When I finally make it home, I'm not in the mood to do anything but lay in my bed and sob my already swollen-from-crying eyes out. I grab all the groceries in one trip, dropping them onto the kitchen counter roughly. The plastic bag handles dig into my skin and leave red marks on my flesh, but I ignore the pain. It's nothing compared to the ache I feel in my heart, anyway.

I get a glance of my reflection in the hallway mirror, and I nearly gasp aloud. My hair is a mess. My eyes are red and puffy. Mascara streams down my cheeks like inky black waterfalls. I look nearly as terrible as I feel.

I'm hurting worse than I have ever hurt before in my life. So you can imagine how I feel when I turn to the living room, only to find Saige sitting with my mother and father, all three of them staring at me expectantly. Saige has this smug, self-satisfied look on her face as she smirks at me, like she's been waiting for this moment. My father looks like he's about to break everything around him in a burst of anger. My mother looks shocked, like someone has just told her something she absolutely cannot believe.

"Mia!" my dad barks, practically foaming at the mouth. "Get in here! Now!"

I walk into the room cautiously, already so emotionally damaged it probably won't matter what they say to me. If I'm already broken, there's nothing they can do to tear me apart further. I move in a daze, hardly paying attention the to sight in front of me. I should care that Saige is in my house. I should care that she's no doubt told my parents something horrid about me in an attempt to ruin my life.

But that's the problem. I don't care. About anything in this moment. At all.

How could Saige ruin my life, when I have done just that all on my own?

"I don't want to believe it," my mother whispers, holding a hand to her mouth as she gapes at me. She stares at me as if she doesn't recognize me. As if I am not the girl she has seen every single day for the past 18 years.

I should feel something at that thought.

I don't.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Mrs. McHenry," Saige says in a mock-apologetic tone. She keeps her face painted with sympathy, as if she truly feels bad for my mother. "I just thought it was about time you knew."

"Knew what?" I ask in a bland tone, wondering what she could possibly be up to now. Hasn't she done enough damage already? Why is she even here? Can't I just go up to my room and be miserable in peace?

"That you've been going out with Thorne Baxter," Saige says simply, her smirk widening as shock registers on my features. Forget what I said about not being able to break further. This is probably one of the worst things that could happen right now. Saige has perfect timing. If there were any way for her to know what just happened between Thorne and I, I would think she had planned this.

At the mention of Thorne, something loose inside of me breaks free. It's like all of the feelings I have suffered through tonight suddenly rise to the surface, begging me to pay them attention. To let them out.

So I do.

On Saige.

"What the hell?" I scream, marching up to where Saige sits on my couch, glaring at her. She wants to fight? Fine. I'll bring on the whole damn war. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had any right to go telling people about my personal life, you bitch!"

"Mia Rose!" my mother gasps. "Say you're sorry this instant!" Her eyes blaze with anger, as if I have crossed some invisible line. And maybe I have. But I don't care, because it doesn't matter what I do in this moment. Now that my parents know that I have been dating Thorne, that I have been sneaking out, that I have been lying . . . nothing I could do in this moment is going to change the fact that I am going to be punished until I am 30.

"I want you out of my house!" I scream, taking all of my grief out on Saige—which actually makes me feel a little better for the smallest of seconds. I want a lot more than just her out of my house, though. I want her out of this town. Out of my sight. Out of my life. How could she do this to me? Why would she do this to me? I get that we fought. I get that our friendship crashed and burned. But what is the point of this? What is she getting out of it?

"Go! Now!" My voice is hoarse, and it hurts to talk. I want to scream until my voice fails me, because in this moment I am so angry it is all-consuming.

"Mia Rose McHenry!" My mother rises from her seat on the couch, fury and rage evident on her face. She looks downright murderous in this moment, pointing an accusing finger at my chest as if that has some sort power over me. I only mirror her stance, deciding that if I have to go down in flames, everyone around me should burn, too.

"It's okay, Mrs. McHenry." Saige says, stopping my mother before she can say another word. She doesn't bother to put up a fight, because she doesn't need to. Saige is already pleased with her work. And I know the only reason she is backing down now is because she believes she caused irreversible damage to me.

For the first time since I stopped being a constant in Saige's life, I think I can finally say I hate her.

"You should have some alone time with your parents now, anyway, Mia. I hope you get what you deserve!" Saige stands from her chair, her blue eyes meeting mine with a cold light gleaming in them. Her smirk is so twisted, it's almost scary. Suddenly, words aren't the only thing I want to throw at her.

"You asshole!" I scream at her back, wanting her to feel the pain that I feel. I want her to know just how badly it feels to have every aspect of your life crash to the ground all around you all at once. Suddenly I am choking, unable to breathe as everything that was once my life falls on top of me. "You fucking bitch!"

"Stop that right now!" my mother cries, marching over to me. She still has her finger pointed, as if she can just zap me back into the girl I once was. "Saige was just being a good friend, looking out for you! I'm glad she brought this to our attention! I had no clue you had been going out with that boy!"

"She's not my friend!" I scream at my mother. "Friends don't do things like what Saige just did!" And I know that what I've just said is true. As of this moment in time, Saige and I are really no longer friends. There will be no reunion for us in the future, as I had foolishly been hoping previously. She has hurt me in a way no friend ever would. Intentionally.

"You are grounded for the rest of your life, young lady," my father tells me, his eyes searing holes into my skin. His jaw is clenched so tightly, it's like he's trying to contain a mouthful of evil words. "If I ever see that boy again, I'm going to murder him."

That boy. It is my parents' way of taking away Thorne's worth. His significance. If we don't say his name, maybe we can pretend that he doesn't exist. That our daughter didn't go out with him. That it never happened at all.

But I could never do that to him. No matter how cruel I have been to him, I could never be so cruel as to forget him. Because Thorne has become a part of me in the time that we have been together. Maybe the most important part. And I won't let that part of me be so wrongly judged; won't let my parents try to make me regret who I have become thanks to Thorne Baxter.

"You don't even know Thorne!" I don't know why I feel the need to defend him. After all, I had been wrong about him. He's still as involved with the bad parts of his past as he was then. And he lied to me. But that doesn't change the fact that I love him. And the feeling doesn't go away just because the relationship ends—though I wish it would. "You just judge him the way everyone else does!"

"I know enough about him to know that if you ever see him again, you'll wish you were dead," my father hisses, his low tone almost scary. "I thought you knew better than to associate yourself with boys like him."

They thought I knew better. Because they know the Mia that follows orders and keeps her mouth shut and doesn't speak unless she is spoken to. They don't know the Mia Thorne created. They don't know the girl who speaks her mind and laughs at stupid things and somehow fell in love with a boy who was the complete opposite of her. It was like, before Thorne, I was a little bird stuck in the nest, afraid to spread her wings.

And thanks to Thorne, I finally learned how to fly.

"It doesn't even matter!" I scream at the top of my lungs, tears streaming down my cheeks. Because without him, how will I ever spread my wings again? "We're over now, anyway! Okay? Did you hear me? We're over. I'll probably never have anything to do with him ever again. Happy now?"

I don't wait for my parents to respond. I just storm up the stairs, slamming my bedroom door and locking it for good measure. Then I fall onto my bed, wrapping myself in the sweatshirt Thorne gave me what feels like so long ago, sobbing.

For some reason, my mind doesn't want to think about everything I just found out about him. My brain doesn't want to focus on the fact that Thorne is in a gang. That he lied to me for months. That his promises were empty.

Instead, my head wants to torment me by forcing me to remember the past few months. How I felt when he called me Sunshine, a nickname that was once used to tease me but soon became a term of endearment. How he got a tattoo permanently inked onto his skin just for me—a full, blossoming rose that ironically symbolized not just my relationship with Thorne, but the girl he had created out of me. How he would hold my hand in the hallway at school. How he introduced me to his friends. The way it felt when he would kiss me, or how it felt to know that I was the only girl in the entire world lucky enough to call him mine.

And now that's gone. It's all over. Thorne will never kiss me or call me Sunshine again. I'll never hang out with him in Charlie's apartment, laughing about something Violet said and watching the way Wells and Jay would roll their eyes. I'll never touch the rose tattoo on his arm or tell him I love him again. It's all been taken away from me, because I broke up with him. I am not his. He is not mine.

I curse the universe for bringing us together.

I curse myself for believing for even a second that I was better off before I met him. Before Thorne came into my life, I was a shy girl who couldn't stick up for herself if her life depended on it. He changed me into someone who had confidence, who knew her worth and what it meant to her. And now I can't have him, and I hate it. I hate it so much.

"I'm so sorry, Thorne," I whisper to the sweatshirt in my arms, clutching it tightly. My voice breaks, as if to mirror my heart. "I love you so much."

And that's why I had to let you go.