The invitation surprises me. "I'll pass."

I stroll toward the doorway when her voice rings out again. "Are you going to follow me today?"

The question stalls me yet again. She's calling me out for keeping an eye on her, matter-of-factly, like she's truly curious about the answer. It's been a while since I've done it... since she's gone somewhere for me to do it... but I can't deny the thought crossed my mind.

Pausing, I turn back to her. "And if I am?"

"Then you might as well just come along," she says, shrugging as she uses the icemaker on the refrigerator to send a swarm of crushed ice down into the little cooler. "The whole watching me from afar thing is kind of creepy, you know. I get that you don't trust me, but stalking is only cool when Edward Cullen does it."

Edward Cullen… I can't place the name. "Edward Cullen?"

"Yeah, you know, the vampire? From Twilight?" She looks at me like she expects me to get it, but shrugs it off after a second and continues. "It doesn't matter. It's kind of creepy when he does it, too. The point is, if you're going to keep an eye on me, to make sure I'm being good or whatever, you should just come along."

It's peculiar to me, how casual she talks about the situation, but something she said rubs me the wrong way. "It's not that I don't trust you."

"Do you, then?" she asks. "Do you trust me?"

"No."

The response makes her laugh.

"But that has nothing to do with it," I say. "I do it so I know you're safe."

"I'm fully capable of keeping myself safe."

"You really think that, Karissa?"

"Yes."

"Well, you think wrong," I say. "You can't recognize danger when it stares you right in the face, sweetheart."

Real danger doesn't come with a gun; it doesn't come at you with violence or anger. When someone sees red, they get careless, emotional, and it's a hell of a lot easier to diffuse a ticking bomb with all the wires exposed than one that's quiet and hidden. The biggest dangers have smiles on their faces and sweet words on their lips. They don't threaten or coerce… they entice. They have the power to make you believe whatever they want you to believe, and they do it with manipulation, through seduction.

And Karissa has absolutely no idea when it's happening to her.

I know, because I did it, and she easily fell for me.

She crosses her arms over her chest. She's feeling defensive because of what I just said. Her eyes regard me for a moment in silence before she shakes her head, deciding not to engage in that argument. "Whatever. I just think if you're going to be out there anyway, you ought to just come along."

"I'm not going to interfere with your plans."

"It's not interfering if I invited you."

"Why would you invite me?"

"Because I want you to come."

I raise an eyebrow. "You want me to come?"

"Uh, yeah." She shrugs. "Otherwise, I'll just be paranoid all day, thinking someone's watching me again."

"What do you have planned?"

"We're going to the park near the bridge to cook out and hang out and swim before the fireworks. Melody will be there with her boyfriend, and some other people… friends of hers. It would be nice to have someone else there… someone to talk to. Besides, who knows? You might even have some fun."

Highly unlikely, I think, but I don't say that, letting her believe what she wants. I would turn her down, decline the invitation, but her words nag at me, making a denial nearly impossible to force from my lips.

"Fine," I say. "Okay."

A flicker of surprise passes her face that she wipes away quickly with another smile. "You sound so enthusiastic."

"Cooking out and hanging out aren't really my things," I admit. "I prefer delivery and solitude."

"I've noticed," she says, going back to what she was doing when I got home, tossing a few sodas in on top of the ice. "What about swimming, though? You said nothing about swimming."

"That's because I can't swim."

She nearly drops a soda, swinging around fast. She doesn't bother trying to hide her surprise this time. "You're kidding."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

Her eyes survey my face as she shakes her head. "That gives a whole new meaning to you giving me the plank, you know."

"Not really," I say, casually leaning against the doorframe. "Either way, I end up drowning, whether I can swim or not."

"Yeah, but at least if you can swim, you have hope of maybe surviving."

"Sometimes it's better to not have hope."

She scoffs. "That's nuts. If I'm going into the water, I'd like to know I at least have a chance."

"Even if it's false hope?"

"Absolutely." She sticks the top on the cooler, closing it up when she's done packing it full. "I'd rather have a reason to fight than to just give up right from the start. I don't care if the hope is a lie and I'm just delaying the inevitable… at least give me something to cling to. Something's always better than nothing."

She leans back against the counter beside the refrigerator and crosses her arms over her chest, a peculiar look passing across her face as she regards me. I know her well enough to know she's thinking about her mother, about the deceit, about the glimmer of hope her mother tried to instill in her in life, twisting the ugly truth into a semi-decent lie… a lie I shattered, a hope I took away. I destroyed the fantasy with reality.