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I woke up to the sound of incessant knocking coming from the other side of my bedroom door. As I slowly drifted between sleep and consciousness, I realized that my mother was knocking on my door, telling me to get up. Wait, did she just call me Carter?

My eyes opened abruptly to the sight of the bare skin of Carter's shoulder and it took me a moment to remember that I had fallen asleep at his house last night. I try to sit up and gather myself when I also realize we have school, but Carter swings his arm over my waist and burrows his face into my neck.

"Carter," I whisper in alarm as I try to squeeze out of his tight grip. "Wake up. Your mom is at your door!"

He groaned and murmured something incoherent against my neck, and my body stood at attention from the feeling of his breath and lips moving against my skin. But still, there were more important things to deal with than how Carter made my body react as if it were on fire.

"Carter!" I whisper, louder this time, and push his arm.

Finally he lifts his head, his groggy eyed gaze meeting mine in confusion. Then a lazy smile meets his lips. "Mina," He grounds out, his voice scratchy and husky from sleep. "I missed waking up like this. But I'm still tired, so go back to sleep, babe."

With that, he dropped his head back into the crook of my neck. Despite the fact his mom was still knocking on his bedroom door and I had to somehow get out of here without her noticing, I still smiled. Carter was too cute not to smile.

"Carter, are you awake in there?" I hear the doorknob jiggle and practically jump out of my skin, but she never enters his room. "I told you not to lock your door when you go to sleep!"

Finally, Carter seems to come to, and he lifts himself up by his arms to lean over me. "I'm awake!"

"Finally," She mutters on the other side of the door. "I have to go to work, but I left breakfast downstairs. Hurry up and get ready so you're not late."

"She treats me like I'm twelve," Carter mumbles to me.

"Because you act twelve," I fire back with a small smirk, but it lessens considerably as the next words tumble out of my mouth without my permission. "Besides, you should be grateful that you have a mom that cares so much about you."

Carter's fake frown turns into a real frown at my words, but he only lets the silence pass between us for a beat before he gives me a hopeful smile. "Come on," He murmurs and finally sits up. "I'll share my eggs with you."

I was grateful that he didn't question my sentiment or push me to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to forget, for now at least.

We got out of bed and Carter found a spare toothbrush in the cabinet. I took it out of the box and brushed my teeth beside him- something that felt so weird because it also felt so natural- and, when he left to change out of his pajamas, I grabbed a t-shirt and jeans out of my backpack.

After I changed, I surveyed what I had managed to grab in the minutes I spent packing a bag. Unfortunately, I knew it was inevitable that I would have to go home to grab more provisions. I had only brought two changes of clothes and four pairs of underwear.

But once again, I decided not to think about it, and I went back into Carter's room to find it empty. I traveled downstairs carefully despite the fact that his mom had already left, and found Carter grabbing a glass of water from the fridge. When he saw me come into the room, he looked up and smiled.

"This is yours," He says and hands me the glass of water. "Do you want anything else to eat? We have cereal and... cereal."

I glance at his full plate of eggs, bacon, and toast, and a mischievous smile crosses my lips. "Nope," I reach forward and grab a piece of bacon, much to his dismay, and take a bite. "This will do."

Carter's beautiful hazel eyes widen and he gasps, "You did not just steal my bacon."

"It's not stealing if you said you'd share," I point out with a smirk. And then I steal another piece of bacon.

"Eggs," Carter points out indignantly. His jaw is practically on the floor as his gaze zeroes in on his piece of bacon as I raise it to my mouth and bite it. "I said I'd share my eggs. Never my bacon."

"Come on," I drawl with a sickly sweet smile, but the truth is, my stomach really was fluttering as I said, "You don't want to share with your girlfriend?"

The butterflies only increased tenfold when his playful pout dropped, to be replaced by a familiar sparkle in his eye and his trademark smile. I knew he felt the same kind of butterflies that I felt when he remembered that we were together again.

Before he could answer, my phone began blaring from somewhere in my backpack, and I fumbled to find it among the books. When I finally found it, I saw my mother's name written across the screen, and suddenly all the happy butterflies were replaced with a pit in my stomach.

It was weird, how I traded in one kind of misfortune for another. Before I was on fine terms with my parents- not great, but fine- but felt the sting of hurt from what Carter did to me at the end of summer. But now, things were great with Carter, yet I felt even further away from my parents.

And as I stared at my mom's name blinking across the screen, I felt more emptiness deepen the pit in my stomach. She simply reminded me of my father, and the distaste on his face when I told him I wasn't going to Juilliard. I could practically hear the threat in his voice when he told me that if I lived under his roof, then I would have to do whatever he said.

"Hey," Carter murmurs from beside me, and I feel the warmth of his hand on the small of my back. When I glance into his golden flecked eyes, I finally feel like I'm able to breathe again. "You okay?"

I look back at the phone when it stops making noises and realize the call ended. Then I look back at him and force a smile, but it looks weak and deranged. "You should've seen the look on my dad's face when I told him that I wasn't going to Juilliard." I let out a humorless laugh. "I thought he was going to hit me, honest to God."

"I'm sure he would never hurt you like that," Carter tries to defend.

"He really thinks he can control me. I know he wants what is best for me, but he doesn't know what that is." I felt my eyes tear up without my permission, so I looked away from Carter so he didn't have to see me break. "I spent my whole life trying to live up to the expectations he had for me and it still wasn't enough. And now that I want to do something that makes me happy, he wants to make it as hard as possible."

I willed myself not to cry, but the tears brimmed my eyes, dangerously close to spilling over and falling down my cheeks. But still, not one rogue tear escaped, and I looked up to try to make the other tears go away.

Carter turned me around and pulled me into his arms, and I felt a sigh of content escape my lips at the familiarity of his arms around me. "I'm so sorry that he can't see how incredible you are, Mina. But I know that when the day comes and he realizes how wrong he's been the whole time, it's going to feel a lot worse for him than what you're feeling now."

I held on tighter to him, as if he were my lifeline, my last hope before I drowned. And he held onto me just as fiercely.

We stood there, holding each other, as he whispered sweet murmurs of reassurance in my ear for I don't know how long. But I did know that Carter helped make the tears finally go away.

When I finally was able to compose myself, I pull away and give him a shaky smile. "Thank you, Carter."

His hand slides down my arm to grab mine, and he wastes no time lacing our fingers together. "That's what I'm here for," He gives me a smile much more brilliant than mine. "I'm always going to be here for you, Amelia."

Without really meaning to, I murmur softly, "I love you."

His eyes light up to match his bright smile and Carter pulls me into him using our locked hands. His lips press against mine and warmth explodes throughout me, starting from the tingling of my lips and ending in the curl of my toes. When he pulls away, he mumbles against my lips, "I love hearing you say that." He kisses me once more, a quick peck, and pulls away with a grin. "I love you too."

I smile at the boy in front of me and momentarily wonder how the hell I managed to get so lucky to have someone who cares about me so much. If Carter had never moved here and come to my school-

"Shit," My eyes widen as I pull away from Carter and look at the clock above the stove that confirms my suspicions. "We're so late!"

However, Carter is much more at ease as he suggests, "How about we skip today?"

"Skip?" I echo as I glance back at him, and before I know it, I have a smirk on my lips. "Carter, that might be the smartest thing you've said in awhile."

He smirks back at me. "Amelia, you smell bad."

I blink at him and scoff, "Excuse me?"

"My bad," Carter's smirk widens, if possible. "I thought we were telling each other lies. You know, because I'm so smart all the time?"

Despite my best efforts at rolling my eyes at him, I end up laughing, and he grins back at me. "Well, mister mastermind," I look at him with a newfound smile on my lips. "What do you have planned for us today?"

Mischief lights up in his eyes as an idea seems to form in his head. "It's a surprise," He tells me with a smile. "But it requires a car, a sweater, and a sandwich."

I raise my eyebrows and ask, "A sandwich?"

"Driving makes me hungry," Carter tells me with a shrug, as if it were obvious. "And if we get on the road now..." He glances at the clock and then back at me. "We should arrive around noon."

My amused smile drops when I look at him in disbelief. "Where are we driving that's four hours away?"

However, he just smirks back at me. "It's a surprise, remember?" And then he adds: "I just have to make a quick call to settle some things. But I'll be ready to head out in ten minutes, okay?"

Instead of bombarding him with questions and requests to tell me where the hell he was taking me, I just decided to trust Carter. So I nod and watch as he retreats out the kitchen door to make a phone call. And, once he was out of sight, I sat down and stole another piece of bacon.

+ + +

"Carter," I whine. "This is so unnecessary."

I can hear the smirk in his voice as he tells me, "No it isn't. I need to make sure you aren't going to- stop peeking!"

I pull the blindfold down and cross my arms indignantly, muttering under my breath how unnecessary it was to blindfold me in the first place. Once we got out of the state of Maine, Carter insisted that I wasn't allowed to see where we were going, or it would ruin the surprise.

I put up a fight in the beginning, but settled down when he stopped for ice cream as a peace offering. But hours had passed and my ice cream was long gone and I still had this stupid blindfold wrapped around my head.

"We're almost there, anyway," Carter assures me. "Just trust me."

"I think you're driving me across the border so you can abandon me in Canada," I muse from my seat. "Or maybe you're taking me to your secret family cabin all the way in the woods so nobody can hear me scream when you kill me."

"I'm actually taking you on a ferry so I can just toss you overboard and into the ocean," He says casually. "I had to blindfold you so if you survive, you won't know the way back home."

"That's smart," I tell him with an impressed nod. "If I die, tell Poppy I love her."

Finally, I felt the car pull to a stop, and Carter turned the engine off. "Or you could just tell her yourself."

When I hear his car door open and shut, I frown and take my blindfold off, wondering why he left me in the car alone. I blink a few times to regain my vision and when I do, I see that we're parked somewhere in the city, and a familiar girl with wild curls is grinning at me from outside the car window.

My eyes widen and I practically leap out of the car and into Poppy's arms. "Oh my God! Poppy!"

I hear her laughter in my ear as her tiny arms squeeze me with an unexpected amount of force as she crushes me in a hug. "Mina!"

When I finally pull away from her, I look at her with a wild smile and disbelief written all over my face. I meet Carter's gaze as he leans against the hood of his Jeep watching me with a small smile on his lips and all at once I feel the love that I have for him tenfold.

"So I take it that he finally told you what really happened?" Poppy questions, and I whip around to look at her, my jaw slack in shock.

"You knew?" I splutter. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She holds her hands up in defense and says, "It was for him to tell, not me." Then he glances at him and smirks. "I'm just happy he finally grew a pair and told you. It was taking way too long."

I stare at her in utter disbelief until a smile finally overcomes my lips and I draw her in my arms once more. After the hell of a school year I've been having so far, it felt absolutely incredible to be back with my best friend. Even if it was just for today.

"Oh come on," Poppy laughs from my embrace. "Don't get all sappy on me. We have a city to explore."

As I pull away, I eye her suspiciously. "Don't you have school today?"

Poppy rolls her eyes at me. "Don't you?"

I smirk. "Lets go explore the city, then." She grinned and I glance back at Carter to see him still watching from his car. "And you," I say, raising my eyebrows at him, the smirk morphing into a smile. "Good surprise."

He grins at me. "I told you so."

Let me tell you, it was actually a fantastic surprise, but I would never let Carter know that. We spent hours walking around Boston and exploring the city- from food carts to street shows, we saw everything.

A few hours after we ate our weight in cupcakes and pizza, the three of us stumbled over to the Boston Commons, drunk off the unhealthy and greasy food resting in our bellies. We laughed about memories of the twins as we laid on the grass beside each other.

Eventually the sun began going down and the light cast a golden sheen on the bottom half of the trees, and I looked up at the buildings peeking through the tops of the leaves and knew we would have to go home soon.

"This day has been perfect," I say out loud, without really meaning to, but I don't regret it one bit.

I feel Poppy grab my hand from beside me and give it a squeeze. "I guess Carter's good for something after all."

"I wouldn't go that far," I joke with a small smirk playing on my lips.

"I'm right here," He mumbles from the other side of me, and Poppy poorly attempts to stifle her laughter. "And I bought you ice cream, so I'm good for other stuff, too."

I turn my head so my cheek is pressed against the crisp blades of grass of the Boston Commons. Carter's warm hazel eyes catch my gaze and his pink lips turn up in the corner when I look over at him.

As I gaze at him for just a moment longer, his smile broadens, and I know why. He can see in my eyes what I felt in my heart. The overwhelming gratitude, appreciation, and love for him. He knew it was there just as well as I.

Half because I didn't want Poppy to get all grossed out by affection, but mostly because I knew he didn't need to hear the words to know what I was thinking, I mouth the words: "I love you."

Carter's grin brightens as his soft eyes look back at me and he mouths the same three words. And, just like that, I told him I loved him for the second time today, when a week ago I wouldn't dare even think those very words.

And let me tell you, it felt so good that I almost said it a third time.