This is a double update, so make sure you read chapter 48 first!! xo

I sigh, wiping the few tears that have fallen in the midst of reading this letter, as I look out into the distance. I can tell that this was raw emotion. That her feelings are all over the place and she's feeling a little like me. Unsure of anything. Confused and back and forth. Either way, I can feel her honesty in the way that she wrote it. Maybe I need to trust her more. Maybe she really did tell me the truth. Maybe Jenny was the one who was lying.

I get up from my place on the driftwood, bottle in hand and walk back home. I feel like this letter should have made me want to talk to Paisley. Figure some shit out with her and talk like normal human beings and apologize for all I've said and what I've done. Because she's right, I did recreate our dates so that I could relive the past. Go back to a time when living life was like being in a dream. There are a lot more questions I have now. How did karma get her? What she wrote about it, has me intrigued. Something bad enough for her to want to keep it a secret, so much that she let it keep us apart.

Mom has dinner set on the table already. Her and Dad are already eating. When I walk into the dining room, I notice Paisley's book sitting on the table, along with a plate full of food at my place. I look between them before sliding the book across the table and taking it to the living room.

"Come and have dinner, Harry—"

I turn the tv on to drown her out and hope that she will leave me alone. Thankfully she stops talking when I sit down and set the book on my lap. For some reason, I'm having a hard time opening it, just staring at the cover in front of me. She said that looking at this book would make me realize that everything was real for her. And although I got that from the letter, I'm still afraid to look inside. Maybe it's because I turned on her, knowing that I shouldn't have. I did things wrong. I should have trusted her. I screwed everything up, and now I've lost her.

Breaking News on the tv takes me out of my thoughts, making me turn to it to watch. Pictures of four guys are on the screen and my body stiffens when I take it in. I recognize three of them from the day I ruined everything with Paisley. Two of them had kicked my ass. I try to focus on what's being said, but there's a ringing in my ears that makes it impossible to understand everything. When I hear the name Ryan, my heart starts to pound and I turn the volume up to hear the news caster explain something about their awaited trial and being held in custody for—abuse—rape—kidnapping—attempted murder.

I feel sick. My beloved Paisley. I know that she was one of those girls. I know in my broken heart, that this is what she was hiding. This is why she lied. No. I can't believe this. Memories of the day those guys kept telling me to stay away from her. That she belonged to Ryan. Remembering the first day I saw her, she talked to him on the phone. I'm not your play thing anymore. Go find someone else you can ruin. Christmas holidays when I saw her with her old 'friends.' They weren't really her friends. It makes sense why she wanted to get away so quickly. How could this have happened to her? She thought she deserved that life because of what she did to me?

I frantically press her number on my phone. I need to talk to her. I need to tell her I understand now. Her phone goes straight to voicemail and I feel myself start to panic trying her number again. Voicemail again. Now would be a good time to have her Dad's number. Why don't I have her Dad's number?

I run through the dining room, Paisley's book and the bottle in my hand, not caring to stop. I need to get to her. If she took the ferry right after I told her to go home, surely she'd be home by now. Why do I have to live on this island? Why is her phone off? Why is she so far away from me right now?

"Where are you going in such a rush?" Mom asks when I reach the front door.

"I'm going to find Paisley. I'll call you later, because I'm going over to Vancouver and don't know when I'll be home."

*

I thank God that I make it to the ferry in time before it leaves. Leaving my car and going upstairs to get something to eat. I take Paisley's book so I have something to do, realizing I haven't looked at it yet, and I still have a few hours until I get to her house.

The guilt settling in my stomach makes me nauseous. All those times I was mad that she lied. She had good reason for it. I don't blame her for wanting to keep that a secret from me. Why she said she was a virgin. She was afraid. I can't even begin to imagine the horrors that she's been through. All those nightmares that she had. It all makes sense. My girl has been through hell and I pushed her away for not wanting to tell me, when I should have just not asked questions like I didn't in the beginning.

I don't know how long I've sat here for, lost inside of my head. I haven't even opened my bag of chips from the vending machine. I just can't bring myself to eat. I haven't opened the book to look at it yet. At the moment I don't even care about everything that's happened between us. All I want is for her to know that I'm there. That she can trust me and I will do everything I can to make sure she knows that I'm sorry.

The row of seats I'm sitting on, bounces a little, bringing me back to reality, noticing someone has sat next to me. I look over to see Paisley's Dad staring at me.

"Is she here? Is she with you?" I ask, the panic in my voice very apparent.

He pats me on the back and sighs. "She's on a plane going back to California as we speak."

"What?" No. She can't be. Here I thought she was too far away from me, being in Vancouver. But now I know she will soon be nineteen hours away from me and it's going to take me forever to get to her now.

"She needed some time," he explains. "She's hurting—"

"I know," I interrupt. "I hurt her. I was awful to her. And now she wont answer her phone."

"She'll forgive you." He gives me a reassuring smile. "Whatever it is that you've done, she'll forgive you. I'm not exactly happy to know that you've made her cry as much as she was today, but trust me when I say I see a lot of me in you. The way you two are together, reminds me of my Sadie—Paisley's Mom. We used to fight just like you guys do. But the love. The love we had for each other was something else. And when I see my daughter look at you, it's like looking at my wife looking at me. That powerful love that overtakes just about everything else."

I watch him as if he's reliving his past. A small smile on his face, remembering his late wife. It's sad in a way, especially because he is admitting to the fact that he knows Paisley loves me because he sees him and his wife in us. And now I feel even worse. What have I done?

We sit in silence for a while, watching people as they walk past. I'm trying to figure out how to ask what I want to ask, without sounding like a complete ass, but my heart pounds hard in my chest and I feel sick again, knowing that if I ask, he might tell me the truth and I'm not sure I can handle the truth.

"You look like you're going to be sick," he tells me. "You get sea sick?"

"No," I answer, taking a deep breath. "I wanted to ask you something."

He narrows his eyes at me.

"I saw something on the news today," I start. I wait to see his reaction, to see if he knows what I'm talking about before I say anything more. He sighs and nods his head, making me realize that my thoughts were true. She was one of those girls.

"I knew it was going to be on today," he breathes out. "I'm happy Paisley's not near a tv."

"So, she was one of those girls?"

"I think Paisley should be the one to talk to you about this," he tells me.

"That's the thing though, she lies through her teeth about her past. She won't tell me. She'd rather us not be together than tell me anything."

He sighs again. "Paisley has been through a lot, Harry. She was one of those girls you heard about on tv. And that day—" He stops for a second to look at me. He's trying to decide if he wants to tell me something, and now I want to know what's going through his mind.

"What day?"

"That day she met you downtown," he continues. I can tell that he's struggling to get out what he wants to say. "No, I know she wont want me to tell you. If she went through so much trouble to keep it from you, she wouldn't want to know I said something. Just know that she's the reason they're locked up now. And although I hate the reason as to why she had to do it, I'm proud of her for finally doing what she should have done a long time ago."

Everything around me starts to spin, as I take in his words and figure it out for myself. I stand up from my place and walk through the door to the deck, feeling more nauseous than before. It doesn't take effort for the contents in my stomach to erupt over the side of the boat.

I made her meet me downtown that day. She tried so hard to get me to meet her at her house, and yet I pushed her to go down there. I watched her walk away in tears, and apparently back into the hands of someone else who hurt her. Someone who is capable of doing much worse than giving her that black eye. Something that was bad enough that made her want to put him behind bars. I can't even believe this. This is far worse than any nightmare I could even imagine, and it all happened while I was wasting my time being mad at her. I was selfish, not caring what else she was going through, yelling at her and telling her that she was nothing to me.

What is wrong with me?

"She's going to be fine, Harry." Her Dad stands next to me, hand patting my back as I lean over the edge. "Paisley is strong. She can get through anything. She's been through much worse than this one time. She'll be okay."

"I need to get to her right now," I mutter.

"You can stay with me for the night and leave in the morning," he says. "You need to clear your head and get some sleep before driving all that way. Trust me. You'll thank me in the morning."

**

"Are you moving?" I ask, when we walk in the door. It feels weird being in their house without Paisley with me. Boxes are everywhere, and it's clear that I didn't even need to ask such a stupid question.

He laughs and walks down the hall, where I follow him to the kitchen. "I guess she didn't tell you that either, eh?"

"No, she's mad at me. She's not telling me anything. Where are you moving?"

"Let's just say we're going to be neighbors," he laughs again. I look at him confused. "The house behind yours."

As happy as that makes me, I shake my head at my stupidity again. The reason she was parked outside my house earlier, wasn't because she was there to see me. She was just parked in front of her new house. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. I said she was stalking me. Someone needs to punch me.

"Well, she definitely didn't tell me that," is all I can say.

"You can either stay in Paisley's room or sleep on the couch," he tells me.

"I'll just sleep on the couch. I don't think she'd like me in her room."

"You could probably try calling her now," he says, walking away. "She's probably landed by now."

When he's out of the kitchen, I try to call, but it's just her voicemail. He comes back with a box in his hands and I immediately recognize it. Before he heads back upstairs, he tells me where the towels are for the guest bathroom and if I want I can shower and he will see me in the morning.

I take my time looking through the contents of the box I had made her so long ago, taking in every memory the way we lived it. She was right. What we had was very much real. So much time has passed. So much time wasted being mad at her and hating her for something that could have been handled differently if it wasn't for keeping secrets and telling lies.

We both screwed up. We handled things wrong. Karma got us both so many times it's hard to believe we're still standing. My girl, the girl I love so much more than I ever cared to admit, taking the brunt of it all. How she got through it all baffles me.

Hours have passed. I should have been sleeping by now. I want to get an early start on the drive back to school. I finally turn off the light and lay down, but my mind wont shut off. I feel antsy and feel like I need to get back to her now. I have to stop wasting time. Too much time that we should have been together has flown by. Missing out on times that we could be falling more in love with each other instead of falling apart.

I decide to get up and have a shower when I see the clock hit five a.m. I know that I'm not going to sleep now. But I need to wake up a little more than I feel, if I'm going to be driving for nineteen hours. I should have just left earlier. I can already tell I'm going to be cursing myself halfway through this drive back, but I just want to see her now.

Before leaving the house, I write a thank you note to Mr. Hayes for letting me stay here. I take the box full of contents from our life in high school, along with her book and the bottle, and make my way to the car. In nineteen hours, I will be with her again. I will get to tell her how much I love her and how sorry I am for the way I treated her. And hopefully—hopefully, she will forgive me.

I need her to forgive me. I need her to still love me. Because I don't want to live without her. I know what my life is like without her in it, and it's miserable and I'm not happy unless she's there. I realize now, that for two years after she left high school, I wasn't the way I was because of what she did to me, it was because she wasn't there. I would take her hurting me over and over again, over losing her any day.

The sun beats down along the highway. I've been driving for hours, my mind in over drive. It's well into the afternoon, school getting closer by the mile. Paisley getting closer by the minute. I'm starting to feel like something is wrong and wish I could get there sooner. Faster. Her phone is still off. It goes right to voicemail every time I try. I've left so many messages now that I've lost count. It's unlike her to keep her phone off for so long. I hope that she's okay.

I call her Dad when the sun starts to set and she still hasn't answered. He says she hasn't called and every time he has tried, it's been voicemail as well. I pick up my speed as my chest tightens. The worry in me taking over.

Fifteen more minutes and I'll be there. This has been the longest nineteen hours of my life. My heart hasn't stopped pounding for hours and I'm exhausted because of it, and no sleep mixed together. The feeling that something is wrong hasn't left and I can only hope to God that I'm panicking for no reason. 

I'm hoping I'm just nervous to see her. Nervous to apologize. Nervous for her reaction to seeing me back in California. I have so much that I want to say to her. So much that I need to hear her say. And as I pull into my parking spot, I'm happy that her car is parked in her parking spot. I know that she's here at least.

Before getting out of the car, I take a deep breath, leaving everything because nothing matters right now. I want to kiss her and to hug her. And I hope she'll let me.

I run down the hall towards her dorm room, knocking loudly on her door. There's silence all around me. The only thing I can hear is the sound of my heavy breathing. And when she doesn't answer, I turn the knob, hoping that it isn't locked.

When I push the door open, my heart stops. I can't seem to move for a second or breathe or think. Everything starts to spin and I feel sick. Nothing is right as I stare at the bottles and a few pills scattered around the floor. She's laying in bed, but I know something is wrong. I instantly take my phone out and call 9-1-1 when I come to my senses as I look at her. Jumping on the bed next to her and hovering over her, I tap her face to wake her up. I can feel the tears start welling up in my eyes when she doesn't respond. She looks lifeless.

"I need an ambulance!" I say into the phone when an operator answers. "Paisley wake up! Wake up baby, please! Wake up! My girlfriend—she's passed out. I think she took pills. I just found her this way. Please send help. Please."

The operator asks me if she's breathing or if she has a pulse, which I check with my fingers on her neck. "She has a pulse, but it's barely there. Oh my God, please hurry. Please." I tell him which dorm we're in, panicking as I do, pulling her head into my lap, caressing her cheek. I look around the room, not wanting to believe that she's taken those pills. "Please be okay, baby. Please. I need you. You can't leave this way. I'm so sorry. I love you. You were right. You're everything to me. Please be okay. Come baby, stay with me. Someone will be here to help you. Just keep breathing."

A/N: Woo! Double update for ya!! These 2 chapters was supposed to be one. Glad I decided to make it into 2 for ya!

Thanks for 39.8K reads!!

love you guys!!

Much love,
amberlove
xo