam left for work this afternoon, I decided to lock the doors, silence my phone, and even hide the tv remote to remove all distractions from the room. Well, all except one, Puddles' blimp-shaped little self was on his back snoring on the couch next to me.

His sleep apnea was creating better song material than I was writing. The defiant little kid inside me wanted to record him and send it to the label to ask them what they thought about my new song.

Knowing my luck, they would love it and request I fly back home immediately to record it.

I placed my guitar down on the coffee table when it became clear that there was no way I was going to write anything right now. According to the clock on the cable box, I had been sitting in the same spot for three hours.

It was time to stop and fill my growling stomach.

I went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard to pull out my jar of peanut butter. I went to go grab a spoon out of the drawer and almost cried. There were no spoons left. Cameron was terrible at doing dishes. He always left them in the dishwasher forever instead of putting them away.

I huffed. I wanted my peanut butter, but I was also very lazy. I didn't want to open the dishwasher and bend down too. It was too much work. In the end, the grizzly bear in my stomach made the decision for me.

It wanted food now.

Once I collected everything I needed from the kitchen, I went back out to the living room to snuggle up next to Puddles, who didn't budge until I had a full spoon headed towards my mouth.

I felt like I was being watched.

When I glanced down, Puddles' tongue was hanging out like the greedy little bastard he was. He was trying to knock the spoon out of my hand as he slowly scooted closer to me.

"It's my food. You go get your own." I sneered at him.

His eyes followed my spoon as I placed it in my mouth. He started whimpering when he realized I wasn't going to give in. The persistent little pooch was not going to get even a teeny taste of my peanut butter today.

"Not going to work." I scolded him. He stuck his wet smushed in face against the couch and scooted it towards my phone. He proceeded to push at it with his face until it fell off the couch and clattered against the floor. He looked up at me with the dog equivalent of a smirk.

He was such a fucking brat.

I groaned as I bent over to pick it up. The lock screen flashed at me and said I had ninety-nine missed messages from an unknown number.

What dickweed would leave that many messages on someone's phone?

I unlocked my phone and went to the messages to see who had the audacity to interrupt me today.

I dropped the spoon on the floor as soon as I saw the messages. Puddles jumped down to go after it immediately. I scrolled through the messages in a confused stupor. There were no words, only photos. Lots and lots of photos.

The first batch consisted of me doing various things around town, like filling my rental car with gas or going to pick up a package of my things that I asked Stells to forward to me. Those weren't so bad. I was used to those kinds of pictures when I lived in LA.

The next batch started to scare me. They were all of my mom. She was walking out to her mailbox in her pajamas and slippers. My dad's car wasn't in the driveway in its usual spot, which meant he had already left for work. She was alone, being watched, and had no fucking clue. The pictures kept getting closer and closer to the house as she walked up to the front door.

The last one was taken on my parent's front porch with a tattooed finger threatening to press the doorbell.

Nathan.

I had spent enough time with those hands to know exactly who they belonged to. The childlike scrawl of his tattoos were a dead giveaway.

Another message came through.

Nathan: Want to see some more?

Another string of messages hit my phone rapid fire. Nathan was sending hundreds of photos to my phone. They were getting worse and worse. There were photos of Cameron and I wrapped up in each other, ignoring everyone around us like usual. There were even ones from the night we went to the club with Stells' and Sven, the night I barely remembered at all.

In one of them, I was hanging over the seat of Cameron's truck with my exposed ass in the air. Cameron had his hand between my legs with his fingers inside me. It was a fantastic angle. Nathan must have been close by when he took it. It was such a good photo that I could see the light hitting the pearls.

How long had he been following me?

As I sat there studying the photos, there was a knock on the door. I screamed. Puddles waddled his way over to the door to protect me. He started yapping and biting at the little rug in front of the door.

Nathan: Sweetheart, open the door and let me in.

I shrunk down low, afraid to move. Maybe Nathan would go away if I didn't answer. There was another knock at the door and then another text came through.

Nathan: Come on, Jessa. Come outside to see me.

I sat there like a complete fool, scared out of my mind.

Nathan: I know you're in there. Open the door or the video of Cameron will go viral in the next five minutes.

I stood up and walked over to the door like a good little puppet. Nathan was pulling the strings and making me dance for him. No matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to cut them to set myself free.

I gathered my courage and pulled the door open. Relief washed over me when Nathan was nowhere in sight. I began to step out and kicked something in front of me. Rolling across the welcome mat was a bottle of unlabeled pills.

I bent down and picked it up off the ground. My phone began buzzing in my hand as I studied the outside of the bottle.

Nathan was calling me this time.

"What do you want?" I pressed the phone to my ear and swallowed.

When I looked up, Nathan was standing across the street leaning against an old rusted out car, watching me. He smiled and waved at me.

"Go on—take a few, Jess. You know you want to. I won't tell anyone if you won't. It can stay between you, me, and my buddy Puddles." He laughed into the receiver.

He took the phone from his ear and moved his fingers over it. Another ping came through and he sent me another picture. He was sitting at the table on the deck in Cameron's backyard. He had Puddles sitting on his lap and I was walking around in my underwear in the house in the background.

I placed my phone back up to my ear and he mimicked my movement.

"Stay away from us." I clenched my teeth as my whole body shook.

"I guess you don't feel like playing today. I bet Cameron will probably like that last picture a lot. I think I'll just send it to him right now." Nathan's lips curled up like a cartoon villain.

"Don't. What do you want, Nathan?" That picture made it look like I let Nathan into Cameron's house. Cameron would never believe that he snuck back there and took it without my knowledge.

"Take a few of those for me. That's all." Nathan's dark eyes were amused.

Nathan was tormenting me, breaking me down piece by piece. It was way worse than what Jenna because I knew it was happening and the one thing I could do to stop it was to involve the person who would get hurt the most.

I popped open the bottle and shook a few pills out into my hand. I stared directly at him as I opened my mouth and placed them in. My body was fighting against me as I pretended to gulp them down for him.

"I always loved watching you swallow. You keep the rest of that bottle, sweetheart. Call me when you need more." He let out a satisfied chuckle. He opened his car door and climbed in. Seconds later he was waving at me as drove away.

I turned around and ran inside the house. I spat the pills out into the garbage disposal and ran water down the drain to wash them away. I could still feel the sticky residue covering my mouth. I ducked my head under the faucet and swished the water around my mouth. I spat it out and took in another mouthful and spat that out too.

I screamed as loud as I could into the sink. This had to stop. I couldn't keep doing this anymore.

I turned my head and looked at the pill bottle mocking me on the counter. I wanted to take them all and forget. I wanted it all to go away and feel nothing.

But I didn't give in to my demons this time.

I reached out my hand and grabbed it. I had to get them out of the house before I did something stupid. I had to get rid of the evidence they were even here before Cam got home.