It had been a very long day and I was just about done with it all. I wanted to spend some time with Gabriel, but here I was with Noah in front of me. He seemed insistent that there could still be something between us. But it was ancient history. It wasn't ever going to happen again. I needed him to understand that.

"Listen. I'm going to just say it all." I said.

"And I'll listen." Noah told me, trying to get on my good side. I knew his fake sincerity very well.

"I spent almost a whole year, cleaning up after you at your apartment, making sure you get fed even though I don't know how to cook to save my life. I made study schedules for you, I helped you get the best grades just so you could follow your dreams. I tried so hard to make it work even though I didn't really feel anything towards you. It was all forced, you just stole my first kiss without any permission, which would've been fine if I had shown interest but... I didn't want you and you knew that." I told him and he sighed as I continued.

He wasn't listening anymore, but he needed to understand this and I wasn't ready to stop talking. Gabriel also needed to hear this and I knew he was listening. I wanted Gabriel to know the whole truth about this past relationship. He deserved to know what exactly happened before he decided for sure if he still wanted to be with me.

"I saw a future with you regardless. I wanted it to work. And I gave it my all. The only thing I wasn't ready for was getting more intimate and physical... and you yelled at me. You would scream and shout and make me incredibly uncomfortable. And in the end, after everything I did, you just went and slept with other girls because I wasn't ready." I said to Noah.

Noah sighed, seeming genuinely disappointed in himself. I was glad he felt some disappointment or regret, but it wasn't ever going to be enough for me to give him another chance. I didn't like him like that, and Gabriel was a lot better for me than this idiot.

"And just for your information, I wasn't even hurt. That's how I know I seriously didn't care about our relationship. I didn't cry, I didn't feel bad, I felt free when it ended. And honestly, I'm not sorry if this hurts to hear. Because in the end, you're the one that humiliated me and then caused every last person to turn on me." She said to him.

"No! I didn't make Jordi turn on you. It was Alec who did that. I thought you knew." Noah told me, seeming hopeful that what he was saying would change my mind.

"I know the story. And Jordi only said the things she said because of him, but every other friend I had, turned on me because of you. Because, apparently, I was childish and selfish not to sleep with you." I said, shaking my head. "And in the end, what hurt was losing them, not you. But at the end of it all, I still want to thank you, because you saved me from the artificial relationship we had. You saved me from the snakes I was hanging out with. And here I am, with a great life that I'm actually happy with."

"We could be happy together." He said desperately, trying to convince me and burrow his way back into my life.

"No. I can't be happy with you. I can be happy with a man that was patient with me even when I was unreasonable. I can be happy with a man that was willing to give me my time for two whole years. What we had literally means nothing to me, I've moved on, I don't care for you anymore. Find yourself someone who does." I advised him.

"You're being completely unreasonable." Noah said to me.

"No. I'm not. I have a life here and you don't belong in it at all. Go back to your own life and write me out of it. It isn't going to happen." I insisted.

"Jordi misses you." He tried desperately to reel me back in.

"Jordi can call me and tell me that. And for the record, I think she'd rather be around you than me." I said, knowing full well that Jordi wanted to try a relationship with him. He would be good for her, because he cared for her really deeply. Much more than he ever cared for me anyway.

"What?" He asked.

"You were there for her when she needed you. She resents you for what you did to me, but in the end, the person that was with her when she had a rough day, when she didn't know who else to go to... that was you and it always has been, for as long as she's lived. So.... Go back to Jordi, Noah. You'll have better luck with her." I told him.

"I was there for you too." He insisted.

"No. You really weren't. I was there for you. But you never even knew how I felt, nor did you care or ask." I sighed. "Just leave me alone now, please."

"Fine. But you'll be the one to regret this. You'll never be able to find anything as good as what we had." He told me.

"I've already found better." I smiled, my hand finding Gabriel's on the table. I saw Gabriel smile softly.

Noah stormed off and I turned to Gabriel and sighed.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." I told him.

"Don't apologize, Ava. Are you ready to get some food and head home?" He asked me, not seeing phased by the intense conversation he'd just witnessed between me and my ex.

"Yeah." I smiled, getting up and following him to his car.

"How was your day? Other than my slight intervention this morning?" Gabriel asked me.

"It was fine. He just kept showing up and bugging me though." I sighed.

"Forget him. He really isn't worth it." Gabe assured me.

"I know. I just don't want you to feel like you're walking in on something unfinished. It's been over for eight years." I told him.

"I know it's over, that much is clear to me. It just might not be clear to him yet." Gabe laughed. "But what really happened between you two? He cheated?"

"I was just stuck in a relationship that I never even wanted to be in. My parents arranged our meeting and I knew he was a player. I turned him down a million times and honestly nothing he did ever felt genuine. One day he kissed me and then it all started. Eventually, I realized that I wasn't feeling anything real towards him. I cared about him because I was planning our future and selfishly wanted his success, but then I realized I didn't love him, I didn't even have slight feelings for him." I explained.

"How did you realize that?" He asked me.

"I just started to feel like there was something very wrong with the relationship. The way he would lash out at me when I told him to stop touching me the way he was, it just wasn't right, and I started thinking how I was going to end it as if it meant nothing to me. I spoke to my mom and she talked about butterflies and hearts racing and all that stuff you hear in fairytales. At the time, I didn't think it was real, I really didn't...I'd never felt those things, but my mom told me it was actually something she experienced with my dad." I said softly.

"It's real for me." He said to me.

"Yeah. The first time I felt it was with you. I have feelings for you, Gabriel. Strong ones. But I want to do things right this time. I'm sure that something could work between us but we have to take things slow." I told him.

"I'm willing to take things as slowly as you need to take them, Ava. There's no need to rush. We have the rest of our lives, alright?" He smiled at me.

"Ok." I smiled.

"And I want you to know that I will never in a million years try to push you to sleep with me. I'm someone who would like to wait until marriage to have sex, and I think you feel the same, right?" He asked me.

"I do." I said, feeling so relieved that we shared that sentiment.

"I may have been pushy in trying to get a date, Ava. But I will never be pushy when it comes to your comfort within our relationship." He said to me. "I just couldn't let you go... I felt something special with you."

"No, no. I'm glad you pushed for something between us. It showed me that you were actually serious about us, and you weren't just messing around. And you waited for me. You let me have my time to accept the idea of us." I said to him. "I know you aren't like him in any way."

"Good. I just don't want you to misunderstand me." He sighed. "I understand that sometimes even the most sincere things can be misunderstood."

"Like what?" I asked, seeing how worried he was about being misunderstood.

"Well... just recently, Vidal met Kiara. You saw them both this morning. Now, Kiara wasn't the way you saw her today, she was very traumatized, which she can tell you about if you two get closer. It's really not my story to tell. But anyway, our family freaked out. They were tough on Vidal, and while he understood, he was frustrated and so was Kiara." He explained.

"What do you mean? How did they freak out? I hope nothing bad happened." I said.

"No, no. Everyone and everything is perfectly ok. It's just that Vidal can be such an oblivious idiot sometimes... He took Kiara in very suddenly and without telling anyone about it. The correct thing would've been to take her to his place, but he brought her to the home we all share... We're all so close and usually we never keep anything from anyone and Vidal was suddenly very secretive about what he was doing. We just all became worried about him and then we saw Kiara and that's a whole other level of worry." Gabriel explained. "So they all gave him a hard time about taking care of Kiara and what he was doing right and wrong. But they were right to do that."

"I see... was that stressful for you?" I asked him.

"Yeah. My family is everything to me, and I wanted things to work out for them... I saw how he struggled to do everything correctly... the truth is... My family is great, and by being there for everyone around you and having them be with you, you understand the struggle of just being a human. Does that make sense?" He chuckled.

"It does. Being really close with them makes you understand all their struggles really deeply. So you feel their stresses and you almost experience their problems." I smiled, taking his hand as we sat I the car which was parked in the parking lot, just talking.

"Exactly. They've all been through their own struggles. And my favourite part about being in this family is that they come to me for help a lot of the time." He smiled.

"That's beautiful." I smiled. I could just see how close this entire family was.

"Yeah, it is. I love it. I think it makes us all happy and comfortable. Because my family knows that if anything happens they can talk to me, and I know that if anything happens to me, I can talk to them." He told me.

"Gabriel." I said softly.

"Yeah." He smiled at me, his thumb running up and down my own.

"Do you want to just sit down and talk somewhere?" I asked him.

"Sure. Let's find ourselves a prettier place to sit and talk." He chuckled.

I smiled and nodded, letting him turn the car on and start driving.

I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. But the no kissing until we're in an official relationship rule was going to be followed no matter how hard it is. Or at least I was still convinced of that at the time.

"Ava... can we make the date tomorrow?" Gabriel asked me.

"Are you sure you're feeling completely ok?" I asked him.

"I am, I swear." He smiled.

"Alright, then our date can be tomorrow. But it better be fun." I smiled.

"Perfect! I'll tweak the plans a little and make it the most fun date you've ever been on." He chuckled, shoulder checking before he switched lanes.

"Wait, what's that?" I asked, looking out at a little park.

"I think it's just a park." He said.

"Alright. Let's go there and just find a bench." I said, making him drive into a nearby parking lot.

This was our unofficial first date, I just wanted to talk to him and really get into the feel stuff since we were just talking about that kind of thing.

"Alright, what do you want to talk about, Doc?" He asked me.

"About what we want our futures to look like." I told him, taking the delicious sandwich he was offering me.

"Alright, Dr. Dara, how do you picture your future?" He asked me.

"You want me to go first?" I asked him, feeling very nervous about this one.

I knew there was something in particular we wouldn't see eye to eye on. Something that probably meant a lot to him but that I wasn't sure I could change my mind about. But I was willing to talk about it now in hopes that it wouldn't end this amazing thing we'd both started. I didn't know what I'd do if I lost this amazing man now because of differences in what we wanted for our lives.