I stood there, drinking in the false sense of security before I realized what was happening.  I was standing alone in the middle of a fucking cornfield with Nathan. He was clutching me tightly in his arms and whispering soft words to try to calm me down.

This was bad. It was much worse than being trapped in the corn maze.

My eyes darted open and I pushed him away.  I began to scream and his hand flew over my mouth to muffle it.

He pushed me back into some of the decaying, dried stalks until they scratched painfully at the back of my neck. The dead, damp slender fronds made it feel like I had bugs crawling up and down over my skin.

"Don't do that now. You don't want your boyfriend to come running to find you, do you? It might be a little fun if he did. I would love to watch you sucker punch him again. What was all that about anyway?" Nathan's dark eyes were bright with amusement.

"None of your business." I huffed and pushed him back again.  

"This is good. I want to know now. I should just call him over here myself and ask him." Nathan leaned back and opened his mouth to begin shouting.

This time, I was the one with my hand over his mouth, stopping him from calling out. He was cackling at my reaction. 

"Please don't. I don't want him here." I begged Nathan.

He grasped my wrist in his hand and pulled it away from his mouth so he could talk.

"Does that mean you are ready to have a little fun with me tonight? I have a whole bag of candy and I'm willing to share some," Nathan said.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a baggie with an assortment of different rainbow-colored pills. He opened it up and took some out for himself before offering it to me.

"I'm not taking those." I crossed my arms over my chest to keep them from going towards the bag. My resolve to stay sober was being tested heavily tonight. Seeing Kelly with Cameron had torn a hole in my chest. I knew I couldn't give in to the temptation to use or it would be the end of me. I didn't know if I would have the strength to pull my self back out of it again.

"Trick or treat? It's going to be one or the other. You decide."  Nathan pushed harder.

"Neither." I hissed at him.

"Option three, then.  Cameron's video is going viral right now." Nathan pulled out his phone and waved it.

I was angry at Cameron, scared of Nathan, and losing my grip on reality fast. Mentally, I was done with the threats and the what-ifs. At some point, everyone reaches a breaking point in their life, and this was mine. Nathan kept throwing the threat back at me to keep me in line and I was on the verge of losing my sanity over it. All of this drama was to protect a boy who kept breaking my heart.

What if I just let Nathan do it and get it over with? Why was I protecting the guy who hurt me?

No matter how I spun it in my head, I couldn't let Nathan do it.

Some part of my twisted self must enjoy the pain because no matter how much I was hurting over Cameron right now, I would still protect him at all costs. That part of me would never change. Even if he slept with a thousand girls in front of my face, I would still do this for him because he didn't deserve to lose everything.

"Give me the fucking pills." I held out my hand to him.

"Good choice. You aren't as stupid as I thought."  He went to hand me some and pulled back at the last second.  "You know what would make this even more fun?" 

"What now, Nathan?" I was losing my patience with him.

"Come get them from me, Jess." Nathan raised his eyebrows with excitement.

I shook my head no. 

I knew what he wanted and I wasn't going to do it.  We had played this game multiples times before. In fact, the first pills I ever swallowed for him were fed to me this way. He begged me to come sit on his lap one night and then slid them in my mouth with his tongue. I didn't even know he had them in there until they were sliding down my throat.  It just took one time and a lot of praise from him to get me hooked. He had awakened the addict hidden inside of me and was trying to do it again.

"If I do this, will you go away?" I needed him to say it before I agreed to anything. 

"Take them from me and I'm gone." He grinned ear to ear.

"Fine, just do it and get it over with," I murmured and stepped in front of him. Nathan reached into the bag and didn't even look at what he was grabbing out.  There was no telling what I was about to take. The thought of letting him do this to me made part of me feel like vomiting. The other part craved the pills so badly that I would do anything to get them.

I stood up on my tip toes and leaned into him.  I went to put my mouth on his and he backed away to tease me. He looked down at me and then fisted my hair. He pulled me in hard against his body and roughly shoved his tongue into my mouth. I began working my tongue against his looking for the pills. I was desperately searching for them to end this as quickly as possible. Finally, I found one, but Nathan pulled it away and I lost it.  He was playing keep-away with me. 

There was a flash in my peripheral vision. I turned my eyes to the side and caught a glimpse of Nathan snapping picture after picture of the two of us locked in an embrace with our tongues tied together.

He forced the pills into my mouth with his tongue and pulled away to watch me swallow them down.

"Open up, Jess. Let me see." Nathan gloated.

I opened my mouth like he said to show him. Cameron would be so disappointed in me if he could see right now. It's not like it would make any difference; he was probably diving headfirst into Kelly's watermelons right now anyway. Now that I was gone, Cameron could anything he wanted with her.

"Jessa Miller, you are such a naughty little tease." He laughed.

"Are we done?" I crossed my arms over myself self-consciously.

"Yeah, we are. Unless you want to come back to the studio and party with me and the boys tonight," Nathan said.

"Jessa!" Cameron's panicked voice cut through my terror.  "Where are you? Answer me, damn it."

I looked back at the sound of crunching feet and started hyperventilating.

"Guess we'll have to do this another time. I'll be in touch, sweetheart." Nathan leaned down and kissed the top of my head and walked away.

I slumped back down to the ground and curled up in a little ball against the cold, hard dirt.  I silently sat still with my head between my knees. I couldn't cry, I couldn't feel anything, I was numb. First, Kelly snuck her way between Cam and me again and Nathan made it clear he wasn't just going to go away like I hoped.  My life was falling apart around me.

About twenty minutes later, I was shivering as my body started to feel the effects of the pills and the plummeting temperature. My head was going too slow, which made me assume Nate fed me something that would take me down.

I laid down on my side between the corn stalks and closed my eyes.