"I didn't even think about using until the day we ran into Joey after dinner. Even the day I first saw you, the urge wasn't there. There were a lot of other feelings but the thought to use wasn't one of them. But seeing Joey, who I used to buy off of and get high with all the time. Man," he sighs, "if I was alone when I ran into him I don't know what I would have done. You saved me that night."

I roll my eyes in distaste but stay silent. There isn't a single part of me that believes I have saved Nik in any capacity.

"I had Chase and Cal meet me at my place after I left you the next morning. I've always tried to stay open with them about all of this shit, Hayden too but not after I realized he was trying to tell you the truth. They talked to me, made sure I was okay and then I met back up with you later that night. I had it in my head that I would stay with you again that night, so I didn't bother planning for after and then Becca showed up." He groans and looks at me for the first time since he began his explanation. His brown eyes are apologetic and it takes everything in me not to reach out and touch his face, to smooth out those worried lines across his forehead.

"When I drove away from you two I thought for sure the next time I heard from you, you would tell me it was over. The most negative thoughts would not stop pounding inside my head and I knew I was in trouble. I called Cal, and he didn't answer. I called Chase, and he didn't answer. Finally, I caved, and I called Hayden, but by then I was nearly on Hastings. Hayden found me just seconds after I found Joey, but it wasn't fast enough. I left with Hayden, told him I didn't buy anything and he searched me down pretty good but he didn't find it.

"I told him to take me out and get me plastered. I can't do H if I'm hammered, so that's what we did. Waking up the next morning I felt like shit and I knew I should get rid of it but I couldn't do it. I talked myself into keeping it until I knew for sure that you weren't going to break up with me. I started drinking again to make sure I didn't do the drugs, and that's why I didn't talk to you all day, that's why I showed up at the Hutchs plastered."

I can recall it so clearly. Nik stumbling out of the truck and reeking of alcohol when he pulled me into his arms. It was so out of character for him but I was too wrapped up in Becca and everything else to think that he was actually in trouble.

"That night I saw Chase and Hayden beat up Joey." I add, filling in parts of the story. "I didn't see their faces, but it was Chase's car they were driving, and then I saw their knuckles all cut up. They jumped him because he sold to you, didn't they?"

"No, they jumped him because they wanted to make sure he wouldn't sell to me. They didn't know that he already had."

"Oh." I breathe and watch him watching me. I know exactly what he is looking for, the shift that will take me from empathetic to disgusted. But it will not happen. I feel a lot of things for Nik but disgust isn't one of them. The struggles he has fought through, I can't even imagine. He doesn't even see how strong he really is.

"Jump ahead to the night it happened." Nik clears his throat, eager to get this game of story time over with. "Everything was going real good, Becca wasn't being a bitch, you seemed happy to have her there, and you weren't looking at me any differently so I knew we were still good. I was just about to get up and go flush the H, convinced I wouldn't need it, and then Hayden started in on you."

My memories of that night swarm before me and my stomach turns. I hate that the sound of Nik's words still ring so clear in my ears. "I'm not going to tell you want you want to hear, so you should just leave." Why didn't he just tell me then? I can't say what my reaction would have been, but I know I wouldn't have turned my back on him.

"The moment I sent you away, I regretted it. I turned on myself, I literally sat on the floor with my head in my hands, arguing with myself about what to do next. Go after you and tell you the truth, or go lock myself in my room and do the H. I guess you know which part of me won out on that one.

"Once I decided, it was like I was on autopilot. I took off, knowing that my friends would go after me to try to stop me from using. Nobody knew that I had the H stashed upstairs. I looped back home, locked myself in my room and..." he trails off and hides his face in his hands.

He doesn't continue speaking and I know he's not going to go into detail about how he ended up overdosing; I suppose an explanation isn't necessary. I don't think I can handle much more, anyway. The image of Nik, unconscious with pale blue lips, haunts me and I have to shake my head to clear it away. I can confidently say that was one of the worst moments in my life.

"When I woke up in that hospital bed and I saw my mom sitting beside me instead of you, I knew you were gone. I lost it on her, told her to tell me what she said to you and I called her every single name in the book. The nurses kicked her out and I haven't seen her or my dad since."

"What?" I splutter in confusion. "How have you not... why haven't they... where have you been staying the last month?" I finally spit out. He tosses the red shiny object he has been playing with into my lap. I snatch it up and realize it's a small circular token, a little bigger than a toonie. Stamped across it in gold lettering is "30 days".

"I may not have seen my parents since, but that didn't stop them from paying for my inpatient treatment. I've spent the last month at a center just outside of Vancouver, I had to make sure I got my head back on straight before I saw you again."

My jaw drops and my heart aches at the realization of what I have caused. I hate myself for coming back into his life. I hate myself so much I want to curl up into a ball and die. "Nik, I'm so sorry." It's all I can think to say.

"Don't be, it was good for me. I had a great counselor who helped me a lot. I feel good Haven and I want you to know that I don't blame you for leaving. I know now that it was the right thing to do. If you had stayed, I would have clung to you and I never would have gone to get help."

I want to tell him that he doesn't know how hard it was for me to leave. I want to tell him that I spent days crying over him, that I hate myself, that I can't even look at myself in the mirror. But I can't because what I feel doesn't matter. What matters is Nik and his mental state.

"I'm glad you got some help Nik. I just want you to be happy." I offer a small smile and hand the token back to him. "You should be really proud of yourself for that."

"I am." He smiles back and takes my hand in his. It's clammy, just like mine is and I am suddenly aware of how warm I am. We've been sitting here for almost an hour and the rain is coming down harder now, pounding against the windows. I can barely see through the fogged up windows but I'm sure the parking lot around us is nearly empty now.

I'm not sure where we go from here. I feel like there are still huge questions hanging above us and neither of us seems eager to tackle them. What are we now? Where do we stand? I wish I could sit here in this car with him forever, holding hands and forgetting the outside world but we can't. We have to face reality.

"Nik, I know you won't agree but I'm not good for you." I sigh and squeeze his hand, terrified he will pull it away at my words.

He sighs and squeezes my hand back. My chest tightens and I can feel it coming, the moment when we end things for good. "I don't think you're the problem, Haven."

"Of course you don't." I reply darkly and roll my eyes.

"I think," Nik begins in a drawling tone, "the problem is the fact that I have no boundaries when it comes to you. I love you so much that I would rather end up dead than losing you, and that's not healthy."

"Why do I get the feeling that those words are coming directly from your counselor's mouth?" I manage a small smile that he returns.

"Because they are." He admits. "I want you in my life, Haven, and I know that's selfish of me to say after what I have put you through but I'm saying it, anyway."

I shake my head in disbelief. Maybe I will never understand how Nik can keep feeling this way about me. Right now, it feels like a dream that he is here in front of me after everything I put him through. After everything I caused. But here he is; Sitting before me and telling me that he still wants me.

"I know that I'm not exactly a catch, with the whole drug thing and rehab thing, but I love you Haven and I think we both know that nobody will ever love you the way that I do."

My mouth won't work. I am stuck in a state of shock at the fact that Nik still wants something to do with me.

"I remember something you said to me, it was so long ago it will probably freak you out that I remembered it after so many years. You told me that me and you were something else. Something different from anything you had ever felt before and that it scared you. I've always felt that way about you Haven, from the day I laid my eyes on you in eighth grade. And the day I saw you on the beach for the first time in five years, I was right back there." Nik stares at me expectantly and I want to respond but I can't. My head and my heart are at war with each other as he spills his heart out to me.

You can't lose him again.

You can't ruin him anymore.

Grab him and never let him go.

Set him free.

I want to scream and silence the war but I can do nothing except stare and watch as his face falls in defeat.

"I get it." He whispers, "It was too much for you back then and this, me and all my fucked up baggage, is too much for you now. I get it Haven, don't worry about it."

Nik opens the car door, and the sound of the rain pounding against the pavement fills the space around me. Suddenly it's cut off, replaced only by the sound of water hitting metal. I am alone. Nik is gone.

"No." I whisper the first word I have spoken since Nik told me he still wants me in his life. "No, no, no!" I screech in protest and wrench the car door open. As I stumble onto the pavement, I am soaked instantly by the downpour. "Nik!" I cry out and he is already so far away from me I have to cry out his name again, this time loud enough to send my frantic voice echoing around us.

He stops and turns around. With his hood pulled up over his head and that crushed expression on his face, he looks so young; He looks just like the Nik I lost 5 years ago. The sight of him this way brings back the trauma of losing him the first time and I want to escape myself so that I don't have to feel that pain again. I know I can't even lose him again. Not ever.

"You don't ever, ever get to walk out on me like that!" I yell at him, as I round my car and stalk towards him. "I don't care about all your fucked up baggage because I've got it too and if I have to deal with yours, then it's only fair that you have to deal with mine!"

He opens his mouth to respond but I don't give him the opportunity.

"Do you have any idea, any fucking idea how much losing you haunts me? If you knew the number of hours I have spent over the last five years replaying the scenarios of what I would do if I ever saw you again... If you knew just how much I remember about us. You honestly think it would freak me out that you remembered one thing I said to you? Do you have any idea how much space YOU take up in my brain?" I screech in frustration and poke him hard in the chest. He has the nerve to smile at me, as if he thinks my anger is funny! "I've spent endless nights crying over you, begging God to bring you back into my life just so I could tell you I'm sorry for what I did to you!"

I take a deep breath and continue with my word vomit. I have to get it out now; I have to say it all so that I can finally let it go.

"Your right. Your feelings for me, they were too much for me back then. Until they weren't. Guess when I realized that, Nik? Take a fucking guess!" I yell in his face and I am trembling with anger, trembling with the need to tell him everything I have wanted to tell him since the moment we reconnected. I stifled it all for him because I knew he didn't want to focus on the past. But now, it's for the both of us that I let it all out.

"The day you were supposed to come back to school, I waited for you. I paced in front of those doors waiting for you so I could tell you that I finally realized it. I finally came to terms with the fact that we were supposed to be together. That we were made for each other. But I was too late, and I have lived with that regret for the last five years. So you," I poke him hard again, "don't get to just walk away, you got that?" I finish with a huff and stomp my foot on the rain-soaked pavement.

"Okay." he whispers.

My heart is racing so fast, I am dizzy from how fast my blood is pumping through me. When I opened that car door, my only intention was to stop him from leaving and to tell him that I love him. Apparently, I had a lot more to say than I even realized.

"I still don't think that I'm good for you Nik." I lock eyes with him and I know that my knowledge of this will not stop me from getting what I want. "But I love you more than anything, me and you, we are something else. We are something that I will never be able to explain because it's not possible to explain why two people are made for each other. Maybe it's chemical. I don't know and I don't care."

I breathe deeply and then flop my arms at my sides in defeat. "So there it is, my fucked up baggage that your committing yourself to... a tiny portion of if anyway."

He stares at me and I watch as the rainwater drips from his eyelashes. The water falls to his cheeks and as it rolls down I am reminded of all the tears we have both shed for each other. I don't want to shed anymore tears over Nik. With a deep breath I place my hands on his shoulders and repeat the words that I know will give me exactly what I want.

I craft my words carefully, knowing that it would be impossible for him to forget the memory attached to them. "I want to kiss you so bad right now."

And he does.