Sweep by sweep, I could feel my hair falling. Though the room was quite, the sound of the electric razor was deafening. I know it wasn't on for long, but it felt like forever. When it finally ceased, my hair follicles still reverberated. I still didn't dare look. As long as I kept my eyes closed, the memory of my hair remained intact.

I jumped the first time Jake's fingers ran through what was left of my hair. His touch gave me goosebumps all over. As he applied the black dye to my hair, I started to relax. After the devastation of the razor, it was soothing. He cursed to himself as dye ran a bit more than he was expecting and he rushed to get to it with a paper towel before too much got onto my clothes.

"I should've made you strip," he mumbled.

"I definitely would not have," I shook my head.

"It would've been easier," he insisted.

"And I still would not," I reiterated.

"Why not? It's just skin. It's nothing that I haven't seen before," he said without thinking. "Of women in general! I didn't mean you specifically."

I opened my eyes to get a good look at him. I couldn't tell if that slip was intentional or not. He looked a bit embarrassed so I had to assume he didn't intend it. Nevertheless, my mind drifted back to those videos. It was so unbelievable that I started to wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me. My boyfriend and I had been together for the better part of a year. How did I not know he had been recording our most intimate moments? Was I seriously that naive? First Jake, then my boyfriend. I felt like next I was going to find out I am actually the illegitimate child of some obscure royal family. I wished I could just pick up my phone and demand some answers out of my boyfriend. I didn't know if there could ever be a plausible explanation, but I needed something to make sense for a change. What a time it was to be on the run. Nothing was ever simple in my life.

"Ok, you're done. Can you please lower your head under the faucet?" Jake broke my train of thought, pulling me back into the present.

He turned on the sink to get it to a decent temperature before I leant over it. I let the water run over my head for a while first and I was going to rinse it myself, but Jake beat me to it. He spent a long time massaging my scalp, far longer than what seemed necessary. I pulled away after it became clear to me it was sufficiently rinsed. As soon as I did, I saw my new hair in the mirror. Pitch black, very shortly cropped, but not buzz cut – he hadn't taken it all, but it was certainly different than it was before. Jake reached into his bag of tricks again and pulled out an old baseball cap to put it over my head. I had to say, I hardly recognised the person in the mirror. Sacrificing my hair had better been worth it.

"Say something," Jake was watching me uncomfortably. It was clear he felt very guilty about what he did.

"I don't know, I think I am in shock," I sighed. "Everything feels strange, like this is just one long nightmare."

I glanced down and saw all of my locks of hair forming a circle around me. Even then I was still in disbelief.

"I am sorry to have made your life so miserable," Jake said with a layer of annoyance.

"I don't blame you," I insisted. "I know you're just trying to keep us safe."

"I'm trying to get you home. I have a contact that can set you up with a new ID. Then we can get you across the border. From there, you can travel back to your country," he explained. "Maybe once this blows over, you might even get to go back to your family and friends."

"What about you?" I questioned.

"What about me?" he looked at me confused.

I turned to look at him directly. "What do you plan to do?"

"Do what I always do. Find a quiet, secluded location and lay low," he said nonchalantly.

"That's pretty lonely," I commented.

"I'll be fine," he brushed it off.

"Don't lie," I frowned. "That's not a way to live."

"It's done me all right so far," he insisted.

I looked into deeply into his eyes. I could tell he didn't fully believe that, but he didn't waiver from his stance. However, the more I stared into his eyes, the more I was drawn to them. They looked sad, regretful even, with a touch of longing. I saw him, I saw the old Jake in his eyes and I didn't want to him to disappear again. Before I knew it, I was drifting closer to him. He closed the gap, letting our lips lightly touch. It was too tantalising for me, so I kissed him with more emphasis. He pulled the cap off of my head to get it out of the way so he could grab my neck and deepen the kiss. By then we had disconnected from the rest of the world - we were just two lost souls that had finally reconnected. At some point Jake had pushed me up against the wall beside the hand dryer. If I hadn't pushed him away, there's no saying what might have happened in that bathroom.

"Um, that was unexpected," I blushed.

"But it was nice," he smiled. He leant to kiss me again, but I stopped him. "What's wrong? Is it the location? We can take this elsewhere."

"No," I shook my head. "Well, ok, this is the last place I would want to be doing this, but... I shouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" he said with a disappointed tone. "Don't tell me you're feeling guilty about him? The jackass that has no regard for your integrity?"

"He's still my boyfriend!" I argued. "Technically."

"Still?" he scoffed. "I hardly think he has a right to be!"

"I have to give him a chance to redeem himself!" I insisted. "Everyone deserves a second chance to do better. I owe him that much."

"You don't owe him anything!" he continued. "He violated your privacy! That's something I would never do to you!"

"Trying to, what, show off? Two seconds ago you were saying that you were going to send me on my way and you were going to disappear. Again!" I pointed out.

"I thought that's what you wanted! To go home! You think I don't want to keep you down in this world with me!?" he said painfully. "When you were far away in your country, it was manageable. With you here now..."

"Jake..." I didn't know how to respond to him.

"No, you should go back home, as planned. It's where you belong," he decided. "You should be waking up in your warm bed, having a decent breakfast, working an earnest job, going home to have dinner with your... boyfriend... so he can fuck you to sleep."

"Seriously?" I glared at him.

"It's not my fault that he bores you so much that you have to fake it all the time." Yup, the prick was back.

"I know what you're doing," I frowned.

"If it was me, I'd never let that pass," he ignored me. "No faking on my watch."

"Are you done?" I raised my eyebrow at him.

"I don't know, is it working?" he asked apprehensively.

I rolled my eyes, "No, it's not."

"Then I need to try harder," he smirked.

"Ok, you do that, but you know, we should go. The attendant will get curious as to why we're taking so long," I changed the subject.

"Not really, I told her you have morning sickness. She's giving us all the time in the world," he said casually. "But we should clean up."

"We should," I nodded slowly glancing around the floor again.

Jake went and grabbed the broom and dust pan from outside and immediately started sweeping it up. While he continued, I cleaned up the hair dye from around the sink. We worked in silence, each consumed in our thoughts. That kiss wasn't just a kiss. It was addictive and intoxicating. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to do it again. But everything was so complicated.

"Hmm, it's starting to grow on me," Jake said suddenly.

I glanced in the mirror again and eyed the stranger in my skin. She seemed so much more confident than I, so much more hardened than I, so much more in control than I. I felt like I had been given a role to play and it was time for me to step up, but I didn't know my lines.

"Are you ready?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, let's go," I said as I put the cap back on and slung the backpack over my shoulder again.

I waited for Jake to return the bathroom key before we started walking down the street again. The night sky was lightening over the city, which made me realise just how late, or early rather, it was. Exhaustion hit me immediately.

I yawned, "Jake..."

"We're almost there ok? Just a few more blocks," he assured me.

"Please tell me there will be a bed for me," I rubbed my eyes.

"Aww, is whittle MC tired?" he teased.

"Shut up! I'm not a machine like you," I gave him a small shove.

"We can't all be perfect," he joked.

"Ugh! That was so bad it makes me want to vomit!" I winced. "Can't you go back to that other Jake?"

"The one that hurts every time he looks at you? Unlikely," he mumbled.

I stopped walking, but he kept going so I reached out and grabbed his arm. "Oh, come on, Jake. You left me remember? Why do you have to keep acting like its my fault?"

He sighed, "I left because I needed air. With everything with Hannah... it was just too much. I realise the timing was very..."

"Inappropriate?" I ended his sentence for him.

"To put it mildly. And we were so entangled that I couldn't think straight. By the time I got a handle on everything again, you had moved on," he explained.

"Jake, that was like, what, four months later? Let's not forget you deleted everything," I frowned.

"It's what I do when I panic. I hit the kill switch and get rid of all traces of me," he admitted. "When you've been on the run as long as I have, paranoia becomes a part of you and sometimes is your only ally."

"You could've reached out," I shook my head.

"No, it was for the better. You were in your world and I was in mine," he shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Our worlds don't mix."

"Didn't mix, you mean. It seems fairly mixed now," I mused.

"No, you were pulled out of yours and into mine. There is a difference. You don't belong here and I need to send you back."

"Then what was that before? It sure as hell seems like you don't believe that," I pointed out.

"What I selfishly want and what you need are on opposite sides of the war," he said defeated.

"By your definition!" I grabbed his hoodie and pulled him closer. "You can't decide what I need without consulting me."

"You said so yourself earlier, that this has been a nightmare. For me this is everyday," he argued. "And it's not like you can even make up your mind."

"Oh come on, that's not fair. You only just came back into my life less than a day ago and all of this has been a trial by fire," I lowered my head. "I need time to...:"

"Yeah, I get it," Jake pulled away. "Come on, let's find a place for tonight for us to rest."

I watched him walk off for a bit before following. With the lack of sleep, lingering jetlag and absolute chaos, I couldn't think straight anymore. One voice kept telling me I had a boyfriend I still needed to work out things with. After all, how could I throw out all of our time together over one misdemeanour? Just because Jake reappeared? That wasn't right and obligations and all that.

But then there was Jake. The more time I spent with him, the more old emotions were brought back. There was an undeniable dark cloud that followed him as he walked away. How much was he keeping from me? I swore I heard Dan yelling at me, begging me to stay away from Jake.

If you hadn't noticed by now, I don't always make the best choices.