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"Okay," Carter announces as he lowers himself into the much too small seat at the much too small cafeteria table, his eyes finding mine from a few seats away. "I have the lyrics."

"Lyrics?" Joey asks in puzzlement, his eyebrows furrowed. "What lyrics?"

I, however, ignore Joey and let out a dramatic breath. "It's about time. We've been done with the composition for weeks."

"It's only been a week and six days," Carter points out indignantly.

"Hello?" Joey stresses with an incredulous look on his face. "Am I on mute?"

Wes and Georgina walk up to the lunch table and begin to sit down when Wes greets, "Hey guys. Where's Joey?"

I finally take my pointed look off of Carter and glance at Wes, who looked like he was fighting a smirk. Georgina sat beside him and rolled her eyes when Joey cried, "I'm right here! Why can nobody hear me?"

"Oh, Joey," Carter acts surprised by Joey's presence and offers him a wave. "I didn't see you there."

"I was going to ignore him all lunch," Wes whines childishly.

Joey frowns at him and reaches over Georgina to land a swift punch on Wes' shoulder. While they begin to argue with each other, poor Georgina gets caught in the crossfire and has no choice but to lean back and let them go at it.

Carter simply looks between the ever bickering duo and then rests his expectant gaze on me. "So, can I come over after school?"

I regard him curiously as my mind slowly remembers our conversation before Joey had a meltdown, and after a long moment, I finally nod. "Yeah, sure. If you give me a ride."

"It's a deal," The corners of his lips turn up into a smile. "I'll meet you at your locker after eighth period."

As I nod, Carter stands up from his seat and I ask, "Where are you going?"

A mischievous smirk slides onto his lips as he looks at all of us- except Joey- and announces, "To go find Joey."

Joey begins whining all over again, but Carter simply winks at me before he turns and stalks away from our table. I watch his retreating figure as a small smile begins creeping up on my lips without my permission because, well, it seemed that he had that effect on me. The ability to make me smile.

I finally pull my gaze off of Carter's back when I hear someone fall into the seat beside me, and I glance to my left to see that Georgina had moved away from the bickering boys to relocate next to me. Despite the fact she had been caught in the middle of Wes and Joey's argument, she had a knowing kind of smile on her lips, and I knew her attention had been switched to me.

"You seem happy," Georgina drawls with a smile of her own.

I try to flatten my smile in order to give her a blank look, but my lips are still turned up at the corners. "So do you, with Wes."

Her smile doesn't falter, but instead, if I'm not mistaken, it seems to grow a little. "I am." She spares him a quick glance before settling her gaze back on me and lowering her voice. "How have things been with Carter? We haven't really talked about it in a few weeks, but I can tell that something changed. You're not trying to keep your distance anymore."

I shrug off her observations and offer her a sincere sigh. "I don't really know anymore. I never really know when it comes to him."

Something that resembled understanding dawns her expression as she sighs too. "I know what you mean."

"What are you ladies talking about?" Wes cuts in, and it's only then that I realize they are no longer arguing, but instead sitting beside each other like they've been having a civil conversation the whole time.

Georgina covers up her expression and smiles teasingly at him. "We were talking about which one of you is cuter."

I laugh at her lie and continue to spend the rest of the lunch hour listening to Wes and Joey both make very miserable attempts to convince me why they were the cutest one.

Classes dragged on for the rest of the day without any hope of things speeding up. Thoughts of Carter's mysterious lyrics plagued my mind instead of the content my teachers were writing on the whiteboard.

My interest about the lyrics only pique more when I walked into Music Theory for my last period and saw Carter hunched over the teachers desk.

I walked to my seat slowly as I observed them speaking in hushed tones about something important. When class started, Carter simply shot me a smile and sat in the seat beside me, offering not even the slightest clue as to what they were discussing.

By the time the final bell sounded to end the day, I was more than ready to hear the lyrics that Carter has been so adamant had to be perfected before they were finished.

"I have to talk to Mr. Peterson," Carter leans over my desk to tell me. "I'll meet you at your locker."

My brow furrows slightly and I ask in feigned nonchalance, "What do you need to talk about?"

The corners of his lips pull into a secretive smile. "Just about a favor he did for me."

None the wiser, I nod slowly and tell him that I'll see him in a few minutes. As I walk to my locker, I get lost in my thoughts all over again. What favor could Mr. Peterson possibly have done for him?

While I'm walking through the halls, my shoulder collides with someone else, and I blink myself out of my daze to apologize.

"I wasn't watching where I was going," I explain apologetically as I turn around. "I'm sor-"

I stop when I see Jake's eyes looking back at me. His lips pull into a grin. "That's quite alright. I'm surprised it wasn't intentional."

I look at him warily. "Yeah," I mumble, unsure of what to say, and then stick with: "Okay, bye."

With that, I turn around, prepared to walk away from him and ignore our accidental collision. Of course, Jake has a different idea.

Jake falls into step beside me. "Why have you been avoiding me?"

I sigh. "Because I don't want to talk to you."

"But you want to talk to Carter Miller?" Jake asks incredulously. "He's not a good guy, Amelia."

I stop in the middle of the hallway. Students nutter obscenities when they have to go around us and I feel several backpacks hit my arm as they pass, but I don't pay attention. I'm too busy glaring at Jake.

"You're wrong," I tell him with narrowed eyes. "And I don't care what you do anymore, so I don't want you to care what I do anymore. I don't want you to call me or try to talk to me like this," I gesture around us to prove my point. "I don't want to be your friend. Just leave me alone, okay, Jake?"

I leave him there staring at me with his mouth agape, clearly surprised that anyone would reject him so bluntly. I let out a breath and continue walking down the hall toward my locker feeling lighter.

After all, Jake had no right to control the company I keep. At this point, I didn't care that he cheated on me last year, or that he acted like an ass when I saw him at Wes' party. I felt a little bad for using him to make Carter jealous, but even that didn't go anywhere.

True to his word, Carter meets me at my locker a few minutes later and we head out to the parking lot. Within five minutes, the windows were down, the radio was up, and we were on the road.

The sunlight poured through the open windows of Carter's forest green Jeep Wrangler as we drove through the backroads toward my house. Lining the street was a canopy of trees that left the light shining between the transparent leaves and spaces between the branches.

Sunlight warmed the skin of my hand as it stuck out the open window, and the sun was highlighting the rogue strands of hair flowing in the wind a shade of gold. The very same songs we used to listen to in the dining hall at camp were flowing freely through the speakers and getting lost in the air.

I had a smile on my lips at the beauty of the moment. I've always loved driving through my town, but right now, I was more than content to be sitting in the passengers seat. At the thought of the driver, I snuck a glance beside me, and saw Carter's golden locks flying with the wind.

"Take a picture," Carter's lips curl into a grin as he looks forward at the road, not even sparing me a glance. "It'll last longer."

My cheeks warmed a little and I abruptly looked away from him as I bit my lip at the prospect of being caught. Shortly after, I felt his gaze on me, and looked at him to catch him in the act. My lips pull into a smirk this time. "Aren't you supposed to be watching the road?"

I was hoping that he'd be as embarrassed at being caught staring as I was, but let's face it: embarrassment isn't in Carter Miller's vocabulary. "It's hard to watch the road when I have something much more interesting sitting in my passenger seat."

If my cheeks weren't flaming before, then they sure were now. I can't stop the smile from spreading on my lips at his unexpected comment and feel the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach.

We let the soft hum of the radio fill the silence until we finally turned down my street. The familiar mail truck pulled away from my mailbox as Carter rolls up to the front of my house and puts the car in park.

I hop out and grab the mail for my parents before we start walking up the pathway. While we walk, I feel Carter's hand brush against mine, and I try to ignore the fire that ignites up my arm at his mere touch.

In an attempt to busy myself and ignore the thundering of my heart that was purely Carter's doing, I start thumbing through the envelopes halfheartedly. However, when the Juilliard emblem catches my eye, I feel my heart stop.

I stumble through the front door staring wide eyed at the letter from Juilliard. I stop by the door and stare at the envelope, momentarily forgetting Carter's presence, and think about the contents inside. This was it. The moment I waited for my whole life.

My letter of acceptance or, more likely, my rejection.

"Mina, what's-" Carter stops short and I feel his presence behind me. I can tell he's looked over my shoulder to see what I'm holding when he exhales heavily.

"I can't believe it's actually here," I breathe and, for the first time since getting the mail, I take my gaze away from the envelope and look at Carter. His golden flecked eyes were staring back at me with an intensity that I didn't expect. "This letter is going to change everything."

Carter starts shaking his head and I don't know why, but a mask of determination goes over his features. "Amelia," He says steadily, and I lower the envelope to look at him instead. I don't know why, but my heart skipped a beat in my chest. "I let you go the first time because of this, and I can't do it again without telling you how I actually feel."

My lips part slightly and my brow pulls together in confusion. "What do you mean?"

His eyes float over my face as hesitation makes him stop for a moment. My brow furrows deeper as I stare at him, wondering what the hell was going on inside that head of his.

"I lied when I told you that I didn't want to be with you anymore," Carter says suddenly, and even though he doesn't clarify, I know he means what he said at the end of camp. My heart pulled uncomfortably in my chest. "I did it so I wouldn't hold you back, because I love you so god damn much. I just wanted you to be happy."

My heart feels like it's kicked into some kind of overdrive that was never going to stop and my mind was working a mile a minute to understand what he was saying. After a moment of processing, I shook my head and stared into his hazel eyes. "But I was happy with you."

Something that resembles pain flashes across his features and his voice sounds strained when he tells me lowly, "I already fucked up my shot at a bright future, but you still have everything going for you. I didn't want to be the reason that you didn't succeed."

I feel my heart strings pull when Carter's words finally sink in, and I feel a kind of warmth spread through me that can only be described as relief. I knew, finally, that his sincerity wasn't false. He's been genuine all along.

"Why," I start to ask, my eyes darting between his. "Did you think that you would hold me back?"

Carter gulped. "When I went back to the cabin to get my phone, I ran into your mom. She started talking about you and piano and your future, and I just... I didn't want to get in the way of your life."

My mother had been the one to change his mind? I stare at him, puzzled, for a long moment. Carter, the very boy who I was certain just used me over the summer, never felt anything that I didn't. He loved me just as much as I loved him.

"You stupid boy," I scold him, but even I can't help the smile from growing on my lips. "Why the hell would you ever listen to my mother?"

Carter let out a breath that, if I wasn't mistaken, sounded a whole lot like a sigh of relief. His eyes scanned my face once more and his lips began to tug upward. I felt light, like I might float away any moment now, to go sit atop Cloud 9 and watch us from above. But then, to make sure I would stay firmly on the ground, Carter steps toward me and kisses me.

His hands find their way to my waist to pull me closer to him, and mine wasted no time in finding their usual route up his chest and into the ends of his hair. There was an underlying urgency between our lips, as if we were both painfully aware that we had to make up for lost time. Carter felt so familiar that I couldn't stop smiling.

I step away with the stupid smile on my lips and I'm glad to see Carter sporting his own grin. "Why'd you stop?" Carter whined and drew me closer again. "I missed you so fucking much."

My hands find their way to his chest to keep him at an arm's length. "I missed you too," I tell him with a wide smile. "But we need to talk about what you just told me."

I see the sobriety set in his eyes as he nods and I grab his hand to pull him toward the couches in the living room. My smile grew uncontrollably as Carter locked his fingers through mine and gave my hand a squeeze. It felt so natural to be touching him like this again and yet so foreign.

We sat down on the couch and I let out a wary breath. "So let me get this straight," I lift my gaze to meet his. "My mom told you to let me go so I could have a better future, or so I would audition for Juilliard?"

I wasn't dumb. I knew that my mother saw that my "bright future" involved a degree from one of the most prestigious music universities in the country. But what I couldn't quite figure out was why Carter thought he could make this decision for me.

He knew what was coming, too. He whitened a little before defending, "The audition was the first step to your future."

"Carter," I shake my head. "I told you that I didn't want to go to Juilliard. Why did you think that going to the audition would be the best thing for me?"

Carter looks at me with a lazy smile growing on his lips as he regains his previous confidence. "Amelia," He drawls my name just as much as I had with his. It makes me smile a little. "I should let you know something. I have never felt this way about a girl before," Now I smile a lot. "I've never been in a real relationship and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. All I do know is that I love you," His grin matches mine and my heart stumbles over itself when I see the intense look in his eyes. "And I would do anything to make you happy, even if it meant I had to give you up."

Love. That had been the second time that he said it. I was too overwhelmed with all the new information the first time he admitted it, that I hadn't even paused to ask him about it. But now, with my heart practically leaping out of my chest and my mind screaming at me to say anything, I forced words to leave my mouth.

"I love you too," I breathe through a grin. "And I-"

He didn't let me get anything else out before claiming my mouth with his own lips. Not that I necessarily minded, though. My hands slide around his neck and I press my body into to his while my fingers pull at the ends of his hair and I let him come impossibly closer.

We could talk later. Right now, I just wanted to be close to him, when I tried to keep him so far for so long. Unfortunately, we couldn't really do either, because the front door opens and closes loudly, and my mind was abruptly alive once more.

"Hello?" My mom called from the other room. "Amelia, are you home from school?"

For the first time, anger flared within me when I thought of my mom. She had been the one to tell Carter to leave me alone. She had been the one to ruin my last summer at camp. She had also been the one to be more lenient with me since we got back, an annoying voice in my subconscious pointed out.

I got up and met her in the hallway with the unopened letter from Juilliard still firmly in my grasp. She smiled kindly at me, something I'd been getting used to recently, but when her eyes drifted to the envelope in my hands, her face brightened.

"Did you tell Carter to break up with me?" I hadn't expected my voice to sound so broken but, well, it did. "So I would go to the audition?"

A different kind of surprise casts over her expression. "Amelia-"

"This is what I was talking about at camp," I shook my head and stared at her pointedly. "You've been trying to control me my whole life. My relationships, my future, my hobbies- it's always been monitored by you. I want to control my own life."

Disappointment sets in on my mothers features and she frowns deeply at me. When she speaks, her voice is oddly somber. "I'm so sorry, Amelia."

I stare at her hard for a long moment before I nod quickly. My gaze shifts toward the doorway and I see Carter standing there looking out of place. He gives me a small smile, and I return it.

"That goes for you too, Carter," I tell him seriously. "From now on, I decide what's best for me."

His lips tug into a wider smile. "You'll probably fuck up less, anyway."

And, like that, I finally submitted to Carter. I was done with the secrets, the decisions being made for me, any anger I harbored, and pushing away my emotions. With all of this new information, my fate was sealed. I was totally in love with Carter and I have been since summer. There was no more denying it.

"But Amelia," My mother's tentative voice comes from beside me, and I spare a glance at her. She looks hesitant before her gaze falls to the letter in my hand. "Did you get in?"

My smile slowly falls as I look at the envelope myself. "I don't know yet," I glanced back up at my mother and gave her a tight smile. "I'll let you know."

And then I started walking back to the living room, where Carter and I were initially. My mom mumbled a confused agreement from behind me and Carter's brows knit together when he realized that I wasn't opening the letter.

"Where are you going, Mina?" Carter murmurs as I pass him.

I grab his hand and pull him toward the staircase. With a glance back at him, I smile. "I want to play the song so I can finally hear the lyrics you spent forever working on."

He looks adorably confused as I drag him up the staircase and into my room. I finally feel like I'm able to catch my breath once we're behind the safety of my bedroom door, temporarily hidden from the nearly unbelievable lies and never ending discussions about my future.