I've been doing a fairly good job at avoiding her recently. It's only been 2 weeks, but hey the less I see of her the better.

No matter how many times I want to knock on her door and just look at her, I know it's better this way. It has to be this way.

She left me.

It hurt.

I got over it.

Just like I always do.

I was over at Cory's with Topanga. We were waiting for him to get the mail so we could leave to go see a movie. He was taking forever.

About 10 minutes later, we hear yelling and banging outside. It stops and we see Cory walk in while slamming the door. He looks defeated.

"What happened?" Topanga asked.

"I talked to Cristina." He said solemnly.

"Of-freaking-course." I turned off the tv and turned to Cory. "You guys need to stop talking to her. Look what she's doing. We've been in New York City for 2 weeks and we haven't gotten to do anything fun. You wanna know why? Because the joy sponge down the hall keeps sucking the life out of us."

"Shawn. You don't mean that." Cory said.

"I do mean it. And it's true. You went down happy and ready to go spend time at the movies. But 10 minutes alone with her and you look like someone ran over your dog."

"I just wanted answers Shawn. Which is more than I could say for you."

"Oh yeah? What answers did you get?" I stood up against the wall with my arms crossed.

"I know that she's still hurting."

"She's not hurting. She left us."

"I don't think she wanted to leave Shawn." I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious. She was crying. She couldn't even look at me. All she could say was that she missed us."

"She doesn't miss us. Missing us means that she actually cared. If she missed us she would have at least visited. She would've called. She would've sent a letter or SOMETHING to let us know where she was or if she was okay. But she didn't. She didn't miss us then. And she doesn't miss us now."

"You don't know that."

"You know, I don't even care anymore." I put my hands up. "Why don't we just move to another apartment complex?"

"We can't afford to live in any another building. We looked everywhere else." Topanga added.

Extreme situations call for extreme measures.

"Fine." I walked over the door and opened it. "Then i'm gonna go settle this myself."

Before they could convince me other wise I walked out the door and went across the hall.

It took me a few seconds to have the guts to knock. But I did it. I knocked. I knocked persistently until it opened. I heard shuffling and She opened the door.

"Cory what do you want—" She cut herself off when she realized it was me. Her face looked red. She had clearly been crying. She quickly wiped her tears and looked directly into my eyes. "Hi."

That's it? That's all she could say? After 5 years all she could say was hi? This is fucking ridiculous.

"I'm not here for a formal introduction." I said coldly. "What do you and your friend do for a living?"

She blinked a few times as if not understanding me. "W-what?"

"You heard me. What do you and your friend do for a living?"

"Umm. We work in real estate."

"Good. Then you have enough money to move somewhere else."

She looked taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Move somewhere else." I repeated. "We just moved here and can't afford another building. If we did, I would've started looking for a new apartment 2 weeks ago. But we don't. So you need to find a new building."

The water in her eyes began to fade. "No." Was all she said.

"What?"

"No. We aren't moving."

"Why not?" I crossed my arms.

"Because this is the only place that we can afford that's nearby our office."

"So start waking up earlier and get on the road sooner so you get to work on time."

"Listen, I know this situation is giving all of us a hard time bu—"

"Stop."

"Stop what?"

"Stop acting like you're as hurt by this as we are. I get that you're embarrassed that we ran into each other after all this time, but don't act like this hurts you like it does us. You were the one that left. And we found you. Deal with it."

I walked back into Cory's apartment and slammed the door before she could get a word in.

By the looks on Cory and Topanga's faces, I could tell they were eavesdropping.

"Are you out of your freaking mind?" Cory asked.

"No. I just had the guts to do what you guys couldn't."

"Nothing about what you just did Shawn was brave it courageous. If anything it was cowardly." Topanga said.

"Give me a break."

"I'm serious Shawn. You just told her that seeing her everyday is hard on you and that you are so weak that she needs to go away because it's too hard for you to be in the same room as her."

Shit.

"Well what's done is done. And hopefully she's gonna by the end of the month."

Just then someone began aggressively knocking on the door. When Cory went to answer it her roommate pushed past him and stopped when she saw me.

"You." She growled as she pointed at me.

"Violet what are you doing here?" Topanga asked.

"I'm here to tell your asshole of a friend that he isn't our landlord and certainly not our boss." She took a few steps closer to me and her face began to turn red. "How fucking dare you speak to her like that?"

I went to defend myself but she cut me off.

"No! You don't get to speak. You lost the right to speak when you so rudely when over to our apartment and demanded we move somewhere else. Not only were we here first and paid for that place with our own hard earned money, but after what she has been through she deserves a nice place of her own." I tried once again to speak but she shushed me. "Shut up. The fact that you even had the audacity to do that just shows me how much damn time she wasted with you. How much time she wasted trying to be happy with you. Crying over you. Feeling sorry for herself because of you."

I wasn't trying to talk anymore. I was speechless.

"You know when she told me about you, I thought to myself, 'Damn this guy sounds like everything a girl wants in a guy. No wonder she is so sad she lost him.' But I don't see that when I look at you. I see a scared little boy who acts like a dick to get his way. YOU! ARE! A! FUCKING! CUNT!" She said the last part while clapping. "I don't care how they did things in Philadelphia or how you spoke to her. You will never speak to her that way again. Because none of you have any idea what she has been through in the last 5 years. What she is actually STILL GOING THROUGH! She has done everything in her power and more to shield you from everything that has happened. She risks her mental stability everyday so you wouldn't have to carry a burden the size of china on your fucking shoulders. If you knew even a fraction of what she goes through on a daily basis, you wouldn't have said that. And I get that you don't know anything and it's frustrating, but don't you dare act like you're the only one who's allowed to feel. Just because you're out of the loop doesn't mean you get to act like such an ignorant fuck!"

She kept screaming at me for the next 15 minutes. I eventually lost track of the amount of curse words she used towards me. Some of which I didn't even know could be used as curse words. But at the end of it she finally managed to calm down and went to leave.

As she was about to shut the door she turned her head back around to look me straight in the eyes.

"We aren't going anywhere. Deal with it."