If the gossip about the truth of my father's involvement in my mother's death wasn't enough to keep my name in everyone's mouths, word about my 'psychotic break' and breaking up with Eli was more than enough to keep me on everyone's minds.

It wasn't until later in the week that I realized my birthday was coming up, and I had absolutely no one to celebrate it with.

My grandmother had let me stay in her hotel suite for the entire week even though she had long since returned to New Jersey, and it was nice being secluded and only having to face certain people during the school or work day.

It was harder than I thought to avoid Eli, but a few desperate pleas with Chuck and he had me doing inventory in the back as well as billing and answering phones in his back office until close, which was something that I couldn't thank him enough for.

With a new phone number that wasn't given to him, Eli had no real way of contacting me, nor did my father, cousin or aunt, but I made sure to log into my social media accounts and stay in touch with my grandmother as she was one of the only people who had access to my new number.

And then the late notice came in my P.O. Box from the University. It had originally been addressed to my father's home, but with the multiple 'return to sender' notices stamped on the envelope, I realized that my father had effectively kicked me out of the house, if it wasn't obvious already.

I had no money to pay for my dorm, and the bill for next semester and the classes I'd already picked hadn't been paid, nor would it ever be paid.

I needed to face facts. I couldn't continue to go to school somewhere that I not only wasn't wanted, but also couldn't afford. I needed a new plan. Scrap the showcase, scrap the drama department and all my 'friends' there, scrap the new job that I actually enjoyed until my ex whatever he was ruined it for me. Scrap the entire fucking thing.

Maybe it was time for a fresh start.

"Do you have everything, love?"

"Yes, and thank you for hiring this moving truck, there's no way we would've been able to fly to New Jersey with all this."

My grandmother's features softened as I took one last wistful glance back towards the dorms. Hazel and Bea were both attending the second round of callbacks for the showcase, and Eli was most definitely still in practice if the time on my phone was correct. We were home free...

...until a familiar figure came strolling in between the alleyway that split the buildings up by boys and girls. A rather tall figure, though hunched over and dragging a limp foot behind him slowly, I wasn't sure what exactly I was seeing.

A grey hoodie covering his face, I knew it was Eli before he was even twenty feet in front of me, then ten. Then, as he grew closer to the dorm's entrance and I only stood there as if I were staring at a ghost, he finally spotted me.

"V?"

He looked as if he'd seen a ghost, too. Well...maybe he had.

After everything had gone down, I resigned myself to school, work, hotel, rinse and repeat. Of course, I'd completed the usual monotonous hygienic tasks, but eating? That had been a harder feat.

A rice cake for breakfast, air for lunch and popcorn for dinner...nothing but water and a few peanuts the next day and so on and so forth until I was sure I resembled a walking skeleton with bags under my eyes that would pass as a floatation device.

And then he noticed the bags dangling from my hands.

"Are you--" he cleared his throat, like he was drowning on gravel. He cast his eyes downward, still not meeting my own head on. I agonized over the fact that he'd been trying to reach me all week, even going so far as to ask Hazel and Bea about me, though both told me in our shared classes that they didn't tell him anything. I didn't even respond to them.

"Are you going somewhere?"

Finally he flicked his gaze upward, and to say that he took my breath away would've been an understatement.

Of course I'd noticed him from afar. In order to expertly avoid someone, you needed to know where that person was at all times so you didn't chance running into them accidentally, like in this very moment.

So of course I'd noticed the sullen gazes, the temper tantrum fallout with his best friend, snapping at Maddie in front of the entire school for her to just leave him the hell alone, but it was different seeing it up close and personal.

The bags under his eyes could've matched mine to perfection. The sunken in cheeks mirrored mine, as did the strikingly noticeable weight and muscle loss after only just one week. He needed more calories than most because of his strict workout regimen, but if he simply stopped caring and continued to exercise at that level...he would eventually run his body into the ground.

None of that prepared me for what would happen to his face after I finally spoke, however.

"Yeah. I'm moving to New Jersey with my grandmother."

Crumpled, like a building going down in smoke, his mouth turned downward and eyes narrowed, eyebrows pulled and suddenly his hood was yanked off his head, freeing those tendrils of wavy brown locks that I could recall so effortlessly running my fingers through.

But then came the anger, and I wasn't prepared for it in the slightest.

"Seriously? Just like that? After everything, why didn't you tell me? What, just because things get hard and we don't talk-"

"Not everything is about you, Eli. I can't afford to stay at this school anymore, and because I have no car, no way to get student loans or a grant because my father makes too much money, my job's manager salary isn't enough to pay for dorms and food and everything I need to survive. I literally can't stay here."

Not that I owed him an explanation or anything...

"Oh. Well why don't you just stay with me until you figure everything out?"

Right. Because he had all the answers suddenly? Like it was so damn easy?

"Are you really going to ask me that? Since we're nothing to each other but acquaintances now, that would be charity, and I don't take charity. I do, however, ask for help from family when I really need it, and that's what I'm doing. I'll apply to the New York Conservatory for the spring semester and see if they take me and give me a scholarship. If not, I'll have to wait around until the fall when I can file a new financial aid form listing myself as living on my own so that I don't have to use my father's financials and then I'll figure it out."

I nodded to my grandmother who had edged away and was piled in the front seat of the giant moving truck that held all my belongings. I could tell that she didn't want to listen in, but it was hard not to considering our proximity to the truck.

"You're really going, though? To New Jersey?"

I nodded, and his nostrils flared while he reached out his hands, like he wanted to touch me and god help me, I wanted him to.

"And what about us?"

"What about us?"

He dropped his hands. Just like that, the electric field that had been pulling me to him faded the tiniest bit. Maybe I could really do it, I could really leave and not destroy myself in the process, torturing myself with what if's and what could have been's.

"Come on, V. Don't be like that. We have something. You felt our connection the moment we met. The song, Iris? Our parents-"

"Well, obviously even ghosts make mistakes. Or maybe—it wasn't a mistake at all. It was my mom clearly trying to teach me a lesson. Don't trust just anyone with your heart. It was probably a lesson I should've learned with Jared—but with him, I didn't feel as much as I did with you. It was worse, because I never really even loved him, not like I loved you."

"Loved? You mean love? I still love you, Virginia. Please, you know that nothing happened with Maddie!"

He tugged at his hair, like he was trying to rid his brain of everything that was happening in front of him.

"But you let her in anyway. On some level, you still felt comfortable enough around her to let her in your room while you were shirtless and let her sit on your bed and get under your blankets. That is beyond disrespectful, not only to me but to your so-called best friend who you also hurt when you made that decision."

"She was crying and I felt bad for her! I didn't know she was going to sit on my bed and make it look like we did something! I felt bad for her because she said she had no friends, and I thought it might be a good idea for you and her to put the past behind you and-"

"Are you seriously defending her to me right now? After everything?"

"No, I'm not defending her, I'm defending my reasoning for doing what I did and the choices I made. I'll own it, I shouldn't have let her in, but I'm telling you why I did in the first place. It wasn't to hurt you or Patrick. I wasn't going to just slam the door in her face."

So, he had more sympathy for the girl who'd put a wedge between him and his best friend than he did respect for that friend in the first place? He had more sympathy for the girl who was trying to get with him than the girl who he actually 'chose' in the first place.

"No? Because she's a girl? You didn't have a problem with slamming the door on Hazel and Bea that day."

"That was because they hurt you."

"And you think Maddie didn't do that exact same thing, only ten times worse? And not to mention she hurt Patrick, your best friend. You should really take a step back and see how your actions have hurt the ones who cared the most about you. That girl is trouble, and she obviously wanted to get in the middle of our relationship, but I thought it wouldn't matter because I loved you. But you let her get in the middle anyway."

"V. Just look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me. I know you keep saying loved, but I know it's not true. You love me. Say it. Please."

"I loved you, Eli. Just like with everything having to do with us, it's all just past tense."

That was when he stepped forward, clasping my hands in his and pulling our bodies closer together, close enough that I could still peek the water drying on his skin from his after shower practice, could smell his soap and his cologne and all at once I was fighting two sides of myself but it was a battle that the weaker part of me would lose.

"Virginia, I love you. You're just pushing me away because of everything that's happened, aren't you? You're scared that I'll only hurt you? Like your dad? Or that I'll leave you like your mom left you?"

"How dare you? Don't you bring them into this, Eli."

"I have to, because that's what this is all about isn't it? You're scared. Scared to let me in, scared to feel...well that's what love is. It's giving another person a piece of you even if there's a chance that they could destroy you. Sometimes you have to be a little scared in order to feel the happiness."

"Those are pretty words Eli, but the truth is that I just don't trust you with that piece of my heart, not anymore, not after everything that's-"

"Really? That's it? One girl walks into my room to try to have a conversation with me, and you're out? I thought that everything we had together was real? It was damn real to me. Why won't you admit it to yourself that it was real, too? Why are you being such a coward?"

His hands abandoned mine and trailed upwards, to my arms and then to my shoulders. He dipped his head so we were eye level, but my heart pounded in my chest to a song that was telling me to step away, before he did the real damage. Before he got me to admit that he was right.

"Don't try to make it seem less than it was. You made your decision, Eli. Maybe it was subconscious or something, but you knew what you were doing when you let her in. Maybe you were sabotaging us because you're the one that's afraid? Maybe you're the one who's scared because you're worried I'll end up hurting you, or that I'll leave like your father, or hurt you like Jay? Maybe we should just face the facts and end this before it gets worse than it already is. We're just two fucked up people who aren't meant to be together. We can leave it at that."

My voice was bitter but the sentiment was real. Maybe I was just too fucked in the head for a real relationship with someone I loved, with someone who could actually love me back...

"No. No, I refuse to accept that. Because the way that I feel when I'm around you...I can't explain it. You feel like the woman I want to see every fucking morning I wake up and when I lay down to close my eyes every night. For the rest. Of. My. life. You can't tell me that's not fucking real?"

"Maybe it was real! Maybe it still is, but that doesn't mean that anything has changed! We can't be together. I'm going to New Jersey. I still don't—can't trust you, and besides, you've got your career to focus on. Mr. Hot Shot and basketball legend in the making, right? Isn't that what they said in that article they wrote after the game? You're going to make it big, and then you can forget about me and this whole damn place. Maybe it'll just be better that way anyway. If you just...forget I ever existed."

I yanked myself out of his grip and began to turn away when he stepped forward and blocked me in, keeping me from leaving but not forcing me to stay.

"That would be physically impossible. You are everything I've ever wanted in a partner, a girlfriend, even a wife down the road. Your honesty, your understanding, your kindness, your talent and your strength. And brave, god, you're so fucking brave. How you stood up to your father? I could never do that with Jay. I told you I was all in. I don't care if you're in New Jersey or halfway around the fucking world. I will wait for you, Virginia Bruins. As long as it takes."

"Then you might be waiting a while," I spoke softly, words thick with unshed tears that would be relinquished the second the door of the moving truck closed on me in its wake.

"That's fine by me."

No. No, this wasn't going the way I wanted. A fire lit my stomach and I stared up at him, ready to tell him off, when the vulnerable look in his eyes almost made me stop dead in my tracks.

"Don't you dare wait on me, Eli. Because I won't wait for you. You hurt me, and I know you're trying to minimize the situation but that's the truth. So go on and live your life. Keep me out of it."

"Oh would you quit being so dramatic and actually let yourself be vulnerable for once, instead of pushing away the one person who has always ben on your side no matter what?! Yes, I made a terrible decision that hurt you, and I am so so sorry for what I did, but I never intentionally meant to harm anyone. I sincerely thought I was just helping out a crying girl, how is that a crime?"

"You knew what she was capable of, you'd been her friend long enough. Why didn't you tell her to wait outside or-"

"Is this all because you're just jealous?"

He knew just what to say to set my blood on fire.

"No, not at all, Eli. If I was jealous, I'd let you know. I was jealous when she touched your arm, that was why I snapped at her. I know when I can admit things to myself, just like how I know that I'm running away from my problems, but it's not like I can afford to stay here and face them in the first place, all because of my shit father. You know, I never even wanted to come here in the first place. It was supposed to be New York, all this time. Look at the mess it landed me in..."

It was quiet for a moment, the both of us stewing in the words we'd spewed out into the world, trying to come up with solutions for our own problems, but all I saw was the truth that was going to come crashing down on me at any moment.

That I wasn't worth it. That I was too broken on the inside to be a good partner, girlfriend, wife, to anyone--let alone to Eli once his career took off to the skies. Then, a soft and gruff whisper from him broke me from my thoughts, his hand catching my fingers and thumb caressing the skin of my palm.

"V, please don't go. We can work through this, you can stay in my dorm until we can get you a loan, and then-"

"And then what, Eli? I end up crashing in your dorm until the holidays, and then I come home with you like its all sunshine and roses? I won't take your charity, and it's not like I'd be given a loan anyway. I already tried. It's over. I'm leaving. Please, just let me go."

My voice cracked, and I cursed myself for being so weak around him.

"I can't."

His voice like hardened steel, we were at an impasse, and I didn't know how to get him to see things my way.

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both. I'm not letting you in that car V. I love you too much to let you walk away like this, to let you pretend that you don't feel anything for me."

"I've been pretending since I was twelve years old that I could feel anything at all besides sadness, so, I'd say I'm quite good at it."

I didn't realize what I'd said until the words were out of my mouth. He knew that I was pretending not to feel anything for him, but that still didn't change anything.

"You admit that you still have feelings for me, so why are you acting like this is the end of everything for us? It's not. You want me just as much as I want you, but you won't let yourself be open to it? Be vulnerable with me, like you were the night you told me you loved me?"

"No, I can't be vulnerable with you like that again, because like I said before, I don't trust you anymore, and I don't know if I want to even try to open myself back up to you like that again. You hurt me, my father hurt me, my friends hurt me, Sara, Jared, my aunt...my mom--"

I cut myself off, pausing to dam up the welling tears threatening to burst the balloon of emotions inside of myself.

"Everyone hurts me, it's all just a matter of time, and how they do it that's different. You're the same, Eli. You were always going to hurt me, at least this time, I can choose to cut it all off right now and...minimize the damage."

"So what are you saying? You'd rather be alone and miserable than with me and happy, because the idea of me having the power to hurt you is too much to live with? Because that's not living, V. That's just existing in your life, not being happy and not taking risks and actually putting yourself out there. It's the threat of being hurt that makes it all worth it."

"No, it's not Eli. Because I'm not scared of you hurting me. I'm scared of you fucking destroying me. Because you're the first person that I've ever actually let in. I gave you a key and you broke the fucking door down in one day. I can't let that happen again. I'm sorry it's just--it's too much."

I turned around, ready and prepared to storm away from him, when he placed a gentle hand on my arm. I cursed the fates that created this moment, that made his touch feel too good, too easy to melt into and lose myself within.

"I've never let anyone in, either. Except you, Virginia. I still love you, and I'm not scared to admit it."

He pulled something out of the front pocket of his hoodie, a small gift wrapped box that took my heart out of my chest and stomped on it with its delicate beauty.

"Happy birthday, V."