The entire world around me slows as our eyes meet from across the dance floor. Even from a distance his eyes are familiar to me, to my soul. There is a cosmic weight in my body, my blood is thick as it pounds through my veins, trying to reach my brain to help it comprehend.

He is here.

I am here.

When Jennie waves her hand in front of my face, the world reels back into motion and I snap my eyes away from him. She holds me at arms' length, concern etched on her face. I dart my eyes to the table where Nik is sitting across the bar. When she glances over her eyes light up with awareness.

"Is that him?" She yells over the music, I nod.

The two attractive guys we were flirting with return with shots for us and are oblivious to the drama that is about to unfold. I grab not only one, but two of the shots from the green-eyed guy and down them before Jennie can stop me.

My body reacts without my conscious awareness. I push my way through the crowd of swaying bodies and suddenly the lights overhead are pulsing faster, sending the room into a dizzying confusion of colors. My eyes are still on him and by the time my brain catches up to what my legs are doing, I am standing right in front of his table.

He is alone, his brown eyes wide and his leg bouncing nervously. I have no clue what to say; I have no idea what I am feeling. All I know is that I am standing before him and he will not say a word until I do.

"What are you doing here?" I yell over the music.

"Me? You want to know what I am doing here?" he sounds incredulous. Every single fiber of my being fills with nervous energy at the sound of his voice.

"That's what I asked, isn't it?"

When he rolls his eyes at my response, an anger fills my veins and I know I am about to lose all control. My fingernails dig into the palms of my hands as I urge myself not to scream at him. How dare he? How dare he roll his eyes at me after he left me?

"Is this how it's going to be?" Nik questions me as he runs his hands through his short blonde hair in frustration.

"You left!" I retort in a choking voice.

Suddenly the guy from the beach that knocked me over joins Nik at his table and slides a beer in front of him. It takes the guy a moment to realize that I am standing there. He glances from me to Nik, who hasn't touched his beer, and back to me.

"Oh, shit."

Ignoring his friend, I stare at Nik and wait for him to respond to my accusation. When I feel the tears burn at the back of my eyes, I force myself to look away. I feel an arm on my shoulder, I automatically cringe away but then I see it is Jennie. She gently takes hold of my arm and pulls me away.

"You left." I repeat pathetically and allow Jennie to lead me through the crowd and out of the club.

When the cool night air brushes against my hot skin, I sigh in relief. That was too much back there. I can feel Jennie's eyes on me, appraising what I will do next, but even I have no idea what to do next. Cry? No, the tequila is preventing tears from flowing. Scream? Again, no.

"Are you okay Haven?" Jennie asks me and I simply nod in response.

Clearly I am not okay. I approach the nearest person with a cigarette hanging from their mouth and ask if they can spare one. If I am sober, I never smoke. But between the tequila shots and my run in with Nik I need something to calm me.

I take a long drag and thank the stranger. As I lean against the wall of the club, I take another drag and sigh as the nicotine fogs my brain. Jennie joins me on the wall and holds her hand out for me to share the cigarette.

"I only smoke when I drink." I explain to her.

"Me too." she takes a drag and hands it back to me.

My body tenses as Nik's friend exits the club and looks around before laying his eyes on Jennie and I. He makes his way over to us and I am ready to tell him to fuck off but then he holds up his hands as if to say I come in peace.

"Hi," the guy says awkwardly.

"Hi," Jennie and I say together. Her flirtatious, me cautious.

The guy is momentarily distracted by Jennie. After he shamelessly rakes his eyes up and down her body, he gives his head a shake and turns his attention fully on me.

"I think I owe you an apology, for running you down on the beach the other day." I wait, knowing there has to be more he wants to say. "Can I ask you a favor?" I raise my eyebrows in disbelief but he continues. "Talk to Nik."

"Listen, I don't know what he told you, but it's not that simple. I just tried to talk to him and..."

"Maybe when you're sober and not at a club?" the guy suggests. "He hasn't been the same since that day on the beach. I know who you are so I get why he is so torn up, but I can't stand to see him like that. He's my best friend, so please," he hands me a napkin with a phone number scrawled across it, "just talk to him."

"What's your name?" I take the napkin from him with a shaky hand.

"Chase."

"Well Chase..." I begin and there are too many things I want to say. You can tell Nik I say thanks a lot for disappearing on me, or maybe, please tell Nik how sorry I am for what a horrible person I was. I know that none of it will sound right if it doesn't come directly from me. "Thanks." I finish lamely and tuck the napkin into my tiny clutch.

"Are you going to call him?" Chase presses me and I nod.

Apparently his mission is a success because suddenly all of his attention is on Jennie. "Hi beautiful."

Jennie raises a perfectly shaped brow at him but smiles, "If she works things out with your friend, I'm sure we will have the pleasure of seeing each other again." With a flip of her hair, Jennie grabs my hand and pulls me towards a taxi.

"So," Jennie begins when we are out of earshot, "I now have a biased opinion on the whole 'making up with Nik' thing. His friend is totally hot."

For two days, I do nothing but run through scenarios in my mind of what it will be like when I meet up with Nik on Monday night. My dreams are filled with nothing but brown eyes and distant memories.

After leaving the club, I had sat up for hours debating if I should call Nik right away, or maybe wait a few days? I didn't want to appear desperate, plus there were quite a few tequilas shots running through me and I didn't know what to say to him. There was a part of me that never wanted to see him again, I was so angry at him for leaving without a word. However, there was a bigger part of me that needed to know why he had left and never tried to reach out to me.

By the time I had decided I should just call him and get it over with, it was 3 am. I barely slept that night and by morning I had already crafted the perfect text message in my mind. Yes, text message. Because by the time a decent hour had rolled around, I was far too terrified to actually call and hear his voice.

Through text messages, we made a plan to meet at the beach. And now the day has arrived and I am completely freaking out. I try my best to plan the questions I want to ask and prepare answers to questions I am sure he will ask. Truthfully, I know this will all be out the window when he is standing in front of me. What emotion will hit first? Anger? Maybe happiness?

Too many things are running through my mind as I walk down the hallway towards the elevator. I pull at my top nervously, wondering if the lacey pink shirt will come across as too sexy. Are my shorts too short? Why am I so concerned over my appearance?

I am so lost in thought I don't notice the elevator doors open in front of me revealing a grinning Jennie. She looks at me expectantly and I realize she is waiting for me to respond to something she has said.

"Wow, you are totally freaking out, aren't you?" Jennie laughs as she pulls me inside the elevator. "I said, are you going to meet him right now?"

"Yes." I sigh and look at her with that deer caught in the headlights look. "I don't think I can do this."

"I knew you would try to chicken out." Jennie teases me "That's why I decided I would come visit the grandparents today. I had to make sure you would get that butt out the door."

Jennie rides in the elevator with me and walks me to the front door. She will literally escort me from the building. I can't help but feel grateful towards her. Having bonded over tequila shots and boy drama, we have become fast friends.

"You've got this." Jennie rubs my back and I turn to her panicked.

"I have no clue what I am going to say to him." My voice is too high pitched a definite sign of my stressed state.

"You'll figure it out," she reassures me and pats my chest, in the exact spot that my heart is thumping wildly under my rib cage, "just listen to this."

In five short minutes I reach the beach and sit down in the sand, leaning against the same log I had been sitting by the day Chase had knocked me over. I am ten minutes early, and I know that Nik will probably be ten minutes late. At least the Nik I had known five years ago would have been.

I am terrified to look around me, so I distract myself with the zipper on my purse. At the club, it had been so easy to approach him because alcohol fueled me. This time, I am sober and ridiculously nervous. Too soon a pair of sandaled feet come into my peripherals and I automatically look up. There he is.

Unlike the other night, I allow myself to take in every inch of him. This person standing before me is nothing like the Nik I remembered. Muscles, short cropped blonde hair and stubble across his jaw. He is dressed casually in khaki shorts and a black muscle shirt. Gone is the boy from junior high, the Nik that stands before me could nearly be considered a man.

When he sits down beside me, the smell of him washes over me in a wave of familiarity. How is that possible? How could I remember the smell of him? Like laundry and cologne. Was he still wearing the same cologne after all this time, or had he gone out and purchased it just to get my heart racing?

"Hi Haven."