WHEN WE GET BACK to Jamie's, I am exhausted.

I flop on the sofa and sigh, closing my eyes as I lean my head back on the pillow. Traffic all the way back had been awful, so our twenty minute journey had nearly taken an hour. I was getting more and more frustrated because I just wanted to get back, have a shower and get this conversation off my chest. The world clearly had other ideas.

Jamie chuckles and I open my eyes just as he flops similarly into the armchair opposite me.

"You want a shower or anything?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Maybe in a bit." I just wanted to sit here for a minute.

"Tea?" he asks, and that I do nod for.

He chuckles and disappears into the kitchen down the hall, and when he reappears, he's changed into a pair of tracksuit trousers and a baggy Slipknot t-shirt. I'd never seen him wear it before - or heard him listening to them before - so I make a mental note to add them to my playlist.

"I am so glad you're okay," he says after he's handed me my tea and sat down next to me.

I lean into him and sigh contentedly as his arm goes around me. I lean up and look at him. His gaze is burning into me, and he seems to studying every inch of my face, every feature. He then tucks my fringe back behind my ear and drops a soft but long kiss on my lips, both of us sighing at the connection.

When he pulls away he smiles. It's my favourite lopsided smile, the one that won me over all those weeks ago.

"What was that for?" I ask. The kiss had left me breathless.

He simply shrugs before kissing my head again, not answering my question.

It's quiet between us for a few moments, the only sound was the odd slurp from either of us as we drank our tea, along with the ticking clock on the mantelpiece. He keeps looking at me longingly, and once my tea is finished, I sit up and turn, facing him cross-legged.

"You know I said I wanted to talk to you?" I ask.

He nods, turning the same as I had, putting his mug down on the window sill.

"Yeah?" He seems nervous as he watches me.

His big blue eyes are sad, knowing what I have to tell him might hurt. I hate that he feels that way, but I also hope what I'm about to say doesn't scare him off. Because when you tell a current boyfriend about an ex-boyfriend who you were ready to marry 18 months ago, and who owns a part of your soul... well, let's just say I wouldn't blame him for running away. And with me going home tomorrow, and us having even more distance... Oh God, I really have to stop overthinking and just tell him.

Taking his hand to keep me calm, we sit, patiently waiting for me to gather up the courage to delve into a place I had shut away quite well until today.

"You know I said that my brother..." I take a breath to clear the lump in my throat. "That Matt had died?"

He nods, remembering the speech I'd made on the night we had officially met.

"He died in a car accident. He was taking his friend to the airport and they got into an accident."

The photos we got from the investigation suddenly flash into my mind. Matt's car was completely destroyed, even without the fact firemen had to saw the doors off to get them both out. The airbags were blown, blood covering both of them, and I just remember the two of them had been lucky to survive the crash... let alone anything else.

"His friend. His friend..." I start my sentence but I have no idea how to finish it.

"Tess, you don't have to tell me this. I don't want you to relive this."

"No, I can get this out," I say, and I shake my head adamantly. "I can do this."

I take a couple of more deep breaths whilst Jamie kisses my knuckles, and after a couple of minutes, I finally find the strength to go through with my plan.

"His friend... Archie." There, I said it. Somehow just saying his name out loud was freeing. "He was more than just a friend."

Jamie frowns, "To Matt?"

"To me," I correct him.

Realisation dawns on Jamie's face as I look down at our entwined hands.

"Did he..." he clears his throat. "Archie... Did he?" He's trying to ask if Archie was killed too, but I shake my head.

"No, he wasn't."

Jamie nods.

"But he took it really hard. He wasn't the same afterwards. He was in hospital for weeks, he didn't really say a word to anyone... not even me."

As I look down, closing my eyes, I remember watching him day after day, sitting or lying in that bed. He was in so much pain, but he wouldn't let the doctors give him anything. When he was with Dad he spoke a little bit, but with me, he barely spoke a word.

"I hated it. The three of us had always been so close, ever since we were kids, and he just became this different person."

I understood that he was going through something unimaginable, but it was him that didn't understand that I was trying to be there for him, to try to shoulder that grief with him, to help with my own grief... but he just wouldn't let me in.

"Archie and I were closer than close."

"How close is close?" He asks.

I sigh and he takes a deep breath.

"You know those movies where a kid falls in love with another kid on their first day of school? And then they become best friends and neither of them realise they're in love with the other?"

He nods, but I know he's doing it begrudgingly, not wanting to hear this.

"Well, that was me and Archie."

He turns his head away.

"Except... He left."

I put my head down, remembering the pain that had shot through my chest when Dad had rung me the day he got back. I couldn't imagine a pain worse than that...

"He abandoned me, my family, his sister. Everyone. And despite the fact I loved him, I decided that day that I couldn't forgive him."

I take a deep breath as I feel that lump in my throat forming again.

"He left?"

I nod. "Yeah, and my heart shattered in a billion pieces."

As I look up, back up into his blue eyes, I'm finding Jamie's expression a little hard to read. I know it's a lot to take in. I'm telling him about that first love, one that he knows people always hold on to, but now I'm telling him I can never forgive him.

"Tess, what is it that you're trying to tell me?"

My jaw bobs up and down.

"Are you trying to tell me that you still love him?" he asks, his voices laced with anger as he leans away from me, pulling his hands out of my grasp.

I shake my head, trying to take his hand back but he's off the sofa in a second, pacing in front of me.

"The point is, I don't know why Archie left, and he became someone I no longer understood. Someone I could no longer love because of the way he left."

He stops pacing and looks at me. "How did he leave?"

A tear drops down my cheek but I wipe it away as I tell him. "While Dad was taking me up here, Millie went out for milk, and when she came back, he was gone. Everything gone. All his stuff, all his clothes. He didn't leave a trace."

I sniff as a hiccuped sob comes out of me.

"He abandoned us all, at the time we needed him, he abandoned us."

I take another deep breath.

"I thought that was it for me. He'd told me in a letter that he didn't deserve me, and that I should find someone who can make me happy because he was no longer going to be able to do that. He told me to move on, and for so long, I didn't think I'd be able to."

He catches on to what I'm getting at. He stays standing, but at least he's stopped pacing from side to side.

"Where is he now?" he asks. "Is he back home? Is that why you don't want to go home?"

I shake my head. "No, he's not at home. I don't know where he is. Well, I know where he is, I just don't know where he is."

"Where is he?"

"New York. Our plan, because we'd made a plan, was for him to study there, for me to study here, and then we'd be ready to start a family. I was to teach, he would paint, and we would just be happy. That was the plan."

"Only you're not happy?"

I shake my head slowly as I look at him.

"I am happy, Jamie. I never thought I would be, because of how close and connected we were, I never thought I would be." I stand to join him in the middle of the living room floor. "And that is what I want to tell you."

"Tell me what? That you still love him?"

I shake my head again as I walk towards him, placing my hands on his chest as I stare up into his blue eyes, smiling as wide as I can.

"Jamie, I'm trying to tell you that you're making me happy. I had no hope, no light, and yet you've given me hope enough to step out of the darkness for enough time as to see there is life after him."

I remember the gaping hole that opened up in my chest when he left, but slowly, surely, with each new minute I spend with Jamie, that hole is healing itself.

"I've been happier than I can ever imagine, and that's all down to you."

His smile slowly starts to grow on his face, and I can't help my answering smile when his hand relax out of fists and he places them on my hips.

"For the last six weeks, longer, I've barely thought about him, and that's a huge deal for me. And that's because of you. You're showing me new things, new experiences, new dreams... New futures. You're showing me that I was ridiculous to think that all my eggs had to be in that one basket. Those eggs shattered, the basket obliterated."

It was an utterly stupid analogy but from the smile that is still growing wider, I'd say that stupid analogy is working.

"You're my new basket."

His eyebrows knit together as he tries not to laugh at my stupid example, but before he can laugh at me as I pour my heart out, I continue.

"For these last two months, I've barely thought of him. And that is a huge deal for me, Jamie. Do you want to know the reason why I didn't go out?" I ask.

He shrugs, as he doesn't mind, but from his eyes and his tense shoulders, I know he deserves the answer. The real answer.

"I was heartbroken. Before that, I barely lived. I would get up, go to class, read and then go back to bed." I sniff as I remember just how broken and depressed I really was. It was a huge achievement that I even got out of bed most days. "It all hurt so much, after losing both my brother and him, I wasn't sure if I would be able to put it all together again."

I wipe the stray tear I can feel rolling down my cheek and smile up at him, knowing I'm getting to the good part of my disjointed explanation.

"But that first night out..." My smile grows as his does. "Do you know what happened?"

"After weeks of seeing you, of wanting to talk to you, I finally got up the courage to do it, and... well, look where we are now."

He narrows his eyes. "I think I spoke first."

My cheeks heat immediately as I remember my words completely failing me, and then my friends being complete nuisances afterwards.

"Yeah, and you didn't really give me a choice. It was either..." I pause for dramatic effect as I push myself closer into him, revelling in the way he's holding me, swaying slightly, as if we're dancing.

"What?" he asks.

"It was either fall in love with you, or let the ground swallow me up, right then and there."

His eyebrows lift at the words and I feel his chest fill with something similar to what's in mine.

"And?" he asks, even though he clearly knows the answer.

I smile, leaning up to kiss him. When I stop, he picks me up and wrap my legs around his waist.

"I chose to fall in love with you."

I squeal as he suddenly spins us around, jumping in the air in a celebration at hearing me tell him I'm in love with him.

It was true. Ever since I saw him that day at the bar when I was in there to revise, there was just something about him. And now, having got to know him over these last six incredible weeks, I knew it was him I'd been waiting for all that time.

My problem has always been that I love so fast, and so deeply, that I leave myself open to heartbreak when these people come and go so quickly... but with Jamie, I knew he wasn't going anywhere. Despite what I had just admitted, he was here to stay.

He slows us down after a couple of turns and kisses me again, his mouth urgent on mine as he tangles his fingers into the bottom of my tied-up hair.

"I'd been intrigued for a while, you know."

His eyebrows raise again in surprise. He'd told me before that he had seen me a couple of times, but I'd never admitted to him that I had been interested.

"Really?"

I nod and kiss him again.

"Yeah!" I exclaim, laughing. "But I just knew I didn't have a chance, so that's why I never said anything. I kept going back to basically torture myself because I figured you were either a very handsome womaniser, you were married or you had a girlfriend."

He snorts at my three options.

"It never even occurred to me to try." I kiss him again and stroke his cheek gently with my index finger. "But I wanted you to know, now, that you have made me realise there is something else out there for me, and that I deserve to be happy."

He grins across at me, my favourite lopsided, sexy smirk, and I don't even bother swiping at the tears falling down my cheeks, knowing more will arrive in a few seconds.

"Yes, Archie and I had a connection." His smile lessens slightly, but then picks up again when he sees I haven't finished. "But with you..." I stroke his cheek again. "You're so much..." I try to think of a better word than 'more' but I smile when I realise that is exactly the word I was looking for. "You're so much more."

He leans down and plants a long but soft kiss on my lips, wrapping his arms around me so I feel closer to him. I can feel the emotion behind it, and the smile I get when he pulls back is one of my favourite things in the world.

"You know what else though?"

I frown as this train of thought suddenly comes to mind. He puts me down and we both move back over to the sofa.

"I never realised how much I did for Archie until he was gone. And I think that's why my life suddenly felt so empty."

He moves to open his mouth to interrupt me, but I shake my head.

"You've filled my heart again, Jamie. You've filled it with your humour, your laughter and your unrelenting kindness." I take his hands as I smile. "Like today. Jamie, you were so amazing in there. You just knew exactly what to do..."

"I was probably panicking more than you were. I hate needles too, and I knew you just needed a distraction."

"I hadn't realised how scary a hospital was because I'd never been on the scary end before. It was always Archie who was in the wars."

I shake my head to pull myself away from those images, the ones of him in bed, beaten, bruised and unconscious, machines keeping him alive.

"I think I loved Archie because he was my best friend... because it was easy. And it was what everybody expected."

I take his hand in mine, slipping our fingers over each before I kiss the heels of his hands.

"But with you... I don't know. I feel like I'm doing more of the unexpected."

"The unexpected?" he laughs.

"Yeah. Like me calling you up to sing with me, or you calling me out for a date. I never would have done that in a million years, and Archie would never have forced me because he never wanted to make me uncomfortable."

Archie was always protecting me as if I was made of glass, even if it was important. Jamie wants me to experience the important stuff no matter what.

"You haven't been what I expected," I say with a smile. "I like that. I love that." My eyes widen and he gasps at the use of the L word again. "You're drama free, you don't come with a lifetime's worth of complications and baggage and you apparently still want to hang around me even though my life is an utter disaster."

He shakes his head before he pulls me on to his lap. "Of course I do, you dork. Why wouldn't I?"

I shrug.

"Do you think he left because of what happened to Matt?" Jamie asks quietly when it's been quiet for a few minutes.

I nod against his chest. That is exactly why he left. "Yeah, I think so. It was too painful. One day I know he'll come back and explain, and we'll laugh about how ridiculous it was, but right now I'm mad at him. And I will be for a while."

Jamie kisses the top of my head softly.

"He left me with the worst pain imagineable."

Another kiss drops on my head before I move slightly to look up at him.

"But you have put me back together. You've patched up my busted, broken heart and fixed it, Jamie. And for that... I think I can-"

I gasp as his mouth crashes down on mine, laughing as he kisses me harder, his tongue moving with mine as he lies me down into the sofa. I try to stop, I really do, but there's ony so long a girl can resist. I try to pull away to tell him those three words I'd hinted at, but he just shakes his head and kisses me again.

He knows. And I know he knows. He knows I love him.

His kisses are intensifying as he moves from my lips to behind my ear, down my throat, across my chest and to my other ear. I can barely catch my breath as I grind my hips against his hard crotch, both of us almost breathless.

As if sensing my need for a second's worth of air, he moves his kisses away and hovers over me, his eyes sparkling with happiness, making them seem fairy-like.

"Whey you said you wanted to tell me something, I didn't lknow what to think," he says quietly, kissing me once more as I smile, stroking his cheek as I stare into his bright eyes.

I shake my head slowly, smiling as he leans in closer to rest his nose against mine before kissing it.

"Just kiss me," I tell him, feeling my stomach flip as he grins, doing exactly that.

As he picks me up and we move upstairs, lips still dancing together as he holds on to me, I know I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I have a second chance at love... and I am never letting it go.