[A/N: Songs for the chapter:
- Taylor Swift // Fifteen
- Taylor Swift // Teardrops On My Guitar
- Taylor Swift // If This Was A Movie
- He Is We // Our July In The Rain]


"What exactly did you hear?" I demanded, feeling extremely defensive for reasons that I wasn't quite sure of yet.

I tried reasoning with myself that all I did was simply voiced the truth. Then again, I did just insult him in a blinded outburst to our teacher. Averting my gaze, I felt the sudden need to protect myself from his murderous gaze.

"Hear what?" He cocked his head to the left and his scowl deepened. "That I'm 'useless in the grand scheme of life?'"

My cheeks reddened as a wave of heat coursed through my body. A great sense of humiliation made my eyes skirt across the floor in desperation. With no sight of Mona or Blake, I settled on staring at my battered, black chucks. I fiddled with the loose threads that poked out of my sweater's sleeves.

"I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

"Oh, I think you meant it!" He snapped sardonically, his voice simmering with anger.

Nostalgia choked me when I glanced up. His stormy eyes were a whirlwind of emotions - a massive change from his usual guarded form. I tried to capture the fleeting emotions as his eyes furiously searched mine and I managed to retrieve anger, incredulity and the usual grief; but there was something else that lay embedded beneath all that. Hurt? Was he seriously that affected by my comment? I couldn't be so sure.

"It's just that you don't bother anymore and I can't fail this class."

"So don't fail - Oh wait! You're going to fail no matter what because I'm your partner, not because you've given up."

The level of sarcasm he used made me wince. Inching forward, his gaze flickered between my bewildered, wide eyes. I felt my chest tighten with nostalgia at how intoxicating his eyes were up close: a tangle of ocean blue and sea green. The proximity between us brought back a series of memories that we shared prior to freshmen year and I had to exhale sharply to suppress the ache in my chest.

"You used to be so different. What the hell happened to you?" His voice was low, dripping with disappointment as he shook his head with disgust.

Tyler was so close to me that I could feel heat riveting off his body and those slender fingers of his were still enclosed around the skin on my wrist sending tiny little shivers throughout me.

"That's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it?" I snapped, trying to snatch my hand back but that only made him tighten his hold.

My voice came out much harsher than I thought possible and combined with my eye roll, all the emotions that were spiralling behind his oceanic eyes were suddenly sucked away into a bottomless black hole. The barrier he had built for himself over the past year and a half was back up and I was back to looking into empty, soulless eyes. A cold shiver ran down my spine.

"Just let me go, please?" I said in tight voice.

Tyler released his grip on my wrist, flinching as if I was dog crap on his shoe before giving me a skin-crawling, filthy look that made my insides churn with horror. A long forgotten feeling surged through me making my chest rise and fall as if I had been running a marathon. My cheeks burned when he refused to tear his eyes away from me, fuelling all his hatred for me into that one glare. A heavy weight seeped through my insides, settling down into the pit of my stomach, but not before flipping over twice. Must be the embarrassment, I thought to myself.

Tyler spun around and stormed down the corridor leaving me stranded in a busy crowd of rowdy teenagers heading towards the cafeteria. I reluctantly followed everybody as an uncomfortable burden of guilt joined the aching heaviness weighing me down.

By the time I spotted Blake and Mona at our usual spot, I was wearing a permanently etched frown.

"What are you guys grinning about?" I snapped as I collapsed into my seat and tossed my packed lunch in front of me.

"What's lodged itself up your ass?" Mona mimicked my tone and I gritted my teeth together.

"You don't even wanna know," I grunted, viciously tearing through my chicken wrap as my friends raised an eyebrow.

Pale green eyes scrutinised my every move as Mona chattered endlessly about a new theatrical production that she was starring in since she was the head of the Drama Club.

"You okay?" Blake mouthed and I nodded in response, scratching my nose before I sipped my water.

As my friends bickered over heaven knows what, I played back Tyler's deadly glare and shuddered whilst I chewed slowly. Somehow my favourite wrap suddenly tasted like ash and cardboard. I struggled to keep up with Mona and Blake even though they tried to include me in their conversation. Instead, I surreptitiously spat into a paper napkin and sipped more water to wash the acrid taste away. The only problem was I had nothing to take away the burn of Tyler's filthy look.

Soon enough, my friends gave up on including me and I slipped into my thoughts, finding myself thinking about the complex relationship between Tyler and I. Propping an elbow onto the table, I let my head rest onto my palm and reminisced over fact that today he had finally spoken to me again after an entire year of giving me the cold shoulder.

Was it possible to be complete strangers with a person I knew everything about? I could still recite his order at McDonalds, his shoe size, pet peeves, abnormal fear of hot sauce and obsession with banana cake. Yet if anybody was to ask me what goes on inside Tyler's head, I'd hit a blank wall faster than the speed of light.

The weight of two pairs of eyes yanked me out of my thoughts and I arched an eyebrow at my friends as I let out a monstrous yawn.

"Ash, are you even listening to me?"

"No, no, keep talking! I always yawn when I'm interested."

As I waved my free hand dismissively, Mona rolled her eyes. Blake laughed, leaned across the table to tap her hand and they exchanged a secretive glance, grinning like The Cheshire Cat before turning back around to face me. I was halfway through an eye roll when Mona slid a badly wrapped present forward.

I eyed it cautiously. "And this is?"

I may love my friends unconditionally but they would gladly place a tarantula inside my sandwich and expect me to laugh along with them after I've digested it. Not before, not during - but after. Mona mirrored my flat look and pushed the fist-sized box even further across the table until it was right in front of me. Eyeing the outdated wrapping, my fingers traced the snowflake and Christmas greetings before I chuckled.

"Stop being a grumpy cow and open it," She grinned at me, brown eyes sparkling.

My eyes warily scanned the dishevelled and crinkled wrapping paper. There was more tape covering it than paper.

"And who wrapped this?" I slowly looked up, letting my eyes flicker between my friends.

Blake's sheepish smile gave him away whilst Mona flicked a finger in his direction.

"I watched so many YouTube tutorials on how to wrap a present but it still came out terrible," He admitted, running a hand through his short black hair. "Sorry Ash."

I flashed him a grateful smile and mumbled my thanks, leaning into his chest as he squeezed my shoulder in a brief side hug. They both watched me with eager expressions as I struggled to unwind all the sticky tape and tear the paper to shreds. Once I managed to catch a peak at what lay underneath I gasped.

"Guys you shouldn't have!" I gazed up at them in awe.

Picking up the brand new iPod Touch, I gaped at my birthday gift and my heart swelled with gratitude.

"After this asshat dropped your last one in my pool, he suggested we get you a new one," Mona giggled, clearly remembering how I had given Blake the silent treatment for drowning my old iPod.

He gave me an apologetic grimace at the reminder of my last iPod so I gave him a forgiving side hug and flashed Mona another grateful smile.

"That's the first time you've smiled properly today," She cocked her head to the left with a tender, small smile.

My heart stopped at the comment and my smile began to falter. It took a great deal of effort to keep it in place and to reinforce my nonchalance, I shrugged my shoulders, feeling my smile waver as the grieving ache in my chest returned. When the bell rang for the last period of the day, I bid them goodbye and hurried to my French class. The seating plan did not please me because I was stuck with one of the school's infamous soccer players: Jonah McAllister. The boy was notorious for his motor mouth, perverted comments and racist jokes. That and his sickening vanity was enough to drive any person mad.

French was, without doubt, my least favourite subject so to be paired with Jonah, as well as carrying around the guilt that weighed me down, was enough to reduce my concentration span to zero. Mindlessly flicking through my textbook, my mind kept bombarding me with images of Tyler's cold stare.

It had been haunting me since the end of fourth period and it just goes to show how much our friendship had changed over the past four years. If anybody had told me before ninth grade that my future with Tyler was going to be non-existent, I would have laughed it off. It was ridiculous, considering all that we had been through together.

We hung out almost everyday since kindergarten with Taylor: riding our bikes around their neighbourhood, going to the beach to surf, hanging out in the mall and loitering around the movie theatre - anything really. But the past four years gave me a long time to let the reality of our broken relationship sink in. I could understand why it hadn't lasted. There were too many sinkholes that we couldn't patch up; the greatest one being his twin sister.

Taylor would have never approved of our relationship even if she realised how much we loved each other - well, how much I loved him. I doubt the feeling was mutual after what he did to me in ninth grade. It was just out of the question for her to accept the idea of her best friend and her brother as anything beside really, really good friends.

I didn't blame her, she was always doing her best to look out for me - adopting some of the roles a father would usually have. And no, I don't mean that literally. She was just really protective over me, trying to cushion my heart from any pain after she watched me become a zombie horror after my tenth birthday.

I guess she didn't realise that she also helped cut the cord holding my heart together, unable to cushion my fall when I crashed down.

Sometimes, I wondered why it hurt so much when we hadn't actually officially dated. I didn't realise that even if love wasn't mutual, it could still destroy a person. It could take them apart, piece by piece, until they were left there thinking 'why was I stupid enough to give him all of me, knowing that if it fell apart, some of those pieces would be lost forever?'

Maybe that was why I was so bitter towards Tyler today. I just couldn't forgive him for taking those pieces of me without the intention of returning them to me. So was it really that out of order for me to call him useless? Sure, I knew that I'd been harsh but there was a significant amount of truth behind my words and he knew that.

After he quit being the captain of the school's soccer team, he ruined his best hope of securing a soccer scholarship and even if he wanted to do something else at college, his grades did not reflect his academic potential. Everybody knew how smart he was: teachers, students and even his parents. But his GPA 4.0 had slipped a great deal, leaving him with nothing much to pursue except to sponge off his rich parents.

Shaking my head, I tried to reassure myself that my reason for lashing out at him was justified. But deep down, my stomach churned with disagreement. Even if all I did was voice the truth of his current state, Tyler couldn't be that out of touch with reality to not know how much he had changed.

Everybody knew what he had become since his twin sister had passed away.

Don't get me wrong, I did try to help him when my best friend died. I fought past my grief to chase after him as he began his descent from the top. I looked past the heartbreak he had caused me, became the bigger person and pushed all my personal problems aside.

But still, he forced me away.

Blake did all he could to help his best friend. I did all I could to help the kid who tore my heart into a million pieces. We all did everything we could to help him but all he did was shut us out. Overnight he switched from the charming young man he used to be into this dark and impulsive creature who caused destruction everywhere.

Rumours started flying everywhere about how he turned up to school completely wasted or higher than the Empire State Building. His long list of delinquencies suddenly became the most interesting topic of conversation and it was impossible to go through a day without hearing about his latest destruction. The craziest one had to be the day he set a teacher's car on fire. Eventually, Tyler's erratic behaviour slowed down and he stopped seeking attention. Instead, he became secluded and extremely reclusive.

Resting my head against the cool table, I propped my textbook up to hide the fact that I was joining the rest of the sleeping class. Closing my eyes, I pursed my lips and for once I didn't chase the image of Tyler away when he cropped up in my mind. Pushing past the dull ache in my chest, I felt a ghostly smile pull my lips up.

I tuned out my Mrs Harper's chirpy presentation, smiling as flashbacks of my oldest memories with the Miller twins fleeted past my closed eyelids. My mind sifted through my favourite memories, one by one, replaying them in my head as I smiled softly to myself, looking through the eyes of a first grader. I watched the twins play-fight in the playground before they chased each other for hours. He always used to drape his arms over both our shoulders, calling us his best 'girl' friends, whilst we spent everyday riding our bikes outside their mansion.

I fast forwarded through to middle school when we gave Tyler a makeover during one of Taylor's sleepovers - he never recovered from that brutal experience and had a lock hammered onto his bedroom door. I did try to warn my best friend against Michelle's antics but back in middle school, it was all about acceptance and Taylor just wanted to fit in. That was when all the girls in sixth grade had a crush on Tyler and pretended to be her best friend so that they could flirt with him at her sleepovers.

But whenever I used to sleep over at Taylor's house, he'd waggle his eyebrows at me, wink at me or whisper a charming remark into my ear when his sister's back was turned.

That was how it started.

It was like he suddenly outgrew the teasing tactics to get my attention, realising that I blushed easily at his silly compliments. During middle school, I wasn't even remotely interested in Tyler, I was too busy trying to overcome my father's death and was dealing with the guilt I carried with me everywhere.

I thought I had outgrown my childish crush on him, forcibly maturing after my tenth birthday when I realised how destructive love could be. The sight of my broken mother was enough evidence for me to figure out what the flip side of love could do to a person. I guess I just stopped looking at Tyler that way, becoming blind to how much attention he paid me and overlooking his pink cheeks whenever I spared him an affectionate gesture.

Forcing my eyelids open, I briefly scanned the classroom before returning to one of the most painful corners of my mind. Good, I thought as my eyes confirmed that the silence in the classroom was a result to all the sleeping pupils. Using my arms as a pillow, I closed my eyes and found myself drawing out one particular, bitter-sweet memory. My heart protested loudly and clenched violently but the guilt in my belly from my previous encounter with Tyler coaxed my mind to relive the memory.

I vaguely remembered sleeping over at Taylor's house during the first few weeks of our freshmen year. Taylor had prepared snacks and was busy setting up the movie. We agreed to have a small break since she wanted to shower quickly before we huddled into her room. She went to use her en suite bathroom so I had no choice but to knock on Tyler's bedroom door and ask to use his bathroom to get ready for bed.

"Come in!" He yelled from inside his room.

I hesitantly walked in, my cheeks flushing slightly at the sight of Tyler shirtless in just striped pyjama bottoms as he played some violent video game.

"Oh hey Ash," He shot me a wide smile before pausing his game. "What brings you into my room? Couldn't resist me?"

I rolled my eyes as he came over to me. I cocked my head to the left as he leaned over me and peered out of his room.

"Is Tay having a shower?"

I nodded quickly and tried to manoeuvre my way around him but tripped over his bare feet and my oversized glasses flew off my face. I stood up as fast as I could, feeling embarrassed as I tried to search for my glasses. I must have been swaying with imbalance because Tyler gripped my arms to steady me, not realising how close we were.

"Are you okay munchkin?" His usual sea-green eyes were dominated with blue as they scanned my face.

Letting out a low whistle, his warm breath fanned my face, making me feel flustered by the proximity between us.

"What?" I tried to snap but it came out as a breathless whisper.

"Sorry, it's hard to imagine you without glasses because you wear them all the time," He babbled, running a hand through his short hair nervously, making it flop back onto his forehead.

"Is that a bad thing?" I asked, wiping my sweaty palms on my shorts.

"No, definitely not bad. Just different."

His eyes drank in my proportional features. I had often been told that my glasses made my eyes bulge out but I was more interested in seeing clearly than looking pretty and being blind as a mole.

"What kind of different?" I stammered, feeling self conscious and touching my bare face.

"The pretty kind," He whispered, lifting a thumb to brush my lower lip.

"Really?" I questioned him in a breathless whisper.

Tyler nodded and cleared his throat. I guess he wasn't trusting himself to speak as I tried to tear my gaze from his. His eyes were intoxicating me, chasing away my basic knowledge of how to breathe. In and out, breathe, in and out, I remembered muttering to myself aloud. Amusement lit those oceanic blue orbs of his, entwined with tides of sea green waves before they darkened a fraction, losing their playful nature.

I should have seen it coming. I mean, we'd had plenty of moments in the months leading up to that day; especially at the Miller's beach house. I spent six weeks of my summer with the twins, their parents and Blake, and I couldn't use both hands to display the amount of times Tyler and I had nearly kissed; always to be interrupted by his sister.

But none of the moments we'd shared left me as breathless and incapable of speaking as Tyler left me that night in his room.

"Ash..." He began, still holding my glasses in his hand whilst the other tucked a loose curl behind my ear.

I wanted to scream at him to back away, to leave me be, to kiss me quickly, to kiss me languidly. I didn't know what I wanted. As I tried to formulate a reply, the heat of his breath on my mouth made all my thoughts scurry away.

"May I?" His eyes trailed to my mouth with uncertainty and I tried to shake my head but it felt heavy as lead until he lifted it up, tilting my chin up with his thumb and forefinger.

Disorientated, I remained silent, unintentionally giving him the green lights to continue.

A soft brush made a series of tingles rush from my lips to my toes and then back up. My chest rose and slumped back down again so hard I thought it was going to cave in before it inflated again. His lips rubbed against mine again and an overwhelming sense of euphoria enveloped my veins making my toes curl as I leaned back against the wall. It held all my weight while Tyler hovered over me, his lips shakily cupping mine. His touch was so tender that I feared I'd break into a thousand glass pieces. Pulling back just a centimetre, I felt his smile before I heard it in his voice.

"You have no idea how long I've waited to do that–"

Another voice cut him off, coming from next door before it sounded a lot closer.

"Ash! Movie time!"

Tyler sprung away from me faster than the speed of light as Taylor's damp hair made an appearance. It hung in a thick, braided rope about her waist when she kicked the door ajar and wrinkled her dainty nose at me.

"I was just, u-umm, I was..." I stuttered, reduced to a shaking wreck from my first kiss.

"Whoa, were you in here the entire time I was showering?" Taylor cut me off, raising her eyebrows as she narrowed eyes, the very same ones I had just lost myself into.

Paying close attention to the two teenagers, I noticed that despite their height difference the only other aspect about them that ever changed consistently was their eye colour. Sometimes it was a calm ocean blue and other times it was a soothing sea green but it never failed to remind me of the ocean. It just depended on their mood.

"I had to take a dump?" I laughed nervously, my eyes meeting Tyler's large pupils as his tense shoulders relaxed. A bark of nervous laughter erupted from his hoarse throat.

"Ew! Too much info Ash!" Taylor grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the room, forgetting that I hadn't even showered.

During the movie, I couldn't concentrate on anything but the fact that my lips felt were throbbing, aching and yearning for more. Tyler hadn't even kissed me hard but the pressure of his soft lips against mine left me craving for a lot more than a simple peck. I couldn't help but relive the kiss over and over again, my cheeks burning as I remembered the dark desire in his eyes.

Stealing a glance at Taylor, a sudden guilt racked through me making me freeze. I panicked. Why did I let him kiss me?

Somewhere in the middle of the movie, the door flung open and Tyler sprinted into the room and flew onto the enormous bed, making it bounce violently. My best friend screamed at him to leave and I just clung onto the edge of the bed, struggling to calm my hammering heart as I tried not to fall off the edge.

"Can I watch the movie with you guys? I'm so bored," Tyler pleaded, snuggling into his sister's arms as she pushed him away.

"No! Get out of my room Ty! You're ruining the movie for god's sake!" His sister snapped, giving him a half-hearted glare.

"Oh come on Tay-Tay, I won't make a sound, I promise!" He pouted, letting his bottom lip quiver and her face softened, her resolved quickly weakening.

She pursed her lips before letting out a slow breath.

"Fine, you can stay, but only if you keep quiet and sit on the floor."

Tyler made a face, stealing a nervous glance at me before turning his attention back to his sister.

"The floor? Why can't I sleep in the bed with you two?"

"Because Ash doesn't want you to," Taylor laughed, sparing me a grateful glance before giving her brother a smug smirk.

Before I could make a protest, he flung himself into the bed and crawled on top of me, straddling me as his warm hands clasped my face.

"Do you mind if I sleep between you and Tay?" His eyes were serious but the nervous smile made me catch my breath.

"N-No?" I stammered, feeling my cheeks heat up under his hold on them.

"See!" Tyler poked his tongue out at his twin and collapsed into a heap between us before he crawled under the covers.

We watched the remainder of the movie in silence, my heart pounding so loudly that I was terrified they would both hear it hammering against my chest. I let out a small gasp near the end when Tyler's hand found mine under the covers. He turned his head and gave me a dimpled, crooked smile; cheeks tinged with a faint blush. I responded by curling my fingers around his and sighed with happiness.

The next morning, I woke up to find Taylor curled into a ball at the far end of her gigantic bed. Tyler, on the other hand, had his arm draped around my waist and his head was buried into the crook of my neck. Our fingers were still interlinked under the covers and our legs were a tangled mess. I felt strangely comfortable even though his body was crushing mine.

I spent the rest of that week in total bliss feeling like I was falling for with the most gorgeous guy ever, wondering why I had spent all those years pushing him away. That was until the following week when I overheard Michelle bragging to her clique that Tyler had asked her out and did the nasty with her. I was heartbroken and burst out crying in the middle of class. Taylor made a lame excuse to take me to Nurse Peters but instead she dragged me into the girl's restroom and made me confess that I had lost my first kiss to her brother.

She was furious with him for going behind her back when she told him to back off. He led me on and then left me stranded. And for Tyler - the one guy who always put others before himself - that was completely out of character.

From that day on, he never approached me again and avoided me greatly whenever I stayed at their house. He also began to style his hair differently so I assumed Taylor had made him pay by cutting a lock of his hair or something just as ridiculous. The twins were forever pranking each other, after all.

Eventually the hostility between us did lessen slightly but the tension always remained. It was there, always lingering under the surface like a thin layer of slippery ice whenever we stumbled into each other by chance at their house or in the school hallways. We rarely spoke, and when we did, they were followed with averted gazes, shaky stammers and one-worded answers until I found out about Taylor's illness from his meltdown during his final soccer match. That was the day Tyler gave up on being the soccer star of Riverdale High. His former best friend Dylan Crossway and Jonah McAllister threw fists at him after their crushing loss although Tyler managed to break Dylan's nose.

All of his friends were ignorant and oblivious to the heavy burden he was carrying around by keeping Taylor's illness a secret. And despite all that I've been through, that was one of the hardest days of my life: finding out the real reason why my best friend had stopped answering my calls and turning up to school.

The image of Tyler pounding Dylan was enough to make me flinch. I don't know what would've happened if Blake and Coach Webber hadn't forced them apart. I guess his teammates held a significant amount of blame for Tyler's descent. If they had been there for him after Taylor died, maybe he wouldn't have become so secluded, distant and miserable, with all traces of his old, playful attitude gone.

There was no escape from the grief Tyler carried and he took it everywhere with him, casting a permanent rain cloud over his head. Everybody had mourned when Taylor had died of leukaemia, but his grief wasn't just emotional, it was physical too. He transformed into an emotionless guy whose range of facial expressions consisted of just...well, nothing. He became nothing.

Forcing myself to open my eyelids, I blinked slowly and sighed heavily. Stretching my arms behind my head, I straightened up and glowered at myself for degrading Tyler and calling him useless. I knew what grief could do to a person. I experienced it most nights when I closed my eyes and let my nightmares replay my darkest horrors.

I knew that the first year was the hardest, and even then, it still took a long time to feel okay again. On a daily basis, I still struggled to come to grips with that part; and let's be real here, I'd had eight years to patch a replacement for the hole in my chest. Taylor died less two years ago so I don't know why I expected her brother to bounce back to his old personality so fast.

As the final bell signalled the day's end, I gathered my books as a realisation seeped through my body and layered the heavy guilt at the pit of my belly. I was certain that this feeling would not go away unless I apologise to Tyler.

But how on earth was I going to apologise to the bad boy who would rather set himself on fire than listen to a single word I had to utter?

____________________________________________________________

[A/N: I know, I know...That was a lot of information to take in but you guys need to know about their past to understand all the future chapters.

QOTC (Question of the chapter):

1) Have any of you guys lost a close/best friend to cancer?

2) Have any of you experienced the death of a parent?

3) What does grief mean to you?

Till next time. Vote, comment and fan.

- Kaddy]